A Change of Feeling

The Sign of Ekrizdis

Sirius got up and gave Harry a hug. With his face in Harry's hair, he murmured, "I hope that one day I would make you so proud that you would proudly say that I am your father."

Harry looked deep into Sirius's grey eyes as he said: "I love you as a father already, and I will bear your name with honor. You give me all that I had ever wanted, a real family. Even a dysfunctional family with a fugitive, a werewolf, a screaming portrait, a snarky house-elf, and a so-called boy-who-lived, is perfect in my book." Harry gave Sirius a big grin.

After this heartfelt conversation with Sirius, Harry went to his favorite room, the drawing-room. Even after Mrs. Weasley's grand sweep – with too heavy, so-called 'Light to flash the Dark away' cleaning products – the room had a nice dark appearance. It was perfect for Harry's embroidery and now, it would be perfect for viewing his package. He opened the package with slightly trembling hands. It had a dark green booklet in it, Muggles would call it pocket-size. The cover was flexible, but it was made of a material he was not familiar with. There was one word on the front: Ekrizdis.

The moment Harry opened the book something strange happened. His tattoo flared up. An icy fire passed through the lines. It was all-embracing. Harry did not know for how long he sat there, his focus was only on the feeling and the booklet in his hands. He got up and walked over to the weathered mirror in the corner of the room. He saw himself, but he looked sharper like a predator. The edges of his face seemed more pointed and his teeth were blinking white and sharp to the touch. His tattoo seemed alive with magic and flowed freely over his chest. The experience was powerful. Addicting. Harry wanted more.

Harry sat down again and opened the book once more. According to the inscription, the book belonged to Corvus Lestrange. With his finger he traced the name - C.L. - R. Singulier's intermediary was Lord Lestrange. Harry was sure. His abdomen was racing with enthusiasm and excitement. This brought him closer to the identity of R. Singulier.

He got up and ran out of the room, looking for his trunk. After some rumbling in his trunk, Harry found what he was looking for: The Rise and Fall of the Dark in the Twentieth Century. The book described Grindelwald's regime but also described Voldemort's rise. The book sparked speculation on the agenda of the Dark Lord and his followers. The book ended with the story of a boy named Harry Potter, exaggerated in Harry's opinion. But fun to read. Harry flipped to the page with convicted Dead Eaters. His eye fell on the short paragraph that was tightly about the brutal attack on the Longbottom family.

"Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan Lestrange, and Barty Crouch Jnr tortured the Longbottoms into insanity while trying to procure information about Voldemort's whereabouts: this attack was considered one of the most atrocious crimes in recent history. They were captured and sentenced to Azkaban, but Bellatrix proudly proclaimed that the Dark Lord would rise again. On the other hand, Barty Crouch Jnr proclaimed his own innocence, begging for his father to believe him: his father ignored his pleas for leniency and sentenced him to prison, a sentence that led the entire court to roar with triumph."

Harry thought about his conversation with Lord Lestrange. The man was intimidating, and it was easy to see that the man might be a follower of Voldemort or at least a sympathizer. Yet, that thought did not cause disgust or distrust. Harry was grateful to the man and felt somewhat connected to him. Not to mention the display of magic from his oath. Harry trusted the man. Lord Lestrange said he knew what it was like to have an unfair trial. Was he referring to his sons' trial? He read the book again fleetingly, the Lestranges were mentioned as members of the Inner Circle. The most loyal followers of Voldemort. However, no ruling was made on their trial. Perhaps he could ask Lord Lestrange about it.

Harry put the book aside and looked back at the green book. He hardly dared to take it. The feeling he got was so overwhelming that he could almost taste the darkness. The taste was rich, sweet, and bitter at the same time. It was everything Harry could ever want, but it was also what repelled him. He was afraid of it, yet he wanted to own it. It was an enigma.

He decided to go quickly through the book first, he wanted to know what it was. After half an hour he could confidently say that it was one of the most vile and darkest books he had read. Ekrizdis was not a thing, but a person. It was a Dark Wizard who lived on Azkaban. He lived with the Dementors and lured Muggles, fishermen, and cargo ships, to the island to experiment on them. The experiments were described in great detail.

Harry read with morbid fascination about the dealings with the Dementors. Ekrizdis could touch the Dementors and described how they helped him torment the Muggle sailors. A passage from the book drew attention: "A Dementor had gone wild, he no longer listened to my commands. The creature grabbed hold of me and for a second I thought it would take my soul. The creature slid open my skin with its fingernail and then let me go ..." - "The scar develops in a strange way. The scratch is black, veins run out. After a few days, the scar tissue had turned into a tattoo. It continued to grow. With every experiment on my Muggle friends, my sign grew. Because that's what it is: my sign, the Sign of Ekrizdis."

Harry's blood ran cold. He slid his fingers over his tattoo. He examined the lines with a sense of disbelief. Was he wearing the mark of Ekrizdis? The man was no doubt deranged, a sadist who placed various concealment charms on the island and lured unsuspecting sailors to the island. Sailors who went straight to a painful death.

Suddenly, those strange remarks from Lord Lestrange flashed through his mind: "You better be careful, young gentleman. Don't let it spread too much or it may overpower you." Harry realized that Lord Lestrange was indeed reading along with his correspondence with R. Singulier. That explained his knowledge about his tattoo and the real Dementor attack.

R. Singulier helped him.

Harry's eyes flew open. Yes, there was no other way, R. Singulier knew what Harry was talking about and helped him. The possibility that R. Singulier was one of the sons of Lord Lestrange grew by the minute. Harry took a piece of parchment and wrote the name: R. Singulier on it. The 'R' could stand for Rodolphus or Rabastan. But he needed more proof. Harry thought of young Voldemort, from the diary, who had made an anagram of his real name. Would that ... – Harry rejected the idea. That didn't fit at all. Then he thought of the French translation of Voldemort: a flight of death. What does Singulier mean?

Harry only knew one person who knew everything there was to know. Hermione.

Harry didn't have to wait long for a moment to speak to Hermione. As Harry walked toward the dining room, he barely avoided getting tackled by the bushy-haired witch.

"Harry, I haven't seen you all day! Where were you?" Harry did not have time to answer, the clever witch soon continued: "You skipped lunch today, and you know with your frail frame that skipping any meals is unsavory. Well, we got no other way than to give you a well-balanced meal this evening. Speaking of skipping: I need to see your schoolwork. I haven't seen your work on the homework yet, and Professor McGonagall's and Professor Snape's essays are especially challenging. I myself have been working on it for over two weeks and have included references from more than twenty books in my footnotes."

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing, how dare she attack him about hypothetically unfinished assignments? Not only did she assume he hadn't made it, but she also doubted its content. Harry thought of all the ways Ekrizdis had to torture Muggles. Surely this also applies to Muggleborns? He allowed himself a few more minutes of sinister thoughts and then decided to use his Slytherin ways.

"Hermione? I came across a French text, and I understood every word except one: singulier. Do you know it? Or maybe you have a dictionary? You always know how to find everything so well." Harry put on big and silly eyes. His friend was immediately pleased with the question and started rattling all kinds of definitions.

"This depends on the context of the word, but it can have the following meanings: odd, uncommon, strange, singular, or single. Did that answer your question?"

"Yes, yes, thank you! I didn't know the answer would be so obvious. I mean: singulier is a small cry from singular. Thank you so much. You really ARE the brightest witch of our age." Harry gave Hermione a sweet smile and skipped to his room.

'Singulier means strange, a little difference with Lestrange', Harry thinks with a victorious smile. Yes, his R. Singulier is in fact R. Lestrange, son of Corvus Lestrange. Now the only question was which son. And Harry wanted to know all about his crimes and his hearing. Because something told Harry that His R. Singulier is more than he appears to be.