Death Himself | Tomarry

Chapter 12: Primal Fear

"Who can tell me which spell to use against them?"

This time she called on Harry who had readily raised his hand: "Riddikulus."

"That's right. All of you should've mastered it in your third year but if not, now is your opportunity to improve your skill. I will demonstrate, pay close attention."

Professor Rose brushed some of her flaming hair out of her phase and readied herself, standing in front of the box.

She gave her assistant a signal and he swiftly opened the lock, releasing the boggart.

Out of the box stood a female vampire, pale and tall with sharp teeth and soulless eyes, splattered in blood.

Gasps rang out across the room but she remained stoic, not flinching when faced with her fear.

Instead she simply said: "Riddikulus!" and the creature of the night was promptly transformed into a cute fluffly bat who fluttered around for a bit before diving back into it's hideout.

"Now, who's next?"

Many students were eager to get their turn.

Out of his dormitory Ramon was the first one to go and he turned a lonely faded version of himself into him sitting at a full dinner table, attended to by Miller in a frilly pink housewife apron.

The lesson had to be briefly disrupted when both the redhead and his fiancé were kicked out after the ravenclaw attempted to club Ramon to death with his thick textbook.

Next up was Black who was faced with a fluttering tapestry.

Harry swallowed when he recognized the Black family tree.

Black himself was nowhere to be seen and he instead stared intensely at a still smoking burn spot until he voiced the spell and the threads of the tapestry rewove themselves into an artwork of his favorite band.

Müller was forcefully picked afterwards and his boggart form was.. a burning closet? Harry did not get it but the blonde's eye twitched in an almost manic way at the sight until he transformed the mess into a luxurious walk in closet that displayed expensive but ugly brand items.

Malfoy's boggart was similarly bizarre and showered himself with a mean case of badhair-day-syndrome that was almost as bad as Harry's birds nest.

His clothes were also inorderly, muggle looking and bright rather than the "tasteful" color palettes he usually chose for himself.

When he spoke the spell, he transformed the Malfoy fashion disaster into Müller instead and had a good laugh at the other blonde boy's expense.

Riddle for once did not look fake humble or arrogant and was rather serious.

Harry had some ideas of what form his boggart might take and was proven right when it turned into a grave stone displaying Riddle's name.

He transformed it into a funky lookin surfboard with a similar shape and left it at that.

The class overall was delighted, laughing at the various forms everyone came up with and soon enough all the volunteers had finished their turn and the shy ones were left.

Harry, who took pity on his classmates who clearly did not want to go, was up next and he forced himself to remain calm. He knew he could do this, he already faced the real thing after all. An imitation wouldn't scare him.

But what emerged from the box was not the icy chill of the dementors he was anticipating.

Quite the opposite, the air turned almost unbearingly hot and stung Harry's skin.

A faceless figure stumbled forwards, screaming and collapsing to the ground.

Glowing ember flocks floated through the air, eliminating the fallen figure.

Harry's mind was riddled with confusion but when he looked closer he realized that it wasn't faceless at all.

No, the features were changing rapidly, all blurring together.

He could feel bile rising in his throat.

He recognized bushy hair, a pendant necklace, freckles, impossibly dark eyes.

Everyone.

Everyone he held dear in his heart, everyone he had failed, the numbers so great that the features of each one barely lingered for a second.

His hand was shaking.

He knew he should do something but he couldn't tear his eyes away.

The breath was punched out of his lungs when the creature lingered on a certain face for a few seconds more.

Handsome, high cheeks, dimples, sandy blonde hair and trusting kind eyes. The hufflepuff crest on his chest.

The class felt impossibly far away and Harry could hear nothing beyond his own pounding heartbeat and a faint joyous tune in the background that slowly started to fade with the realization that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Soon the trumpets died out and there was nothing but a heavy silence and those could dead eyes somehow still looking at him. Judging him.

No. This couldn't be happening.

Then it suddenly changed again, floating until it stood upright, cast in a silver blue glow.

The blonde hair turned dark, grew, curls forming. It continued to change until Harry found himself staring down the last chance he'd had at a real family.

Choking up he tried to lift his wand, words forming in his mind but not crossing his lips.

An explosion of green, green like his eyes, like the color that took his parents from him and then his godfather too faded away into a black mist.

The mist rippled like the surface of the dark lake and then it grew.

No, no, nono no no no-

Emerging from it was none other than the dark lord himself.

Voldemort.

His long sharp fingers reached out to Harry, trying to grasp him and the boy frantically stumbled back with a muted cry, falling to the ground.

He felt like he might pass out, his eyes and lungs burning.

Harry shakily lifted himself up and dashed towards to exit.

He harshly shrugged off the hand of someone on his shoulder but did not look back.

The classroom door shut with a bang behind him and Harry just kept running, having only one destination in mind.

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Author's Note:

So sorry about the wait everyone :( I hope you enjoyed it!! I'm not completely happy with it so it will maybe be rewritten at some point 

-Author Mariah🌺