Capítulo 15: Full Moon III.V
Notes:
Well, boys and girls, this is it. Artemis and Harry meet for the first time, how will an abused child respond to a mother who doesn't know nor understand love?
Y'all ready for this trainwreck? I am.
but just in case y'all haven't guessed TW: mentions of child abuse, child neglect, starvation, and getting stuffed into a cupboard, and a whole host of other things.
But enough with this mortal prattle, on with the show!
Forbidden Forest, Atalanta's campgrounds.
The campground was quiet as Artemis strode into it, the eyes of those who were there before her are on her, she came to a stop just outside the tree line of the camp, her face passive as ever as she stared at the bushy-headed girl across the way, Artemis had words for her, but first…
"Boy, if you do not stop pointing that wand at me, I will turn you into a jackalope and set you amongst the Acromantula of this forest," Artemis states, not bothering to look at the now pale face of Ron Weasley. But her lips do twitch at the sound of the frightened squeak coming from the boy before Ron points his wand at the forest floor.
"So-sorry Ma'am" the redhead stammers out.
Artemis ignores the boy as she focuses on the girl beside him, "Hermione Granger, correct me if I am wrong, but just a moment ago you were speaking of something, were you not?" The Goddess asks.
"W-we were t-talking about h-how Harry i-i-is your-" Hermione begins but is quickly cut off.
"Unimportant at the moment girl, I was speaking of your insult," Artemis says, anger simmering under her tone, "An eternal maiden no more was it?"
Hermione stutters and blushes in equal amounts of embarrassment and fear as she tries to answer the Goddess, she can feel the unspoken threat in her voice, she can see the power in the amber eyes, so painfully like her best friend, dripping out and shaking her to Hermione's core.
"Leave her alone," Harry calls out, Artemis narrows her eyes at the girl shaking like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf, and scoffs at her before turning away.
"It is no wonder that you had such a hard time keeping it a secret, Atalanta," Artemis says as she turns to her hunter, ignoring the other boy in the campgrounds, "Not with a Legacy of Athena looking into it." The amber-eyed Goddess says as she walks down the short hill.
There's a moment of quiet before Hermione speaks up in shock, "I'm what?"
Artemis stops at the bottom of the hill, she can feel Harry's eyes on her but she answers Hermione instead of looking at him, "You're a Legacy of Athena girl, a few generations removed but I can feel her blood in you, and her insatiable hunger for knowledge." Artemis smirks at the shocked look on the girl's face as she turns back to her hunter.
"My lady, I'm sorry for not-" Atalanta starts to say as she kneels, but is cut off by the Goddess.
"Enough with the groveling Atalanta, you know I dislike it." Artemis states, "We both knew it was a matter of time before the boy found out, I will not blame you for something out of your control this time." The Goddess speaks softly, noting said boy flinched, but says nothing to him as Atalanta nods and stands.
Harry stands there, he can feel his muscles coil with tension, he wants to run, he wants to stay, and he wants to hunt all in one but he decided to speak instead, "Are you- wher-" but he can't decide what to say first, indecision choking his words in his throat.
Artemis continues on, never turning her attention to the boy who carries a piece of her in him as though he wasn't there, "How is the boy's training coming along?" The Goddess asks her hunter, ignoring the flinch from the child, Atalanta's eyes flick back and forth between Artemis and Harry, visible confusion on her face.
"It's… going well, we have hunted a few Acromantula, and he did extremely well," Atalanta says, wondering why the Goddess she was sworn to didn't ask the boy in question, "He's able to control himself and pull himself back from the hunt when needed."
"Good, continue how you've been training him, I want to know the limits of what he can do, focus on controlling the hunt. It would be a shame to kill him so early in his training." Artemis says, her tone as cold as the snow and ice around, before continuing to walk forward to the forest edge. Atalanta knowing an order and dismissal of her Goddess nods her head before moving out of her way.
Harry, however, had other ideas about this.
"Where are you going?" Harry asks, his voice coming out soft, almost pleadingly, but the Goddess keeps walking, "I said where are you going!?" He says louder this time, but Artemis keeps walking to the treeline, intent on leaving. Harry, wand still in hand, raises it with the yell of "Locomotor Mortis" the spell hits true, striking Artemis but sliding off her form like water on oil. The anger Harry feels chases away any fear he has and fuels his words, "Look at me!"
Those in the clearing watching in horror as Harry casts a spell at the Goddess, the rage in his words drowning out their gasps and calls of his name.
But Artemis does stop, turning her head to look at the boy, eyes narrowed in anger at the audacity of Harry, but staying her hand the boy wanted her to stop moving and pay attention to him, fine. He would have the full attention of the hunt, so as she looked into the slitted eye so much like her own she called to the forefront of the boy's mind of being the chased and of prey.
But Harry doesn't flinch at the feeling, he knows it intimately from living with the Dursleys, so he pushes it down and away from the anger he feels. "Why didn't you answer me?" Harry asks the deceptively simple question.
Artemis quirks her eyebrow at both how the boy reacted to the hunt and the question in and of itself. "Which time boy? When you were in the Chamber under your school hunting the basilisk? I did and sent one of my hunters to train you. Or perhaps when you carried the sick maiden in your arms, I answered then too, opening you to just enough of the hunt to carry you and her swiftly through the castle. If you are talking about just now because we have nothing to speak about." She tells the boy, and watches his anger build and build with each word, confusing her, and as she was about to turn and leave the clearing the boy spoke again.
"No," Harry says with gritted teeth, "Not any of those times, I don't care about any of them." Harry could feel it burning in his chest, the injustice of his childhood, his anger at being left with them, the pain of knowing, of knowing…
"Where were you when I was little, growing up with them," Harry growls out the word with hated enough to bare his teeth at a Goddess, "Atalanta told me my prayers go directly to you, you would hear every word I said, feel every emotion I poured into them, so answer me: Where. Were. You?!" Harry yells at Artemis, and as she opens her mouth to answer Harry cuts her off, feelings he had thought he had killed brought back up, and with them, the memories he didn't want to have, the scars he carried tore open as fresh wounds in the cold February evening.
"Where were you when I prayed to be taken away from them, when I prayed starving alone in the dark of the cupboard, when they would leave me there for weeks, after every beating, after every Harry hunt, after every time I would wake up from every hit from my Aunts frying pan, WHERE WERE YOU!?" Harry screams, heedless of the other souls on the campsite, emotions pour out from him like a broken dam. "Where were you when I needed you the most?" Harry says in a quiet broken voice, wand still aimed at Artemis. He vaguely hears the sounds of sobs and crying from Hermione, but he doesn't see the grim face set on Atalanta and Ron looking at him.
Artemis looks back at the boy, with something clawing and crawling in her chest, a growing rage and anger, but to what? She had no clue, so she shoves it down and answers the boy.
"So?" Is all Artemis says at Harry's outburst, Harry's face crumples from anger and desperation to broken and hopelessness, and Artemis carries on, heedless of what the boy felt. "I wasn't there, what does it matter? I'm not here to coddle you boy, you survived hale and whole, and that is all that matters. You survived, I found out, and now my curiosity can be stated."
"Curiosity?" Harry asks in shock, "Is that all I am to you? Something to satisfy a curiosity?"
"Yes," Artemis answers, but the answer doesn't feel right, the words leave a bad taste in her mouth, she feels wrong but pushes it away, "Your mother summoned me to help her, to lend a bit of myself to help her and your father to conceive you. I was to be left out of raising you, if things had gone to plan you would have never known who I was to you. I'm sticking to my part of the agreement, that's all." Artemis shrugs in the face of the boy as his arm drops to his side, "Continue your training, master the hunt, and then we will talk of what used you can be." The Goddess takes note of the shock and anger on Atalanta's face, but turns her head from the boy to leave.
She feels something approaching her rapidly, not a spell, but something divine, Artemis turns sharply catching the thrown object and tracking its path right back to the boy, his handsome face contorted in rage and grief, turning her hand around she sees what he had thrown at her, her gift, the Great Serpent-Hunter. Her eyes narrow, how dare this little brat, but before she speaks Harry screams at her.
"Go to where gods die and rot!" Harry yells at her, much to Artemis' shock, "and take her with you," he says pointing at Atalanta, "I don't want your training, I don't want your gifts, I don't want anything from you!" Before turning on his heel and storming up the side of the small hill that surrounds the campsite, Atalanta reaches out to him, she wanted to stop him, to explain, to show him she was there for him, but he jerks away from her like he had that first morning they had met.
"Don't touch me! You lied! You knew this whole time and you lied to me! I hate you, so leave me alone!" Harry screams at her, he sees the pain and hurt in her eyes but he doesn't care, she was like them. They all lied to him, so he tries to not care as he continues on, only to stop by the angry voice of the Goddess behind him.
"And the Jacket, boy!" Artemis snarls out at this disrespectful brat, how dare he reject her gifts, how dare he turn his back on her, "if you've forgotten the Jacket was a part of the gifts or did you think it magically repair itself after it was melted in the basilisk's venom?" She says it mockingly and full of anger. When the boy stops, she smirks, she knows the boy wouldn't let the jacket go. It was a link to something like a hope for him, that someone cared, so she was shocked when the boy, hesitantly, took it off, letting it fall into the snow and ice and sliding to the bottom of the hill, abandoning it to her as he walks off.
The other boy and the legacy look between the path Harry took and the fuming Goddess of the hunt before taking off after their friend, leaving the hunter and the Goddess she was sworn to alone on the campsite. Artemis walks over to the jacket, picking it up off the ground, she can feel the rage pump through her, but she can't pin down the reason as to why, the boy was a reason that was without question but it wasn't for the disrespect he paid her, it was something else she could not put her finger on.
"Go get the boy and drag him back here if you have to, I'm not done with him yet," Artemis orders her hunter.
"No," Atalanta answers back with gritted teeth.
Artemis' head snaps to her hunter, "Excuse me? That was an order hunter, go get the boy." Artemis says back with as much anger as her hunter had answered her with.
Atalanta turns to Artemis, and with fire in her eyes and unwavering steel in her tone she tells her "No, do it your damn self." Before turning and walking away.
"Have you forgotten your oaths, Atalanta!" The Goddess screams at her hunter, her tone threatening, "Have you forgotten what will happen if you break them!"
Atalanta turns on her heel, facing Artemis, "THEN DO IT!" She screams back, "Take away your protection, let Zeus curse take me again, let me become a mindless beast of the hunt again! But I won't drag Harry back here for you, I won't let you treat him like my father treated me! He isn't a thing for you to use, Artemis, he's your son!" Atalanta screams at the Goddess, much to Artemis' shock, none of her hunters dared to speak to her like that. But her words strike Artemis' core, she had saved many of her handmaidens from homes that had abused them in some way or form, for one like that to tell her she was acting like the man that had abused her had hurt.
But the hurt made the anger flow stronger as she glared at the disobedient hunter, she was close to removing her blessing from Atalanta, rending her into nothing more than a mindless beast that would feed on anything, mortal, monster, or demigod.
Wouldn't that be a suitable punishment, having the lioness feed on the one she cared about, and in Artemis' anger she almost did, but a piece of her, a small one at that, had stopped her. A piece that sounded like a woman from years ago.
"Would you like to hold him?"
"Do it," Atalanta says, "and I swear on the River Sticks, the first thing I hunt will be you." With a crack of thunder, Artemis knows her hunter's threat wasn't empty, she would get her hero's death, one way or another.
Artemis leaves with one last glare at her hunter, disappearing with the wind and falling snow. Atalanta takes a breath, preparing herself to take on the form of the monster she became so long ago, trying to enjoy the last of her freedom from the everchase, but the beast does not come, nor does the bloodlust. Atalanta crumples to the ground and weeps for her broken oaths and the little brother she felt she betrayed.
Harry Potter, Hogwarts grounds.
Hopeless, useless, worthless, unworthy, and a waste of space.
These words kept playing over and over in Harry Potter's head, the words of his Aunt and Uncle, the words parroted by his cousin. Words he knew he was to the core of his being because they were driven there over ten years of living with them. He didn't know why he trusted Miss Atalanta, who gave empty and false praises just to lie to him in the end, because that's all people do in the end, lie to him.
He didn't know why he held out hope for anything to think he was worthy, worthy to raise, worthy to praise, worthy to love, because, in the end, he was worthless and unworthy of anything, even from a god. He was just a waste of space, and that was all.
So as Harry stormed his way back to the castle, he ignored the calls of Hermione and Ron, intent on finding someplace dark and quiet to hide from the world(just like his cupboard.)
"Harry! Harry, wait!" Hermione yells as she chases after her friend.
"Mate! Hold up! We're not as fast as you!" Ron calls out, but Harry ignores it all, wanting nothing to do with people, all he wanted was somewhere dark and quiet(his cupboard).
"Harry, please stop! We need to talk about this!" Hermione says, finally getting Harry to stop and turn around, but what she sees wasn't her best friend, so strong and standing tall to meet any challenge, but a broken child who had gone through a hell she could barely conceive of.
"Why!? Why should we talk about it Hermione, huh?" Harry yells at her, "You got your answers, isn't that all you wanted? To figure out a question you didn't have an answer to?! You got what you wanted!"
Hermione stops, looking into the crying eyes of her friend, whatever words she was going to say died in her throat, as she too started to cry.
"Are you happy now!? Got the answers you wanted!? Good, so leave me alone!" Harry yells, not caring for the crying girl for the moment but knowing it will haunt him later.
"Mate. Harry, she was just trying to help." Ron says as he places his hand on Hermione's shoulder.
"I don't care!" Harry shifted his focus to Ron, "If she didn't go digging for answers for questions that wasn't hers to answer, that no one asked her help on if she would have listened to Miss Atalanta when she said stop saying the fucking name, none of that would have happened!" Harry screams at Ron, "I was happier not knowing, I was happier…" Harry cuts himself, not knowing if he's even been happy or loved, he just felt angry. So he turns on his heel and continues on his way back to the castle, leaving his hurt friends he wasn't worthy of behind.
Hermione remains crying as she falls to her knees, begging for forgiveness she didn't know she already has for wasting her time on such a useless waste of space like Harry.
Harry makes his way into the entrance hall, turning to make his way up the Grand Staircase intent on grabbing his cloak and map and becoming a ghost amongst the stone corridors and empty cupboards of the ancient castle until Sirius Black showed his face so he could kill him, but he stops as annoying, high pitched, and posh voice calls out to him.
"Aww, what's wrong scarhead? Did someone finally put your pet mudblood in her place?" Malfoys calls out, stopping Harry in his tracks.
As Harry turns his head to look at Malfoy and his pack of cronies, Crabb, Goyal, Nott, and Perkinson, Malfoy starts to laugh at the tears in his eyes and it was the straw that broke the camel's back and with a roar and popping ears did the hunter pounce on his prey.
When the spell smoke cleared, and the bodies lay on the ground amidst the growing crowd of students, only Harry was standing. before turning and running from the voice of the potion master yelling after him.
Number 4, Privet Drive, Surrey. February 13th, 1994.
Artemis had no idea why she stood out in front of this home, this cookie-cutter prison set in bland suburbia. But it wasn't hard to find once she knew where and what she was looking for, or to be specific, what she couldn't find. The house thrummed with the ancient magic that had once bound her in a clearing thirteen years ago, she could taste the blood in the air, Lily Evans blood, used to power the ward that protected the house from eyes that would look for it. She could see it plain as day, for as strong as mortal magic was, when a God wanted to find something they would.
Artemis stood on the edge of the ward, she could pass it, she knew this, but she hesitated for a reason she could not voice, was she afraid? Afraid of what? Of what she would find, a truth she didn't want to know, one she didn't want to bare.
She had switched out her normal bomber jacket with the one that was the boy's, she did it on a whim and she could see why he liked it so much. It was warm, like an embrace of someone she didn't know, a forgotten hope that was never voiced because the boy was afraid that if he did, it would die. But as the Goddess of the hunt inspected the twisting symbols and shifting features of the ward she couldn't help but admire it, for it was a beautiful and powerful piece of mortal magic, male or not, maiden or not, Albus Dumbledore and Lily Evans were masters of their craft. But as her brother draw the sun grew closer to the edge of the world, the moon Goddess decides that it was better to know a harsh truth than bask in the sweet falsehood of a lie and crosses the ward line, and oh how she wish she hadn't, how she wished to have those falsehoods back.
Because they slammed into her like a tied, one after another, countless in number, (1,077 her divine mind supplies) all the prayers the boy had sent out, ever since he was young (the oldest being sent seven years ago.) First to the Judeo-Christian God and his son begging for help, then to all the angels the boy could name, followed by the saints, then the sinners, devils, and demons hoping anything that could answer him would and take him away from a place devoid of love and care for him. That was just filled with hate and pain for him, and Artemis heard it, after each prayer something would die in the boy's voice, die and die again until there was no hope left to have. Artemis heard hope die in a voice far too young for it to happen to.
The boy, Harry, her boy, her son had suffered at the hands of those who should have taken care of him, and it had broken him. Artemis felt it all, the desperation in the prayers, the rage in them when they went unanswered, the pain when he spoke after the sobs had turned his throat raw from crying in the dark and lonely cupboard that was both his prison and his peace, right down to the last and dying gasp of hope he had in him, begging one last time for someone to save him.
But no one ever did.
And the beast that crawled in Artemis' chest roared out for blood for this injustice, that every soul who damned her son to this hell be punished in this life and in her uncle's realm forever more. She didn't know why she felt like this over a boy(her son) of all things but at the moment her mind was not in control, it was her heart, a heart that was breaking for her son.
Her mind drove her forward, the form of a child would not do here, no she would take a form she hated. The form she had worn for Orion, so her body shifted like the mist as she grew taller, her body filled out to a more mature form with breasts and hips and all things she hated wearing as she steps up to the front door and knocked, once, twice, thrice, and she waited. Her face set in anger, her mortal form tense, as her hands clench and unclench trying to work the beast from her breast but it is no use as the door swings open.
"Yes?" Answers the tall horse-faced woman, Petunia Evans, the sister of Lily, and the twisted reflection of her own blood. As Petunia looks into the eyes of the unknown individual on her doorstep her stomach drops into a pit, she feels fear, a fear once all but forgotten by her and everyone like her, the fear of the hunt.
Petunia pales as she sees those haunting eyes and in her fear she lashes out, "You're one of them, one of those freaks," Petunia hisses out at the woman on her steps, never noticing the Jacket she wore was the same one that her nephew wore all year round, "I won't have you here, leave and don't come back, you hear me freak, leave!" And Petunia goes to slam the door in the woman's face.
But one does not refuse a god their do hospitality without consequences, so as the door goes to slam shut the olive-colored hand stops the door from closing before being forced back open with ease. The amber eyes slitted like her nephew's glow with anger as they look into the soul of Petunia and find wanting from what they see.
"Stop! Le-leave at once!" Petunia cries out to the uncaring Goddess as she steps inside Petunia's perfectly normal home, "We-we're under the protection of Albus Dumbledore, Y-you'll be in big trouble if you d-d-do this!" Petunia stutters out as she steps back further into her home.
"You are under a misconception, Petunia Evans, allow me to clear this up for you," Artemis says in a soft voice, betraying her anger, "I am no Wixen, they are to me, as you are to them. No, I am here to have words with you about your treatment of the boy."
Petunia pales further before tripping over her hallway rug and landing on her backside, "boy? W-w-what boy?" She starts to push herself away as Artemis steps into the home.
"The boy you've abused, the boy who you starved, the boy whom you locked away in a cupboard! That boy," Artemis says, her voice growing louder with each word, "is the one we will have words about." The rage that slammed the door shut behind the Goddess shook the whole house.
Harry Potter, Hogwarts, broom cupboard on the 7th floor.
Harry Potter hasn't been to class in two days, he hasn't gone to any assigned detentions, he hasn't gone to the Great Hall to eat any time of the day, nor has he answered any summons from his Professors and the Headmaster. If it wasn't for the fact the boy has been seen in the common room by the prefects, one could say Sirius Black had snuck back into the castle and kidnapped him.
If the Head Boy or any prefects tried to escort him to the Headmaster or a Professor they would turn a corner with him only to find themselves alone the next moment, with map and cloak the boy was a ghost in the halls; and he could care less about what anyone wanted from him.
He took to hiding in broom cupboards under his cloak, watching the map for approaching teachers and prefects looking for him, watching for the name of Sirius Black to pop up. He would wait for as long as needed, but what he was waiting for he couldn't say.
For the Grimm that has been haunting him to come finish the job and kill him…
For Sirius Black to come back to the castle so he could hunt him down to kill him…
He didn't know, but he was fine with both endings at the moment as the words still replayed in his head days later.
Hopeless, useless, worthless, unworthy, and a waste of space.
Number 4 Privet Drive.
The cupboard door was open in the hallway of number four, Artemis stood in front of it looking into it, it was small and cramped, barely big enough to fit a hound, let alone a child, a growing one at that. She saw the ratty cot pushed against the back wall, the broken army men on top of the water heater, the smudges of color forming a rainbow on the back wall from markers bleeding through the paper as the bo-, as Harry had pushed too hard with the markers as he had colored, she saw the words "Harry's Room" carved on the underside of the stairs; she saw all of this and more as she looks at it with a blank face.
She could smell the salt and rust wafting from the small area like the rotted body of sins these mortals have committed, the rust from blood of wounds untold, and only Harry knew from where, the salt from an ocean of shed tears in the lonely dark of his prison, of his peace.
She heard the sobs of the pathetic mortal cowering on the couch, for Artemis had already seen the room of unwanted and broken things they put the-, where they put Harry to remind him what he was in their home. She saw the catflap and the locks on the outside, the bars on the window. As Artemis took all this in she felt pain unlike any other, a stabbing and burning feeling in her chest, she wants to ignore it, to push it away, but she can't.
The door handle to number 4 rattles before it turns, opening the door with a yell of "Petunia dear, we're ho-" but the booming voice of Vernon Dursley dies as it spots a stranger in his home, and his face turns purple when he sees the freakish eyes the woman has, like the freak he was forced to put up with every summer.
"OUT, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, I WILL NOT HAVE YOUR KIND HERE!" The overly large man holars at the intruder, heedless of his wife's warnings she shouts from the sitting room.
Artemis tilts her head at the yelling man-thing and tells him "No." Before noticing the blonde boy looking at her with lust in his eyes, the maiden Goddess would not have that. So with a snap of her fingers, the boy turns into a boar with thick blonde bristles before it starts squealing and charging around the house.
Vernon not listening to his very reasonable fear stomps up to the woman, first raised in the air to strike the freak while screaming "TURN HIM BACK, TURN HIM BACK RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR YOU'LL LEAVE IN A BODYBAG!" Making his way up to the woman's uncaring face. When Artemis once again answers "No." Vernon swings intent on beating the freak into submission till she does what he wants. But to his shock and pain, the woman catches his swing as easily as she was snatching a tossed piece of rubbish out of the air, he then hears the wet snap of bone as Vernon's wrist is twisted in the opposite direction breaking it cleanly and forces him to his knees with a scream.
"Is this what you did when the boy wouldn't listen to you?" Artemis asks, deadly calm, "is this what you did when his magic lashed out to defend himself or when he spoke up about how you treated him?" Her voice becomes a growl, "DID YOU HIT MY SON!?" Artemis screams in the face of the man who had kept her son in pain and terror all his life.
Vernon Dursley looked into the eyes of a God this day, but it wasn't the ones spoken about in the New Testament, full of mercy and love. No, these eyes were filled with wrath and perdition of the Old Testament and he was the sinner caught in their gaze.
Albus Dumbledore, the Astronomy Tower, February 13th.
Albus Dumbledore did not get involved with the student body lightly, he preferred them to see him as he liked to see himself, the kind yet a bit off his rocker grandpa figure who enjoyed the occasional spot of mischief.
Rarely did he punish his students, and even rarer did he expel them from Hogwarts. But when the Head Boy, multiple prefects, and a few of his Professors couldn't find Harry Potter, and if they by some chance they did and lose him so after, Albus decided to step in.
He had gone to his friends first, the few he had, Miss Granger and Mister Weasley, but both had no clue of where he was, they hadn't seen him in the past two days. When he had asked them both what would have brought on this behavior, he had found out the boy had learned the truth about Sirius Black and his ties to James Potter, Albus had felt them hiding more, but had not pushed them to tell him. He had a feeling where he would find the answers he sought, and on the way to her room he had ruminated on the boy's odd Behavior, Harry had never acted like this in the last three years he had attended Hogwarts, behavior so odd that even Severus had found it off point for the boy, passing or failing Harry had always shown up for class. Earned or not, Harry had always shown up for his detentions. Then there was his assault on other students, from Miss Greengrass' account it was not an entirely unprovoked assault either, but Harry had never lashed out like that, not even in his own defense, only when defending one of his few friends, so what had brought on this streak of trouble making within the boy? Albus had a few theories, and none he liked.
So when he got to the painting of the witch Madea he asked the witch to inform Miss Atalanta he wanted to talk, he had no clue of what he would learn, he never imagined the sins unknowingly committed would weigh so heavy on his heart.
He had damned a child to a home full of hate, no matter the greater good it was for, it was inexcusable to do.
So when he had found Harry on the tallest tower in Hogwarts, as far away from his peers as the boy could get watching his steadfast familiar diving and swooping with Albus' own, what words could he speak? Because no matter the apology, no matter how it was worded, it would never be enough for him to forgive himself, let alone for Harry to forgive him. When Molly Weasley came to him last year speaking about barred windows and locks on the outside of the boy's door, he had thought a personal visit to Petunia would have been enough, for the protections afforded by the blood ward was too powerful, too precious to lose for the boy, but as he stood in the hallway of number 4 Albus couldn't begin to imagine the horror that hid in the cupboard under the stairs. What could Albus say to the one who has every right to hate him the most? Sorry, would never make up for his sins against the boy.
"It seems, Mister Potter, we keep meeting under circumstances that we never should," Albus says as the boy turns around, his eyes looking dead to the world with dark bags under them, causing Albus' heart to break, for no child should have a look so haunted.
"Headmaster." Is all Harry says in greeting, in a quiet voice so thoroughly beaten down.
Albus decides to cut to the root of the matter, "You haven't been to class in two days, Mister Potter, nor have you reported to the detentions that were assigned for missing said classes." Albus says softly looking at the boy. His rumpled clothes, his unwashed hair, and the dark bags under his dead eyes.
Harry hadn't changed his clothes or taken a shower in the last few days, nor a good night's rest.
To the Headmaster's statement, Harry just shrugs before saying "It doesn't matter sir, I'm pants at this magic stuff anyway, I was only getting by with Hermione's help, and I…" Harry pauses with regret flashing through his eyes, "I don't think she'll help me now, not anymore." He finishes softly.
"One should never count out one's friends in dark hours, Mister Potter. For they can be the light that keeps that dark at bay." Albus tells the young man in front of him, "I have spoken to Miss Granger, Mister Weasley, and Miss Atalanta," at the last name Harry's face twisted in anger, "and they are all worried about you, they have also made me aware of a few things." Albus continues carefully.
"Oh yeah, like the fact I know that Sirius Black is my Godfather?" Harry spits out in anger at the feet of the man who hid it from him.
Albus doesn't even blink at the hidden blame Harry throws at him, because the boy was right, he hid it from him because he had thought to protect the boy from a horrible truth.
"Yes, and the fact that you met your mother, and that it had not gone well," Albus says watching the boy's face shift from confusion to understanding.
"Of course, you knew the whole time, didn't you?" Harry growls out, "she had to go to you for you to allow Miss Atalanta on the grounds." Harry looks away, his anger at them all boiling back up again, "so what? Par for the course for me."
Albus sighs out at the answer spoken with such bitterness and anger for a boy far too young for it. "While I can ask you for your forgiveness about keeping your connection to Sirius Black from you in the hope to save you from that terrible truth and the pain it would deliver upon you, I can do nothing about the truth about your mother-" but Harry cuts him off.
"She's not my mother! My mother is dead!" Harry growls out, and Albus nods, accepting the words as truth for the boy.
"As you wish, Harry," Albus says " but regardless of what she is to you, you carry a piece of her inside you." Albus pauses before finishing what he was saying before, "I could do nothing about the truth that lies between you and Lady Artemis, for all my power, I am no god Harry, so when she told me to keep the secret, what could I do but obey." Albus shakes his head looking down, "No, I could have told you and she would have killed me, and as much as I look forward to the next great adventure, I am still needed here."
As Harry looks away, the Headmaster takes a deep breath, it was time to face his sins.
"But beyond all that Harry, beyond the Headmaster and Student relationship, why did you never tell me what happened to you at the Dursleys?" Albus asks looking up and into the haunted eyes of a child.
Harry flinches, shakes, and begins to sob in what he knew was weakness.
Number 4 Privet Drive.
Artemis stood in the sitting room of number 4 looking out the window as the lamp posts illuminated the street outside, the sounds of two squealing hogs filled the house as one terrified mortal sat on the couch, shivering in fear of the immortal in her home.
"So, we have an understanding, correct?" Artemis says in a cold flat voice to the only sentient being other than herself left in the house, Petunia Dursley nods in fear.
"Y-yes Ma'am." She says in as little of a voice as she could, as not to upset the Goddess in her sitting room.
"So, just so we are crystal clear," Artemis says as she walks over to the woman who had the blessing to be useful to her, leaning down to look her in the eyes, "You are to leave the boy alone. If I hear one word, one prayer, one thought of you continuing the treatment you've already done to the boy, I will return. I will turn your husband and son back into hogs, and I will make you watch as my hunters hunt them down, bleed them out, skin them and cook them before forcing them down your throat, all while they keep their pathetic empty minds." The woman soils herself at Artemis' words, but the Goddess of the hunt wasn't done yet, "But you Petunia Evans, will go to the hunt as you are, you will be hunted for a long, long time, and when you finally die I'm going to cut out your tongue, cut off your ears, and gouge out your eyes, so you will wander the underworld blind, deaf, and mute so all who see you may know, there goes Petunia Evans, the fool who crossed Artemis." The Goddess's eyes burn with that promise to the mortal before standing straight and walking to the entrance of the sitting room.
"You survive this by the grace of your blood and the wards that protect Harry, that alone makes you useful to me. Do not forget that." Artemis says before snapping her fingers turning Vernon back from hog to man, "He survives because you are too weak to fend for yourself." Artemis continues to the door to the home.
"W-wait, my son, please my son." Petunia begs
Artemis looks back at the woman with cold eyes burning into the mortal, "Do it yourself." The Goddess says before leaving, slamming the door behind her.
Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Tower, February 13th.
Hermione sits in one of the high-back chairs, trying to write out an essay due tomorrow for muggles studies, there is not a single word written on the parchment for she can't focus on the task at hand.
First, it was Harry, the anger at her in those slitted eyes as his words filled with rage aimed at her like sharp knives all pointed at her underlined with the pain and hurt he's taken on over the years, she had deserved every single one.
Then, Ron, Scabbers had disappeared over the past two days, he had blamed Crookshanks and she had no idea if it was her cat's fault but he had blamed her anyway and wouldn't talk to her either. She was alone again, friendless through her own fault of asking needless questions and ignoring the fact her cat was after a rat.
Harry had come through the common room just a few minutes ago, it was the first time seeing him in two days. Hermione had tried to apologize for what she had done, to ask and beg him for forgiveness but he had ignored her all the way up the stairs just to slam the door to his room in her face.
Now Hermione was sitting in a chair with glassy eyes, she could feel the eyes of her housemates on her, and Hermione couldn't help but to think as she began to cry.
"What was all this for?"
Notes:
Over 7,000 words and we're still not done with the aftermath of the meeting, there is still a bit of Artemis left and Atalanta still needs her time to shine, and for those who have siblings will probably know how that's gonna go.
But I feel the need to point out that no one was in the right with what happened, not Harry, not Artemis, not Hermione, no one.
But on a personal note, this chapter was probably the hardest to write, not for trying to find out what I wanted to happen, I had that planned out for months. No, there is a reason why I empathize with Harry so much, because I was that kid from an abusive home, I've been starved, beaten, and neglected and I begged a high power for help but none came, I had to crawl myself out of that hell by myself.
And I did, and it still affects me to this day.
I'm not looking for sympathy, or kind words. I just want you all to know how close to home this chapter hits.
My thumbs are tired.
Estado de energía semanal
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