HARRY POTTER AND THE HERETIC'S VAULT
by Auser
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters and locations are the property of JK Rowling. No infringement is intended.
Author's Note:
This story does not follow any plot or
timeline development from Half-Blood Prince or Deathly Hallows. The only canon it borrows is from the
first five books - which means, there will be no horcruxes, no luck potions, and no conjured canaries. That doesn't
mean there will be no plot, however. This story is meant as a replacement for the sixth book in its entirety and will
follow JKR's formula - it will primarily be action/adventure.
There will be no R/Hr or H/G. This is an H/Hr story.
It is a work in progress, although I've already completed the first 23 chapters and 100,000+ words in an effort to maintain a significant buffer between what I write and what I post.
The ending has already been finished and the chapters plotted, so I can promise you it's going somewhere, at least. It is my intention to post the first ten chapters between now and Christmas Eve and then begin adding them at a more sedate pace.
I haven't yet managed to find a beta by the time of this posting, so all the mistakes are mine, alone. Please feel free to point them out to me - I'll find it quite helpful.
For anyone who finds the first few pages familiar, the front three chapters were originally posted (before massive rewrites) on fanfic.net, but have since been removed as I wanted to complete more of the story before allowing it to see the light of day.
I apologize for the unnecessarily long author's note. I'll do my best to keep them out of further chapters.
-Auser
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Chapter 1: The Dursleys' Attic
Late afternoon sunlight lazily poured through the open window in the attic of Number 4 Privet Drive. Despite the receding hour, the temperature in the large room was stiflingly hot, and Harry Potter swept his fingers over his scalp in another attempt to keep his damp hair out of his eyes. As soon as he pulled his hand away, it flopped back gracelessly and stuck to his forehead, just as it had all morning. Feeling surly and frustrated, he stood up and threw his wet sponge against the far wall of the room. The sponge stuck briefly to the wall with a moist suctioning noise before slowly sliding to the floor, leaving a clean, damp trail behind it.
Harry watched in vicious triumph before suddenly feeling childish. Sighing, he trudged over and picked up the sponge before dropping it back in his pail of water.
He supposed he should feel grateful that the Dursleys had conjured a seemingly insurmountable list of chores for him to complete this summer. Harry had spent the last two weeks mowing, painting, pruning, cleaning, and sawing - which meant that he hadn't spent the last two weeks thinking about Sirius Black.
Or at least, not as much as he would have if he had been locked up alone in his room like usual.
A not unfamiliar feeling, like a hand slowly clenching around his heart, began to form in Harry's chest at the sudden thought of his murdered godfather.
Harry squeezed his fingers tightly around the rim of the pail and thought seriously about throwing his sponge again.
Letting out a harsh breath through his mouth, he glanced down at the dirtied water in the pail. He set the sponge aside and grabbed the handle, heaving it up and hauling it down the ladder to the upstairs hallway.
Once he stepped off the final rung, he switched his grip on the heavy pail to his other hand and slowly made his way downstairs, being extra cautious not to spill. Aunt Petunia would not tolerate dirty water on her floors and he didn't feel like enduring a shrieking lecture today. Besides assigning ridiculous chores, his relatives had left him mostly alone this summer, and he aimed to avoid them as much as possible.
Harry made his way outside and carefully dumped the water in the storm drain across the street. He had emptied and filled this pail six times today, and he looked up and down the street just as he had each time before to see if he could catch a glimpse of one of his minders. Harry had found over the previous weeks that he was becoming quite keen at spotting them. Their careless evidence was everywhere; a step onto a kerb revealing a sliver of a dark trouser leg from beneath an invisibility cloak… the softest scuffle of an old boot on the footwalk where there was clearly no one walking at all… the unfamiliar people dressed just a shade on the wrong side of normal, passing by his window one too many times…
Harry had observed these occurrences dispassionately, cataloguing them in his mind merely to give himself something to do. He had no interest in attempting to speak to any of them, and, so far, they not seemed likely to approach him, either.
But today there were no errant noises and no joggers in waistcoats - the only sign of life that Harry could see was a large orange and white cat who was watching him curiously from its perch on his neighbour's fence.
Harry straightened and stared back at the cat stoically. He briefly considered the idea that perhaps the cat was really an animagus and at any moment a witch or wizard would appear in its place and announce that it was time for Harry to leave Privet Drive.
The cat returned his stare imperiously for a moment before it casually leaned back and began licking at its privates.
Harry rolled his eyes at his own stupidity before turning on his heel and following the footpath back to the house. He traipsed behind the neatly trimmed hedgerows and set the pail beneath the garden spigot, wrenching the stop valve with a bit more force than was necessary.
Of course no one was coming to get him out of here. Dumbledore had made it quite clear that Harry was going to remain at Privet Drive until at least July 31st, his 16th birthday. Ordinarily, such a pronouncement would have provoked Harry's innate sense of rebellion, but lately it had seemed tempered and dulled - this year, his time with the Dursley's seemed only to inspire mixed feelings.
Following his disastrous fourth year, Harry had spent his summer at Privet Drive alone and miserable, completely cut off from the wizarding world. He had been mutinous at the particular hell he'd had to endure - it had seemed the worst sort of betrayal at a time when he had needed guidance and support more than ever.
He had been angry at the Dursleys for their usual intolerance and mistreatment of him, angry at Dumbledore for forcing him to come here again with no explanation, and, most especially, angry at his friends for their useless letters that said nothing and meant nothing.
Harry remembered with a familiar ache how he had felt reading those ridiculous letters while he was locked away in his tiny, pitiable room like a prisoner. He had spent many summers at Privet Drive with only himself for company - he remembered the smell of the summer-heated wood in the cupboard quite distinctly - but he had never felt so completely alone as he had last year.
He was just as isolated as ever this summer, but his feelings of loneliness had changed. He had little desire for company, anymore. Mostly he just felt tired - like someone weary from walking miles and miles against a heavy wind, only to find that the place he had been hoping to get to no longer existed.
At the end of the school year, Dumbledore had finally shared with him the terrible secret of the Prophecy and the reasoning behind his continual sentence with the Dursleys. Although it did little to improve his situation here, having some explanation for being forced to grow up in this house dulled the sharp pain of it.
For so many years, he had silently wondered why his relatives, who quite obviously despised him, hadn't simply left him at an orphanage. As he grew older and began to have a better understanding of such things, he had speculated that they must have found some sort of enjoyment in their cruelty, and resigned himself to it until he was old enough to leave.
But now he knew the truth. By bringing Harry into her home, Petunia Dursley had accepted a blood-pact with her deceased sister that created a protection against Voldemort. That blood protection had to be renewed each year, which was why he was returned to Privet Drive every summer despite the unhappy conditions of his existence there.
Privately, Harry felt the blood protection was a joke. He had been confronted by Voldemort four times since it had been fashioned. How effective could it be?
Water sloshed onto his trainer from the overfilled pail and Harry jerked in surprise. He cursed himself for getting lost in thought after shutting the water off. He picked up the pail and tipped a little of the excess water onto the lawn before carrying it back into the house.
Once he had lugged it back into the attic, he stopped to check over the work he had already finished.
The attic ran the entire length of the house, and was floored with old wood planks. Aunt Petunia had informed him that these were to be cleaned and shined over the course of several days, and before seeing the room, Harry had thought this to be a rather light sentence. Cleaning was never a particularly difficult chore at Number 4, since Aunt Petunia's standards of cleanliness meant that all surfaces of the house were kept as sterile and immaculate as humanly possible at all times. Generally, a 'cleaning' chore meant that Harry would have to shine the Dursleys' contemptibly pretentious tea settings or buff away any fingerprints that might have found their way onto the dark wood furniture in the lounge.
However, once Harry got a look at the attic - a place he had actually been quite curious to see, since he had never stepped inside it in all his years of living here - he realised that he had found the only room in the house that his Aunt's fastidiousness had never applied to.
A thick blanket of dust coated every surface. All about the room, there were stacks of forgotten things - trinkets and picture frames; broken furniture and old clothing - that were covered in dull, grey sheets that Harry assumed must have been white in some previous decade.
His aunt had handed him a pail, a bottle of cleaning fluid and a sponge and made sure he understood that if she caught him pouring any filthy water down her spotless drains, he would not be given supper - and likely the next day's breakfast, besides.
Harry had been at it for six hours already, and the room was only halfway finished. The rich brown of the wood on the portion he had already cleaned stood out in stark contrast to the thick, dull grime covering the remaining half.
He set his pail down and waved his hand in front of his face in a hopeless attempt to keep the dust that had stirred in the air away from his nose. Despite his efforts, his eyes began to water and he felt himself inhaling the filthy stuff.
Wheezing and coughing, Harry quickly pulled his threadbare t-shirt over his head and dunked it in the pail. He rang out the excess water before putting it back on. Once his arms were through their proper holes, he tugged the crew-collar of it up over his mouth and nose as an improvised face-mask.
Surveying the room through his red, watery eyes, Harry wished for the thousandth time that he was allowed to perform magic away from school.
"Scourgify," he muttered under his breath as he uncapped the cleaning fluid and poured some into the pail.
Dunking his sponge into the now sudsy water, Harry stood up and pointed his dripping sponge at the floor like a wand. "Evanesco!"
The dripping water made dark blotches in the layer of dust near his feet, but there was no change otherwise. Harry sighed, feeling a little foolish for his game, and knelt down to start cleaning again. He was going to be here all night at this rate.
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The moon was halfway across the sky and Harry had emptied and refilled his pail four more times before he had made it to the skirting boards on the opposite side of the room. Aunt Petunia had poked her head in earlier to survey his progress and left him with a plate of dinner. He was only faintly surprised by the portions. There was a time he would have given his left arm for two slices from a joint of pork and a large serving of greens, but along with his increased workload this summer, his aunt had been suspiciously generous with his food.
He supposed someone in the Order had given her a talking to, but she never said anything one way or another. Whatever the reason for it, Harry had been grateful. He had been suffering a rather pronounced growth spurt since spring and it left him constantly hungry and aching.
Harry brushed his hair behind his ears again and rewet his sponge. He scrubbed it hard against the skirting board, switching hands to give his exhausted right arm a break. He could only hope that his aunt didn't get it into her head that the basement needed cleaning tomorrow morning.
A soft, scuffling noise from outside startled him from his thoughts. The sponge froze beneath his hand, and Harry leaned back on his haunches, listening attentively. He waited, still and silent, wondering if he imagined the sound until he heard it again.
Harry scrambled up from his place on the floor as quietly as he could manage and pressed himself against the wall next to the open window. Cautiously, he leaned his head out and peered down towards the front of the house only to catch a glimpse of a dark figure slipping in through the front door.
Harry's blood began to rush in his ears, and he moved smartly to his feet. Without thinking, he muttered "Nox," and the yellow bulb above him shattered, leaving the half-full moon as the only source of light.
As quietly as possible, he stalked across the attic and slipped down the ladder into the upstairs hall. There were sounds coming from downstairs now - the soft rhythm of creeping footsteps - and Harry spared a glance at the closed door to his aunt and uncle's bedroom. His uncle, he knew, kept a cricket bat beneath his bed for precisely this scenario, but he also slept like the dead and wouldn't awaken for anything - except, perhaps, for the smell of cooking bangers.
And if the trespasser was a wizard - well… a cricket bat would hardly be of much use, anyway.
Aunt Petunia, however, slept lightly, and even now Harry could hear the soft creaking of her bed from behind their door. She was likely already rising to investigate and Harry was not keen on her getting in his way. He dug his wand from his trouser pocket and hastened to the top of the stairs.
The noises were louder now - Harry almost believed he could hear breathing - and he felt an irrational swell of anger. Where was the Order? What good was having trained wizards patrolling his neighbourhood if they were too thick to recognize when his house was being broken into?
Harry's fist tightened around his wand and he began to descend the stairs.
With each step, Harry mentally recited from his growing list of curses and hexes. Whoever it was invading his home (Harry's imagination conjured visions of Death Eaters, vampires, and petty thieves, alike), he would make certain they would come to wish they hadn't.
When the hooded figure finally crept out of the kitchen with his wand lit for light, Harry was waiting for him in the dark at the base of the stairs. Startled in spite of himself at the sight of the wand, Harry grasped for the first curse that leapt to his mind.
"Reducto!" he roared, whipping his wand at the floor underneath the intruder. A massive hole erupted underneath the figure as the floor was blown clean out from under him.
The trespasser let out a terrified howl as he fell through the floor into the basement. He hit the cement floor with a dull smacking noise, and dust and debris rained down on his unconscious form as the light from his wand winked out.
Harry pivoted sharply when he heard a male voice curse in the lounge and start advancing towards his position. He ducked behind an end table and conjured a small mirror to see the hallway behind him without revealing himself. He knew he only had a limited time to confront whoever else was in the house. Even Vernon Dursley could not have slept through such a terrible racket, and Aunt Petunia was likely already putting on her dressing gown and slippers (there was no situation dire enough for her to be seen in public wearing only her nightclothes).
With the Dursleys certain to come storming down the stairs at any moment, blustering loudly and getting in his way, Harry struggled to think of what to do.
He glanced down at the mirror, and in it, Harry could see the other figure step cautiously into the foyer with a large canvas bag in one hand and his wand in the other. He was moving erratically - nervously - and something about the man seemed familiar.
"Mundungus?" Harry asked incredulously as he recognized him.
The figure stopped immediately and answered back, lowering his wand. "'Arry? What in the bloody wastes is 'appening? You're s'posed to be asleep!"
Harry rose up from his hiding place and took an uncertain step towards Dung just as the front door was blown off its hinges, sending splinters of wood hurtling into the foyer. Harry twisted at the waist, instinctively protecting his eyes with his forearm and knocking over the Dursleys' coat stand with his elbow. Harry immediately dropped his arm and aimed his wand, but he hesitated in confusion when he recognized the blue, magical eye glowing brightly in the doorway.
Behind him, Mundungus Fletcher let out a rattling, terrified noise and jabbed out his own wand to cast a retaliatory spell towards whoever had razed down the door. With Harry between them, Mundungus and Moody could not see one another properly, and reacted to the unknown threat accordingly.
"Wait!" Harry sputtered and stepped swiftly between their wands, waving his arms wildly to get their attention. Moody stilled, but Dung was already stuttering a panicked, "Abscindo venas!" and Harry had only the briefest sliver of time to recognize the type of severing curse before it erupted from Mundungus's wand.
Harry was frozen in shock as the spell shot towards him. There was no time for a shield charm… no time to duck… there was nothing to be done except brace for impact.