The Blood At Dusk (HP AU)

Chapter 2: Pain

5:00pm. Harry sat calmly on the edge of his bed waiting. For what? He didn't know or care. To be honest life had been getting harder, summers had been getting worse each year, school was getting harder, and his heart and mind were arguing with each other constantly.

5:17pm. A strange pain had begun to lightly form in Harry's chest and back. He just silently layed there, watching the ceiling and listening to the ruffle of clothes as Ostium, the snake that had slithered up his arm approximately 2 hours 27 minutes and 38 seconds ago, explored around his room. He was named Ostium after the latin meaning of Venom. Harry had looked up in one of his books he had stolen from his trunk, and found the kind of snake that Ostium was. He was a rare Russian occamy. The Russian occamy's full name was a Violet Vendetta Occamy, said to have gone extinct centuries ago and almost no textbooks had information on it. Lucky. The information was very vague due to Ostium's type being extinct.

'Hyacinthum Vendetta Occamy' or the 'Violet Vendetta Occamy' is known for being the most deadly extinct snake to have ever existed. The last time the Occamy was mentioned was in an old buried chest which had been proven to have belonged to Merlin himself. The warlock had claimed that he had found 'a nest of strange snakes' laying on the edge of Camelot, where he resided for the time being. Here is the extract of a scroll from the chest.

"I had come across this nest after having heard of reports of people getting bitten from something around there and dying quickly after, only just managing to return back to the village. I had been out collecting herbs from the forest when I heard hissing coming around the corner. So naturally I went to find the source of the sound, but I found a small nest of violet snakes. 

"Go onwards to a few weeks later. I had been taking care of the snakes in a hut in the woods. They only ate meat, cooked or raw, they expressed a large amount of emotions, leading me to believe they were a kind of empath creature. The frequent deaths had stopped ever since I had taken care of them. 

"A few months, possibly 4 months, changes had started appearing. They had been more active and slithering up and down my arms and branches on trees. Soon, they had sprouted wings instead of being born with them. As soon as they got their wings they would fly everywhere. Their diets hadn't changed the slightest save from the amounts. 

"We had also examined the bodies and there was not obvious injury other than bites on the body. The only mechanism they had of attack was venom and possibly suffocation, but otherwise, there was no evidence of other methods of death."

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8:43pm. Right after Harry had made dinner and washed up, he was ordered to go up to his room and take his shirt off. He knew what was coming so he put a shirt over Hedwig's cage and carefully hid Ostium at the top of the wardrobe. Harry quickly removed his shirt and glared at the mirror as he saw the scars covering his chest, back, arms and throat. Some scars forming words on his torso. There were long scars going down his sides as if someone had ripped his skin open, close to what happened in fact.

8:46pm. Loud stomping on the stairs, the pain in his chest had worsened and spreaded to his whole torso, his head and his legs, mostly his spine though. The stomping got closer to his door. Harry stood up shakilly, even after year of abuse, you can never become used to it, no matter how much you tell others to not show your weaknesses. The pain was not shown on his face as he stood staring at the door in absolute fear.

8:47pm. The door slammed open and Harry flinched aggressively as he looked into what he realised was the drunken eyes of his 'uncle'. Hard, angry, and threatening eyes met soft, watering and empty eyes. Once again the door slammed shut, the noise making Harry jump slightly. Vernon's ugly face smirked as he saw Harry's body recoil as he started to remove his belt.

The atmosphere in the room was silent, and a dark pulse of magic could be felt if you focused hard enough. It translated an unnoticed S.O.S. signal that no one could or would feel. 

"Turn around, freak." Vernon's harsh voice ordered. Harry hastily turned around to face the wall, hands flat on the grey wallpaper. It was routine to him, face the wall, don't make a sound, if you do more and harder slashes, if you try to stop him, you can try to guess what happens.

"Start counting" The harsh voice sounds again. 

The first slash on the back feels like burning fire on his old unhealed wounds, remember to count. "o-one." The second one feels like a lighter being held to your skin for seconds, only concentrated in one area. "t-two." The third one is always the worst, he chooses a spot that looks the most sensitive and whips it for the next few hits, then moves to another spot. "t-three" another "f-four" another "five" another "six" another "seven". New spot, right shoulder blade "eight" another "nine" another "ten" double digits, time goes slower, still no sound. "Eleven" new spot, back of the neck, painful to say the least and sensitive beyond imagination. "t-t-twelve" another "t-thirteen" again, another "Fourteen" new spot, left side of the middle of the back. "Fifteen" another "sixteen" another "seventeen" another, tears are slowly falling, no sound besides from counting. His teeth clamp down on his lip and focusing to ot scream. "s-seventeen". You fucked up, you lost count, the whips have stopped, the sound of a belt hitting the ground echoes in Harry's ears as he stares wide eyed at the wall, scared for his life. He hadn't miss counted since he was 7. He got the beating of his life back then. 

A cold, calloused hand was clamped down onto Harry's left shoulder, the grip causing cracks to sound and causing his body to turn around and get slammed onto the wall. The welts on his back screeched in pain as the cold wall pressed against his back. His head tilted forward and his lip bled from the force of his teeth. Blood tracked down his back and chin. Harry's head was grabbed upwards by the throat and lifted up a foot upwards. 

Air was being constricted from his body. Amazing how you can hold your breath for over a minute even two but can't handle being strangled for 5 seconds. He struggled against the hold of the obese man and grabbed at the hands at his neck. Silently screaming to be let go.