Electric Avenue by DesertPlanet

For fourteen years, he sat calmly awaiting the call to action. The call of his master requesting he come to life. The desperate attempt to prolong the inevitable; to prevent death.

Fourteen years wasn’t that long of a time in the grand scheme of things. Barely even a quarter of the average life of a muggle, let alone that of a wizard. But this situation was different and he knew it to be so. His only goal, his only purpose and reason for existence, was to survive so his master would too. It was a mindless, desperate need for survival.

Survive, even when his host was starving.

Survive, even when his host was risking life and limb.

Survive, even when he could feel the pull of his master’s presence nearby calling… no, screaming… to him to rejoin.

But it wasn’t time yet. It was never time. His master never called to him, never asked him to rejoin, never requested his magic be brought forward. The master lived another day.

And so he waited, silently hidden within his host, listening to his host go about his daily life as though nothing was wrong. Growing with his host, integrating with him, becoming a part of his life. A part of his being. He needed the host to stay alive. If the host was not alive, he would surely die as well.

Frequently the master spoke through him, used him to spy on the host. And frequently the host found a way to listen back. They were linked via him. They spoke via him. Yet he did not truly exist. He was but a fragment of a whole. One of seven. Eight including the master.

But if he were to survive, his host would need to as well. And his host was not doing a very good job of that.

For years, he had been easily riding along, his host’s magic levels as stable as any other witch or wizards would be. A few ups and downs here and there, but nothing too wild. Then suddenly, things began to change. The master had tortured them! It had been a shock to say the least, but the master didn’t know he was there. The master didn’t know of his creation. It was inadvertent during his last moments of life; his first life. But the torture had done something to his host, he could feel it. The host’s magic was no longer what it had been. It felt different. It felt wrong.

Where once he had been tightly intertwined with his host, he could no longer feel the tendrils of magic tying the two of them together. Though his host had grown up with him, they were no longer acting as one. Something had changed, destabilising the connection they had formed. Something which was continuing to destabilise their connection.

He could still feel the master though, and the master could feel him.

Then came the magic spikes. Wild and unbidden, the spikes were dangerous to him and his existence. Every day without fail, the host would consume something which did something he had never experienced: a spike of magic so intense he could not feel the master! Over the course of the day it would wane, but there would always be a smaller spike in the evening. Every day, over and over, the spikes would come. Day after day, week after week, the connection between him and the master would be severed until one day it wasn’t.

The master had been angry. So angry. But so had he. For months, he had not felt the master. Months of agonising waiting, the magic spikes holding him at bay. The master loved the feeling of pain and so did he. Bleeding, dripping, agonising pain flooding every nerve.

The host deserved to suffer for what he did.

And suffer he did. Suffer his wrath knowing nothing of the being within him searching for a way to speak with the master other than consuming the host, something he would not be able to do until the master desired it.

The host could do nothing but writhe in pain.

Then the spikes of magic came back, stabbing him again and again though their intensity was lessened somewhat after a few days. Lessened enough he could hear the master’s whispers. Whispers for vengeance and compliance. Whispers for a new world. Whispers of death.

It filled him with joy.

But that joy was short-lived. Shorter lived than he could have even imagined. With a jolt, he was suddenly stabbed once more, but no longer by the simple stab of a magical core. No, no, this was far worse. It was a dagger, a sword, a bomb, all stabbing and twisting within the host before exploding out violently.

He had very nearly lost his grasp on the host when they were physically ripped apart and shoved together once more. Then again. And again. And again.

The pain was extreme. The agony of the magic stabbing him again and again filling his being. He couldn’t feel the master! He couldn’t call for help! He couldn’t escape! He was trapped. Trapped within a host who was dying.

The stabbing magic wrapped itself around him, strangling him and burning him alive. The heat, the burning, boiling heat, slowly killing him as it killed his host. Or so he thought. For a few blissful moments, the magic was forcibly stabilised, allowing him to breathe. The host would live and so would he. It was not time to leave. His host was safe.

But those moments passed and the magic flared once more before dying out slowly but surely. Slowly it dropped and he began to panic. If the host died, so would he. If the host died, so would a piece of the master. If the host died, there would be one less life for the master.

But the magic was still there. The magic he needed to survive. The magic which linked him to the host and allowed him to stay connected to the master was still there, though weak and dying. He needed that magic. He needed it so badly.

Instinctively, he reached out, wrapping the magic around himself for comfort and safety. The host could die a painful death, but he would keep the magic. He needed it more than the host afterall. He needed it to survive. He needed to survive for the master.

Suddenly, blinding pain.

The magic had returned full force, the tendrils he had wrapped around him to sustain him flaring to life suddenly as pure, unbridled magic pulsated through the host. He barely had time to register what had occurred when the magic pulsed once again, only stronger this time blinding him and surrounding him in agony.

There was nothing more to existence. The master would not answer. The master did not exist. The host did not exist. Magic was pain and pain alone. No matter where he turned, it was agony. Agony a host could not be capable of giving.

Again, the magic flared brighter and brighter, tighter and tighter, burning and boiling him. He could not survive in the host. The host was rejecting him.

And he was happy to leave.

To leave would mean death, but death would bring relief. The magic wanted him to leave and he could not survive in the host any longer.

For 14 years he had remained with the host.

With a shriek of pain as the magic pulsated once more, he abandoned the host, reaching out for any possible replacement in desperation.

“Uh, Dr. Sam,” Adam said, his eyes wide as he stared at the boy’s forehead. Where once there had been a simple scar, partially covered by one of the many burns which covered the boy’s body, there was now an open wound. Lesions such as abrasions were not uncommon in children of any age, but they did not randomly appear. “His forehead just started bleeding. Like, it just split open.”

Peering down at the wound while rhythmically providing breaths to the boy, he frowned and squinted into the wound. Surely it was a trick of the light, that’s all it was, but he swore there was something moving just under the boy’s skin. It wasn’t causing any deformation in the skin, but it was as though there were a shadow curling and worming its way around just out of reach.

“I think there’s something in there,” Adam said, his eyes transfixed on the movement.

“Adam! Focus!” One of the nurses snapped at him, shaking him from his reverie.

“There’s something in there!” He said again, peeling his eyes away from the wound. “I can see it! It’s moving around!”

No one seemed to be paying attention to him, and for good reason. For a brief moment, Marsha had noted the telltale spikes of a QRS complex in the mess of artifact on the EKG. There was a very real possibility that the next pulse check would reveal what they all hoped for, but something still didn’t sit right.

The strange people who brought the boy in had heard him and were staring into the room, rapid discussions taking place between the two men who had first arrived at the woman with the brightly colored hair and the taller black man who seemed to be in similar uniforms, though not any uniform he had ever seen. What really drew his attention though was the sticks the four of them had pulled seemingly out of thin air as the lights began to flicker subtly and the fact the man in black who had been visibly upset with the situation at the beginning was now clutching his forearm as though he had been burned.

Nothing about this situation screamed normal to anyone working in the boy in the bay. The boy’s appearance, the burns, the strange ethereal light he had briefly seen from within the burns themselves, the strange silver fluid coming from his stomach, and now the wound that had appeared on his head. But none of that was the priority, saving his life was.

And the poor boy was struggling very hard with staying alive.

Trying to shake himself from his reverie, Adam looked through the curtain at the group standing there watching them and felt a chill go down his spine. All of them had a look of shock on their faces beyond what they had had previously. Their eyes were wide with both concern and fear as they stared at him. Or he thought they were looking at him.

Looking down at the boy once more, Adam leapt back, dropping the ambu-bag in shock. A black mist was beginning to seep from the boy’s head! It crept down his forehead and over his eyes before spilling onto the pillow and dripping onto the floor. It wasn’t blood, it wasn’t a liquid, it was like a heavy, sinking smoke.

“Sats are dropping!” Marsha called out from the monitor. “Adam?! What are you doing?”

With a sudden roar, the mist suddenly coagulated into a form rushing towards the gap in the curtains. Towards the boy’s family. Towards an A&E full of anxious families and sick children. Towards a densely populated portion of London.

“What the hell is that?!” someone screamed as the mist rocketed through the staff, leaving all those in the room feeling breathless and freezing, their hearts turned to ice as all emotion left their bodies. All but fear.

“Merlin’s beard!” the young woman with the multicolored hair gasped out, raising the stick in her hand. “Is that…?”

“Get down!” the black man yelled, his voice carrying over the terrified screams as all of the staff in the bay backed away from the mist and the boy on the gurney. “Get down now!”

The lights flickered ominously as the two uniformed individuals raised their wands in the air, beginning to chant a long string of seemingly Latin words. The tips of the wands glowing brightly as the mist let out another screech, diving towards them as it screamed. It seemingly bounced off of a force field before diving again at them once more.

The mist let off a final roar before dissipating in an explosive fashion against Tonks’s shield, flashes of lightning coursing through it momentarily before sucking into itself once more and disappearing.

“What the hell was THAT!” roared Dr. Sam, pale and breathless, after a moment of stunned silence, whirling on the group of oddly dressed individuals standing outside of the bay, ignoring the monitor alarms which had once again begun going off. “What in the name of Mary herself was that?!”

There was a long pause as the four strangely dressed adults looked at each other, equal looks of shock on their faces. While he had initially thought there was something more untowards going on with the strange family who had come running into A&E carrying an almost fully grown child as though he weighed nothing, there was certainly something more going on. Something more sinister yet magical.

“I… I’m not positive,” Tonks said, her voice shaking as she tried to wrap her mind around what she had just seen. “But… Kingsley? Was that a horcrux?”

“I am not sure,” Kingsley said, his eyes still wide as he stared at where the mist had just dissipated. “I don’t know. How…? Who…? Severus?”

Both Tonks and Kingsley turned to the potions professor who was continuing to stare into the bay in horror, his right arm cradling his left as though it were broken. His dark eyes were wide with fear and sallow skin an even more sickly pale colour for several moments before he turned his attention to the doctor.

“Please save my son,” Severus rasped, turning his eyes to the doctor momentarily before looking back in the bay. “Please. He didn’t deserve this. Any of this.”

Dr. Sam looked wildly at the strange man in front of him before turning back to the staff in the bay who were no longer surrounding the poor boy on the gurney who was once again losing what little colour he had regained as his heart rate continued to slow, the electrical beats themselves slowly lengthening out.

“Please.”

Shaking himself, the doctor motioned to his team, urging them back to their places which they took rather reluctantly, afraid of another ghostly being coming from the boy. They would do their jobs and work to save the child, but that thing, whatever it was, had shaken all of them to their core. Dealing with whatever that thing was was well beyond the salaries they were given by the NHS.

“Severus, what was that thing?” Remus asked, his face pale as he looked at his equally shaken colleague.

“I… I believe Ms. Tonks is correct,” Severus said, swallowing harshly. “Healer Shannon had stated that… there was something dark on his scans. Even as far back as the night of the Potter’s death.”

Tonks and Kingsley both frowned, looking at each other suspiciously, their eyes wide. How could a child have ended up with a horcrux in their head and what did that have to do with the Potter’s deaths? A million thoughts raced through their heads as they tried to put two and two together and kept coming out with an answer which made no sense. Or very little sense at all.

Yet when combined with the suspicions they had already begun to have, the answer they both arrived at made sense. Almost too much sense.

“Professor Snape,” Tonks asked softly. “Is … is he actually Harry Potter?”

Severus looked up from his paper and nodded his head in thanks to the young nurse-assistant who had brought him a cup of coffee. It wasn’t as strong as what he would typically drink and certainly wasn’t as strong as what he wanted to drink, but it did the job.

The night had been extremely long and arduous for everyone involved. With an eight hour half-life, the amount of Fulgur in Elias’s system had continued to fight against most everything that was done in the effort to save his life. It was nothing short of a miracle that the muggles were as tenacious as they were and were somewhat willing to listen to his explanation as to what his son had done which had led to this situation.

Though after they had been run through by a horcrux, he doubted they would have questioned any information he had given them.

Those first few hours were extremely touch and go as Elias’s body continued to try to fail. But for every failure, the muggles had some way of pulling him out. Wires, tubes, tape, fluids, drips, and even a machine which was filtering his blood slowly, the muggles had created it all and it was keeping him alive. It was horrifying to look at the child in the bed and all of the machines which were keeping him alive, but Severus couldn’t help but acknowledge the mastery to which the muggles used these devices.

Looking at the watch on his wrist and comparing it to the machines which were monitoring Elias’s vital signs, he nodded in satisfaction as the numbers were relatively in sync with each other. A few numbers one way or another wouldn’t matter much. What mattered was that he was stable.

Even his magical core was beginning to stabilise, much to the relief of the small magical community surrounding him.

“How is he?” Tonks asked, clunking into the room and throwing herself in another chair on the opposite side of the room. Her hair had changed from bright pink to a neon green and appeared to have been freshly washed as she had finished her actual work shift not 30 minutes before coming to visit.

“Stable,” Severus mumbled, sipping on his coffee with a grimace. “They had to replace his potassium and magnesium again.”

Tonks’s eyebrows shot to her hairline as she looked at the huge number of bags of fluid which were hanging from the metal poles at his bedside. Muggle potions designed to do all numbers of things. “Is… is that bad?”

Severus sighed and rubbed his hand over his mouth, setting the bitter hospital coffee on the bedside table. “From what I have been able to gather from the doctor, yes. It is bad. But he is showing some signs of improvement now that they have a temporary… temporary trans… a pacemaker in him.”

“A what?” Tonks frowned, looking for anything on the boy that could possibly be whatever it was Severus was describing.

“The wires going into his neck,” Severus said, looking slightly green as he pointed them out. “They’re going directly to his heart and shocking him.”

Tonks leaned back in her chair in shock, her jaw dropping at the thought. “Wicked. What’s that machine there then?”

“It’s cleaning his blood,” Severus grumbled. “When it isn’t clogged, that is. Apparently that happens a lot with certain diagnoses, but I don’t know why it would be happening so much for him.”

Tonks nodded and folded her arms across her chest as she looked over the teen in the bed. It was incredible, really it was. For months they had been searching for Harry Potter only to find him right in front of their faces the whole time. It was a good thing he was in hiding though; the more information they found out about Dumbledore, the more she understood his reasons for wanting escape.

For needing escape.

Dumbledore’s manipulations went so far beyond anything she could comprehend and the list of things he had sway over seemed unending. He played the entire wizarding world like a fiddle and was quick to abandon anything out of tune. He had always seemed as though he had the best interests of the wizarding world in mind as a warm grandfatherly figure, but the cool calculations to his actions were becoming increasingly apparent. If you weren’t with him, you were against him.

So what was she?

Sitting in the hard plastic chair staring at the boy she had idolised and once fantasised as being her rich and famous best friend, a cold feeling of realisation swept over her. If her loyalty to Dumbledore was questioned, he would find a way to get rid of her as he had done Remus, Sirius, and the Longbottoms. He would find no use for her even with her metamorphmagus abilities and would find some way of casting her aside like an unwanted toy. She would not join the dark side either, but she would need to tread carefully as her loyalty shifted away from Dumbledore and to the teen who had become his ultimate victim and sacrifice.

A sacrifice he was willing to allow to die to gain even more glory and power.

“Why are you here?” Severus asked, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “You and Kingsley have warded much of this hospital now, yes?”

“Enough to keep you two safe and prevent you from exploding the hospital itself,” Tonks smiled wryly. “No, I … we found something. About Dumbledore.”

Severus froze, looking at her in suspicion causing her to squirm slightly under his gaze. “Did you discover this as an Auror or on your own volition?”

Tonks looked at him seriously before swallowing harshly and looking away. She didn’t know if she wanted to admit to the amount of additional work she had done while looking for Harry Potter now that she knew where and who he really was. It was still important for the professor to know, though, especially if he wanted to keep Elias out of the clutches of either Dumbledore or the Dark Lord.

“It started as an Auror, but I kind of… continued looking into this as the trail to find Harry Potter consistently dried up,” Tonks finally admitted. “The more information we found, the more we realised that…well, to be honest sir, I don’t think Dumbledore has had his best interests at heart.”

Severus scoffed, looking at his son laying in a muggle hospital bed with tubes coming out of nearly every orifice. The fact Dumbledore didn’t seem to care about his situation was obvious. He himself had even said that his health came second to keeping the Dark Lord away from him. It wasn’t as though he had done anything to actively prevent the boy from coming to harm either, in fact quite the opposite.

“That is a simplification of the situation,” Severus snorted, taking a sip from his coffee with a shudder.

“I don’t think he’s ever had Harry’s best interests at heart, sir,” Tonks continued, biting her lip. “In fact, I almost feel like … like his entire life, from the moment Lily and James died, was orchestrated by the headmaster to set him up to fail.”

“What do you mean?” Severus frowned. He knew the headmaster was truly neglectful in his monitoring of Elias’s case, particularly after he had started school at Hogwarts. He had discovered some information about the boy’s living situation prior to becoming a student from the boy’s friends, but they didn’t know much. Tonks, however, was implying she had, in fact, found information about the boy’s previous life.

“The Potter’s will was never read,” Tonks said, trying not to stumble over her words as her former professor turned his gaze to her, ire already beginning to shine in his eyes much as it had when she was a student and made a mistake in class. “It was chaos after their deaths, I know, but their will was opened and never actually read.”

Severus’s frown deepened at the implications. “Do you know who opened it?”

“Yes,” Tonks nodded. “It took me a bit to figure it out, but it isn’t surprising at all now.”

“And do you know what it contains?” Severus said flatly, though his mouth immediately became dry and his heart began to pound.

“Nothing about this,” Tonks said, motioning vaguely to the room. “But … if it had been read … if it had been followed … Dumbledore’s manipulations go far beyond Harry. Far, far beyond.”

A chill crept up Severus’s spine as Tonks stood and began pacing as she gathered her thoughts and figured out how she would present her findings. He had known Dumbledore to be manipulative, but something about the situation had the young Auror flustered and almost fearful.

“If something happened to James and Lily, Harry was supposed to go to live with Sirius,” Tonks continued, taking a deep breath. “But Sirius was arrested the next day for murdering Peter Pettigrew. He was then sentenced to life in prison in Azkaban with no trial. Well, not so much sentenced as left there.”

“He used his yearly letter to reach out to Dumbledore and beg for a trial,” Severus said, nodding. He knew this part of the story.

“A trial Dumbledore refused to get for him, thus removing him from the line of succession for raising Harry,” Tonks said, swallowing hard. “But he wasn’t the only person listed in the will. He was James’s best friend, but Lily wanted to list someone as well. And she chose…”

“Alice Longbottom,” Severus said quietly. Alice and Lily had become close friends as their time at Hogwarts came to a close and had become almost inseparable by the time of graduating. A closeness he had envied greatly as it was how he and Lily had been before fifth year.

“Exactly,” Tonks said, snapping her fingers. “Frank and Alice were next in line to care for him. Even though they had their own child of the exact same age, they were on the list. And not three days after the downfall of You-Know-Who, they are found, captured, and tortured into insanity.”

“Yes, I remember,” Severus said quietly, shuddering at the memory of the trial as it was broadcast around the nation for all to hear.

“Who was their secret-keeper?” Tonks asked abruptly. “It wasn’t known at the time which of the two boys were the target of the prophecy, so both families were in hiding. Who was the Longbottom’s secret-keeper?”

Severus’s eyes widened in disbelief as he looked at the Auror who had stopped pacing the room finally and was staring at his son sadly. “No.”

“He released the charm not even a day after Sirius was caught,” Tonks said glumly. “They must have thought they were still protected when the Death Eaters came to their door, that’s why they didn’t run immediately. That was something that always got me about their case when we studied it in the Academy; they never ran. We were told they stood their ground to fight, which never made sense, but we were told they were brave fighters and it was left at that. I don’t think they thought they had to run; I think they thought they were safe.”

Severus felt as though he were being punched in the gut repeatedly and he could tell Tonks must have felt the same way when she first came across this information. Both parties who were supposed to be in line to take care of his son had been forcibly removed from the list in gruesome ways, though ways which could not feasibly be traced back to Dumbledore. It was genius in a way that made him feel as ill as he did when the Dark Lord was torturing a victim using one of his own potions.

“He took Harry to St. Mungo’s initially,” Severus interjected, feeling the nausea continuing to climb up his throat. “The healer who saw him initially said she saw something dark attached to him but wasn’t allowed to investigate further.”

“He was then placed with his aunt and uncle who were mentioned nowhere in the will,” Tonks continued stoically. “He was completely removed from the magical world and placed in, and I do not say this lightly, an abusive household. He was denied food and a comfortable place to rest, forced to have poor grades, and kept from having friends his own age. Any reports to muggle authorities which were placed on his behalf were never followed up on as his ‘grandfather’ always agreed to take him in followed by a new case worker being assigned. Every part of his life was made to be downtrodden from the time he was placed with them until he got his Hogwarts letter.”

“Then Dumbledore could offer him a way out,” Severus said, his heart sinking in his chest. “‘Play by my rules and you get freedom, refuse and I’ll strip it from you.’ He isn’t the only one being handed this card.”

“I was afraid of that,” Tonks nodded. “The question is, why? Why is he doing this? What is his goal?”

Silence filled the room as they pondered the question, punctuated only by the low whooshing of the various machines attached to Elias. The low hum of the electric lights overhead faintly buzzing over everything.

“Power,” a voice said from the doorway, shocking the wizards. “It’s all about power isn’t it? In your story?”

A young, curly blonde haired nurse said, coming in with a small smile before she turned her attention to Elias. Quickly adjusting a few of the cables and tubes attached to him, she pulled several pillows out from under his side and gently readjusted him to a different position before checking all of the various machines and the drips they were attached to before nodding her head.

“I think I’ve heard this story before,” she said as she opened a few packages of tablets and placed them in a small plastic device, crushing them into a fine powder before adding them to a cup of water and mixing it. “One magician wants the power another one has, but the power is underdeveloped because it's in a child. So the magician steals the child and raises it as his own so the child’s power will develop to its full potential, but the child will also trust him implicitly. So when he goes to steal the power, the child won’t know what hit him until it’s too late.”

Severus and Tonks stared at the nurse in confusion for a moment before turning to each other wide-eyed.

The philosopher's stone, capable of keeping a wizard alive for an extended period of time, had been stored in the castle during Harry’s first year. A basilisk, capable of living on minimal nourishment for millenia, had been found under the castle during his second. Dementors, beings with the ability to remove the souls of another and an unknown lifespan, had been brought to the castle during Harry’s third year. A resurrection, while not on Hogwarts grounds thankfully, occurred just last year. A resurrection which Severus himself very nearly attended.

“This isn’t just about power,” Severus murmured, rubbing his face. “He’s experimenting. He’s trying to extend his life, but to do that, he needs power.”

“He’d need the Hallows as well,” Tonks muttered back. “There’s no way to fight death without them.”

“Whose to say he doesn’t already have them?” Severus responded. “And how do we stop him if he does?”