*Discontinued* No Longer

Initial Confrontation

Harry Potter**

Then it slipped off completely, taking with it any hint of color from his skin.

Harry stared into the eyes of the liar, the one he'd been plotting vengeance against for years. There was. . . an aura around him, one that even without actively seeking he could sense it was so powerful and- and- evil. Inherently bad.

With his face bloodless, he looked to Theo, also an aura reader, and asked, "Theo," but not really. His voice was too quiet to make out, so he tried again, "Theo?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you use your 'special skill' on Dumbledore?"

"Why?" the other boy asked quizzically.

"Just. . . Humor me, would you?"

"Sure but- Merlin's beard Harry! What's wrong?" the blue eyed boy exclaimed, finally noticing Harry's pallor.

"Please, check the Headmaster."

Young face crinkled into lines of worry, the child turned to face Dumbledore-who-was-not-Dumbledore. He concentrated, and Harry sensed his friend's magic gathering. His own shoulders tensed as he watched the boy's face, but- nothing.

Nothing showed on the other boy's face, except mild confusion.

"Harry? I don't understand. Why did you ask me to check him?"

Eyes widening so much that the whites could be seen all the way around, Harry turned back to face the- thing, inside Dumbledore's form. If Theo couldn't see it, not sense anything off about it, it must be truly powerful.

With fear tapping a staccato rhythm in his chest, he swallowed and focused his energy on the being. It had an aural body, a conscious form, and a physical body, specifically Dumbledore's. There was no soul, which Harry knew meant Dumbledore must be dead, and that this thing controlling his skin was not human, wizard, or any natural Earth-born being.

It also didn't have a magic signature, which meant it couldn't be a demon, or a creature born of magic. There was no. . . he couldn't even put it into words. All he knew was that it could think and feel, but nothing further.

Wary, but needing to know more, Harry dove inside of himself, to that internal area where he could access vast reserves of power. He imagined opening it, and pulling a line of it directly into himself. Thus strengthened, he approached the conscious form, or its mind. Surely he could preform legilimency.  After all, in all his time, he'd never met anyone he couldn't read.

Arrowing strength into a beam of thought, he sent it flying towards the thing's mind. It bounced off harmlessly. 'Dumbledore', who, prior to Harry's assault, had paid him no mind, suddenly focused all of his attention on Harry.

Fire was in those eyes. If he looked deep, which he couldn't help doing, it was like a lure drawing him deeper and deeper into it, an impossibly powerful electromagnet. Then it grinned at Harry, as if saying, 'gotcha!' and he felt his own mind being barraged.

He'd never been attacked like this before. Never with so much power behind it, never in a manner he was helpless to fend off. He was pummeled repeatedly by powerful blows. He had to devote all his energy to simply patching up weaknesses in his defenses and to making his mind a locked vault.

What sort of creature could even be capable of something like this? Harry was so focused on internal concerns that he didn't register his physical body falling to the floor, curled painfully into a fetal position with his arms over his head, muttering, "No, you can't have my memories, you aren't allowed there, get out," and more phrases that amounted to the same thing.