Harry Potter and the Serpent Slayer

Chapter 6: The Goblet

"I wanna fight- I wanna kill Death Eaters-"

Ron's face was contorted, his face smeared with dust and dirt and ash as he shook with rage and grief.

"Ron, we're the only ones who can end it! Please- Ron- we need the snake, we've got to kill the snake!" Hermione was pleading.

But Harry understood Ron's pain. He could feel himself shaking as the memory of Fred's body was sealed into his mind forever. His fists clenched, and nearby he saw a longsword that had probably belonged to one of the suits of armour that had been enchanted to defend Hogwarts. He too wanted to fight, to punish those that had killed Fred, those who dared to hurt his friends. He wanted them to pay.

A scream tore through the air as more giant spiders crawled through the holes. And they were coming straight for them. Ron and Hermione were quick to react, casting spells at the monsters. Ron even let out a roar of rage, tears streaking through the mess on his cheeks. Their was no sign of fear as he fought against his worst nightmare, and seeing that Harry snapped.

The acromantulas were almost upon them. Harry didn't think his next actions threw. As two of the spiders pounced on them, he picked up the fallen sword and with a bellow, swung the blade. It cut right through the spiders' faces, slicing their fangs and mandibles clean off while bisecting their heads at the same time. They dropped dead in a shower of pale green goo and the others were dismantled by Ron and Hermione, forcing what was left of them to retreat once again.

"Harry! We have to find the snake!" shouted Hermione. "Can you look inside Voldemort's mind?"

It was almost too easy to do it at this point. Finding out that Voldemort was hiding in the Shrieking Shack with Lucius Malfoy, Harry pulled himself back into reality once more and nodded. "I know where he is," he said.

There was a brief argument between the three of them over who would go and kill Nagini, but they were cut off when two masked Death Eaters arrived. Just like when he killed the spiders, Harry didn't even think before he found himself charging towards them with the sword, roaring at the top of his lungs. The sword should have felt heavy, but he was full of so much adrenaline that he might as well have been holding a feather. The Death Eaters were too stunned by Harry's aggressive charge that their Stunners went way off course and before they knew it he was bearing down on them. One of them barely had time to utter a sound before the sword cut deep into his shoulder, slicing through fabric, muscle and bone. The Death Eater screamed, but he was cut off when Harry ripped the sword out of his body and kicked him over.

The other Death Eater yelled in shock and tried to fire off another curse, but Ron was quicker and disarmed him. Spinning around, Harry felt positively feral as he swung the sword yet again. This time the blade sliced clean through the wizard's neck, sending his head flying through the air in a shower of blood. He body dropped to the ground and Harry turned to face his friends, both of whom were shocked at the display of ferocity by their best friend.

"No more- no more of this," swore Harry, breathing heavily, "we fight our way through the castle to get to the Shack, and we kill any Death Eater that gets in our way."

Harry woke up with a jolt, breathing hard just like he had been in that dream. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, then sat up in his bed. What the hell was that? It felt so real but Harry knew it could only be that, a dream. And yet, there was something about it that clawed at the back of his mind, telling him to pay attention to what he'd just seen.

This wasn't the first time Harry had a weird dream. Most of them had been about him by himself, wielding a sword that looked remarkably like the Serpent Slayer and using it to kill monsters and Death Eaters. The memories were... horrible to say the least. Harry still hadn't recovered from the dream where he'd gone into a place called St Mungo's for two whole days and slaughtered an entire horde of zombie-like creatures that had once been the hundreds of patients, Healers and medi-witches. Harry had woken up and puked in the bathroom for a solid twenty minutes after he woke up from it. The worst of those dreams and that one in particular had been how Harry felt in them. It seemed this dark, twisted version of himself had actually enjoyed all that killing in his dreams. He'd relished in slicing Death Eaters or sympathisers in half and loved to torture his victims as he got closer to Voldemort. There was a sadistic streak to this Harry that, fuelled by the rage of something that the real Harry didn't yet know but nonetheless still sickened him.