This story is dedicated to the loonies on the FFN bulletin board who are demanding more Harry Potter fanfic because Digimon has more fanfics. Well, you immature fools, here's one more fic for you. Don't whine if you don't like it.
Short and sweet...the plot bunny bit [what plot bunny?
this doesn't even have a plot!] while I was watching The Partridge
Family and wouldn't let go. This is based on my old story, Last Call
for the Sun. The Innerworld seemed so cool, an asteroid that has
a space-ship drive and holds the court of a disgraced creator God...
"That graveyard looks cool," Harry muttered, half to himself, since he didn't really want to get up off his seat on the low stone wall.
"I wonder if there's ghosts there?" Ron asked.
"I hope that was a rhetorical question," Harry said, laying back on the smooth top of the wall.
"I'm curious," Ron said. "Let's take a look."
"There's probably some obnoxious undead relative of Malfoy's wandering around in there," Harry said. "I'll stay here."
"Coward," Ron taunted.
Harry couldn't take being called a coward. He got up off his spot and followed Ron over to the graveyard.
Ron was studying a tombstone already by the time Harry caught up to him.
"Hey, look, Harry!" Ron said excitedly. "There really are a whole bunch of Malfoys here."
"Great," Harry muttered. "If there's dead ones here, the live one probably isn't far behind."
"Would you stop being so pessimistic?" Ron asked. "It's getting on my nerves."
"I can't help it," Harry said. "This place is creepy."
"It's supposed to be," Ron said with a long suffering sigh. "It's a G-R-A-V-E-Y-A-R-D for Pete's sake!"
"I don't like walking on Malfoy's ancestors," Harry said. "They were probably Dark Wizards."
"Wimp," Ron said. "I think there's some dead Muggles buried over there. They won't curse you for stepping on their graves, if that's what you're worried about."
Harry followed Ron's advice and began studying one of the Muggle tombstones. The lettering was old and worn, so Harry had to use his fingers to make out the words. Below an eroded heraldic shield bearing a boar, he could feel nubs of letters.
Muttering out loud as he tried to make out the eroded name below the crest, Harry was oblivious to the world. Until a hand shot up out of the dirt and grabbed his ankle.
Harry fell flat on his back in the grass. Someone was rising out of the grave that he was standing on. He wanted to run back into Hogsmeade and find some of the other Hogwarts students, but he couldn't seem to move.
The man who emerged was smeared with dirt. He had long, wavy hair, light brown in color and was wearing an open shirt. His face might once have been very handsome, if it were not so very sad. A second man emerged from the ground behind Harry. He too was smeared with dirt and had much the same expression on his face. The second man had long dark hair in a similar style, and his eyes were dark where the other man's were gray. Their faces were similar, so Harry surmised that they were somehow related.
Both men looked, well, faded. As though they had been left in the sun too long and their colors bleached.
"Who are you?" Harry asked. "What are you?"
"We are a warning," Shaun said. "Our day in the sun passed, and we were left to rot. Popularity isn't everything."
"We are memories, loose on the world and gaining substance. As we are now, so too shall you be," David said. "Wait, wait, and they will let you fade too."
"And then you too will be a faded phantom, waiting to ruin someone else's day," Shaun said, a wicked grin on his lips.
The two lost memories of Shaun and David Cassidy leaped up in the air and grabbed Harry, dragging him down into the clotted soil of the cemetery. Harry tried to scream as the fetid dirt closed over his head, but only got a mouthful of mud.
"Say goodbye to the sun," David hissed as the mud blotted out the Hogsmeade sky.
"Harry?" Ron called as he looked up. "Hunh. I could've sworn he was right there. I guess he got creeped out and went back to the village." Ron turned around and left, though he could have sworn he heard a whispering voice.
"Forget....forget.... But we remember...days of glory..."
Harry landed with a thump in the middle of a large vaulted cave. Hundreds of creatures, lost specters, roamed about in a similar state to the two men who had brought him here.
Four thrones sat along one wall, resting on a raised platform. Shaun and David sat in two of them, looking much more solid and real, and two more were occupied by similar-looking men. One man was shirtless and had fluffy blond locks. The fourth had long, wavy blond hair and wore a closed black shirt.
Behind each throne was a yammering mass of rather indistinct specters. All had the same face as the man in the throne, but each was slightly different. Some wore different clothes, or had a different haircut.
"Answer me!" Harry yelled. "Who are you?"
The four enthroned men looked at him. "We are the Four Kings of the Innererworld. This is our domain to rule."
The man in the open blue shirt, one of the two who had grabbed Harry, looked at him. "I am Shaun, lord of the Netherworld and King of the Northern Star."
The dark-hair who had helped Shaun capture Harry spoke next. "I am David, scion of the Ages and King of the Southern Cross."
The fair-haired man in the black shirt was next. "I am Mark, Son of the Morning Star and King of the Eastern Sea."
Last was the fluffy blonde without a shirt. "I am Leif, heir to the Darkness and King of the Western Desert."
"Quiet!" said a commanding voice from behind the thrones. "I don't think that what you are telling him is what he needs to know." The four thrones slid aside, two to the right and two to the left, revealing a fifth throne.
The chair was black obsidian, with a fantastic gargoyle leering from the back. The carvings were heavy and Gothic in design, older than old. The figure resting there was nothing short of fantastical. The face had exotic, Asian eyes, with slitted cat-pupils and blue irises. The nose was long and straight, and the sharp point of his chin matched his pointy nose. His body was lean, but heavily muscular. His hair was long, straight and black, confined by an elaborate silver headpiece. The face did not move; it resembled a perfect, ageless, porcelain mask.
"I am the Cat God," he said. "The darkness is my realm, ever since I was cast down by my own child who took over as creator, that damnable Horus-Diaus. But I still create, in an endless war to reclaim what is mine. These four Kings are really the lost youth of four actors, given life and breath at my will. They are my Shades of the Seventies, and I am quite proud of them.
"I turn no one away from my sanctuary, and they serve me well. Some of my other servants include Lord Voldemort...he was rather a failure, I must say. He never managed to make it to my sanctuary here, in the Cavern of the Ages, on the Innerworld, before the power to open it was lost to him. I have closed it to him now, because he disobeyed the first rule of my service-do not attack other creatures of the Cat God. He is rather a pathetic fool."
"What?" Harry asked. "Are you telling me that YOU ordered Voldemort to attack me?"
"Oh no, my dear boy, no," the Cat God said. "He wasn't supposed to touch you or your family. After all, I created the Potters. But, Voldemort, being the egotistical fool he is, wanted to prove his worth by attacking a powerful wizard and his family." The cat god spat. "I have had to deal with that meddling old wizard that Horus created contaminating every one of my new servants. I had hoped to keep you out of Dumbledore's clutches, but I failed with your father and I failed with you."
"What?" Harry was thoroughly confused. Right and wrong had abruptly switched places for him. "Are you trying to say that Voldemort was a good guy?"
"He was, Harry, he was," the Cat God said. "But, I gave him free will, and he used free will for the wrong ends. But it's too late now, Harry. Voldemort did Horus' work for him, sending you to the care of Dumbledore and removing you from the potential ranks of my servants."
"Then why have you brought me here?" Harry asked.
"For the simple reason that you must not live to serve Horus," the Cat God said. "You contain a piece of the power that I give to my servants, and he can't have that. I'm sorry, I tend to enjoy the sound of my own voice a bit too much. I mean to say that you must not be used by Horus. You are in the Pivotal Plane, where the central warfare takes place, but when any one choice is made, a new plane is created for the other option of the choice. In those places, I send another of my servants to take care of you."
A shimmering image of a female cat-creature with batlike wings and a human face appeared. She carried a vast array of weapons and a shimmering mirror. "This is Aura. She's a bounty hunter who can travel from plane to plane, and she can do a more than adequate job of removing you from them. But, here I will deal with you myself."
"Deal with me how? I've got no wish to die," Harry asked. "Look, what if I help you?"
"A Horus-trained one help me?" The Cat God began to laugh. "No, you're going to be out of the picture in the battle between me and my son. Bringing you to the Cavern of the Ages was their idea, actually." He gestured at the shades of the Seventies. "I just was going to take your powers so that you'd be nobody's pawn."
Shaun made a motion with his hand, and the cloud of yammering specters who wore his face abruptly expanded. The constant eerie sound of their half-understood speech grew louder and they spread toward Harry.
The Cat God looked at Shaun, then concluded his statement. "But the Shades wish to kill you...some little scuttling reason of their own, I'm sure...and they serve me well, so I let them have their way."
Harry backed up, away from Shaun's army. "What are those things?" he asked Shaun.
Shaun smirked. "My pets. Memories, actually. My Master gave them substance, then gave them to me. They are memories of me...memories of Shaun Cassidy's youth. Her memories." He pointed to a woman chained on the wall. "She was a lowly follower of Horus...one of your wizards who Dumbledore trained. My Master steals the memories of the men she loved in her teenage years and gives them life to serve me, my brother David, Leif, and Mark."
Harry looked up at the manacled woman in the alcove. He thought he'd seen her before...maybe in Diagon Alley while shopping for school supplies, but he wasn't sure.
"Harry!" she cried out. "I'm so glad to see you're alive. You look just like your father, rest his soul. Harry! Don't you know me?" The last was a pained shriek.
"Mother?" Harry asked. "But you're dead!"
"Not dead," Lily murmured. "Not dead. Alive and powerless, thanks to the Cat God. Harry, this battle is terrible and strange, and both the Cat God and Horus are ruthless in it. I can't last much longer...Shaun and the other Shades are draining me."
Shaun slapped Lily and then shoved her viciously back into the alcove. "Stay silent, wench!"
"I loved you..." Lily sobbed. "I loved all of you..."
"Yes, well, if you loved us, you'd help us," Leif said, "instead of fighting us." He placed his hands on either side of Lily's head and took a deep breath, his body gaining in radiance.
Mark ran to Leif. "Leif! Why didn't you tell us that you were weak?" he asked.
"I knew..." Leif panted, "...knew you could handle this fool by yourselves, but my Memories were beginning to lose coherence...I thought I could hold on longer, that I wouldn't have to feed now, when there's business to be done. I know I'm the weakest of us."
Lily lashed out feebly with an unchained foot. "Stop feeding off my life energy, you monster!" Her foot bounced off Leif with a sickening smack.
Shaun's smile was predatory. "You gave yourself freely to us before," he said. "You can't physically harm us now, not now that our bodies have formed from the very life that you gave us."
"No!" Harry shouted. "She's my mother! You have to let me-" He was cut off as what felt like cold, wet cotton was jammed into his mouth. Harry looked down. Two of Mark's specters, one bloodied and bearing mismatched eyes, the other fair and clothed all in white, had grabbed him.
"You misunderstand," David purred. "We don't have to do anything for you. You're here to live and die by our will. We won't feed off your life energies, don't worry. You don't have the memories of us that we need. But we will kill you."
Lily sagged back into her alcove, dangling from the wrist manacles since her smashed feet could no longer support her. She sobbed softly, mourning Harry. Her face was deadly white and her body looked more skeletal by the moment.
"I warned you four. She won't last much longer, and before she dies, we must find a replacement," the Cat God said as he stood up from his throne and walked into the alcove. Harry saw that the Cat God's legs were those of a panther, black and furry, and his feet were really paws. His blue silk loincloth moved in invisible breezes.
The Cat God put his hand to his perfect white face. His long silver claws made faint ticking noises as they brushed the smooth white flesh, which suddenly became rigid, no longer alive. As Harry watched, the perfect human face came away, revealing the face of a cat with slitted yellow eyes, and in his hands the puma-creature held a porcelain mask.
As the Cat God turned toward Lily, holding out the mask, Harry saw that one whole side of his face was scarred and hairless. He chuckled dryly. "Yes, Harry, the sunfire that Horus has can scar even a god. That's why I have the mask, and over time..." He shrugged. "The mask has gained its own powers, one of which is healing." He placed the mask over Lily's face and the tortured woman screamed.
Harry tried to lunge forward, but one of David's specters was twined about his legs. He tripped, but Mark's two servants still held him upright. During this moment, while he was off-balance, the four Kings moved in to surround the Cat God. Now, they were seated again, floating, supported by the yammering clouds of lesser wraiths, the lost Memories.
Shaun was the first to leave his seat, and the moment his feet touched the marble floor, David and Mark twitched their hands. This was evidently either signal or command, because the three Memories holding him abrupty released and floated back to their masters. Leif, David and Mark sat back, resting comfortably against the clouds of Memories beneath them. Shaun's specters flared up into an ominous cloud, nattering amongst themselves, and trailed the King of the Northern Star as he walked toward Harry.
"Now, Harry, we'll have our vengeance," Shaun said. "We were forgotten, and you sit around, the toast of the town. Someone insults you, and people will beat that one down for you. But us..." Shaun's face wracked with a pain that welled up from deep within him. "Someone mentions us favorably in conversation, and our faithful friend is put off with mocking comments."
David's face twisted. "I have my few faithful defenders left. One of them is just 16, devoted to the youth of David Cassidy--me! And she mentioned me at a party, talking to some of her friends. They laughed at her...her friend's mother looked her in the eye and asked her how she could love a "drug-raddled fool" like me!"
"You drive our memory ever deeper, lost in the seas of time," Shaun said. "Here, in the Cavern of the Ages, I was rescued by the Cat God when Shaun Cassidy cast me aside. I watched him become an old man without me as he accepted aging as inevitable. It was wonderful, to be given life and flesh here, and to find my brother as I had known him years ago, before the world itself forced him to age and cast aside the youth he had. Soon, we were joined by Leif and Mark."
"But we were weak," David said.
"Look, I didn't mean to hurt you," Harry said, backing away in panic. "I don't even understand what you're saying that I did to you that you hate me this much. Or why you're telling me all this."
"We tell you this," Leif said nastily, "to rub in the fact that we have power here and you do not. That we are in power over you, and it feels so good."
"We were weak," David continued, "until the Cat God brought her...your precious Mum, Lily Potter. She had adored all of us, the youths of Shaun Cassidy, Mark Hamill, Leif Garrett and David Cassidy. And that gave us the Memories, to serve us, and someone who had known us before we were cast aside, which meant that we could draw off her life force to help us solidify our bodies and keep from dissipating completely."
"We like to gloat, Harry Potter, since you're causing people to forget us," Mark said. "The memories of people are what keep us alive. For us, this is self-preservation."
"It is for our dignity," Shaun said. "So no one can call us drug-raddled and old, and think only of how Shaun, David, Mark and Leif now look."
"We want people to forget you, after you have died, so that we can watch you fade away like the fad you are," Mark said. "Once your body dies, you will be a wraith, less even than one of our Memories." He stroked the head of one of the Memories holding him up, a beautiful, long-haired one dressed all in sandy tones. "And as people forget you, there will be nothing for you to feed upon, and slowly, you will disappear, and it will be as though you never existed."
"I don't know about you," David said, "but I'm done talking."
The other Kings of the Netherworld nodded.
Suddenly, it seemed to Harry that either Shaun and the other Shades, along with the Cavern of Ages, had suddenly grown a lot bigger. Or, he was shrinking. Either way, he was now only about a quarter of their size.
Shaun reached down and grabbed Harry about the middle. Harry's hands and feet didn't quite reach the firm, cold flesh of the giant hand, and when he tried to bite, he didn't even scratch the skin.
"Hey Leif!" Shaun yelled. "Catch!"
Shaun reared back and let Harry fly. For Harry Potter, the effect was something like a roller coaster-one that hadn't been safety tested at all. The Cavern of Ages whirled by him in a blur, and strangely enough, he noticed that his mother, too, had grown. Harry realized that his second conclusion, that he had shrunk, was the correct one.
"Harry!" Lily screamed, as her son flew through the air.
Leif spun around and caught Harry. "Nice pass, Shaun!" He said. "Hey David! Heads up!" And this time, Leif lobbed him like a hand grenade. And the world spun wildly around Harry again.
David caught Harry with his hands behind his back. "How's that for a move?" He asked rhetorically, then chucked Harry like a football at Mark. Harry just let it happen. He was done fighting. Now, Harry Potter hoped that these four mad Shades of the Seventies would just get it done with and quit throwing him around. He could feel bruises blossoming all over his battered body. His glasses were gone after Leif's throw, so the Cavern of the Ages was a great black and brown blur to him.
Mark was showing off, belting out the chorus of a strange song. "New things come and..." He caught Harry "and old things go!" He chucked Harry against the craggy wall of the cave on the word 'go', and Harry bounced out again, heading for Shaun's gut. Harry felt his leg snap and send fiery pain shooting up the left side of his body.
"But all things look the same to Joe," Shaun took up the song and scooped Harry easily out of the air. He then proceeded to toss Harry straight up. Harry was afraid that he'd be impaled on the stalactites dangling from the ceiling, but the viciously sharp stone left only a cut across one of Harry's arms. For an instant, Harry wished that he'd been impaled and that the pain would end. But he thudded into David's hands, wrenching his elbow.
"Wars go on," David deliberately dropped Harry, but didn't drop the tune. For an instant, Harry hoped that he could crawl away and somehow escape the Four Kings, maybe beg help from the Cat God. "And some folks die!" On the word 'die', David's boot smashed solidly into Harry, breaking his ribs and smashing the wind out of him.
David's kick sent Harry back at the basalt wall of the Cavern of the Ages. Harry knew that this would be it; he was struggling to breathe, and the gurgles and iron taste told him that he was bleeding internally. His life flashed before his eyes, the torments of Number Four, Privet Lane, recieving his Hogwarts letter, and recieving the House trophy all replayed for him.
"The rest forget the reason why..." The song was finished out by a bass voice which could only be the Cat God. Harry opened his eyes to find himself floating, inches from the black wall. His glasses levitated up and placed themselves on his face, and he slowly fell to the floor, where, with every breath, he wheezed up blood onto the floor.
"What are you doing?" Shaun snarled as he whirled around. "You promised him to us!"
"Horus's forces are on the move," the Cat God said, his yellow eyes almost invisible. "Horus' allies are more important for you to concentrate on. You can finish him later."
David looked disappointed, but cracked a knuckle and shrugged. "I suppose, " he muttered.
Shaun shoved Harry into the alcove with a cold toe that stuck out of the front of his battered leather sandals. The Shade's icy flesh sucked the heat out of Harry's body and inflamed his wounds. Harry screamed, then choked it back as he saw his unconscious mother, her wild white hair soaked in sweat, slumped in her chains. The Cat God's porcelain mask still adhered to her unconscious head.
Leif and Mark grabbed manacles from the floor and clapped the cold, rusty iron about Harry's wrists. He was left laying on the cold floor, bleeding and feeling weaker by the moment. Then the horrorific scarred face of the Cat God loomed over him. His silver-clawed hands held the porcelain mask that he'd removed from Lily. Harry shied away from the snowy, still face, but even that movement tortured him, and he was forced to lay still.
The Cat God clapped the mask over Harry's face. "We must leave now, to face Horus," he said. "This will take care of the pain for you."
"Yeah, we don't want you to croak before we get back," Leif taunted.
The moment the mask contacted his face, it felt to Harry as though fire was ripping through his veins, and he screamed again. He'd expected more ice. As he lapsed into the comfort of unconsciousness, he heard Shaun's voice taunt him. "Accept this, Potter, that this is your existence now."
***
"What happened to you two?" Minerva McGonagall asked as Ron and Hermione tore into the Three Broomsticks.
"Harry ... disappeared .... cemetary..." Ron got out.
"I'll have to speak to the headmaster about this. There's some bad things in the cemetary here. You two, come with me."
Albus Dumbledore sat at his desk, enjoying a squash sandwich, when McGonagall barged in. "Albus," she said, "I think we've got trouble-Harry Potter is missing. Innerworld stuff. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are outside, they can tell you about it."
Albus sighed. "It would be so much easier if that old fool gave up his pretenses about ruling. He was old and cruel, and Horus, well, he was well-chosen to be the God of the Celestiary. Educated and all. I suppose that he'll have to be notified that the Cat God has Harry back."