Harry Potter: Lethal Injection

Chapter 3: Deranged Divinity (Part 1)

Authors Note: Hello my lovely readers, assuming there are any of you left. We are back from the cliffhanger I left you on last time, I would say I won't do it again, but honestly, I like cliffhangers and they work well with my writing-style so it's probably happening again. On a less cheery note, I have to relate something that will likely cause a great number of delays to this story: my mother was recently diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I'm not writing this because I'm looking for sympathy or condolences, I just want to explain in advance why future updates will most likely be sporadic at best. I am still committed to completing this story, and hopefully continuing the series into the later books, but I can't guarantee when future chapters will be posted. Now that that's out of the way, on with the -hopefully more enjoyable- story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Venom or Harry Potter.

Before they had fallen a dozen feet, Venom's superb reflexes had sent their arms flashing out, flowing away to either side until his claws dug deep into the ancient stones of the underground chamber they had fallen into, bringing them to an abrupt halt. Once they had time to get their bearings, the pair looked around the chamber they had inadvertently accessed from above. The space, to any normal human, would've been pitch black, but Venom's superior sight rendered the massive chamber in a dull gloom. The first thing the duo noticed was that the chamber was enormous, it was easily thirty feet across and a hundred feet long, lined on both sides with megalithic stone columns carved to look like enormous reeds.

The far end of the chamber was taken up by a massive and intricately carved slab of black stone, a full fifty feet high and almost as wide as the chamber itself. The walls were decorated with innumerable carvings painted in reds, blues, and greens, although in the darkness even Venom was unable to pick out the details of the reliefs, and the floor was made from cyclopean blocks of stone inlaid with carvings of a mighty river. The walls and columns were all set with torches in intricately carved stone sconces, but all of these were, unsurprisingly, unlit.

Ok, Harry thought to Venom, once they had fully taken in their surroundings, I know this looks bad, but We can just climb back up and out the way We came, right? As he spoke, they looked up to see an unbroken line of smooth stone above their heads: the hole they had fallen through had sealed shut behind them.

"Yeahh," Venom said slowly, his voice sounding strangely loud in the silence of the underground chamber, "I don't think that's going to be an option."

Well, We can just smash through it then, I know it's not ideal but I'm sure Dumbledore will be able to repair it when he finds us. Harry was reluctant to damage a historical site that had been ancient when his ancestors were first learning to construct crude wooden huts, but it paled in comparison to his reluctance to be trapped in an underground chamber.

"Works for me." Venom agreed, his voice carrying none of the reluctance of his host. "Besides, whatever presence is putting us on edge, it's much closer now. I think it might be down here with us." As he spoke Venom was crawling along the wall toward the ceiling, doing his best not to damage the priceless and irreplaceable carvings that decorated each stone block.

Thank you.

"You're welcome," Venom responded smugly before saying, as they reached the patch of ceiling where they had first fallen into the underground chamber, "Now for the fun part!" Pulling back, Venom sent one of their massive fists crashing toward the solid stone block that made up this section of the ceiling with all the force he could muster, the impact sent vibrations thrumming through the stone like the world's largest, and least useful, tuning fork, but when Venom pulled back the stone was completely unharmed. Undeterred, Venom pulled back again, striking the ceiling even harder, the force of the blow dragging their claws through several inches of solid stone as they were driven back down the wall. Yet, still, the stone of the ceiling remained undamaged.