"Hold him!"
Freya's voice cracked through the room of the safehouse, sharp with a panic that bordered on hysteria. It was a sound rarely heard from the eldest Mikaelson sibling, a woman who had survived a thousand years of Dahlia's tyranny, well, at least not something she liked her siblings hearing from her, as she always tried to put up a bold front for them.
Kol, Hayley, and Rebekah moved, pinning the thrashing Elijah to the floorboards as blood poured out of his missing arm.
Elijah, the most composed and stoic, was currently a mess of frantic motion and guttural, agonized sounds. Blood pooled beneath him, soaking into the wood and staining the floorboards a deep crimson.
"This should not be possible…" Freya whispered, her hands hovering over the horrific sight of his right shoulder. Her magic was trying to mend the bone and knit flesh, but it seemed to slide off the wound like water off oil, refusing to heal her brother.
As much as she hated Esther, she knew that the spell their mother had used to birth the Originals was a masterpiece of immortality. It didn't just make them fast or strong, it made them unkillable. Their bodies were made to be that way, unkillable, unbreakable, and certainly not capable of being killed by anything other than the White Oak.
In a millennium of her family's problems and warfare, they had been staked, burned, and desiccated, but never had a limb been truly removed. Yet, Elijah lay there with a missing arm, a smoky golden energy that hissed against Freya's magic.
"Come on, Freya! Do something!" Rebekah screamed, her own hands stained red as she tried to keep Elijah from rolling. The sight of her "Noble" brother reduced to a screaming heap was tearing her apart.
"I need more power!" Freya snapped, her composure shattering as she realized her own power was hitting a wall, it wasn't enough. She needed more to heal her brother. "I need something to channel!"
Hayley didn't hesitate. She left Kol to manage Elijah's torso and thrust her hand toward the witch. "Channel me. I'm a hybrid, I can take it."
Freya gripped the hybrid's hand, her fingers digging in like talons. She drew deep, pulling on the potent magic of Hayley's blood.
The surge of power was violent, it even shook the air in the room. Freya's nose began to bleed, the crimson drops falling onto Elijah's chest, and Hayley's knees buckled as her very life was siphoned away to fuel the restoration spell.
For what felt like an eternity, the room was filled with the sound of Elijah's screams as Freya did her best to heal him, the wound fighting back every step of the way. Freya was even afraid that she wouldn't be able to. But she shook her head and focused on healing him anyway.
Finally, a small wisp of golden, thread-like light flickered around the edges of the wound, then it faded away like smoke.
Elijah's body jerked one last time, and then the natural regeneration kicked in, and with the help of Freya's spell, bone sprouted and calcified in seconds, muscles braiding together like silk thread, Flesh wove itself from nothing, skin sealed over, leaving the limb perfect and unscarred.
Freya collapsed, gasping. Hayley dropped beside her, her skin deathly pale and her veins visible as dark tracks beneath her flesh, breathing as if she'd just run a marathon.
Silence fell around the room.
"What was that?" Kol asked, once everything looked to be okay, his voice trembling as he stared at the perfectly new arm on his brother. "Who the hell was that man?"
In the corner of the room, Keelin, chained and exhausted, watched the scene with a small, dark measure of glee. Why shouldn't she? These people had kidnapped her, used her as a venom tap, and broken every promise of freedom they'd made.
Seeing them in such a state was the only justice she'd seen in weeks.
"What happened?" Rebekah demanded, turning on Kol and Hayley. "You were supposed to get Niklaus! Why was Elijah dismembered?"
"Kol picked a fight," Hayley spat, leaning her head against the wall to stop the world from spinning.
"Hey, don't put this on me!" Kol defended, though his eyes lacked their usual spark. "He was suspicious! For all we knew, he could have been working for Marcel."
"And he was leaving, wasn't he?" Hayley growled. "He was literally walking out the door. But no, you just had to try to kill him."
"Enough!" Rebekah yelled.
"He's powerful," Freya said out loud, her eyes on Elijah's body.
Rebekah turned to Freya. "We have faced powerful witches before, this should not be different, right. Tell me about this witch. Is he one of the Ancestors' puppets? Some new regent?"
Freya looked up, her eyes wide and bloodshot. "No. I don't think you understand." She pointed a shaking finger at Elijah's arm. "This should not have been possible. We have fought witches channeling the power of a hundred dead ancestors, and not once have any of you lost a limb. Not even Dahlia could have done this. She could snap your necks or desiccate you, but your physical form was always protected by the spell Esther used to make you into vampires. Your bodies are not supposed to be able to be ripped apart like this."
She traced the new arm with her fingers. "And the healing... it should have been easier than this. But his magic was preventing it from healing on its own." Her voice dropped to a terrified whisper. "If I'm right... Then this man can kill you. No White Oak needed. A single spell from him could just stop your heart."
That seemed to scare them.
Back at the bar.
Marcel roared in fury, kicking a heavy chair across the room where it splintered against the wall. "They got away! Again! Right in front of my eyes."
He spun around, his fangs still partially bared, the venom itching in his gums, ready to vent his rage on the man sitting at the counter.
"Think about your next move very carefully, Marcellus."
Harry didn't even turn around. His voice was low, devoid of heat, but it carried a weight that made the air in the room feel like lead. Marcel froze mid-stride, the sheer pressure of the man's presence making his heart hammer against his ribs.
He took a long, shaky breath, forcing his instincts back. After seeing what the man just did, he'd be stupid to try and piss him off.
"Why did you let them go?" Marcel asked, stepping closer but keeping a respectful distance. "You had them. You could have ended the Mikaelson threat forever."
Harry raised his glass lazily. "Why should I have put in the effort? I'm not one of your men, and I'm certainly not interested in your problems." He reached out and picked up Elijah's severed arm, waving it at Marcel with a sharp, amused smirk. "Besides, I got a parting gift for their rudeness, didn't I? So I think I'll accept their apologies."
Marcel stared at the limb before He sighed, reaching over the bar to grab a bottle for himself.
"So why are you really in New Orleans?" Marcel asked. "I don't buy the 'accident' story. Nobody this powerful just 'trips' into a city."
Harry raised a brow. "You have some serious trust issues, man. But unfortunately for you, it's the truth. I was looking for a quiet vacation. I had zero interest in your local drama."
"Had?" Marcel caught the shift in tense immediately. He was a king, he was used to listening for the hidden meaning in words.
Harry turned slightly, his grin widening in a way that didn't reach his cold green eyes. "Had. Now, I find myself interested in Freya Mikaelson. A witch of her caliber is a rare find. Someone who actually understands the architecture magic. I'm curious to see what she has learned over the long span of her life."
He looked down at the arm. The faint magical aura of the Original curse was fading from it. "Fascinating."
He didn't know why it lost its magic, but he had some guesses. But the closest he believed in was that the moment the main body regrows the limb, the magic in the severed piece dissolves.
Marcel didn't know what Harry was finding impressive in an arm, but he understood something from what was said.
He tensed, his hand tightening on his bottle. "So you're going to help them? You're going to give them the edge they need to take my city back?"
Harry gave him a look that made Marcel feel like a very small, very insignificant insect. "I have no interest in your city. My interest is in knowledge. If she's smart, she might even learn something from me. If she's not…" His smile sharpened, revealing teeth that seemed just a bit too bright, too numerous for some reason. "Then she'll regret ever meeting me. Death is the least interesting thing I can do to someone, Marcellus."
Harry tossed the severed arm to Marcel. The vampire caught the limb as he gave Harry a raised brow, questioning why?.
"Keep it," Harry said, standing up and dusting off his shirt. "Might look nice on a wall. Or a warning. Though knowing the Mikaelsons, it'll just make them more annoying. They have a pathological need to be the victims of their own stories."
Before Marcel could blink, the space where Harry had been standing was empty. It was a little creepy. He looked at the arm of the one he hated the most and couldn't help the smile that graced his face.
Maybe the witch was on to something. Having the severed limb of an original would strike fear into a bit of people.
Back at the Mikaelson compound, the mood was somber as the family tried to regroup. They were debating their next move to free Klaus. Hayley had already said she was tired and was going to spend some time with her daughter.
Leaving them to try to workshop the next plan to free their brother, when a sharp scream pierced the air.
"Hayley!" Elijah, now fully healed but still pale and leaning on a cane he didn't technically need, was the first one out the door.
The Mikaelsons rushed out of the room, all ready to fight, only to stop dead in their tracks.
The scene was so domestic, so utterly normal, yet it was terrifying.
Sitting on the floor in the center of the room was Harry. He was leaning comfortably against a velvet sofa, casually flipping through a stack of colored drawings with a small, red-headed girl.
Hope by the side, watching him as he went through the drawings.
Harry tilted his head, studying the crayon art. "Not bad."
Harry smiled, a genuine, soft expression that looked entirely wrong on the man who had dismantled her uncle an hour ago. He patted the little girl's head gently, his fingers brushing against the hair of the world's most powerful supernatural being with a terrifying casualness. "Good imagination, kid. You've got a spark."
Then, he looked up. His green eyes, which seemed to hold the cold light of distant stars, locked onto the four legendary monsters standing in the doorway.
"Ah," he said casually, his voice echoing in the stunned silence. "I figured you'd all be couped up in the back by now, telling scary boogieman stories about me."
No one moved. No one even breathed. Hope looked at her family, then back to Harry. "Do you know my uncles?"
Harry's smile turned sharp, like a razor blade hidden in a silk cloth. "We've met. They're very… questionable. They have a habit of reaching for things that don't belong to them."
Elijah took a step forward, his jaw set, his new hand trembling slightly. "Get away from her."
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