Title: Torn to Ribbons
Author: InferiorBeing
Main Pairing: Draco/Harry
Side Pairing(s):Ron/Hermione(minor), Ginny/Harry(one-sided)
Rating: PG-13 or T
Warnings: homosexuality/heterosexuality, fantasy violence, spoilers for "Deathly Hallows", NOT canon to "Deathly Hallows" epilogue
Disclaimer: InferiorBeing in no way claims to own Harry Potter, the characters or plot of Harry Potter, and does not make any profit from writing/posting this (except the pleasure she gets from reviews).
Secondary Disclaimer: Likewise, InferiorBeing in no way claims to own the characters of Axel, Roxas, and Zexion. She is merely borrowing them so that she does not have to make her own OCCs.
Summary: Seven years have passed since Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort, and now – as an Unspeakable – he is given an assignment that forces him to confront feelings stirred in the war that have long lain dormant. He must retrieve Draco Malfoy, preferably alive, at any cost.
Author's Note: As it will soon become apparent, I did take the epilogue to 'Deathly Hallows' and chuck it out the window...
Chapter One: The Folder
The small manila folder flopped carelessly onto Harry's desk, as innocently as an inanimate object could, but Harry didn't dare touch it. After a moment, the person who'd dropped it on his desk sighed and drawled, "Considering you seem to want some alone time with it, I'll wait for you in my office, shall I?" He was out the door before Harry could respond, not that Harry really knew what to say.
Alone in his office again, Harry eyed the folder. It was thin – only about an inch thick. Normally, by the time folders arrived at his desk, they were bursting at the seams, so many reports of other agents squashed together that it took Harry at least a day to sort out all the facts. This one was – by comparison – almost eerily thin. Thin folders meant one of two things: either Fred had taken one look at the assignment and assigned it to Harry, or whomever Fred had assigned it to in the first place had died in such a horrific way that Fred had decided to let Harry have a shot at it.
Either way, it was a clear warning that it was something big.
Then again, Harry reminded himself, what wasn't big in his job? He was, after all, an Unspeakable. And Fred had already proven, time and time again, that if an assignment was something he wanted Harry to do, it was something that only Harry could do.
Meeting Fred, Harry's boss, had been an… experience. Harry could remember their first meeting vividly. No one had told him what to expect exactly; in person, Fred had looked a lot less intimidating than Harry had been led to believe by the man's reputation, but the man still held a presence that demanded respect.
Fred was big, over six feet in height with limbs that resembled tree trunks. He had dark hair and eyes that sparked liked whip cracks when angered. He'd greeted Harry in gruff terms, explaining that he was only interviewing him – no more, no less – and he had every right to throw Harry out if he wanted to.
That had been more a formality than anything else. They both knew that there was no way he could throw Harry out, but Harry had nodded as if the threat actually held weight all the same.
Halfway through the interview, Harry realized that Fred was only worried that Harry might want to steal his job. After all, Harry Potter probably wouldn't want to take a lower field job and allow himself to be bossed around by a gruff, middle-aged wizard, no matter how long that same wizard had been successfully leading the Unspeakables.
Once Harry had subtly made it clear that he wanted to be an Unspeakable and not lead the Unspeakables, Fred had given him a ragged impersonation of a smile and said, "Welcome to the Web, kid. You'll fit in just fine."
The Web. That's what they – the Unspeakables – called their job, if asked.
I'm an Unspeakable, they would say, I work in the Web.
And Fred was the one who pulled all the threads. Harry didn't envy him his job – not now, not ever. He didn't think anyone could do what Fred did as well as Fred did it.
The Web was designed to handle what that the Ministry could not handle with the people that the Ministry could not control. Any and all assignments for the Web were delivered to Fred, and it was his job to assign them to the Unspeakable who most fit the assignment. He rarely got it wrong, because it was a foregone conclusion that incompatibility with an assignment got that Spider killed. He'd only been wrong once in the time that Harry had been an Unspeakable – nearly five years now – and Harry had been the second Spider to get that case.
This was why that one option for this folder's size – that the other Spider had died and Fred had re-assigned it to Harry – was a particularly daunting one.
Harry was a difficult Spider to assign cases for, and Fred made sure he reminded Harry of this repeatedly. Being who he was – and being as his scar refused to stay hidden unless under the influence of Polyjuice Potion – he couldn't do much undercover work, if any at all. Polyjuice was all well and good for disguising himself, but there were some problems with it that made it impractical for him to use while on an assignment. For one, he had to become somebody else – someone who already existed. That person would have a background, which could be discovered by people with the right connections. It would be incredibly difficult not to blow his cover if they started poking around. More importantly, Polyjuice was timed. Undercover Spiders rarely had standard working hours. If he missed taking the potion, he would be in big trouble.
So Fred only assigned him to cases where he wouldn't be undercover. Sometimes it was because Fred knew he would need his notoriety to get the assignment done. Sometimes it was because Fred would be sending him in to bring in a particularly nasty wizard. In either case, normally some Auror – or even another Unspeakable if it was a particularly bad case – would handle the case at first and do the undercover part. Then Harry was brought in to finish the job.
Again, it made the state of the folder very suspicious. No case bad enough for him to be assigned to it had that little information attached to it.
Harry wasn't the only one who had realized this and didn't like it. Axel – the other Unspeakable who worked in this office complex – had been very quiet this morning, which was highly unusual for him.
Harry had met Axel only a little while after he'd become an Unspeakable. He'd first seen Axel from behind and had nearly run up and asked what the bloody hell Ron had done to his hair… before realizing that he was in the small Unspeakable complex in the Ministry of Magic, and that Ron couldn't possibly be there.
Axel looked a lot like Ron with a horrendously bad hair day. His flaming red hair was always spiked and messy, which clashed horribly with the crisp wizard robes that they were all required to wear while in the office. He was tall – almost exactly the same height as Ron, only a few inches taller. But he was thinner than Ron, as if his muscles were knotted cords adhered to his bones. He had no freckles, and he was louder than both the Weasley twins had been together.
Harry had liked him immediately. Which had been a good thing, because only two Unspeakables were allowed to have offices in the same complex for security reasons. The Ministry of Magic already had more than Fred liked of the Unspeakables gathered together, considering that the small complex held not only Harry and Axel's offices, but Fred's office, as well, and Intel.
It was the hub of the Web, and that was why Harry had to be stationed there – Minister's orders. Fred had cursed a wide streak when he'd read that particular message, which had Axel whistling in admiration. One of Axel's hobbies was pissing Fred off, so anything that made him curse like that was admirable.
Axel was often that Unspeakable who did the undercover work for Harry's particularly bad cases, and he was good at it. He blended in well with the dregs of society –those who often had the most useful information. Of course, it helped that he could out drink them all.
That was how Harry had gotten to know him; Axel had taken him out for a drink after 'office hours', as he called them. It had been a strange conversation. After all, they couldn't talk about work. They also couldn't talk about their friends and family, because they were Unspeakables and only the fewest, most trustworthy people were allowed to know the intimate details of friends and family.
That had changed – at least for Harry – after his first really big assignment. Axel had apparently, because Harry still wasn't too sure of the details, been assigned to a case rooting out the leader of a group of dark wizards who called themselves "The Hands of Fate". He'd walked out of the office chortling over the incredibly stupid name on a Friday, leaving Harry in stitches with some of his wittier puns.
On Monday, Harry had been shown into Fred's office to see the Head of Intel waiting, which was never a good sign. Harry had then been handed a slip of paper which contained the number for a room in St. Mungo's and a three line address as Fred had barked at him that he was being ordered to take a day off of work and make sure that Axel got home safely.
Harry still didn't know how Axel's mission had blown up – or even what the mission specs truly had been – but Axel was lucky to escape with his life. He'd been barely coherent when Harry had arrived, muttering about how he had to get home because he had to make sure Roxas was ok.
Axel lived in a small house, just outside the city. It was the first time Harry had been given such personal information about Axel. It was also then that he met Roxas.
Axel had been barely able to stand, yet he insisted that he had to walk to the front door himself. Harry'd compromised with him and half-carried, half-dragged him to the door. He was fumbling with Axel's key when the door slammed open.
A short blond stood in the doorway, scowling at Axel and Harry. But his eyes were a worried stormy blue as he took Axel from Harry without a word to either of them, carrying Axel inside and nearly slamming the door in Harry's face.
Axel was back in the office a week later, and – since the damage had been done and Harry had already seen who Roxas was – Harry learned more about Roxas and Axel than he ever thought possible to know.
Roxas was Axel's boyfriend of five years. Axel had gone to school in the States, and Roxas had gone to Darmstrang. They'd met during an exchange program and, as soon as Axel had graduated, he'd moved to London to be closer to Roxas.
Though Harry had to wonder how one found the guts to do that, considering Roxas had apparently hated Axel at the time. Their first meeting had not gone so well. But Axel had, either stupidly or bravely, stuck around and worn Roxas down while completing Auror training. He'd then joined the Unspeakables because he found being an Auror too boring.
Axel was, Harry surmised, one of those 'loose cannons' that the Ministry had a lot of trouble controlling.
And apparently Axel had dogged Roxas everywhere. Roxas was an Auror, though specifically he was a Medi wizard who worked in the Aurors. They'd gone through training at the same time, and Axel had done anything and everything he could think of to get Roxas' attention. Each story, as Axel progressed, was more and more amusing to Harry, as Axel had really tried everything to please Roxas.
Which had been an uphill battle to begin with, because Roxas' personality was one of being eternally not pleased with life in general. But something Axel had done had apparently worked, because one day Roxas had demanded Axel move in with him. Axel had given it all of a second's thought before agreeing. Not that he had had much to agree to, Axel pointed out, since Roxas had demanded it and not asked it of him.
Axel did eventually get around to introducing Roxas to Harry formally, and the three of them had gone out for drinks. It was a truly bizarre experience. Harry had watched, flabbergasted, as Axel had fawned over Roxas the entire time, the blond sitting there as if none of Axel's attentions meant anything to him in the least. And Axel didn't fawn over anything, at least not like that! Yet, it obviously was a more than common state for Axel to be in, as Roxas seemed wholly nonplussed about it all.
One would think Roxas didn't really care for Axel at all, purely from the way he acted. Harry, too, had doubted it. But then Axel had told him about why Roxas remained in the Aurors.
Roxas was originally slotted to become an Unspeakable. He entered the Aurors simply to train so that he could then enter the Web. He came from a long line of Unspeakables, and he was proud of his lineage as such. But then Axel had come and, in one fell swoop, whisked all that away.
Roxas had declined to become an Unspeakable because of Axel. He knew Axel wanted to be an Unspeakable because he simply wasn't cut out to be an Auror. Anyone could see it - Axel just couldn't work in the system. But the Web did not allow two Unspeakables to have a relationship. There were too many risks involved already in the job of an Unspeakable to add the stress of worrying over a loved one in a harmful situation. There was too great a risk that one Spider would do something rash if a loved one was in danger.
So Roxas focused on another area of training and bluntly told Axel he was an idiot if he didn't apply to become an Unspeakable, because he'd never make it as an Auror. Roxas had then gone on to become one of the most esteemed Medi wizards in his age group, instead. Working as an Auror had proven both satisfying for Roxas and it gave him the free time he needed to come to Axel's rescue if Axel ever needed extraction from a potentially volatile situation but Fred couldn't send another Unspeakable in.
And that had – apparently – happened more than once.
It was hard to reconcile the image of Roxas who all but ignored Axel when he sang his praises, with the other image – the Roxas who'd reshaped his life for Axel. Harry could see it though, every Tuesday.
Roxas didn't drink. Ever. But every Tuesday, without fail, he and Axel met Harry at the pub almost half way between their house and Harry's flat for drinks. He would sit and drink his one glass of water the entire night as Harry drank his normal few beers and Axel got ritually smashed. Axel would get louder and more and more affectionate as the night went on, and Roxas bore it stoically, as if enduring a penance for some sin he had committed. Then, when Axel finally passed out and Harry was again sober enough to apparate, Roxas would gently tuck Axel into the Floo system and take him home.
It was a strange dynamic, indeed, but somehow it worked.
It also gave Harry something to talk about when he visited with Ron and Hermione. It was hard to have a conversation with them when he couldn't talk about his work – where there were details that just couldn't be shared with anyone else. Last names, for example. Fred, Axel, – even Zexion, the Head of Intel – Harry knew no one else's last name. Harry was probably the only Unspeakable whose last name was known by everyone else, and under normal circumstances he wouldn't have been allowed into the Web because of it. But he could tell Ron and Hermione about 'Axel the strange co-worker', because Axel always was in trouble with someone over something stupid and it helped to break any awkward tension that came up during their conversations the first few weeks after his induction into the Web.
Ron and Hermione had reacted predictably to Axel. Ron had thought he was a right bloke and sounded like a good friend to have at one's back if you needed him. Hermione thought he was childish and impulsive, but her eyes shone with a smile, even as she frowned when Harry regaled them with Axel's latest Roxas-induced misfortune.
It was too bad, Harry thought, that he really couldn't introduce his friends to each other. It was unheard of for Spiders of the Web to know other Spider' friends or to be friends with them – which was what he was sure would happen if he ever introduced Axel and Roxas to Hermione and Ron.
It did occur to Harry that Axel and Roxas were, in fact, very much like Ron and Hermione, respectively. And he even brought it up to Axel one day, but Axel had looked at him like he was crazy and muttered, "the hell's wrong with that?" so Harry had shrugged and dismissed the notion as unimportant.
Because, really, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't all that important. He had Ron and Hermione, and they would always be closer to him than friends – more like family. And then he had Axel and Roxas, who took him drinking every Tuesday and treated him as if he wasn't Harry Potter: Defeater Of Lord Voldemort, but Harry: one of Axel's coworkers who put up with his strange antics.
Despite Axel's behavior, Harry would be the first to say that he wasn't really all that strange. Strange, as a title, belonged to the Head of Intel, the man who'd given Harry the diagnosis that St. Mungo's had made of Axel after that assignment literally blew up in his face, the man who had just dropped Harry's newest assignment on his desk.
That in itself sent off warning bells in Harry's mind, because Zexion's job was to write up, file, and send such folders to Fred. When the Ministry wanted something done about someone or something, the request was sent to Zexion by whomever was concerned enough to call in the Unspeakables. Zexion then consulted the vast databank of the Web and made up a case folder, like the one he'd carelessly dropped on Harry's desk, though these folders were normally a lot thicker. This case folder was then given to Fred, who decided where it went before it was carried off to the Spider assigned to deal with it. It was not Zexion's job to carry the case files to the Spider in question – even such a high-profile Spider as Harry.
What it meant when Zexion carried a file into Harry's office was simple: he'd been in Fred's office because Fred had needed to discuss something about the case with him, and Fred had oh-so-casually told Zexion when their meeting was through that, since he was in the neighborhood, he could drop it off with Harry when he headed back to Intel. That Zexion had been called into Fred's office to discuss the case was the problem. It only happened when there was some aspect of the case which was very dangerous – something that even Fred would stop for a moment and seriously consider.
Zexion had only delivered a file by hand to Harry once before, and Harry would never forget that case.
On the surface, it had been about a drug ring in Berlin which seemed to have ties to a dark wizard sect in London. What Harry had discovered, only once he'd gotten to Berlin, was that it wasn't a drug ring at all, but an assassin ring, and the dark wizard sect involved was The Hands of Fate. But, in Berlin, they had been calling themselves "Neo Death Eaters".
Harry had almost needed extraction from that case. And it had been close to blowing up on him more than once. But he'd managed it – with a lovely set of loopy scars over his left shoulder to show for it.
Harry didn't want to know why Fred called Zexion into his office for this case, he really didn't. Fred could barely stand to be in the same room as Zexion – another reason why the points of discussion between the two of them were always over hugely important or dangerous details.
Zexion accomplished – merely with his presence – exactly what Axel constantly strived to do: piss Fred off to no end. Fred referred to Zexion as "that nancy boy over in Intel". While Axel probably acted more flamboyantly than Zexion ever would, Axel at least looked like he could take care of himself. Zexion was thinner than Axel – thinner also than Harry – tall and slender, with almost feminine features. He was also a metamorphmagus, like Tonks had been, and – as such – the color he preferred his hair to be was a slate blue.
According to Axel, the first time Zexion met Fred, Fred had gone ballistic and tried to get him kicked out purely because of his hair. But Zexion had been too good for Intel to let go, even as an adjunct. During his first week as Head of Intel, when he'd finally worked his way up through the ranks, he wore his hair a different shade of blue every single day – just to make a point to Fred – before settling on his 'normal' shade of slate blue. When Fred had demanded to know why he couldn't settle on a normal color, Zexion had blithely replied that it matched the color of his eyes – which it did.
According to Axel, there was a rather large betting pool set up as to what color Zexion wore his hair when not in the office – if it was indeed some normal color, or if it really was the slate blue. Of course, such betting was foolish because no one in the Web would ever see Zexion outside of work, so they would never know. But Harry personally bet that Zexion really did like it slate blue – remembering Tonks and her crazy hair colors.
Zexion had none of Tonks' coordination problems – he moved as if each step he took was carefully calculated for maximum effect. He rarely spoke. When he did, it was in a quiet, serious voice. He was anti-social, even for a member of the Web and especially for the Head of Intel, but he also seemed to know just about everything that happened to wizards and muggles alike in the world outside the Web. Harry supposed that was his job, but Zexion always carried an air of someone who knew it all and was disappointed that he couldn't learn any more. Zexion could also find out anything about anyone. In fact, most Unspeakables began their cases by sending Zexion a list of questions that had come to them when reading their case file. If he didn't know, he only asked for twenty-four hours to obtain the information. Normally, he had the answer in twelve.
And, despite Zexion's looks, he was cunning and ruthless on the very rare occasion that he went into the field. He was the Head of Intel, after all, and not a Field Spider like Harry or Axel, but he could still hold his own in any match of physical prowess on a good day, and he could out duel anyone other than Harry any day.
Zexion, though a lot quieter and calmer than Axel, was probably another one of those 'loose cannons' that the Ministry couldn't control.
But people like Zexion and Axel were why Harry was here in the Web. He had tried to be an Auror, and he didn't have the problems with the system that other Unspeakables seemed to have had before joining the Web, but he still didn't fit in. He was too powerful and too famous, even if he could take orders from someone else. Because of who he was, he was incompatible with almost every partner they'd tried to give him, and it unnerved even seasoned Aurors to give orders to Harry Potter. So he'd gone to where there were people on par with him, where he would have to use all his skills to defeat Zexion in a duel or where he could only win two out of three arm-wrestling matches with Axel on their lunch break. He'd gone to people like Fred, who had no problem telling him exactly what he needed done in no uncertain terms and didn't want to coddle him or cater to him because of his history.
And it was his job as an Unspeakable in the Web to handle any case that Fred dictated he handle, even if it was hand-delivered to him by Zexion.
He'd been putting it off for long enough already. Zexion had left his office a good five minutes ago.
He flicked open the file and read the summary of the mission parameters.
Objective: Locate and retrieve one Draco Lucius Malfoy. Alive, preferably. Dead, if necessary.
Additional Notes:
(1)Axel, Roxas, and Zexion – This note is aimed only at readers who are either wary of these characters or recognize what fandom they are from. If you are not one of those readers, please feel free to ignore this note. First of all, anyone who has read my other stories – specifically "Fantasies of the Open Mind" – knows what I do when faced with the need for an OCC character who has a somewhat major role to play: I grab characters from other fandoms, strip them down to their personalities and appearances, and insert them into the story. This way, I avoid any Gary/Mary Sue problems. Why did I need OCCs for this fic? Well, it was a choice between a rock and a hard place – I either put in OCCs as Unspeakables, or I subscribe to the cliché that all of Harry's friends follow him to his choice of work. Obviously, I picked OCCs over cliché plot schemes. Axel, Roxas, and Zexion all come from one source, Kingdom Hearts 2. If you don't like that video game, or have never played it, don't worry; as I said, these are the bare bones of the characters – just their personalities and appearances. There will be no crossover from KH2. If you have played that video game and love it, please realize that these are the bare bones of the characters – just their personalities and appearances. There will be no crossover from KH2 – they are in the HP fandom, so they are wizards (no keyblades will be making appearances… no Heartless, for that matter, either). And, to tell you the truth, they aren't the main characters – Harry and Draco are (one could even stretch that to Hermione, Ron, and Ginny). I'm only using them because I needed them.
(2) How major will these OCCs be? – Not very. As I said in the previous note, I'm using them because I needed characters that JKR didn't provide – i.e. not Harry's best friends or year mates. They have their parts to play, but they will not overshadow the "real" Harry Potter characters. They are merely additions, added for advancing the plot. Hopefully you will enjoy them. If you don't… my apologies; please don't force yourself to read the fic.
status: beta'd by Ayeshah Harvey-Lomas