DISCLAIMER Harry Potter is owned by rich people. I am poor. No brainer, huh?
Keeping It Real
By LostInColour
Chapter One: Clandestine ManoeuvringAdolf Clandestine always sat very upright in his chair.
He was always very upright. It was necessary for him to be, for him to succeed in the business that he was in. People needed to believe that he was a good, moral man, because then they would fund his research projects. They thought that he put their money to finding cures for cancer, lyncanthropy, rabies, and the dreaded DKSR. And it was true: he had put their money into research into cures for these things; in 2024, he had announced to the Global Medical Board of both sides that he had indeed developed a cure for cancer. His studies into the development of lyncanthropy were linking nicely into his experiments with rabies. He had recently crushed all common belief about DKSR.
However, he didn't put all of their money into these projects. His family had been rich before, and he had become richer still during the Muggle wars by developing and selling arms to both sides. This way, he could afford to put his funders money into the things that they paid for, as well as keeping some aside to bolster his own, private projects.
When Adolf had been a boy, his father had drilled into him the necessities of being careful. Careful with yourself, with others around you. Careful with their emotions, with their hopes, dreams and ambitions. Be especially careful when you are always twisting them to your own purposes. Subterfuge had been necessary in the War, and it was a lesson that Clandestine Senior had never forgotten. Everyone may not be your enemy, but everyone can be used. So Adolf learned, and remembered, and practised in secret. Now that he was a man, he was an expert. He had made lying his art form.
It had stood him in good stead in life. Adolf was, by some chance throw of a nature, a rather dashing figure. He was tall and lean, with a head of neatly combed blond hair and striking blue eyes. The affect he had when entering a room was not, as his appearance was, one of chance. He had learnt that walk when he was young, watching old movies of Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, George Bush, Jeremy Brett, Anthony Hopkins. The way that they walked commanded attention, commanded the room. No matter who was talking beforehand, when Adolf entered a room he was the centre of everyone's attention. Even the speaker.
The ability to lie with a straight face and a steady pulse was an ability acquired through long hours of study and practise. Adolf had had himself plugged up to a lie detector that measured everything from his heart rate to his pore width. A man he didn't know had come and interrogated him. He had repeated this test many times over the years, until he was now infallible to all Muggle detection.
Then he studied Occlumency.
This had taken longer, as Adolf found it originally difficult to remove all thought from his mind. However, he was a quick learner, and had patience born from years of failure. As soon as he mastered the blanking of ones mind, he moved onto the forming of false memories necessary to fool a master Legilimens. All in all, it took him ten years to become completely infallible, both by Muggle and magic means. But it was ten years well worth it, for now Adolf knew nothing could stop him in his ultimate goal. For Adolf Clandestine had a dream, as his namesake, Adolf Hitler, had.
Adolf had had a meeting with some of the people funding his lyncanthrope project, nicknamed Wolfgang. These people were all magical, and all rich. He needed their money for his private pet project, as Wolfgang already had all the money it needed. In fact,the project had practically finished everything it needed to do: all that was left was to fully establish the new genetic code and insert it into a potion, tablet or fluid. He was, after all, hiring the best geniuses the world could provide from both sides. He would have them drag out the final stages, so that he would have a few more years to drain money from his "fellow sympathisers". The only problem he would have had with this would have been if there had been any of the old crowd from the War still around, but they were all dead or hiding, forgotten and wanting to forget. No, Adolf could take as long as he wanted releasing this cure to the market.
The office he used to meet potential investors was large and spacious, tastefully decorated and furnished, but not too opulently. He didn't want them to think that their money was being plugged into refurbishment, or else they would stop paying him. There were some quiet touches of class though: the desk was made of teak and the drinks' cabinet was a real Chippendale. All of the beverages where expensive and ancient – the oldest whiskey in there was nearing seventy years. These small things were carefully chosen to make the financiers feel more at home in this businessman's office, as if he was someone on their level of class. As if he was some they could connect with, understand, confide in. Adolf needed this. His charm and self-belief and lies could only get him so far with these people: they needed to feel safe giving their money to him.
Madam Rousifière was a sharp woman, with a brilliant mind that had lead to her making her millions on the property ladder. However, some of her sharpness seemed to have leaked out into her profile: her nose was pointed over-much, and her eyes were small, dark and bright, like that of a bird. Her skin was very pale, almost translucent, due to the extensive chemotherapy that she had gone through when she was younger and the wizarding world had yet to catch up with that of the Muggle.
He would have to be very careful with her. Madam Rousifière had a mind that pierced even the best of liars. But Adolf wasn't the best. He was better.
"Of course, Madam. The work, despite the difficulty and the problems with securing reliable samples to test, is going as best as can be expected – which means, of course, that it is running entirely to schedule. The vaccine, however…" he trailed off delicately, something that the Madam picked up on immediately.
"What about the vaccine, Dr Clandestine? Surely you haven't come upon a problem?"
They were speaking in Latin, which had surprised some of his investors when he had first met them. However, it was the only language that all in the room had in common. Adolf enjoyed speaking in Latin: he found that it was very hard, when one was not a fluent speaker, to use the subtleties of the language to their full advantage – in other words, it was very hard to lie. But that was what appealed to Clandestine, in the same way as sudoku. He enjoyed a challenge.
"Not a problem, as such, Madam Rousifière. More of a difficulty." He placed careful emphasis on the correct words. "You see," he continued, interrupting the Madam before she could speak again, "with things such as the new Werewolf Registration Act as well as the old Protection Act, it is very hard to acquire samples." The topic was probed delicately, as always, for by acquire Clandestine meant kidnap, and by samples he meant human subjects. It was a delicate subject, for many of his investors were softhearted fools who disliked the taste of blood on their tongue.
"If there is a difficulty, Doctor, then I will send you some." Gregore Haschenzweit's harsh Russian accent slipped through even into his Latin. Adolf found it ran somewhat foul of his tastes, but his face showed only quiet thanks as he bowed his head in acknowledgement. Haschenzweit lived now in Romania, and he was well placed to herd some of the thousands of werewolves that no-one wanted and no-one cared about into the laboratories. "There are many in my immediate area who are considered a menace to society. I will be happy to allow you to help rid the world of their -" he stopped momentarily, as if remembering the company he was holding "- affliction."
"Why, thank you, comrade Hazchenzweit. Your generosity will not go unnoted."
The meeting had gone fairly well: he had been promised a further three hundred million (Galleons) in total, with an extra two million given by them in his office, scribbled on cheques that would be sent on to the bank in due course. He couldn't have hoped for more, really: this project had been running almost seven years and, although he had come further than any researcher had come before, it was a very expensive business. In return, the nine investors had received a generous glass of brandy and a promise that their names would be on the plaque that was due to be raised at the front of the building, next to those of the scientists that developed it. He also promised them a vaccine against lyncanthropy, which was what had been keeping his scientists busying for the past three years, after the major work on the cure was done.
All in all, Adolf was happy with how his public work was going. But what he was really concerned with, as he strode long-legged through the corridors of the facility, was what was happening with his pet project, Nirvana. It was this that his attentions had really been focussed upon throughout these long years heading the research for treatments. Adolf had never married, and had no children or other family; Nirvana was everything to him. It was his pride and joy, and was nearing completion. However, recently a problem had emerged. Some of the test subjects had begun to show abnormal side effects to the treatment, and so Adolf had forced his scientists into overdrive. They had spent four weeks working on the problem in total, working twenty-four hour shifts with very few breaks. There had been no complaints: no one wanted to get on the wrong side of Adolf Clandestine. Especially if you were a scientist.
It was to the secure underground bunker that he was going now, to review the progress made by his workers. He needed Nirvana to work; all of the other projects that he had started had failed miserably after very promising starts. Nirvana had lasted longer than all of them put together, and Adolf needed it to work. Nothing was going to stop him. Not now he had come so far.
He was getting agitated. His blood pressure was rising, as was his pulse. He needed to calm down, and so he began to recite the familiar passage to he used to empty his mind ready for intense concentration.
And so I follow you into the night, little soldier, eyes so bright. How little do you understand about what you will find on the barren land that rests between the dreams of reality and the realities of nightmare. You, with your tin hat and oversized boots, with nothing to call your own but your name. You, so scared and crying, whimpering in your own filth as you cower beneath the gun light that fills the sky with new stars that are evil and cruel. You, with your heart so pure and your soul so strong, your will so unconquerable that you are brave. Brave. And I love you so, little soldier, eyes so bright.
It had come from a book that Adolf had bought in a rundown, second-hand store on Baker's Street, called "The Cry of the Void". The author's name had been lost to the ravages of time, but Clandestine had made the book his own, and used it regularly in his stimulus work. It was the very title of the book that inspired the codename for his project: nirvana, meaning nothingness. He knew the entire work by heart, and was able to select separate pieces for his purposes, whatever the moment may call for.
Keep dreaming, Child of Ages, for the end will never come to dreams. Nightmares end, someday, with the coming of the dawn that men treasure so much. Dreams never end, for dreams are the hopes of men and men are nothing without their hopes. And hope is the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torments of man. So dream for me, Child of Ages. Dream Sakura dreams.
The lift was a service one, not one of the plush, elegantly decorated ones that the investors used to travel to and from the fifty-third floor which was home to Adolf's office. This lift was plain, simple and functional. He liked that about it. He pulled out his key, which was attached to his belt by a strip of nylon fabric reinforced with rope, slotted it into the security lock and turned. Pushing in at the same time, the lock slid smoothly inward to become level with the panel, and Adolf pushed the button for the bunker. The button was easily told apart from the others on the columns: it had no labelling features. Nirvana – nothingness.
The greatest fear of man is both equal and opposite to his greatest desire: he must know both to overcome them, and know neither to remain sane. Once a man knows both of these things, he can have no need to know more: and as the main purpose of existence is to acquire knowledge, the knowledge that there is nothing more is fatal to any. However, a man may know one and not the other and still remain a man, for he may have interests in discovering the other.
In human nature, there is a fail-safe procedure that allows us to believe that we are searching for knowledge whilst we are really trudging in circles. Life itself is cyclical, although the first man to accept that will be the first man to die. Some knowledge is best not gained, for something's are too terrible and too wonderful to know. Some things must remain hidden, secret, safe
Adolf Clandestine was named after the great Adolf Hitler. They shared a common element, though not the one that Adolf's father had wished to see in his son. They both shared a dream that consumed them, one that took up every possible ion of their being as they fought to see it fulfilled. But where Hitler failed, Clandestine would succeed. He believed that Hitler's failing was in his making public his beliefs: he may have turned millions to his cause, but he had no chance of operating covertly once under the public eye. Clandestine, however, was able to do anything he so chose. He had both the influence and the affluence to see anything he wanted done, and he used this to great affect in his work.
Adolf Clandestine had a dream, and he would see it completed, even with his last breath.