This story was inspired by this line in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: "One of the Death Eater's ran for it, scrabbling like a monkey up the stone steps opposite. Dumbledore's spell pulled him back as easily and effortlessly as though he had been hooked with an invisible line-"
J.K. Rowling wrote that sentence, not me.
I've been writing this for the last day, and to tell you the truth I'm rather sick of it by now, and in no mood to read it through again. So there will be mistakes, please do point them out and I'll correct them.
The first bit of the story are set in the Department of Mysteries when Harry and the Order of the Phoenix are fighting the Death Eaters.
I hope you enjoy, and please do review. I know some peopledon't know what to say (myself included) so a simple "Great" or "Terrible" would be most gratefully received, although longer reviews would make me dance around my kitchen and make me very happy!
Dumbledore can see someone attempting to escape. He does not hesitate to stop them, but then he spares a glance at the man, and sees he is familiar, a former student of Hogwarts, and he hates it when he sees that, it makes him feel like a failure. The man takes Dumbledore back many, many years, to a castle shrouded in moonlight and a little boy who had gotten lost.
"I have to say I disagree, Minerva. The safety of our students must be considered before anything else. Closing Hogwarts is absolutely-" Albus Dumbledore breaks off when Minerva McGonagall makes a shushing motion. She draws her wand. "I thought I heard something," she whispers. They stand for a few more moments, but nothing appears, and it's late, it's the start of term and they are hurrying to the welcoming feast for the Sorting and it's 1975 and Voldemort is terrorizing the Wizarding world as they speak, so they leave it, and walk on, continuing to argue about the proposed closure of Hogwarts.
The students are hungry and tired, Dumbledore can feel their agitation as he walks into the Great Hall and takes his seat. They are not in the mood for any great speech about the state of the country: that will have to wait till tomorrow.
Minerva picks up the hat, and draws out her list. Before she can say the first name, however, a voice calls out, a little nervous. "P-professor McGonagall, it's my brother, I can't see him, and he's meant to be being sorted."
Minerva looks at the speaker. He is Ned Atkinson, Fifth Year, clever boy, a little outspoken at times, the hat had no hesitation putting him straight in Ravenclaw.
"Mr Atkinson? Do you mean to tell me your brother is missing?" it is said coolly, for Minerva knows how unlikely it is Ned's brother is really lost, he is probably just hidden in the thicket of students, and will any minute come out.
But a First Year now says with some shame, "I was with him, on the train, but when we got to the grounds I lost him, and I thought I'd just see him in here, but I haven't and I think he really is lost and it's all my fault!" The girl finishes and it is clear she is over emotional and distraught.
"Don't fuss, we'll find him." Minerva says, and she hands the hat to Professor Flitwick, and as she walks out she can hear him calling out the First Years.
She first glances around the Entrance Hall, and then she remembers the noise she heard earlier, when her and Dumbledore were talking, and maybe it was just the wind, but maybe it was a sniff or whimper or stifled sob. She returns, and there, partially hidden behind a tapestry of medieval wizards, is Kurt Atkinson, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
His sorting is a Hogwarts legend, akin to Sirius Black's, who went to Gryffindor after centuries of Black's in Slytherin. After all the drama, everyone watches as Kurt ascends onto the stool, trembling fiercely. They watch as the hat is placed on his head, they watch as it talks to him for a minute or so, and they watch as it pronounces him a Slytherin.
The Slytherin table is in uproar: they are jeering and shaking their fists. The Hufflepuff's shake their heads; the Gryffindor's regard Kurt differently, as an enemy now, not as a small eleven year old child who is now crying silently. The Ravenclaw's are stunned into silence. Ned talks about his brother a lot, they are obviously closer than most brothers, and from what Ned says it was clear Kurt would be a Ravenclaw. Ned sits there in shock as Kurt is prodded towards the Slytherin table and later he stands in Dumbledore's office with Kurt sitting next to him, and Dumbledore doesn't know what to say because the enchantment on the Hat is old and powerful and its orders come from the founders themselves: there is nothing Dumbledore can do.
The fact remains that Kurt Atkinson is the first Muggle-born in one thousand years to be placed in Slytherin. The first child was the catalyst for the fracture of the founders and the great fight that followed: it is said the walls themselves quaked during Slytherin and Gryffindor's argument.
Kurt grows up, and quickly. He cries himself to sleep every night and is mercilessly teased. It is not only words: fists often fly and Kurt learns to slip out of the common room before dawn has broken and go to bed early when everyone one else is having tea. He is too scared to complain to the teachers, and Slughorn acts like he doesn't know what to do with him anyway. The other teachers are sympathetic, but there is a war going on outside Hogwarts' walls and one unhappy but safe boy is not at the top of their priorities. Kurt is made to understand he will never be a Slytherin by the other Slytherin's but the other houses see him as one and do not accept him either. Ned defends him, and as a result gets into fights every day and he loses all his friends and Kurt just doesn't want to make it worse and so whenever Ned asks after him he lies and pretends like they all ignore him. And they do. Mostly.
One day he just has had it and the next time someone calls him a Mudblood, he shouts and screams and tries to curse them. Of course, he is stunned before he can even draw his wand, but he learns his lesson. Kurt keeps his head down for the next three years, he watches his fellow housemates, and he works hard at his lessons, he gets top marks, and he grows taller and becomes, if not intimidating, certainly not someone not to mess around with. The Slytherins who so tormented him in his first year have left, gone to fight a war it is obvious they are winning.
Kurt begins to hang out with the wrong people, and it is almost as if his blood status is cancelled out by his duelling skills and knowledge of Dark Arts. He is proud when he hears the 7th year Slytherins, who are halfway out of Hogwarts already, say the Dark Lord is interested in him, but he still feels a twinge of some emotion, knowing that once upon a time that would have disgusted him. Sometimes, he even permits himself to laugh that the people who talk so passionately about filthy little Mudbloods and their inferiority actually hang around with him.
Ned confronts him one day in the Easter holidays. After Hogwarts, Ned went on to Auror training, something that came as no surprise to anyone. Ned will soon be out in the world fighting evil, only Kurt knows of course it is not that simple. Ned only wants to talk to his brother, but Kurt isn't interested and Ned ends up with a split lip and Kurt a black eye before Ned walks out. They know without saying so it is the last time they will talk. As he walks out, Ned remembers the little boy
It is 1980 and Kurt Atkinson is almost 17 years old when an old housemate of his sends him a letter. The last yeas have changed him: before he would watch as his friends bullied other students but then he found out that violence banished the M word (which was only really said in a whisper by then anyway), violence made people look in admiration at him, and Kurt knows that if you're in Slytherin, there's really only one path open to you after graduation, no matter what that old fool says, so he embraces the Dark Arts in all their perverse glory, and by now he is such a good dueler no one dares ask outright why he is fighting for pure blood supremacy. When Severus Snape writes and invites him to Lucius Malfoy's mansion, he accepts immediately, and he never tells anyone that Voldemort says Kurt reminds him when he was that age. His parents are not even mentioned.
Not for the first time, he thinks of the hypocrisy of this. He supposes it is because he is a Slytherin. Kurt finds it funny how a decision by a hat when you're eleven years old has the power to change your life. He doesn't think they sort too soon: he thinks they shouldn't sort at all.
It is 1981 when Voldemort falls, and it is 1981 when Kurt, having lost everything, goes to his childhood home and kills his parents. He is so blind with rage he doesn't even attempt to cover it, and the Ministry, pleased they don't have to go through the struggle of proving him a Death Eater, lock him away in Azkaban for the rest of his life. Because of Ned, there is a small mention of the murder in the Daily Prophet. Nobody really cares apart from Ned, who fought so hard against Voldemort, who was one of the only ones to think about the price peace had cost: he knew James, had worked with him before he went into hiding. Ned commits suicide two days after his parents are buried.
Kurt can scarcely believe that Voldemort is back. He, along with the Wizarding world, believed him gone. The Death Eater's loyalty to the Ministry is waning but it isn't gone yet, and it is only because of Kurt's remarkable magical talents that he can escape.
The Ministry hush it up, and anyway, as Fudge says to the Daily Prophet editor, "There was never any proof he was a Death Eater, he was in Azkaban for killing his parents, terrible of course, but not news that anyone is interested in."
Kurt is not at the graveyard: he never got a Dark Mark. He may have been a Slytherin, he may have been supremely useful to the Dark Lord, he may have been as close to a Death Eater it is possible to be without having the mark, but he is still, ultimately, a Muggle born and it is never discussed but Kurt always feels that is the reason why he never gets a Mark.
Kurt is at the Department of Mysteries. He went to Voldemort in the end, knowing just because he didn't have a mark didn't mean Voldemort had forgotten about him. With Lucius Malfoy leading, they stalk the corridors, looking for the Potter boy who the Dark Lord is so sure will come. Then they find them, and it looks like a mission well executed until the children get away, and Kurt is terrified what the Dark Lord will do if they are allowed to get away, but then they find them again, and it looks like it's over when the Order of the Phoenix arrive and Kurt is hit by a curse that paralyses one of his legs.
Everybody else is focused on surviving and fighting, and no one notices him as he limps over to the stairs, dodging and ducking the bursts of light. He climbs the stairs and is almost at the top when Dumbledore's spell sends him flying backwards.
Kurt cannot be sure, but he thinks he hears Dumbledore say "I'm sorry," as he lays stunned on the floor after being thwarted in his escape.
Kurt knows that it is not Dumbledore preventing him from escaping that he is sorry about.
He goes to Azkaban again. It is not long before the Dementors leave, and he escapes, and this time the fight outside is won, Voldemort gains control of the Ministry and when they are called to fight at Hogwarts Kurt has no doubt who will win the fight. He did not doubt they were winning as he died, killed by Remus Lupin who was, incidentally, a friend of Ned's.
No doubt at all.