Harry Potter and the Heir

Summary: A young thief finds his way to Hogwarts in search of the dark wizards that kidnapped his half-brother, a half-trained wizard. A Harry Potter crossover with The Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Warnings for profanity, violence and sexual references.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Harry Potter series, or the characters of Mildmay and Felix and many elements and people from their pasts. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, while Mildmay and Felix are characters from a very very well written, intriguing and INCREDIBLE series by Sarah Monette, "The Doctrine of Labyrinths" consisting of the books "Melusine", "The Virtu", "The Mirador", and the forthcoming "Corambis". I hope that you go read those books as they are some of the best reads I've had in a while. The first four chapters of the second and third books are available online at her website.

Chapter 1

Mildmay

I'm not entirely sure how I got to this strange place. It's full of children and magic, the combination of which frankly scares the shit out of me. The château is also far too large, and the space within larger still. And it is haunted by fantômes. I try to hide from them best I can, but even when they are looking right at me they didn't seem to care. Guess they have all the fresh live meat they can hope for, and they don't give a fuck about one more scrawny little brat.

The kids all wear the same black uniforms, and even outside of uniforms most of them dress like bourgeoisie bastards, so I keep mostly to myself, hiding from them in empty rooms and alcoves, long forgotten hallways covered in dust. It ain't all that hard for me, 'cause I'm used to not being found. I'm still afraid one of them will see me and point me out to one of those creepy hocus-adults that I see from time to time. I found the kitchens easy enough, and it's a cinch to get food from them. The weird little fairies don't even care so long as I ask for it. The hardest part is at night. I sleep most of the day since that's when the kids are most active. That and there's a couvre-feu at night, so I gotta keep moving or the warden and his chat will find me, and they'll know I ain't no hocus.

It must-a been the tenth night that I saw her. She was ignoring the couvre-feu, just like me. I thought she was an idiot for it, but it gave me something to spy on. And she was a beau, red hair, just like mine was without the dye. I could tell something was very fucking wrong with her though. Her eyes were empty at night. I fucking RAN after I saw her take the dead chicken and write something on the walls with its blood. Hope she's okay. It ain't her fault somebody put a spell on her. Of course that put all the hocuses on edge, and I had to hide in the walls that night. Not sure how I pulled that one off either. One minute I was staring at her being all batfuck crazy with the chicken, and the next I heard footsteps and found myself on the other side of a wall. The space was just large enough for a kid maybe twice my size to fit.

Once I figured it out, that trick became one of my favorites. It meant I could roam the halls in the afternoon, and have a safe place to sleep whenever. It meant I could look at her. Ginevra. My English ain't good, but it was improving as I listened to the kids, picking out a few of the louder voices to focus on. Her friends called her Ginny, short for Ginevra. And it was beautiful, like her. Voice in the back of my head says, "Elle serai entraîner la mort de vous, Milly-Fox." Keeper's voice warning me, she'll be the death of you. And I know it's true, but I don't listen.

It was full night again, just after midnight if the clocks in this place are right, and I know some of them ain't. I think it's been about a month since I first showed up. I turn my head as a catch a flash of red outta the corner of my eye. She's up late again. I wish I knew a way to help, but like I said, I ain't no hocus, and I don't know fuck-all about magie. She's heading into the haunted toilettes that nobody ever uses, 'cause it's haunted. And then she looks back behind her, and I run through the wall to keep her from seeing me. Wrong fucking wall.

I gotta explain something here. I've got luck. Lots of it. Most of it bad luck. It comes with my line of work. When you're running from the police, and you manage to loose them, that's good luck. When you turn the next corner and run into your old friend Riddleshin, and by "old friend" I mean somebody who you absolutely humiliated in a fight and now wants you dead, that's the bad luck kicking in.

So yeah, I manage to avoid being seen by Ginny, but I also manage to run into the rear end of something fucking ugly crawling around in the walls. It's big, and covered in scales like a snake. I scream and get the fuck away from it, crawling out of the wall and back into the hallway. The hand on my shoulder surprises me, but I must be in shock because after seeing that monstre I pretty much stop caring about whether or not I get caught, and I let this tall brown haired hocus lead me somewhere.

She's trying to ask me my name, but I can't fucking think straight, and my tongue's all tied up in knots like it gets when I'm scared or nervous. She takes a good long look at my scar, and she knows I ain't one of her kids. I hate my fucking scar. It's this big livid gash on the left side of my face. Got it in a knife fight a few years ago. I got cocky, and I'm damn lucky I didn't loose an eye or my life. 'Course now I've got this mark on my face I can't hide, and everyone looks at it. Keeper was pissed. Mostly I hate the way I can't feel anything on that side, and my mouth don't move right either. So I stay shut up, and eventually the woman leads me to the gargoyle statue I noticed on day 5 with some nifty stairs hidden behind. She says a magic word. Sounds like M'n'Ms or something. The stairs appear, and she leads me up them. I notice the moment the other guy moves behind us, blocking me in. I don't dare glance back, he might hex me for staring or something.

At the top of the stairs the femme-hocus opens a door, and there's this real old guy sitting behind a desk. Santa Claus old. With the beard too. He gives me this weird look with these creepy blue eyes that seem to pierce right through me without really seeing me... kinda like... Felix's. I do not wanna start that line of thought. He looks at me for a moment longer and then speaks in a deep old grandpa voice, "Hello there, young man. What might your name be?"

I might as well answer. Hocuses got a way of making you anyways. "M-Mildmay." My voice sounds ugly, haven't really said anything in the last month or so, and it's all hoarse from lack of use.

"Well Mildmay, please have a seat. We'd all like to know why you happen to be roaming the halls of our school. Lets start with your age."

I make like I'm gonna sit down on the seat opposite the desk that he's gesturing to, but at the last second I lean down just enough to grab the knife I keep in my boot. I know it's suicide. There's three of them, and they're all hocuses, but I gotta get out of here. They'll kill me. I launch myself at the old man, maybe if I can take him out the others won't know what to do with themselves. No such luck. There's a red light and I'm on my ass before I know it. And now all three of them have sticks pointed at me... baguettes magique. Well then... "Baisez-moi en longueur."

The hocuses on my side are glaring at me, one in shock and the other in anger. The old man raises a white eyebrow and says "Je vous pardonnez." Flash French too. Perfect accent. Not like my gutter-trash French. I gotta wonder for a moment if he understood the slurred phrase that came out or was just guessing it was something dirty. I really feel like disappearing, especially if these are the bastards that... that... Sacred bleeding fuck, why isn't the trick working? I try again to slip through the wall behind me, but it just won't fucking work. Damn hocuses and their fucking spells.

And the old man looks like he's expecting some sort of response.

"Eleven." Don't know if that made any sense to them, their expressions are too blank or angry to read. "I'm eleven years old... I think." That made sense to them. I can see the old man's and the woman's eyes widening in shock. "Now where the fuck are you keeping my brother."

"Keeping?" The old man looks confused, "No one here is being kept against their will. Let us start from the beginning and perhaps we can help you find him."

I still don't trust them. But I don't got a choice. "I'm Mildmay. I'm eleven, and all I know is that some evil hocuses kidnapped my brother and spoke English. So I'm here. Hand him over before I get mad." I glare at him. I've got a pretty mean death glare, what with my scar. Only thing worse is if I smile, and that ain't pretty.

I'm pretty sure that's genuine concern in his eyes. Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I fucked this up. "Mildmay, can you describe these "evil hocuses"?"

I gulp, "How do I know you ain't them?" He must sense how tense I am. If these guys aren't the ones I'm after, then I'm fucking lost, and so is my brother. If they are... then I'm fucked. I've killed a hocus before, but I had the element of surprise then, and I sure as fuck don't got it now.

Santa blinks. "Oh dear, I think we've forgotten OUR manners." He sets aside his wand and gestures over to the two hocuses still aiming their wands at me. "This is Professor Minerva McGonagall,and Professor Severus Snape. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. I assure you we are not dark wizards, merely an establishment of education."

I nod. I don't really know what teachers are like, having never been in a real school myself, but they haven't tried hurting me yet. "The bastards wore black robes. Masks made of silver. Looked like skulls. Used wands. Killed... they killed Joline, and took my brother. Woulda killed me too if I hadn't been outside standing watch. Ran in when I heard her scream."

Minute I mentioned the masks their expressions changed. Fear, worry, uncertainty. They know who I just described. And they definitely aren't friends either. L'ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami. "Wizard I asked in Le Havre said they were a group from England." I didn't mentioned that I killed the wizard to get this information. "Said they called themselves Death Eaters, and that they're hidden all over England acting like your average hocus."

"Yes, they are. I was not aware that they were active. The survivors of the group have been in hiding for some time now, ever since the fall of their Dark Lord." The old man looks pretty troubled, but I've got worse news.

"You mean this Voldie-morte? Rumor in France says he's not as dead as people think." That earns me a wary look. He's caught on pretty quick that I ain't your average kid. Not having parents'll do that to you.

"Who did you say you talked with?" Old man Albus sure has a lot of questions.

"Hocus named Cresset, Cerberus Cresset I think." Oh he recognizes that name. So does the other guy with the greasy black hair. The woman catches the old man's expression and looks confused herself with his reaction.

"Cerberus Cresset, a suspected dark wizard, was found dead in his house two months ago."

"Suspected? I heard he killed a lot of innocent folks back when there was this big scare about dark wizards. Even the flats were getting worried." I shot back. People'd been calling for that man's blood for years. I'd just been the first with the guts. They look confused, I probably slurred that a little too fast. "Everyone knows what Cerberus Cresset did, it's why he moved outta Paris." There, that must be slow enough.

"As I recall, Cresset was doing his job as the Witchfinder in France." Severus said.

"And you have no fucking clue what he decided his job should be." I tend to get a little pissed off with people that supported the murdering he did, probably because one of Keeper's friends was killed. Nice guy. Let me ask questions without making me feel like an idiot.

Albus interrupts him before he can say something snarkier than me, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about his death, would you Mildmay?" I give him the look that says "I ain't gonna answer that, or anything else about this matter".

"Very well then. Let's get back to the kidnapping. What exactly happened, and please give full names of the victims if you can."

So I tell him. 'Bout my brother and his magic lessons. About Joline, who said she was in the Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons . She'd give him lessons during her vacations. He'd threaten to hex people that tried to hurt me. I'd stand watch. And then I heard her scream, and I knew she wasn't gonna survive whatever did that to her. I've heard screams like all my life. So I ran in there, waiting to hear the same damn scream come from my brother. Only it didn't. I got a glimpse, saw Felix being carried unconscious, and then they were gone. Bamf. Just like fucking that. There were three of them, adults by their height, and if they'd seen me, I'd have screamed too. Keeper had told me to forget about him, made sure a friend of hers in the Ministry found Joline's body. Told me to go to sleep. But I couldn't sleep, so I ran, and found the dark wizard I'd heard about. He said go north. I don't mention the part where I had to kill him. And here the fuck I am. Doing absolutely fucking nothing for the last month.

Albus is a very good listener. He even kept the others from commenting so I could talk... nice and slow so they can understand me. A few times I had to switch to French, just because I couldn't find the words I wanted. Seems like I have picked up a lot more of English here.

"Thank you Mildmay." I don't say nothing while I try not to look him in the eyes while I blush. I never could take praise well, but I still feel myself liking this old Santa man now that I know he ain't gonna have me killed. Might still throw me out, but I can handle that. "You said your last name was Harrowgate?"

He's got that wrong. "No, that's my brother's last name. Half-brother actually. Our mother was a whore in Quartier Pigalle. Our mother didn't give me a last name."

"So she named you just Mildmay?" There's a twinkle in his eye. If he thinks Mildmay's an amusing name...

"She joined a cult before I was born. My full name is 'Mild-may-your-sufferings-be-at-the-hands-of-the-wicked', but Keeper just cut it down to 'Mildmay'." Albus lets out a good natured chuckle, the other two look slightly humored, but are otherwise quiet.

"That's quite the mouthful." Yeah, I can barely say it myself with this scar in the way.

"Better'n 'Fly-from-fornication-and-blasphemy'." He raises a huge white eyebrow and I add, "Whore I met once named 'Butterfly'." He nods sagely with a smile peaking out from behind his beard.

"I don't know how much I can do, but I do recall the name Harrowgate. I have a feeling that an invitation to join our school was meant to be sent to your brother, but oddly enough, the information was mysteriously stricken from the record before letters were sent out. When we realized this a couple of years later, we had assumed that Beauxbatons or Durmstrang had extended their own invitations."

"Joline said Felix shoulda been picked up when he was eleven. We assumed nobody wanted him." Because he got picked up by a pimp first.

"Of course we would want him." Don't know what Albus meant by that. "I will have this incident investigated further." He nods to Severus, and I get this odd feeling from him. Don't like him much. Don't trust him at all. "I'll contact the British Ministry of Magic in the morning and have them investigate as well. We can return you home tomorrow. You live in Paris I take it?"

Fuck. 'Home.' "I ain't going nowhere without my brother. He'd be hard to hide. Got this ridiculously long red hair and spooky mismatch eyes, blue on the right, yellow on the left. People will remember seeing him." I have to swallow hard; 'ridiculous' was one of Felix's words and it hurts to say it. I can hear his voice chiding me for making an idiot of myself, again. "Tu être ridiculous encore, Mildmay."

"But Mildmay, I'm sure your mother..."

"Is dead." I snap at him, my voice harsh and heavily accented. "She died when I was four or five and Felix was about eleven." Right around the time he was supposed to get his letter I bet. "Can't go back, Keeper's probably pissed enough to drop me in an oubliette and let me starve to death."

He frowns, not at me, but in thought. "Keeper. What exactly do you mean by that?"

"I'm a kept-thief." I give a shrug since there's not much more to it, but his worried expression also says he still wants more. "I mean I was. Our mother sold us both when we were little to keepers. They make sure we get food, and teach us things."

"What sort of things?" Why won't he just let it die? He must be able to tell I don't wanna talk about this anymore.

"Pickpocketing, lock picking, card sharping, you know, how to survive on the streets." I leave out the rest of the list: whoring, burgling, killing. "I got mostly lucky with mine. Felix didn't. His keeper died in the fire that got our mom and her cult. My keeper'd smack us around when we deserved it, or when we pissed her off. His liked to drown them in the Seine just because he got pissed at some minor thing."

"Oh my..." I've shocked the woman, Minerva, that's her name. She looks horrified, but she gives me a pitying look. Albus and the other guy don't make eye contact with me for a moment while they process their thoughts. "If you had magic. I'm sorry young man, but we would have remembered if your name was on our rolls. The spells we use to find students are..."

Albus cuts her off, "Not always perfect." I think he just said the opposite of what she was going to say. "Where were you staying before Minerva found you?"

"In one of the classrooms in a hall nobody uses. There's a bit of dust, but I managed to tear the drapes down into a blanket." I answer honestly.

"What?" Severus exclaims loudly, "You mean to tell us you've been here for days?"

I give him the "you are an idiot" look. "No, I'm pretty sure it's been about a month now."

I get a mix of the "you must be joking" and "how the hell did you manage that" looks. Before they can ask, I try and explain. "I found this château, and the doors were open and a lot of kids were around, so I just went in. Of course then I had to hide from the students and teachers, and then there's your couvre-feu so I had to hide from that weird cat and the cleaner guy."

"But how could a muggle hide for a whole month?" Minerva asks.

"Ducked into the walls. Some of them ain't so solid sometimes." I shrug. I don't exactly understand if it was this place or something else that let me hide. "Guess it just likes me?"

Severus shakes his head and asks me, "If you are so good at hiding, then why did you get caught now."

"Yes, I found you screaming like bloody murder." Minerva, wide-eyed, remembers the reason I'm in this fucking room getting grilled.

"I ran into this huge fucking monstre in the space between the walls. Luckily it was its tail and not its head. Kinda surprised it didn't break through and eat me."

They stare. I wonder if they even knew that they have a monster in their walls.

"You SAW it." Albus looks at me. "There is a child and a ghost in our infirmary right now. They were found petrified."

"You gotta be joking. A fantôme got stoned?"

"What did it look like? You're the only one able to describe it now."

"Fucking huge, scaly, with a tail. I only saw the rear end."

"There is no denying it," Albus looked at the professors, "The basilisk is loose again."

"Basilisk? You mean I saw a basilic..."

I wake up in what appears to be a miniature hopital, in a nice clean bed. I passed out. Because if I had been one minute earlier in hiding in that wall... I guess the god of thieves was looking over me. Sometimes I really wish he wouldn't.

French vocabulary:

château castle

fantôme phantom or ghost

couvre-feu curfew

magie magic

monstre monster

baguettes magique magic wands

Baisez-moi en longueur A classic phrase of Mildmay's from the Doctrine of Labyrinth series translated into French. "Fuck me sideways."

Je vous pardonne "I beg your pardon"

L'ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Quartier Pigalle A red-light district in Paris, home to the Museum of Eroticism and the Moulin Rouge.

Tu être ridiculous encore "You are being ridiculous again."

oubliette For those of you who have NEVER seen Labyrinth, this is a place to put people you want to forget. Basically a hole in the ground that you can't get out of from the inside. Mildmay's imagining this little concrete water tank that can't hold water anymore. He's also imagining somebody putting the extremely heavy top on it.

hopital hospital