All rights and privileges to Harry Potter are copyrighted trademarks and property of J. K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, and all peoples associated. And all rights and other stuff to The Lioness Quartet and Wild Magic are copyrighted trademarks and property of Tamora Pierce and Random House. The characters of these fictions are used WITHOUT permission for the entertainment purposes only. This work of fiction is not meant for sale or profit. As if anyone would actually pay money for this thoughtless drivel. And even if they like it, it's right here and money is not required. So there! Bottom line: I don't own them I just like to play God with them. Like an ant walking back and forth across my feet for what seems like miles upon miles. Or a bug with a magnifying glass as it slowly burns into nothingness. Ahem Yes, I don't own them. Never have. Never will. Sigh
Pairings: Percy/Marcus
Contents: Angst, Slash, POV, Dark, and lots of Death!
Spoilers: None as of yet, and this is AU
Summary: One can never be sure of what one will need in the future.
Status: Incomplete
A/N: This fic is becoming really weird on me. And for some strange reason ff dot net doesn't like people responding to reviewers in their fics. Well, whatever. I'm a good girl. Kinda. I'd like to thank my reviewers, though, and try to answer their questions. Thanks to Forgotten Princess. Sorry the update took so long. Goiz Bruconai Tschmu Yeateh, thanks and I think this story is gonna stay AU for the most part. I may incorportate events from the fifth and sixth book, but I'm not sure yet. And Percy may very well end up with a boot to his ass.
There is a part with EXPLICIT SCEINCE CONTENT. You have been warned. Actually I could have made it a lot more explicit, but I kept it simple.
Italics indicate Marcus projecting his thoughts.
Bold Italics indicate someone else's thoughts.
What I Might Need
Here I was expecting some nitwit, possibly in her late fifties, not some bird a few years older than me. And pink hair? She is going to change that before we do anything involving stealth, she doesn't have a choice in the matter.
I met her outside the Three Broomsticks after returning my glass.
"Flint?" she asks.
"Tonks," I reply. Her mind is blank. Not the same sort of blank that comes from a firewall, but the type of blank that comes from years of practice involving the hiding of ones thoughts. Well, she is an Auror.
"Good. Shall we?" She points west.
"Not until your hair is no longer pink," I tell her firmly.
She sighs. "I suppose it's not very discrete, is it?"
"Not in the least."
She scrunches up her nose as if she had caught whiff of something rotting in the noon sun and her hair is black.
"Neat trick," I praise.
"I take requests too," she winks. Cheeky witch.
"Good to know. Now we can head west."
The distance to Glasgow may be three minutes by broom, but by foot and in the dark it's about an hour. Not exactly, but it's an hour using stealth.
The camp is not the best hidden of camps, even though we are approaching it at night. We know we've come upon it once we smelled death.
Once there she does her thing as I do mine.
It's easy enough to figure out what they are planning. Sometimes I think they really want to lose the war. There are about fifty of them and they're waiting for about twenty more. They're going to attack within the week; they're waiting for orders from above, so right now they're just wandering aimlessly with their thumbs up their arses. However a week is not enough time for us to prepare. And we're going to have to return when they have something a bit more concrete. Damn.
Tonks? I reach out to her. You ready?
Almost.
While she finishes up, I locate the head of this little operation. He's a seasoned Death Eater from the original war. Obviously he is trusted enough by Voldemort to take down the school, which means that I don't trust him at all.
Done now? I ask.
Yeah.
I'll meet you in the Three Broomsticks.
But –
I'll meet you in the Three Broomsticks. I need to take care of something.
You're going to kill, she states.
I'm not going to use an Unforgivable, I explain evasively. I'm going right for the Head.
You know what you're doing?
Of course. Sometimes it's only natural to be cocky.
Don't blow this, she warns.
And she's gone.
I wait for her to head back, and then I wait for twenty minutes before I head back. I am still within sight of the camp, but far enough away to make a quick escape.
"Accio sodium!" I direct my wand at the Head. Without sodium ions in his body practically no organs will function almost instantaneously. The most important organs – or rather tissues – being nervous tissue. I lied to Percy. Well, I lie to him most of the time, but I had informed him that the only way we would be able to communicate through his wall would be through genetic material. That is not true or even remotely close. What I need are his sodium and potassium ions. That way I'm able to tap directly into his nervous system and more specifically his central nervous system. I just simplified the entire process by saying DNA, he at least understands what DNA is.
A moment later a pile of salt forms in front of me. It must have combined with chlorine or calcium or both on its journey. An instant later there is a shout of alarm, and I am gone, running back to Hogsmeade as fast as I can while still being stealthy and safe.
I really love that loophole in Wizarding Law: only Unforgivables are unforgivable. Since I have not used an Unforgivable, only a simple summoning spell, there is no way that they could trace the death to me. It's ingenious.
Tonks is waiting like a good little Auror in the Three Broomsticks. Her hair is pink again.
I slide into her booth.
"I took care of it," I say softly.
"I sent a message out," she says quietly. "We'll meet tomorrow, same place." Noon, she adds silently.
I nod in affirmation. It's always the same place.
I apparate back to Order Headquarters.
I walk a total of five steps into the house before I end up with an armful of Weasley. I stagger a bit trying to steady myself. I'm really tired and therefore not really balanced. He missed me. I smile faintly. This is a nice welcome, and I could very easily become accustomed to this. That is until he sucker punches me in the kidney, not very hard but enough to get his point across.
"Bastard," I hiss, clutching my stomach. "What the bleeding Christ was that for?"
"YOU are the bastard," he growls back. Mmm… aggressive Percy, I'm liking this. "It is almost one in the morning and you've been gone – without warning – since before dinner."
"That would explain why I'm so hungry," I say pensively, knowing full well that will brass him off more than anything else. I wander into the kitchen and raid the ice box. All I've had in the past seven hours is a Guinness.
I can feel his anger beating down on my back, threatening to overflow his floodgates. Hurthatehurtangerdesperationhurt. I glance back at him and inform him that he should keep his emotions in check.
He growls deep in his throat, and I feel the air vibrate. Now I've brassed off the Wild Mage. Things are looking promising for an explosive row.
"Percy, what is really bothering you?" I ask as I pull some slices of some sort of meat out of the ice box.
He's thrown off guard by my directness. Honestly, I'm fucking tired and just want to go to sleep.
"You – you told Ginny where you were going, but not me. In fact you didn't even say anything to me. Not even a 'good-bye.'" There's a lot more than annoyance in his words: there's also hurt, helplessness, and anxiety. So he can go to the Roof of the World on his own, but I can't go to Hogsmeade? Although I must admit I did go through Percy-withdrawal when he was gone, but I knew it was for the good of the Wizarding World or some such shite. Of course, I nearly pissed myself when the elemental he faced took on my form.
"Wrong," I explain around a mouthful of meat, I think it's lamb. "Ginny gave me the orders: I didn't tell her where I was going. And I was late, so I needed to leave immediately."
"You couldn't have spent the minute it would have taken to say something to me?" I figured that this was where this argument was headed.
"Percy, with you, nothing is a minute," I sigh tiredly, baiting him. I didn't mean to bait him, but it's just too damn easy.
He takes the bait. He's so reliable this way. "One minute, Marcus, that's all it would have taken! I really wish that you would be serious about – " I can't stand to hear him rant. Honestly, I'm tired and I want to sleep. I need to deal with the Order tomorrow, specifically Dumbledore. I kiss him on the nose and leave him standing dazed in the kitchen. I like playing that game – it's almost always too easy.
I head up to our shared room, and I hear him sprinting up the stairs after me. He's not going to stop until I give him an explanation. Well fuck that. I'm going to sleep.
At least that was what I had planned to do before his arms encircled my waist and his hot breath blew into my ear.
"I don't want to have to worry about you," he says. There is so much emotion behind those words that I have no idea how to respond to. So I don't. I just put a hand over his and sigh, leaning back into him. God, I'm such a sap. He owns me so completely that it's disgusting.
"You can sleep in my bed tonight if you'd like," I offer, knowing that he will decline. He's still a child.
Wordlessly he crawls into my bed. Christ, if I had known it was that easy I would have asked a long time ago!
He wants reassurance that I'm still whole, and tonight I'm too tired to do anything but. I'll tell him about my upcoming battle once he figures out and admits to what the hell he's feeling. That may take a while.
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TBC
Guys, please let me know if you're still enjoying this fic, otherwise I can give up on it and focus on other fics instead.
