Serpent Rose

Chapter 6


Diagon Alley

There was a shop in Diagon Alley which was being planned, organized, and sorted out. Though it wasn't yet open the owners and creators had great hopes for their new 'baby of their blood, sweat and tears.' The main room-shopfront that customers would browse and then travel towards the back to pay for their new odds and ends was only the main room. Bright colors accented displays and many-muggleborns more than purebloods-would soon exit the shop pleased with purchases but also assured of the colorblindedness of the pureblood lot, however fun a few of the accepting were.

From the door behind the register was a medium room where they mostly stored their things not quite ready for sale or display. Stairs led above the shop where the little den sat, breached between two other shops. It often housed the owners when they did not wish to go home; it was charmed with a large notice-me-not that helped to conceal attractive things like explosions and other loud noises. However, the true magic happened at yet another room shuffled behind the 'flat' and between the tall shops to the right and left of the abode. The makeshift workshop was where everything would be prepped, mapped out and created. Small items that were not difficult to create could be put together en masse.

Much to the staff of Hogwart's and their grades' disbelief, the Weasley twins were quite brilliant. They needed to be with all of their experiments. The ambition of schooling, to their mother's horror, was just not something either twin found appealing. Like the Marauders before them, any true magic they came to learn and rely on happened with self-study and the odd book not accounted for in the Hogwarts vast library. All they ever wanted to do was create a joke shop entrepreneurship and live from there. It had been practically planned out for them since they were born, and their secret third partner, (who shall not be named as it is quite obvious who it is), was all for it.

And here they were, bathing in the idea of future galleons and laughing hysterically from the potions fumes, something too that neither learned in the classroom... not that they would have been able to.

What most had no idea about the newly-opening shop was the very back-back room on the bottom story. Though not in the original schematics of the building, there was a small room cut out of the original stone masonry the shops of Diagon Alley were chiseled from. A large hole led down a set of ladders and then through an underground tunnel leading far away from the Bank that was renowned for its underground vaults.

Well, he hadn't divulged their secrets and they had kept everything about him relating to them mostly a secret. He never told their mother or anyone else that they hadn't truly tried in school because their life had been planned out by them long ago. They hadn't told anyone about the way their 'golden boy' was human with a dark side and a hidden side that even the infallible Dumbledore was aware of.

They were two, or one depending how an outsider looked at it, who were aware that their secret third investor had followed in Harry's Father's and Dogfathers' footsteps in the honorable art of pranking. His sleuthing things had just been more planned out and unprejudiced then most. And unsigned. Never let anyone tell you a good mystery is advantageous to spreading all suspiciousns from one.

They admired him and considered him a Marauder of the second generation, in which they also knew he had accomplices, though they still couldn't figure out who. Not that they would voice it but their younger brother was way too immature and Hermione was way too into respecting authority figures to play off any worthwhile pranks. And according the the media and all visible gossip, Miss Granger and the Boy-who-eats were Harry Potter's only friends.

There was a shop in Diagon Alley that was being planned up, one thousand galleons being spent to live their dream. And in the back they kept a small secret room like they had promised with a hole to a spooky shop two miles away in Knockturn Alley and a bunker for someone to sleep in, which they were never to peak into when there were customers. He had known better to ban them from the room altogether. That was just inviting more trouble.

Often, Gred and Forge Weasley often pondered what was going on with Harry and their baby sister. They had slowly witnessed the hidden beauty bloom beneath their parent's noses behind closed doors while no one was there to witness that they had as spies. The plots of twins would be an effort to break for anyone it seemed. And they would be in the path of Death Eaters; to destroy them before they themselves could be destroyed.


Little Hangleton. Riddle Manor.

A plot in Little Hangleton hidden away by magic was currently being used as a hideaway. The Riddle Mansion had long gone unused as his mother was dead and Tom Riddle was the last of the line. There were bodies in front of the throne in which sat a hideous figure with red snake-like eyes and a bald body that somehow managed to burlesque some barbarian snake, slinking its way around but not in fact doing much of the work itself. When it spoke there was an undercurrent of hissing that must have been left over from the ritual change when he had attempted to gain his animagus years ago. But because he had used a ritual and not took the time to do so calmly, he had failed and now was no longer able to gain a form.

The handsome young figure of Tom Riddle was now long gone as well as what was left of his sanity. There was a ghastly creature bowed to from a hundred people at a time, people wearing white masks and dark long cloaks to hide identities from even themselves. This group of people would leave a visage in the sky of a skull with a snake in its mouth. They were not people. They were minions to one single not-person. Many did not realize this, and in their search for power, they got themselves killed when they singled themselves out in order to attempt to gain favor. Only a few were allowed this luxury -and even then, not often.

Voldemort's inner circle consisted of seven people: Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Severus Snape, Tom's ever faithful 'Wormtail', Rudolphus Lestrange, Rebasten Lestrange, and his favored whore, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange. Many suspected that Bellatrix was giving the horrifically ugly 'master' a helping hand so to speak. It became a barfing contest when whispered about. The first overheard was automatically crucio'd until he was only able to join the Longbottoms in St. Munigos.

Currently, Tom was hosting a torture-palooza with a few muggles, two already dead and simply stiff on the ground. One was being 'enjoyed' by many males, as she was quite beautiful, though young. The other, the father, was subjected to multiple little play curses, such as the cutting curse and the cording curse in which body parts and bits of skin were wound together to make cord. Originally, "adligo funis" possibly with a "vinculum" on the end for imprisoning victims. To himself, Voldemort jokingly wondered if he could make a fortune in selling book covers and other things with human skin imbedded in the materials.

He quickly sapped the mind of a young girl of almost eight years old and then simply imperio'd her to make lanyards out of the skin coming off of the father and daughter. It was a slow scalping of the man who must have been in immense pain but was still alive, though barely. At the edge of the precipice of life, Tom watched him; for a man who had commited himself to conquering Europe and leading a quest for immortality, the act of death fascinated him. At the edge of oblivion he would watch and try to pice together what it was that truly killed.

He couldn't care what he looked like but the crossover into death was truly the only thing he feared, and at the same time was that excitement as the soul left and traveled elsewhere.

Many Death Eaters stood around, hooting him or others on, watching the fun. As if in a carnival for dunking tables, there were two men that had fallen into a bowl of needles and rusty nails. Across one of the straight walls were pinned bodies, many kept alive for future needs. When an overexcited Death Eater spewed all over the floor in his entertainment, Voldemort simply crucio'd him until he had lost control of his bowls, and then simply Avada Kedavra'd him for messing up his floor fun further.

Nearby lackeys faked smiles or simply leered at the loss of another member, the death creeping their ambition along to heights that weren't really reasonable. As young first years at Hogwarts or wherever they were schooled, most would be appalled at their actions. Others would just nod as they had always been like that from their parents' teachings.

A sharp pang from his forehead attracted Voldemort's attention. There was no scar and nothing the minions acknowledged, but he knew that his side of the bond was being used for something, possibly to hide something. Though what the little golden boy griffin would have to hide was curious.

Tom simply went back to his games when he thought at it, knowing naively that Harry J. Potter was under Dumbledore's control somewhere hidden under wards he himself couldn't touch. But he also knew that these 'Dursleys' were very much similar to the orphanage caretakers and they hated magic. He knew that the boy had been beaten as a child, a reason for his current height.

Snidely, he thought to himself how the boy could have improved his body with potions, like he himself had done; but as it was too far along in the aging process, it wouldn't do much. The old man hadn't even trained him. Merlin knows that the majority of the Defense Professors chosen at Hogwarts were phony, faulty in that they had never really been able to go for more than a single year; the Hogwarts curse.

How that infuriating boy managed to get away from him and his followers he did not know, but the boy had some annoying luck. It wouldn't last too long if he had anything else to say about it. The boy wouldn't make a fool of Lord Voldemort again. Harry Potter was just a child and if he were in front of Tom M. Riddle at this moment he would have been crushed in the once-human's bare hands.

In reality, he'd already be gone again, as Voldemort and Dumbledore were completely unprepared and oblivious of the many that were not simply twiddling, but were moving right under their noses.

Another man had just landed in the large barrel of small pointy objects, and his mind reverted back to the party. Nothing could be hidden from him. The feeling of excitement in him about all of this death was equally mirrored on the other side of the bond, but for a different reason. He ignored it.

He called for his inner circle, later, but Bella did not come. Bella did not answer her call.


Forbidden Forest

The forest was dark, filled with creatures living and unknown. There were ingredients in the foliage though, and a Master such as himself did not go out to buy things one could get fresher and cheaper from the ground. The crescent moon was bowed and when he looked up there was a glimmer of the fishing boy on the moon. Information, he needed.

A Hippogriff that wasn't Buckbeak made its way towards him. He bowed and lowered his head as such a beast of the animalia kingdom showed him respect, he was cheered. He gave it all the same, body lumbering forward in a makeshift bow. His hands and makeshift backpack were filled with bits of ingredients he would need, and then plenty of feed for the animals and bits the house elves had ordered.

Coming towards him, Marack (Merrec) walked to the burly man with the knotted beard. His chest rose up in a noble jester, a mark of confidence on the creature. His large hands reached up to pet the part-bird friendly like and he withered some feather in-between his fingers. A picking of young fur fell off. Marack was losing much of his baby fur. He was still quite young, but Marack was a good flier. He'd travel to the destination unnoticed; inner invisibility wards worked wonders, though even dragons had been found eventually.

He talked to the young creature, patting its head reassuringly and feeding it some freshly dead wild ferret from his pack. A letter came out of his pocket wrapped in black silk. Sending it on, Hagrid made his own way back to his hut. Back to his starry eyes and loose lips. Back to the fake world he had been tricked into and the world he had learned to fear. But he was also going to the hut on Hogwarts grounds where he had learned the truth and found how to fight the coming darkness and the ones that were already there.

He thought back to the day long ago where he had done the wrong thing without actually knowing it. The potion had long warned off in his giant's blood and he was no longer under the affects of the Headmaster's manipulations. When Sirius had come up to him, he had tried to tell him, but he was so drugged up on whatever Dumbledore had slipped into his tea then that his mouth had moved and spoken to its own machinations, and his brain could do nothing. He held baby Potter away from his rightful guardian, and now there was nothing to do but apologize. It would have to wait though, as Lupin had no idea about the truth yet, and Sirius, Black had no chance, as he was dead now.

He held out some seed for a coming raven that dropped a letter in his beard before landing on his arm to eat some seed with bits of fresh meat mixed in. Using a move Harry Potter had long taught him to sweep birds off; he swung his arm down and then up-and-out. The bird was not harmed unless one counted having to regain its balance. It got a snack and did its duty. It was going back to its master now.

Quietly making his way to his lightened wood cabin, he avoided a sneaky bush and had to keep himself from glaring at another bird that really didn't mean to bug him with his alluring words of wisdom like it did.


TBC.

I apologize for the long wait for both SR and anything. I haven't written anything since 'To Survive.' Partly its because I've been making pics more than fics, though they aren't very good, and partly its because I just started college. Congrats to me and anyone else in that type of hell. Gods bedamned online classes couldn't even tell us what books we needed till two weeks later and by then the prices are jocked up so high I cannot afford it. Stupid pieces of Pi-gu!