(A/N: ahhhhh, scene breaks why you be stupid!? There used to be lines. Now they are gone and I have to go back and fix it. OMG FML! On another note, I'm listening to 1985 by bowling for soup and rocking out : ) didn't even know I had this song. Also, sorry if you find any random out of place letters or numbers. My little one loves the keyboard and she tends to mash the keys when I'm not watching. Ehh.)
"Where do you keep going, Harry? I'm sure that Ron doesn't need this much help." Ginny asked, leaning against the wall, watching him cook two rather large steaks and vegetables.
"And all this food, where is it coming from? I'm sure that that dead guys food has run out by now," The red head eyed Harry suspiciously, and he bristled uncomfortably.
It was almost time for him to leave, the Gala was that night. And he wondered if he would even be able to get away.
"He was pretty well stocked up. He was bloody fat." Harry mumbled, turning a steak.
She hmmed, not sounding convinced.
"How are you feeling?" Harry asked, trying to redirect the conversation. The youngest Weasley had been experiencing a fair bit of morning sickness, which Hermione said was a good sign that the pregnancy was strong.
Or something.
Harry had no idea.
"Like death warmed up," Ginny told him, easily distracted.
"Can you eat?" He asked, removing both the slabs of meat from the pan.
"I don't know," She replied, looking at the steak as if it still had a head.
"You need to," Harry had a stern tone, mostly because she had eaten hardly anything in the last week, and what she did she threw up.
She looked thinner now than she had before Harry had started bringing back more food.
Harry glanced out of the grime covered window and saw that night was falling, and he swore that it was midday only minutes ago.
He removed the vegetables and served Ginny a plate, digging into his own rather quickly, he didn't have much time before he had to leave.
Ginny watched her plate warily, looking up at Harry every now and then.
"I'll have this later," She said eventually, crossing the room and putting her plate in the storage cupboard.
"Ginny," Harry warned.
"I promise, I'll eat it when I can."
Harry frowned.
"When I get back, that plate better be empty," he said, turning to face her, sticking the bone from the steak in his mouth in hopes of hiding the lie he was about to tell.
"When you get back?" She asked, crossing her arms and squinting her eyes at him.
"Yeah, I have to go to Ron and Hermione's, assassin stuff again," he told her, the bone muffling his speech.
"Would it kill you to bloody stay here for more than ten minutes at a time? We have food, and the freaking assassins can wait." She tightened her arms and frowned harder, as if it would convince him.
Harry removed the bone and frowned right back.
"I really have to go, Gin. If it were any other time I would stay." He wasn't lying when he said this. He really did need to go. And soon.
"What's so important?" She asked, a challenge in her tone.
"I'm doing this for you Ginny. You and the baby." He avoided the question, not knowing how exactly to answer that. He was never good at making lies up on the spot.
"Well stay here for me! That's all I want!"
Harry shook his head and dumped the plate on the bench.
"I cant. Not this time."
"Fine! Get out then!" She snapped, stomping into the next room and slamming the door behind her.
The effect was slightly marred by the fact that she had gone into the bathroom, but there was no where else to stomp into. Harry nearly laughed, but held it in. He hardly wanted to piss her off further.
He sighed instead and made his way out the door, turning on the spot and appearing out the front of the cabin that had now become a regular meeting place for the assassin and his apprentice.
Dillan was standing outside the small home, with one of the horrid thick shakes in his hand.
"You're late. No time to eat, drink this. Quick."
"I know. She's getting really suspicious," Harry said, taking the glass and holding his nose.
"I ate any way," he said when he finished.
"Suspicious how?" Dillan asked, following Harry into the cabin.
The smaller wizard put his glass on the sink and turned to face the assassin, noticing for the first time that the man was already in his dress robes. He had chosen robes that almost exactly matched Harry's own choice, only the buttons were of course gold.
He had two blades strapped under the robes, and they were obviously poking through the fabric.
"She keeps asking about the food and where I keep going."
"Hmm. You'll have to figure out something soon. A suspicious woman makes a great detective."
"Yeah, tell me about it. She said that the food must have run out by now. I told her that the dead guy was fat."
Ginny wasn't wrong in her assumption that the Death Eater had run out of food. Dillan had been giving him some, since the Death Eaters stash had run out completely about two days earlier. He couldn't keep telling Ginny that it had come from the dead man.
She wouldn't believe it for to much longer.
"C'mon, we have to go. We have two hours to get you ready."
Harry didn't know what the time was, or even what time the Gala started, but he did think that he had had more time to get ready. Just getting into that damn armour took near an hour.
Dillan had offered to help the first time, but Harry had refused heartily. There was no way he was letting the assassin any where near his naked self. Definitely not after the I'll pull something comment.
Dillan had laughed himself stupid at the sound of the young wizard's struggle, and Harry could hear him choking on his laughter from the other side of the door.
Which made it much harder to focus on what he was doing. He just hoped that this time he could figure it out faster.
He also hoped he didn't look like he had something jammed up his ass as he walked.
He and Dillan made their way out of the cabin, and the taller wizard grabbed Harry's arm and apparated them to the assassin's mansion.
"How do they look?" Hermione asked, twirling her robes as she turned.
Despite herself, she was excited to wear her new clothes. They were as beautiful as she could make them, considering her small amount of magic, and what she had had to work with.
She had made herself a turquoise set of robes, with small buttons studded with blue gems. They weren't real gems, of course. They were made with lumps of melted down plastic. She just hoped that no one looked to closely.
For Ron she had made a black set of dress robes, with buttons that matched hers. She had no idea what assassins wore to a party, nor what their contractors wore, and she hoped that they wouldn't stand out to much.
"You look beautiful." Ron told her, grinning.
"You should get ready. We only have an hour and a half. And we still have to change our appearance's. Did Fred and George say when they were arriving?" Hermione asked, half shooing Ron away and half waiting for him to answer her question.
"Dunno, they said they'd come when they got a break, which could be any time now." Ron shrugged, and his wife finally shooed him away completely.
"Well at least it didn't take you as long to get the armour on." Dillan said, once again yanking Harry's dress robes over his head. They stood in the assassin's bedroom.
"Right, now for your face. We need to get rid of these glasses. They're a dead give away." Dillan pulled them off without another word, and Harry took a step back.
"I cant not wear them. I'm bloody near blind." He put his arms out in front of himself as if to prove his point.
"Relax, I can temporarily fix them."
A piece of wood that looked suspiciously like a wand was shoved into the smaller wizards face, and he took another step backwards.
A jet of light hit him square in the eyes and fell on his ass from the shock. He didn't have even a second of warning, because the assassin had used wordless magic.
"Ahh! Fuck that burns, what the hell did you do?" Harry had the palms of his hands pressed into his eyes, grimacing at the pain.
"Open your eyes and see for yourself."
Harry did as he was told, and even though his eyes were watering madly, he could see better than he ever had with the glasses.
"Wicked," Harry stumbled to his feet and grinned at his mentor.
"It will last about four hours. But I'm going to look into a more permanent fix. We cant have you running around assassinating people with glasses on. It's a pretty obvious weakness." Dillan said, his wand still in his hand.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, now staring at his hands in wonder.
"If you're dumb enough to be spotted by the target, then all they would need to do to get the upper hand is get your glasses off. Then you'd be as graceful and as accurate as a rock in a fight." Dillan explained, watching the Boy Who Lived with a smirk on his face.
"Oh, I didn't think of that," Harry looked up from his hands and grinned.
"Well, hopefully fixing your eyes will be for nothing, and you wont be seen."
Harry nodded, though he wasn't feeling very confident in his abilities. It would take a bloody long time for him to be good enough to go out on his own. Even with magic.
"They still sting," Harry said instead of voicing his concerns.
"Give it a few minutes and they should be fine. I'm going to change your hair color. I was thinking blond."
"How blond?" Harry asked, wary.
"Not Malfoy blond, if that's what you're worried about," Dillan smirked.
"You know the Malfoy's?" Harry asked.
"I know you don't like them," Dillan said, avoiding the question.
"How do you know that?" Again, the smaller wizard tried to pry information out of the assassin.
"You went to school with one. His father is a Death Eater, and his son was a Slytherin. Not really tough logic."
Harry frowned but made no further comment.
"Now, I'm thinking a sandy blond. A few shades darker than Malfoy. And we'll make your eyes a few shades lighter."
"Why lighter?"
Dillan shrugged.
"People seem to hire assassin's more often if they have strange eyes. I really don't know why."
"So did you magically change your eye, or is it from something else?" Harry asked, still wondering whether the man was blind in one eye.
"Something else," Dillan said, crossing his arms and appearing cagey, though Harry thought he saw humor in the mans eyes.
"Are you blind in that eye?" The younger man asked, all but blurting it.
The assassin snorted a small laugh but didn't reply.
"Ready? We really don't have a lot of time left."
"Alright, alright. Is this one gonna sting my eyes as well?" Harry asked, not a fan of having his eyes assaulted again, especially since they were still tender from the last attack.
"Most likely not,"
"I don't like how you said that,"
Dillan ignored Harry's comment and raised his wand once more, and another not quite as blinding jet of light hit him in the eyes.
It did sting, but no where near as badly as the first time, and he was able to rid himself of the pain after a few blinks.
"Now your hair. I'm absolutely certain that this wont hurt," The assassin smirked as he said this, and Harry gave him a dirty look.
"I really don't want to have to do this all the time." Harry whined.
Dillan smirked.
"I'm sure it will become more regular." Dillan said, twirling his wand over Harry's head as if trying to make a halo.
"There," The assassin said after a moment.
"You're right, it didn't hurt." Harry said, turning to the mirror.
His face was still the same shape, and Harry wondered whether or not they should change it. Because, after all, his face was rather famous, and there was likely not a single person in the entire wizarding world who hadn't seen it.
His eyes were now a startling green, almost blending with the whites.
His hair was a fair few shades darker than the Malfoy's, but that really wasn't hard, considering how light their hair was.
It looked like wet sand, and Harry wasn't sure whether he liked it or not. But honestly he didn't really care.
It was a disguise, and it worked.
"What about my face? It's pretty well known."
"Hmm, I'd change your mouth, but you might have trouble speaking with a different one. I could change your eye shape, but again, that might hurt. I could narrow your cheeks?"
Harry shrugged and nodded.
"We're going to turn your faces into putty." Fred said matter-of-factually.
"Huh?" Was Ron's articulate reply.
"It's a spell we came up with in school. Makes your face all mouldable. Like putty," George explained.
"I don't know about this," Hermione said, wary.
"Relax, it doesn't even hurt. We've used it loads of times."
Hermione wasn't convinced, but her husband was all for it.
"Wicked, lets do this." Ron said.
"We thought you'd never ask," Fred grinned.
"Ready? Some people have already arrived." Dillan told his apprentice, and Harry felt himself go green in the face.
Everyone who was down in the foyer was going to be able to tell, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was completely untrained.
"You should take a weapon first, actually. Just in case."
Harry's face got even greener.
"I don't know how to use any of those damn things," he said, gesturing to the wall covered in assorted sharp objects.
"Doesn't matter. As long as you have it on you they'll assume you're trained in combat. Go ahead, pick one."
Harry sighed and crossed the space between him and the weapons.
He scanned the wall, and had no idea which one he wanted.
"These weapons are a lot like wands, they have their own personality. Don't worry about choosing which one you like the look of. It will likely just chose you. Pick one up,"
Harry went through most of the knifes and found that he didn't like any of them.
Finally, the one that did fit, or the two, rather, was the pair of gold hatchets that had caught his eye days earlier. They had strange black blade edges, that looked almost like stone.
"Nice choice. Be careful with them though. See the edges? That's obsidian. Sharpest substance known to man."
Harry went to touch it to be sure, and Dillan actually hissed at him.
"I really wouldn't recommend that."
"That sharp, huh?" Harry asked, slightly white in the face at having chosen such sharp blades.
"That sharp. You'll probably want the covers for them. Don't want you cutting your leg off." The assassin walked out of the room without another word, leaving Harry standing there awkwardly, holding the small pair of axes.
A few moments later, Dillan reentered and snatched the hatchets from Harry's hands and strapped an identical pair of what looked like leather skin covers on them.
"Wouldn't they just cut through that?" Harry asked, looking at the blades warily as Dillan passed them back.
"Basilisk skin. Not likely," The assassin grinned, gesturing for Harry to strap them on.
"Uhh, where?"
Dillan sniggered and covered his mouth with his hand.
"All my pants have weapon straps. Did you think I just carried them around with my hands?" The assassin came towards Harry and knelt in front of him, lifting the edge of his robes, then held out his hand for one of the hatchets.
Harry was blushing profusely, and made a promise to himself that he would work out how to strap them on himself.
Once both blades were strapped on, and Harry was blushing so hard he thought his face might explode. Dillan stood and shooed Harry out of the door.
"I've heard of fashionably late, but this is ridiculous," The assassin muttered.
"Ready?" Ron asked his wife, and she rubbed her arms furiously, worry all over her face.
"As I'll ever be," She replied.
"The portkey is about to go off. We should head outside." Hermione added.
The twins had left only moments before, having given Hermione black straight hair and a rather prominent chin. Ron got brown hair and small beady eyes.
Between the two of them they looked rather ugly, but it worked, they looked nothing like themselves.
"Harry, honestly, Hurry up," Dillan hissed, ready to drag his apprentice down the stairs by his earlobes.
"All in all, I think this was a rather stupid idea." Harry hissed back. From where he stood, he could see the gathered assassin's and their contractors, and there was a fair sight more there than he had been expecting.
Almost two hundred completely lethal looking people stood milling around in the entrance hall, which had been totally refurbished. There were no seats, and another two bars had been added. The chandelier was lit, making creepy shadows all over the place.
"C'mon. And don't show how nervous you are, for the love of Merlin." The assassin pulled Harry a little further towards the stairs, and Harry took a deep breath in, trying to appear uncaring.
He probably looked constipated.
"Look," Ron said, elbowing Hermione in the arm and pointing up the stairs.
"Must be the host." She replied, looking away and scanning the room.
"The buttons," Her husband persisted.
Hermione tried to get a good look at said buttons, but from her vantage point she couldn't make much out, just that his buttons were gold.
"Harry said that the guy had blond hair. That's not him." She said, once again looking around.
"What about the guy with him? He's blond."
The previously bushy haired witch sighed and looked back over at the two people descending the stairs.
The blond man looked completely mortified, acting as if he wanted to hide behind the other man. His buttons were obviously silver.
"I don't think that's him either." She said, sipping carefully on the wine she held in her hand.
"What if it was him, and he was just doing the job for Strahowski?" Ron asked, more forceful with his idea now.
"Did you say Strahowski?" Someone asked from behind the two, and Ron nearly jumped out of his skin. Hermione recovered quickly.
"Yes, we were looking for him. Do you know where we can find him?" she asked, trying for a pleasant tone.
"You were just looking at the pansy. Up there, on the stairs. I'm guessing you two are contractors then," The man asked, sculling half his drink.
The man was most probably an assassin, judging by how there was a sword strapped to his hip.
Hermione nodded in response.
"Who do you contract with?" The man's black hair was tied at the nape of his neck, and his eyes were dark enough brown to appear black.
"Strahowski," Ron answered before Hermione could.
"Ahh, so that's why you were looking for him. Fuck up, did he? Wouldn't surprise me. He's the one with the black hair. Dunno who that blond one was. Probably his fuck toy. Always thought he was that way."
Hermione looked back up at the stairs, curious about why Harry had said the man was blond. Either Harry had lied, the man had changed his hair, or the blond one that entered with Strahowski had been the one to nearly kill her best friend.
"Has Strahowski ever been blond?" She asked.
"Nope. He keeps it the same." The assassin walked off into the crowd then, clearly bored with the conversation.
"Must have been that blond one then. Lets find out who he is," Ron said, starting in the direction of the stairs that the assassin's had come down.
"We can't just go up to him and say, 'Hello, who are you?' Because he'd probably say, 'who are you?'" Hermione warned, holding her husband's arm to stop him from going any further.
"What do you reckon we should do then?" Ron asked, looking annoyed that his plan had been ruined.
"I don't know. Maybe get close to them and try to listen in?" She suggested.
"Strahowski," A rather fat balding man said, shaking Dillan's hand.
Harry stood beside him, trying to look as if he was completely at ease.
Dillan made the fat man flinch with his grip. The fat man rubbed his hand when Dillan let go.
"Were you happy with the job?" Harry's mentor asked, obviously distracted and slightly annoyed to be talking to this man.
"Yes, it was fantastic, as always. You have a flair for the dramatic." Marcus said, rubbing his protruding stomach and laughing jovially.
"It's what you asked for," Dillan replied, looking increasingly embarrassed and looking everywhere but the fat man, even looking to Harry once as if asking for help, but there was nothing Harry could do about it.
"Yes, yes of course. And you always come through."
Dillan nodded sharply and made to walk away, before Marcus spoke again.
"Who's this little shrimp?"
Dillan, who was now facing away from the obese man, seemed to almost smack himself in the face, aborting the action before he could carry it out. He turned slowly and plastered a smile on his mouth. Harry thought it looked as if he was grimacing in pain.
"This is my apprentice. Seth Dallas. Seth, meet Marcus." Dillan waved his arm at the fat man as if showing Harry some marvelous work of art.
"You take this little fairy boy as your protégé, but you refuse my son?"
A mixture of humor and anger fought for dominance on the assassin's face.
"With all due respect, which is not much, I'm afraid, your son is as about as fat and useless as you are."
"With all due respect, which is not much, I'm afraid," Marcus began, his jowls quivering with anger as he repeated what the assassin had just said.
Dillan just smiled.
"I hired you because I can be a merciful man. But there are plenty of people, in this room, in fact, that spit on the ground you walk on." Marcus threatened, and the assassin's smile widened as he took a step closer.
"Why don't you go ahead and hire one right now? I've been itching for a good fight."
Marcus actually spat on the ground at Dillan's words, and the assassin just kept on smiling.
When the fat man took his leave, most likely to do just as Dillan suggested, Harry turned to his mentor, wide eyed.
"Are you sure that was a good idea?" He said in a hushed whisper.
"Dude, I hate that guy. Besides, there's no one here that can beat me in a fight. They've hated me for a rather long time, and I'm not dead yet." Dillan grinned and watched the fat man approach a man with black hair and a sword at his hip.
The assassin and his protégé were unaware of the beady eyed man and the black haired woman standing closely behind them.
"Why do they hate you?" Harry asked, curious. Dillan seemed to be a nice guy, as far as Harry could tell. Besides the whole killing people for money thing.
"I might tell you later, but I thought you might have figured it out already." Dillan smirked, leading Harry towards the bar and away from the angry fat man.
"Figured what out how?" His apprentice asked, wondering how on earth he was supposed to know without having a clue.
"You're not very perceptive. We'll have to fix that, I suppose."
Harry wasn't sure whether or not he should be offended. He scanned the room, still worried about the fight Dillan had caused, and spotted the black haired man making his way, supposedly casually, through the crowd towards them.
"Dillan!" Harry hissed. He made to tug on the mans sleeve, but thought better of it.
"I know, calm down." The assassin responded, reaching slowly for his weapon and sipping lightly on his wine.
"How do you know?" Harry whispered, curious.
"That potion I showed you. I told you I'm never without it, especially on a night like tonight." Dillan explained, his hand resting on a knife Harry didn't recognize.
"But wouldn't everyone else be taking it too?" Harry wondered.
"Some, but no one can pin point where the burst is coming from, let alone what the person is looking for."
Harry wished he had taken the echolocation potion, but he was useless at using it.
Before the younger wizard could blink, Dillan spun and pressed his knife to the black haired man's neck who was now right behind them, just as he pressed his sword to Dillan's own throat.
To Harry's surprise, Both men took a step back and lowered their weapons, bowing slightly and not taking their eyes of the other.
"Strahowski," The man with the sword said, almost in greeting as he rose.
"Striker," Dillan responded with a grimace. Harry recognized the name, this was most likely the guy Ron had recently hired.
The occupants of the room had now noticed a fight was brewing, and they had moved back to form a circle around the two men.
Harry still stood just behind Dillan, and he wasn't sure whether or not he should step back.
On one hand, he was likely to get impaled whilst just standing there, looking confused.
On the other, he didn't want to look like a coward in front of his mentor.
Hoping to compromise, he took a few small steps back, and as a result, drew Striker's attention.
"Looks like your little fuck buddy isn't very confident in your abilities." Striker laughed, and Harry's mouth fell open.
Fuck buddy? What?
"Well, if he isn't now, he will be in a minute." Dillan said. Harry couldn't see his face, but he didn't sound very shocked at all by what Striker had said. Harry couldn't close his mouth, and actually found himself wanting his mentor to stab the guy already.
To be honest though, it looked to be an uneven fight.
A sword against a knife. It was a good looking knife, no doubt, but the sword was long enough to poke a hole in you from a distance.
Dillan's knife was a curvy black thing, and Harry wondered where his gold one was, and if this one was obsidian, like Harry's hatchets were.
The two assassin's started circling each other slowly, and Harry took another step back. He hardly wanted to be within striking distance of the sword.
As Striker got closer and Dillan further away, the younger wizard got nervous. Striker gave Harry an exaggerated wink, and Dillan's lip twitched.
"Jumpy little thing, isn't he? Can't imagine he's any good in bed," Damien laughed, and for whatever reason, Harry was offended.
Sure, he didn't have sex often, but he liked to think that he didn't do to bad a job of it.
At least he hoped he did a good job of it. It wasn't really something that he and Ginny spoke about. Maybe he should ask.
Harry was snapped back to the present by a loud crack, followed by a growl. It seemed that Dillan and Damien had already connected, and Striker had Dillan pinned to the ground, who was the source of the growling. At the very same time, Harry's mentor had a ridiculous grin on his face.
Harry was having a hard time figuring out what exactly had happened, and why Dillan was smiling, even though he was at such an obvious disadvantage. Striker had his sword pressed hard against Dillan's knife, and if the assassin faltered for even a second, his throat was sure to be shredded.
But, despite all that, Dillan started laughing. Harry watched with wide eyes as Dillan shoved back, making Damien struggle to keep control.
Dillan laughed harder, making Harry wonder if he was altogether stable in the head.
"Maybe," Dillan panted, breathless from laughter and the strain of keeping the blade from his neck,
"I should have brought a knife that wasn't just decorative." Harry's mentor burst into giggles once more.
Harry's mouth had fallen open.
What did he mean, decorative?
Was it not sharp or something?
Everyone in the crowd become far more intrigued than they had been before, and Harry stared, still slightly open mouthed.
"Obsidian?" Damien said, also struggling to catch his breath.
Dillan didn't respond in words. Instead he gave a fierce push upward, and to Harry's absolute horror, his mentor's knife shattered like it was made of glass.
In the split second of surprise that the knife almost exploding had caused Damien, Dillan jammed a small shard of the knife into Striker's throat.
Shock crossed his features, before he stumbled off of Dillan, making awful choking noises and clutching his throat.
Damien appeared to be trying to say something, but unfortunately, only gargles where coming out.
A thin line of blood trickled out of the man's mouth, and with an angry, slightly bubbly and disgusting roar, he lunged at Dillan, who was still on the ground, swinging his sword manically with one hand. His other hand still clutching his bleeding neck.
Harry's mentor only smiled somewhat genially, like a butler would as he took your coat, and as soon as Striker was in range, raised his leg and booted him so hard in the chest Harry was certain that he heard a rib crack.
A sound like a cat being run over escaped Damien's mouth, and Harry cringed as Striker feel to his knees.
Dillan stood slowly, and even took the time to brush of the invisible dirt from his knees.
The only wounds that Harry could see on him were slight scratches on his face and neck, most likely from his exploding knife.
He wandered almost without direction towards the man who was now spitting blood in the floor, whimpering slightly as he tried to claw the shard from his neck.
"You know, I never wanted this to happen. It was your own fault, Damien." Dillan sighed.
Damien spat blood at Dillan's feet.
"Fucking fag." His words were nearly ineligible, but Harry heard them just fine. Apparently, so did Dillan.
Harry's mentor once again smiled the genial smile, and picked up the now abandoned sword.
He slowly got down to Damien's level, and smiled wider.
"This is a rather nice sword. Your father made it for you, didn't he?" though it was a question, Dillan didn't seem to want it to be answered, because he drove the sword through Damien's ribs so fiercely it came out of his back.
"How's this for a fag?" He snarled in Striker's ear, and Harry was sure that he was the only one who heard the harsh whisper, because Damien appeared to already be dead.
Harry was also sure that he was going to be sick.
