Title: My Evil Veela Mate
Author: Jaeye
Pairing/s: Voldemort/Harry
Warnings: Slash (male/male) relationships.
Disclaimer: HP and everything recognizable isn't mine.
A/N: Hi, sorry it took so long for me to get back to this story… It's just been an interesting couple of years. Since I last updated, I've gone down a very different road than writing and then realised that this is where I belong (so yes, in a way as some of you asked, I did die. Now I'm back to life, tada!). All I can say after such a long break from this story is that I hope some of you are still interesting in finding out what happens to Harry and Voldemort. I know I've never stopped thinking about it and I do want to finish writing it down. So if you are interested, read on! If you have always been interested and have been checking in occasionally since… hmmm almost 10 years ago (gasp!) thank you so, so much for bearing up with me, and I'm truly sorry to put you through the long wait!
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Chapter 9: Best laid plans
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/Riddle Manor/
"Wormtail," Voldemort rasped, breathing shallowly as he scented the fresh serpentine blood on the rat at his feet. Eyes narrowed, he kicked the rodent toward Nagini who rounded on it, opening jaws to snarl in rage as she scented snake's blood.
The rat squeaked in fear, scrabbling away from the gleaming fangs as it transformed into a man. Suddenly Pettigrew was on his knees, panting and spitting out blood. He was naked except for the dirt which clung to him as thickly as if he still had fur. "Master!"
"I trust you have completed the task assigned to you?" drawled Lucius from his seat in the other chair by the fireplace. "Our Lord has been waiting for news and I assured him you would bring it." He raised his eyebrows pointedly.
Pettigrew eyed Lucius before answering. "Master, I followed Potter as you wished. Lupin and he were walking in the Forbidden Forest." He paused to catch his breath.
"What were they doing there?" asked Lucius impatiently. "Surely you can tell us more than that?"
Pettigrew shivered as he felt his Master's eyes rake over him, and lifted his head up. "They were only there to find a clearing with shadowroot, my Lord. I learned nothing pertinent from their conversation."
Lucius's eyes narrowed, looking down at Pettigrew, "Surely you heard something useful," he said sibilantly.
"Hush, Lucius. I did not send him to spy on secrets. Come here, Peter." Voldemort said softly as he held out his hand.
Pettigrew wavered but crept to the Dark Lord's outstretched hand, bending further when it was placed on his head briefly, then lifted to be replaced by the cold tip of his Master's wand. The smooth wood touched the side of his forehead, leaving nothing but a faint tingling and a vague feeling of loss when it was lifted. Puzzled, he angled his head up to see what had happened.
On the table between the two reclined wizards sat a large and shallow silver bowl, elegant and simple in design. As Pettigrew watched, Lucius uncovered the dish, allowing Lord Voldemort to drip down a silver thread that clung to his wand. It slid fluidly into the middle of the bowl where it pooled and lay pulsing like a little animal till the wand stirred it to life.
The first nudge of the dark tip made the silver coalesce into an image, and Pettigrew understood that it was a memory he had possessed but a few seconds ago. Lord Voldemort pushed at it again, this time touching it with a finger. On the other side of the dish, Lucius and Wormtail did the same. At once, the three wizards rose as one and dove into the bowl, seeming to vaporize and then flow into the memory, like ink slowly uncurling and coalescing in water.
"Remus? Is it any further? It's been an hour and a half already… and I've never been here before."
Voldemort listened, habitually noting everything he observed. The two figures were moving slowly through the forest, the werewolf slinking through easily while Potter crackled by his side. It was a moonlit night, but the two slipped from shadow to shadow as they walked, and only their size and gait differentiated them.
Keeping his eyes trained on the smaller of the two figures, Voldemort and the other two wizards shadowed the pair with keen eyes and ears attuned to their every movement. Moments passed with nothing happening until Potter abruptly tripped and sank, leg trapped between the roots of an old tree. Moonlight shone directly down on him as he tried to pull himself out while gasping in pain, and Voldemort saw the boy for the first time since his transformation.
He had definitely changed for the better, Voldemort found himself thinking. Moonlight flattered even the plainest of faces, but he could see where the magic had wrought subtle changes. Potter's face, once a hated countenance that had enraged him and reminded him of James' arrogance in refusing him and Lily's hysterical defiance that had almost proved fatal to him, now captivated his attention and made him see Potter in a new light. He had grown out of the skinny awkward adolescence of the troublesome boy that had unexpectedly succeeded in thwarting Voldemort at every turn and transformed into a slim and solemn young man. It was as if grieving for Black had given him years of maturity in the few months since Voldemort had last seen him.
However even as a newly-turned veela, Potter was a mixed-bag. He had not the delicate features of Narcissa, nor the wild beauty that was Bella's. His features were far removed from the sharp noble mien that the Malfoy men boasted. In fact, if anything, he looked almost too common to be counted among the race of veela. Nevertheless, the curve of his cheekbones, the slope of his nose, the delicate slant of his jaw and the pout of his lips were molded in such a way, and with such harmony, that one could not look away. There was nothing special about each individual feature yet together they gave Potter a beauty that hadn't been apparent before. He was exquisite, yet Voldemort couldn't quite understand why.
"He looks well enough, but his colouring is all wrong," Lucius remarked, breaking the silence that they had fallen into upon glimpsing the veela. "Most veela are fair. But of course, Potter deviates. It seems that he was born to break all natural laws."
"Hmmm." Voldemort didn't stop gazing even as he took in the words. Harry was now clutching at Lupin's forearm as he steadied himself and hobbled along, leaning to one side. The wind made his frame shudder, and swept his hair back, revealing the pale column of his neck.
"What do you think that is, Lucius?" he asked, pointing to a darkened spot that marked the side of Harry's neck.
"That?" Lucius took a step nearer and squinted at Potter. "Why, a mark of some kind… given his age, I would assume it to be a love bite," he grimaced distastefully.
"A… love bite?" Voldemort repeated. He frowned strongly.
"Indeed. Of course, there must be droves of senseless girls who would be giddy over him. He is, after all, the 'saviour' of the wizarding world." Lucius gracefully rolled his eyes. "Thankfully Draco, has more taste than to allow any harlot to gnaw on his neck," he added as an afterthought, half to himself.
Voldemort glanced in annoyance at Lucius. Someone had gotten that close to the Potter boy, and all his Death Eater could think about was his own son. "I don't want anyone getting involved with him."
Lucius blinked, showing no other sign of being startled. "Why not? If he gets mated, he will be even easier to control. His mate will be his weakest point."
Voldemort thought about it for a minute. "No, I do not want Potter mating anytime soon," he ordered coldly. "I expect you to see to it that he doesn't."
"My Lord… I can't control whether or not the boy mates. I may be Prince, but in matters such as these, no one can interfere except the pair involved. If they choose to mate, nothing but death can part them."
"Are you disobeying me, Lucius?"
Lucius flinched at the dark undercurrent in the Dark Lord's tone, "No, my Lord. I'm merely saying… that it's a matter of chance. If he meets his mate, he will naturally gravitate towards them. Even if they are kept apart, one meeting is all it would take."
"Then how am I supposed to control him, if anyone can come along and claim his powers?" Voldemort asked pointedly.
"Well…" Lucius paused. Minutes passed by as he wracked his brain for an answer that would satisfy his Lord. "The only way is to control his mate…" he finally said. "It's not foolproof, but I can't imagine any other solution. It's in our nature, once mated, to think only of our mate's survival and not our own." He seemed about to say more, but decided against it in the end.
"Now that Dumbledore is out of the way and Black is gone, there is only Lupin who will be by Potter's side," Pettigrew said suddenly from his position on the floor. He had been watching his own self within the memory with recognition and interest akin to wonder. "It would be easy enough to spy on Potter and discover who his mate is."
"And I suppose you think you are perfect for the job?" Lucius asked. It seemed he was irritated that Pettigrew had dared to speak up. He was the Dark Lord's right hand man, and Wormtail was a mere pawn-a pampered pet, allowed to kneel at their feet.
"I have experience," Pettigrew said with a touch of indignance.
"But everyone knows your animagus form, especially Lupin, you're hardly a fit candidate for-"
"I still have ways."
"As you've proved today. Why, if it weren't for My Lord's gift to you," at this, Lucius eyed Pettigrew's silver hand pointedly, "you would be half digested within that snake by now." He gestured at the snake which was chasing Wormtail through the memory as they spoke.
Voldemort closed his eyes as Pettigrew bristled at Lucius. He dismissed them, realising that their bickering wasn't what bothered him the most at the moment.
It was Potter, again. The boy was like a thorn in his side. Since birth, he had thwarted Voldemort, and then grown to be if not an equal adversary, a hindrance that was always in his way. Now he had done the unexpected again and become a veela. He had even somehow managed to wander into Voldemort's mind! While unexpected, it had proved to be fortunate because it showed that he still hadn't mastered Legilimency, or even Occlumency, for all Dumbledore's efforts, and the end result of their encounter was Dumbledore's downfall. Whether that was permanent or not was yet to be seen. But as Wormtail had said, Potter really was on his own now. With no family, and no mentor he was afloat so to say, in a sea with no anchor. Well, none except the tenuous string forged during their last encounter, when Potter had somehow unknowingly trespassed into the deepest darkest crevices of his own mind.
The boy's whole situation reminded him of himself, Voldemort mused. As a boy, he had enjoyed the same freedom Potter had now. At the time, he had immersed himself in studying magic, especially the tempting magic that lurked in the books from the Restricted Section, that no one dared to try to understand but he. But Potter was not the sort to seek company in dusty tomes of lore, he was too gregarious for that. So where would he turn to? It barely merited a thought-his friends, of course. From all reports, it seemed like he shared everything with the Weasley boy and the Mudblood girl.
But now he's a veela… and they're quite inadequate to guide him. So what would they do now? Other known veela had pledged loyalty to the Malfoys and thus to Voldemort or retreated into neutral enclaves of families. Those that had children were already sending them to Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, or to schools in the far East who were traditionally favoured by mixed-race children. It would be risky and hard to convince any of the teachers there to come to Hogwarts just for Potter. That left just Lupin to guide him. But the werewolf, no matter how well-read, was no veela, and couldn't know all there was to know about their kind. Well then, how about the Malfoy boy? Odd as it was, Draco might actually be able to gain some influence by teaching Potter. But it's still not enough, Voldemort thought in annoyance. From what Lucius told him, Potter and his son weren't on good terms. No… nothing could come of that. Or even if some measure of camaraderie grew, it couldn't be depended on without Potter's trust and loyalty to Malfoy.
Could it be then, that the best he could do now was send Wormtail as a spy? He thought once again about what he had seen in the animagus' memories. As a rat, he had been useless and vulnerable. He was a known spy. And he cannot control Potter at all. Or even watch him at all times. Potter may mate at any time, and I wouldn't know till it's too late. Voldemort grimaced at the thought. Sending another Death Eater was useless. Sending their children was gambling too much on their competence.
That left one other option. It wasn't one he liked, but it would have to do for now.
"-an incompetent scruffy rodent, Pettigrew. You wouldn't survive a day."
"Enough Lucius," said Voldemort. "Pettigrew, you're dismissed." He ascended from the memory, dragging the other wizards with him. The smell of snakes' blood was faint, as all senses were nowadays, but it still made him want to retch.
"But my Lord!" Wormtail turned accusing eyes at Lucius when they reformed in the real world. "I've served you well all these years, while he betra-" he stopped as Voldemort narrowed his eyes, sensing his annoyance. "I only wish to serve you my Lord, I am your most faithful…" he ended with a whimper, bowing as he left the room.
Voldemort sighed as the door closed. "Do not bait him so, Lucius. It tires me."
"As you wish, my Lord." Lucius smiled graciously. "Is there something you desire of me?" he wondered out loud, guessing correctly that Voldemort had made up his mind.
"Yes," Voldemort replied. He stood up and walked over to lean against the mantelpiece. "We have much to do." He bent down and grasped Nagini's middle, hefting her up to drape about his shoulders before stalking from the room. She hissed affectionately at him and he patted her reassuringly, a rare smile curving his thin lips.
Bemused, Lucius paused only to grab the pensieve from the table, then followed his lord out.
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The stream of hustle and bustle at St. Mungo's seemed strangely subdued that evening. Deus wasn't sure if it was because the wizarding community had swarmed the Weird Sister's concert at Bucklebury and it was too early for the drunken masses to stumble in with pig snouts growing on their foreheads or bearing curses that made them recite the greek alphabet backwards in a pentatonic scale. Of course, it could also be that there had been a leak on the case he was working on and everyone was giving the hospital a wide berth. It was highly unlikely to be the latter though, as even he hadn't a clear idea on what had brought about the sudden almost frantic summons from Kingsley. Nevertheless, there did seem to be an ominously urgent undercurrent permeating the scrubbed white halls of St. Mungo's.
Whatever it was, Deus was grateful for the peace and quiet. It allowed him to sneak long glances at the lovely bottom leading the way to the private wing of St. Mungo's. It was fulsome and shaped like a perfect little peach, both cheeks bumping against each other like good friends saying hello, over and over and over-
The nurse, Deus observed, not only had a figure that perfectly filled out her white uniform, but a glare that he was sure meant that she had inherited the fabled blood of gorgons, perhaps from an ancestor that traced not too far back on her family tree.
Despite the death stare, Deus maintained his stoic and immovable expression and bowed deeply to her while she paused by the doorway they had arrived at. "Thank yee kindly ma'am," he said, putting on his best cowboy accent. It didn't do anything except increase the intensity of her glare. He fingered his goatee as he entered the room, wondering if it hadn't been sufficient after all, to hide his slight grin. Mom always said he was bad at lying.
Almost immediately after he entered the door, a young orderly ran a wand down his body to check for hidden charms and spells. After the usual alarms that Deus explained away by saying, 'I'm Deus,' and showing him his credentials, he was led through the wing. The hallway was a light cream in colour and sloped slightly downwards.
After many twists and turns - specifically, two lefts, 1 right and the four o'clock hallway at the radial crossroads followed by the third right, Deus noted absently - they finally reached their destination. The orderly pressed his hand to the door and whispered a password before letting him in.
Deus had had the distinct feeling that they had passed underground as he followed the orderly, yet the first thing he noticed upon entering the room was the way the morning sun streamed across the floor in long paneled rectangles.
Then he noticed the train chugging around the room on tracks that formed and faded and then reformed under its wheels in a random circuit that ran in dizzying rounds around the room, the countless nodding teddy bears and golliwogs, swaying rocking horses, fluttering butterflies, and the blinking dollies clustered around a picnic blanket spread with a beautiful willow-patterned tea set made of bone china. In contrast to the moving toys, the little girl seated amidst them with ash coloured hair and dressed in a plain dark blue cotton pinafore seemed to fade away into the background. If it weren't for the small smile on her dainty face and the way her eyes snapped to him, Deus would have thought she was just another doll, more life-like than the others, that's all.
Then he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye and turned, spinning swiftly on his heels. Just beside the door was a young man with shoulder length blonde hair and one blue-green and one dark eye. He looked very handsome and very young and something about him made Deus's scalp itch all over as if a family of spiders had decided to settle in his hair. The man looked him up and down and smiled knowingly. Then he seemed to dismiss Deus and languidly strolled over to sit by the little girl. She smiled sweetly at him and offered him a cup of tea.
"Relax, he's not real," said Kingsley. Dressed all in black, he was standing unobtrusively by a bed in the corner of the room, observing Deus. Beside him was someone Deus recognized immediately.
"Professor?" he said in surprise, at once annoyed at how his voice became a tone or two higher, the way it used to whenever he was suddenly caught misbehaving.
"Mr. Scamander," greeted Professor McGonagall.
"You took your time coming here," said a clown that had been sitting by the girl. Then slowly, as Deus watched, the clown's face morphed into a familiar face with a cheeky grin.
"I came as soon as I was summoned," Deus said brusquely back. "What is going on? Surely we aren't here to have a tea party?"
Kingsley shook his head and then stepped aside, allowing Deus a better view of the bed. Nestled within the thick blankets lay Albus Dumbledore. He looked so frail and washed out that Deus immediately checked for signs of life. There, his chest was rising and falling, but so slowly that for a few precious moments, he was a perfect impersonation of a wax figurine of himself.
Nymphadora Tonks came up by his side and said sorrowfully, "He's been like that for almost twenty four hours now."
"But what on earth has happened to him?" Deus asked incredulously. Could this really be Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard alive? The kindly headmaster who had sheltered him at Hogwarts?
"We do not know, unfortunately," said Professor McGonagall. "There was an incident up at the school, involving Harry Potter and perhaps another party. Harry suffered from smoke inhalation and some burns and the room was retrieved by Hogwarts, but we have yet to determine what exactly happened to Professor Dumbledore."
"We've spoken to Mr. Potter and the others who arrived on the scene, specifically Madam Pomfrey and Remus Lupin. You may review their statements," Kingsley said, holding out a file to Deus. "Unfortunately, the interviews don't reveal anything very useful."
Deus took the file and leafed through the sheafs of papers within, then set them aside. "Sounds just right for me. I love a good mystery," he said. His smile wilted when Professor McGonagall and Kingsley looked back at him solemnly and Tonks gave him a look that seemed to say there was more to come. "Ok, but why me, specifically?" he gestured about him. "This seems to be more of a job for a mediwitch or wizard, or the Unspeakables, not an Auror."
"Well," Kingsley said, after a significant pause. "There's something that's come to light that might drastically change the way things proceed in the future. Something that makes your particular talents very useful to us."
Deus' eyebrows climbed to his hairline as he listened to Kingsley and Professor McGonagall reveal what they had learned in the past day. By the time they were done, his heart was hammering and sweat had begun to bead on his forehead.
"-suffice to say, that this assignment will go far towards you making up for your offense-" Kingsley said, then paused when Deus started to sway on his feet.
There was an awkward pause as Deus took in deep breaths of air to steady himself. Then, without warning, a child-sized pink and white candy-striped chair materializing by him with a little pop.
"It's a lot to take in, isn't it," Tonks said, the quickest to respond to the anomaly. She guided over to the chair and Deus sagged into it.
The blonde youth who had been silently watching them strolled over from the little girl and passed him a silky white kerchief. He hesitated then took it and mopped his brow. "Thanks, err…" he paused. "By the way, who are these people?" he asked, wondering why he hadn't thought to ask before. It surely wasn't according to protocol to discuss top secret information in front of youths and children. But perhaps it hadn't occurred to him because the boy and the girl looked so knowing and felt so familiar, and yet seemed to blend into the background as if they were merely moving pictures in the wallpaper, only three dimensional and not restrained to the wall.
"Oh them?" Tonks said, brightening a little. "They come from him," she gestured to Professor Dumbledore. "They're his memories brought to live, so to speak. There's little Arianna, and there's… there's Grindelwald. From before he became bad," she added when Deus jumped. "Aberforth pops in sometimes but for the most it's been these two."
So that was why the blonde boy looked so familiar. Deus bent to pick up the kerchief he had dropped, holding it out to the young man. He smiled back at Deus, shaking his head and gesturing for him to keep it. The mischievous wink in his eye seemed to convey to Deus that he'd need it in the future. Deus tried again, but the youth turned away and sat on the bed beside Dumbledore, looking mournfully at the almost lifeless figure. He seemed to know that underneath the wrinkles and the silver hair was his childhood friend aged far beyond his own unnatural youth.
"They are the only sign that he might still be in there, somewhere," Professor McGonagall said in a hoarse voice. "Though we can not be sure if he's… if he's mentally stable. We can only wait for him to wake, if he will ever wake." She turned away and wiped at the tears that ran down her cheeks.
Kingsley cleared his throat, looking a little pink around the eyes himself. "As Minerva will act as headmistress in Dumbledore's stead, we think that the best way for you to enter Hogwarts is as the new Transfiguration Professor," he said. "In that capacity, you will keep a very close eye on Harry and the school and report everything back to me. Tonks will assume an undercover identity and accompany you as immediate backup. She will also take over Dumbledore's role for the Order in the school."
"As eyes and ears only," Tonks interjected, "we're still picking up the pieces as much as we can in the Order."
"Is that all?" Deus said. "Shouldn't we put the school on high alert and post Aurors to guard it? Surely whatever attacked Dumbledore would pose a much greater risk to the students!"
"Remus Lupin and Severus Snape are already at the school and report no unusual activity. We also can't totally rule out that this was an accident rather than an attack, and I'm afraid our Aurors are needed to guard our borders and monitor the traffic in and out of England," Kingsley said. "We have received news of recent Death Eater sightings and attacks in France, Germany and the Far North, and it's possible that Voldemort is planning something big that we need to help fight against. We also don't want to cause a panic at the school. The students shouldn't leave Hogwarts, it is relatively still the safest place for them."
"I've already started implementing more security up at the school," Professor McGonagall added. "We are all very determined to get to the bottom of this and to protect our students." All trace of tears were gone from her face and her voice was like iron. "We teachers have an arsenal of spells that we've been working on to defend the castle. It's time we try them out!"
"The other thing we have to extremely careful about is to not let the public know that Dumbledore has fallen… ill," Kingsley said grimly. "We can't afford the panic and the loss of morale. It will unfortunately make your job a lot harder," he said, nodding at Tonks and Deus in turn, "but I have the utmost faith in you. I both of you," he said, giving an especially long look at Deus.
Deus nodded slowly, realizing then how important his next position would be. Somehow he had to guard Potter, uncover what had felled Dumbledore and also teach Transfigurations to the whole school and act as Head of House for Gryffindor. Well, he thought, looking at Dumbledore lying motionless in the bed, he had always wanted to repay the old man for all he'd done for him. What better time than now?