Note: By the way, "_" are spoken words and '_' are mental conversations … I realised I'd been operating under the assumption that everyone somehow knew how my brain worked, sorry about that …
Chapter 12
Harry groaned.
Something—a battering ram?—was pounding the inside of his skull incessantly, making it impossible to think beyond the dull throbbing. Even looking up from his chest—not that he could exactly see, what with his eyelids trying to emulate lead weights—took too much effort, and he only succeeded in making bolts of sharp pain lance through his head. He tried to bring his hands up to rub his temples—anything to soothe the ache—and realised, to his alarm, that they were stuck.
Rope bit into his wrists when he pulled at them again. Shit.
He was starting to get the distinct impression that things weren't exactly rainbows and sunshine at the moment.
Slowly, forcing his brain to cooperate, he took stock of the state of his body.
He was sitting on what felt like a wooden chair, his wrists bound behind him and his ankles secured to the legs of the seat (trying to stand was a monumentally stupid idea, he learned). When he was finally able to wrest his eyes open, he was looking into the dark cloth of a blindfold.
Absurdly, he was overcome by the urge to laugh. How messed up was his life that a kidnapping was a run-of-the-mill occurrence rather than one that elicited panicked screams and frantic escape attempts?
And how was he going to get any help? As far as Andy knew, he had gone to do some shopping in Diagon Alley, and would not be expected back for a few hours yet … Another worrisome thought occurred to him. How long had he been unconscious for? Maybe Andy and the Weasleys, who had possibly mobilised the remainder of the Order, were losing it at his unexplained disappearance. He needed to figure a way out of here fast—or at least send word to them to assuage their more dire concerns.
But his hands were tied—literally—and even if he somehow managed to Houdini his way out of the bindings, he would have to find his wand, which he could not feel in his back pocket. Oh, but there was another wand that he could summon …
Death! Why didn't he think of that?
'Indeed, Harry. I do hope you grow to become more familiar with my presence in your life; after all, I do have aeons of knowledge that are at your beck and call.'
Harry didn't even bother to roll his eyes. 'Yes, Death, blah blah Master of Death blah blah … I get it. Now, some help would be greatly appreciated here.'
'I am not certain what ideas you have of my powers, Harry, but I am not omnipotent. My control is limited strictly to the land of the dead. There is very little I am able to do short of informing you of when and how your captor will die … Actually …' Death petered out.
'Yes?'
Harry could almost hear the frown. 'This is most unusual. I am … unable to perceive whether he or she will die at all, let alone the circumstances of their death. It is as if … it is as if they are not in possession of a soul …'
Harry did not have a good feeling about this.
'No, that is not quite right. It is not that they do not have a soul; rather, their body does not house the correct soul. How strange …'
Would banging his head against a wall elicit clearer answers? He half-expected an offering of lemon drops and tea next. 'Well, then whose soul is in that body? And whose soul is supposed to be in that body?'
'That is the question, isn't it,' Death murmured thoughtfully. 'The existence of life has rules to be followed, the most basic one being that the body determines the soul, and conversely, the soul determines the body. That is why, even with the piece of Voldemort's soul in your body, you were still Harry Potter—because your body was that of Harry Potter, and you still had the soul of Harry Potter. However, this individual does not have even an iota of the soul that their body was born with, and therefore, I am unable to ascertain the name of the body. We are in quite a pickle.'
That … actually made a surprising amount of sense, but Harry's predicament wasn't any closer to being solved. 'Alright, so you can't tell who this mystery person is. Can you at least describe them to me?'
'Harry, when I said that I am constrained to the dead, that is exactly what I meant. The realm of the living is not one that I am able to interact with at all, save for the souls that cross over into my dominion. My connection to you is the only exception—anything you experience, I can observe as well.'
Nope, Harry decided, he took it all back. None of this made a lick of sense after all. 'But … you said … your knowledge …'
Death snorted at his confusion. 'The knowledge I have amassed over the millennia came from those who died. When they enter my domain, every moment that they have seen and experienced and learnt is shared with me. Yours is the only mind and body that is open to me while it is still among the living. If you obtain a visual image of your elusive jailor, I will be able to do the same. However, given the state you are in, I doubt the likelihood of such an occurrence in the near future.'
Aware that he was acting unreasonable, Harry grumbled, 'So, essentially, there's nothing you can do. Great.'
A silky voice cut through his thoughts. "I see that you are awake."
Harry jerked his head up, and moaned again at the fresh wave of pain. Gritting his teeth, he spat, "What do you want?"
"Now, Harry, haven't your parents taught you to be polite to your host?" As soon as he spoke, the man gasped theatrically.
A haze of fury had descended on Harry, and he clenched his fists so tightly that his tendons pressed outward into the rough rope restricting his wrists.
"Oh dear, they couldn't have, could they? James and Lily have long departed this world, and your Muggle relatives could hardly teach you manners when the species as a whole barely qualify as animals themselves."
Harry could feel the perverse satisfaction emanating from the man with each word. Taking a deep breath to reign in his temper, he asked, "Who are you?"
There was a pregnant pause, before his captor said, "You may call me Goodman."
Harry leaned back in surprise; 'Goodman' had moved much closer to him, so close that he could feel his breath on his face. His hair was pushed back abruptly, and a cool finger traced the faint remains of his lightning blot scar. Without warning, Goodman's hands crushed his shoulders in a brutal grip.
A growl sounded in his ear. "Where is the Elder Wand?"
Of all the reasons he had expected to be behind his abduction, this was one that hadn't even occurred to him. It should have, though. Why, why, had he emulated Voldemort's ridiculous self-absorbed speeches and flaunt his ownership of the Elder Wand in front of an audience? Really, he had only himself to blame this time.
"I don't know," Harry stated.
Goodman shook him violently, panting breaths falling heavy against Harry's face. "Where. Is. The. Wand?"
"I said, I don't kno—"
A backhand across his jaw cut him off. As he tried to blink away the stars swimming around him, he was faintly amused to note that Death was beginning to resemble Kreacher, muttering malevolent threats under his breath about "not being fit to wipe his Master's boots".
A cold, maniacal laugh erupted from Goodman. "Well, I'll just have to force it out of you, won't I? Your stubborn nature is quite well-known, so I came prepared. Let's see if a little Truth Serum won't loosen your tongue, eh?"
Damn it all, how was he going to get himself out of this fix?
Surprisingly smooth hands pried his mouth open, and Harry felt the brief imprint of the man's ring against his skin. Tasteless drops fell on his tongue, and the rigid set of his back went suddenly lax.
Death whispered urgently in his mind as Goodman gloated in prideful delight. 'Do not reply immediately. When he asks a question, think of how it can be answered without giving him what he wants. Although Veritaserum will compel you more forcefully to respond the longer you leave it, it does not technically have a time limit. Use your brain, Harry; I know for a fact that you have a very astute one.'
"Let's begin, shall we?" Goodman spoke gleefully.
"No," Harry answered. Death groaned. "Let's not."
Another hard blow later, Goodman continued pleasantly, "You would do well to mind your tongue, Harry. Now, where is the Elder Wand?"
From his detached mind, Harry realised that actually, he didn't know where the Wand was. Sure, he could summon it with a thought—no, not now, thanks—but where exactly was it at this very moment?
"I don't know," he said, and heard an irate snarl.
"Didn't you use it to defeat Voldemort?" Goodman exclaimed.
Hmm, how to answer this one? Taking great care to irritate his captor some more, of course. "To some degree."
"To some—" Some presumably glass item crashed reverberatingly into a wall in his general vicinity. After a string of creative, if menacing curses, Goodman said, "Explain, in detail, what you mean by 'to some degree'."
Something wasn't adding up. More so than he had initially thought, what with being held prisoner by a madman who apparently had some weird spiritual malfunction. Why was he being asked to clarify what he had already shamefully bragged about to Voldemort and the rest of the people in the Great Hall of Hogwarts on that fateful day? For some reason, Goodman didn't know exactly what had happened, which meant that he likely hadn't been there to witness it.
Harry thought back to what Mr. Weasley had told him about the aftermath. Apparently, everyone in Hogwarts had been rounded up almost immediately after Voldemort's death, and in an effort to arrest the spread of the knowledge of the potentially dangerous magic that he had revealed, an Unbreakable Vow had been extracted from everyone that forbade them from disclosing the events in any form to anyone who was not there at the time. Therefore, only those present then knew the exact circumstances of the Dark Lord's demise beyond ambiguous statements such as "Harry Potter vanquished He Who Must Not Be Named in a heroic battle".
Which begged the question: if Goodman hadn't been there, how did he know that the Wand had been used by Harry to defeat Voldemort, or that it even existed?
The vague tugging was becoming more insistent, and Harry decided to reply plainly.
"I did not physically use the Elder Wand to beat Voldemort. Instead, I duelled him using the wand that had previously Disarmed the Elder Wand, which overpowered it."
"So you are its current master."
Harry remained silent.
Goodman shook him again. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Harry inquired cordially. Death coughed something along the lines of "cheeky brat".
"WHERE IS IT?" Goodman roared, finally losing patience. "WHERE IS THE ELDER WAND?"
"I don't know," he recited blandly.
Goodman's ferocious rage was palpable. Harry could imagine him glaring daggers of hatred at him, a blood vessel ready to burst.
He heard a deep inhale. "Fine," Goodman choked out reluctantly. "Let's try something else then. I noticed you're wearing the Resurrection Stone."
Harry froze. Morgana's lace garters, but this was bad.
"The ring would not come off," the man continued, and Harry could hear the voice starting to move around to his back. "Not with an Accio or any other spells, and it remained unyielding when pulled."
Mind racing, Harry considered his meagre options before landing on one. 'Death, could you make the ring disappear back to wherever the Cloak and Wand are? Without informing me of their location, of course.'
A slight tingle warmed his finger before the band of skin was exposed to the air.
"What I want to know is—" He had evidently caught sight of his bare dight, and the resulting strangled noise that arose from behind him was immensely gratifying.
Until hands constricted his throat.
"Where is it?" Goodman hissed.
"Where is what?"
To his relative relief, his throat was released and Goodman was breathing in his face again. "Where is the Resurrection Stone?"
"I don't know," Harry repeated, suppressing a smug smirk. It just warmed him right to the cockles of his heart to get under the skin of this raving lunatic. Seized by an impulsive recklessness, he was able to override the effects of the Veritaserum enough to arrange his facial muscles into an expression of polite concern. "Mr. Goodman, I would suggest setting up an appointment with a Healer as soon as possible—"
'For the love of all that is dead and dying, Harry, please desist!' Death interjected, his tone just this side of begging.
"—because I'm sorry to say your hearing's shot to hell if you didn't hear me say the first few times that I don't know."
An almost shocked silence echoed around him. Harry got the impression that if he could, Death would be trying to strangle the life out of him.
Or possibly just gag him for the rest of eternity.
Said immortal was ranting, and quite melodramatically at that. 'Is this some pigheaded attempt at revenge? Trying to prove that you can in fact be killed even though you are Master of Death? Because you might actually—'
Harry barely registered another explosion of pain at the back of his head, before succumbing once more to blackness.
Harry's head felt like one giant bruise, and he could barely string together a single thought.
He really had to stop waking up like this.
Slowly, he became aware of a coarse surface—gravel, his brain supplied—cutting into his cheek. A voice was speaking in his ear, far too loudly and closely for him to do more than whimper and push away feebly.
Push! His arms were free again! He heaved himself up into a sitting position, only to clutch his head in misery as he tried to steady himself. When he was reasonably sure that he wouldn't fall flat on his face, he opened his eyes. Someone was crouching beside him, and Harry squinted, attempting to make out his features.
A pair of glasses were shoved into his hand. "Here, you probably need these."
As soon as he put them on, a sigh of relief escaped him. The spasms of pain had receded into an ache at the back of his head, relatively simple to ignore in the face of being able to see again. Blond hair and blue eyes sharpened into view.
"You! You're the kid from Diagon! Max!"
The boy, Max, looked like he couldn't decide whether he was offended to be called a kid, or embarrassed at being caught staring.
"Er, yeah. You alright?" Almost immediately he winced. "I mean, of course you're not. I should take you to St. Mungo's. I was going to, but I couldn't carry you inside to the Floo and without an Apparition licence I couldn't transport you that way either," he babbled, a red tinge spreading down his neck.
Harry held up his hand, as much to stop the torrent of words as to spare his still sensitive ears. "It's fine, really. Probably a good thing you didn't, to be honest. The Prophet would've had a field day if they caught sight of me like this, and likely as not funeral preparations would already have been underway all around the country."
Still looking uncertain, Max tugged at the hem of his shirt nervously. "You're sure? Your head's …" he trailed off, gesturing uselessly.
"I'm aware," Harry acknowledged wryly. "It rather feels like a particularly vigorous carpentering apprenticeship's taking place inside."
Max flushed deeper, and Harry was struck by how young he looked. At least it was an improvement from their last encounter, when the kid had been liable to rip his head off every time Harry opened his mouth.
"Where are we?" he asked suddenly. Looking around what seemed to be a back alley, he could make out a general disarray of storage boxes and garbage cans.
"Behind my shop," Max said. "I was just closing up for the night when I heard the crack of an Apparition so I came out to look. You were lying here facedown, clearly unconscious and with blood on your shirt." His brow furrowed, and he muttered, "Dunno what I'd have done if you hadn't woken up."
Harry grunted. "Well, I'll get out of your hair now," he said, trying to get to his feet, only to sway precariously. Max rushed to his side and shouldered some of his weight, wrapping an arm bracingly around his waist.
"You're sure?" he asked again. "I could …" Blond brows furrowed as he realised there wasn't really much he could do.
"It's fine," Harry waved off. "Just get me to your Floo and I'll figure out the rest. Come on," he said, teetering again as he took a step forward.
The arm around him tightened, and the pair shuffle-wobbled inside clumsily. Thankfully, the Floo was not two feet away from the doorway, and he planted his feet firmly in front of the fire as Max extricated his arm.
Harry took a pinch of Floo powder from the strangely pattered fishbowl on the mantelpiece, before turning back to Max.
"Thanks again," he smiled, scratching his head ruefully. "It's too bad we only seem to meet when I'm in danger. Hopefully, the next time will be more favourable."
He received a shy smile in return. "Don't worry about it—wasn't really much use in the end, was I? If you're in a life-threatening situation again, you know where to crash. Er, not literally."
"Cheers," Harry grinned, and threw the powder into the flames. "Number twelve Grimmauld Place!"
A/N: I know I seem to be saying this a lot lately (or as 'lately' as my last update can be considered) but I'm so sorry for the dry spell recently! This chapter has been an absolute nightmare, mostly because I had no idea how to begin bridging the gap between where I am in the story to where I need to get to. Thankfully I was once again inspired and dealt with this monster over the last few days (rather than the month that I had left this story). But I did manage to do some other writing, so I can't say I'm entirely disappointed.
In other news, Australia has a new Prime Minister! My Aussie friends are utterly thrilled, as he's been a douchebag over his thankfully very short term. Fingers crossed that the Canadian PM (who is besties with that guy) will head out the same way at next month's election!
Reviews are loved! Also, I haven't mentioned it on this fic, but prompts are always welcome, as I've got a drabble dump set up as well :)
