CHAPTER 13:
DON'T FEAR THE REAPER
Eto didn't want to leave England, if it meant leaving Harry behind. But she knew that she'd have to attend to Aogiri Tree business back home, as well as touch base with Arima. Plus, she'd had some good ideas for a novel, and found herself at her best at writing when at home, surrounded by the familiar.
In any case, once she got back to Japan, she left a message in one of the dead letter drops she used to contact Arima. She then met him on the roof of one of the auditoriums at Kamii University a couple of nights later. He looked like a ghost, moving with inhuman grace, his hair flecked with the white of his accelerated ageing. She could smell the stink of his Quinques from here.
He placed down a device she knew to be a magical one, used to prevent eavesdropping if one didn't know privacy charms. Expensive, though. "I've had my reports from Baum and my brother."
"What? No hello, Reaper? No I'm glad that you're safe, Eto, Reaper?"
Arima's lips thinned. Eto was mostly teasing him, as Kishou Arima wasn't generally fond of fripperies, save for in private. "You've not done as much as I thought, Eto. Aside from the attack on Battersea Power Station, you've been flying under the radar."
"That's a good thing, Arima, and you know it," Eto said, turning to look out across the city. "I didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself or Harry. Anyway, I sent the information where Voldemort was going to send the Ghouls to attack in London to the CCG. Wish I knew about the attack on Hogsmeade. They did this to lure him out, see what Baum and Harry could do. Why else would they send weaklings to Hogsmeade? And then, there's that idiot Malfoy and that article he paid for. I'm worried about Harry. You've managed to make him skilled, but…is he ready to confront Voldemort? To say nothing of the S Ranked Ghouls under him, or the politics around this messy situation? All that it will take is for Edward to make an appearance at the wrong time, and they'll vilify him. More than they have already, anyway."
"It just means he'll be back sooner, Eto."
"You know he has this little saving people thing. That's what Hermione called it, one of the witches he's helping teach. She's got him pegged. He doesn't want to leave those inbred idiots to Voldemort and his little merry band of murderers, even if they despise him. Besides, even if he did come back, who's to say Voldemort doesn't follow him? Frankly, if I knew where Voldemort was, I'd go and eat him…well, it's what I would say if I was sure I could beat him and every wizard there. I could probably wipe the floor with most Doves, save for you. Wizards, though…one of them could get lucky with the Killing Curse. I once got hit in the limb by the Cruciatus by an overzealous wizard working with the local Disposal of Dangerous Creatures group while I was using my kakuja. Stupid bloody magic."
Arima joined her at the roof's edge. "I don't want him to die either. He's given me something more to live for than being part of the CCG. That I can leave something more to the world than my legacy as the Reaper, or our One-Eyed King plan."
Eto chuckled. "…He wants to be the true One-Eyed King himself. He said something about wanting to be a Ghoul. To share my burden, to help us bring down the Washuu."
"…He does it because he loves us both," Arima said. "For myself, it is brotherly love, no…it's even the love a son has for his father. He wants to be the one to kill me, because he doesn't want me to suffer. An odd way of showing love, but I don't think the three of us qualify as normal. And as for you…despite both of you having your problems, you have what would be considered romantic love…albeit after a fashion."
Eto snorted. "I'm a One-Eyed Ghoul raised in the 24th Ward and in charge of a gang of Ghouls, he's an ex-Scrapper with a split personality and magical powers, raised by you to be a Mini-Reaper. Normal doesn't come into it. And yet, in a perverse way…he helps me feel more normal, or at least more like a person. I'm glad you introduced me to him. I shouldn't be, he's a weakness that I don't need, and yet…it actually gives me something more to strive for than laying waste to the world as it is now, and letting the new one grow from its ashes. He gives me a reason to survive, no, to live beyond that day. It's a shame we can't extend your life. I don't think he truly wants you dead. He just knows you want to die before your body gives out on you."
"Hmm. I have to admit, I enjoyed being his guardian. There are few activities in my life I have. It's not without its trials and travails, but still…I suppose I have found pride in something other than myself." After a moment, Arima said, "Time is against us. My personal doctor has confirmed I have early stages of glaucoma in my right eye. Even with treatment, he doubts I will retain any real vision in that eye within the decade. Most half-humans have a form of progeria that starts to affect them from their late teens to their twenties. There's one of my bastard half-brothers, Furuta, who's just discovered the truth. He seems to have taken it well…but I think he was shaken."
"Death is inevitable for everything. It's a rather cruel quirk of evolution, isn't it? Sentience blooms, but does not survive the passing of the body that houses it. Well, unless you believe in an afterlife or reincarnation or something like that. Must've pissed off whatever passes for a deity something fierce to be born as a Ghoul if that's the case. But…what the Washuu did, what they continue to do, is cruel. They do it to swell their ranks, to give V their soldiers…and I think your father also does it because he gets off on the cruelty. Oi, Arima…you don't mind me making your daddy dearest's demise a protracted one?"
"No."
"That's what I thought…"
Eto loved many things, and one of them was dressing up in her usual disguise when she was in Aogiri Tree. The bandage-wrapping around her entire body was a relatively recent affectation, doing it under a hooded dress. Harry helped her out recently by enchanting the bandages, so she could undo them or do them up with ease. She could even uncover her head when she needed to.
She trotted into the current Aogiri Tree headquarters, before coming to the room where Tatara and Noro were waiting. She found herself with a wave of melancholy on seeing the revenant that was once her guardian again. Tatara was seated at a table, drinking tea. The tall, stoic albino Ghoul generally did not like being seen without his red, beak-like metal mask, but he'd grown comfortable around Eto. He had a rather beautiful face, his pale skin, white hair and red eyes giving him the air of a fallen angel. If she was older, and wasn't seeing Harry, she'd tap that hard.
She undid the bandages around her face. "So, nothing happening that I should be aware of?"
Tatara shook his head. "A few unruly recruits. I dealt with them. And Harry?"
"Still in Britain. Having to deal with the inbred morons in their magical community. I'll be heading back there later. I was just feeling homesick."
Noro shuffled over, and gently put a hand on her shoulder. While technically a zombie, animated by her kakuja, there was some small remnant of the man left, albeit barely. Or maybe it was her kakuja, shaped by her will and thoughts to animate Noro in the way she thought Noroi would act. Wishful thinking, in other words. She really hoped it was the former.
"Oi, Tatara, have you ever felt love for someone else?" she asked, softly.
"No lover. Only familial love for my brothers," the Chinese Ghoul said simply. "When Houji murdered them, it felt like my heart was torn from my chest. Regardless of what you do with this plan, Houji is mine."
"That's fine. Any of his protégés are on a case-by-case basis, but I'll let you kill him over a protracted period."
"No. I will make it quick. I am not like Yamori, and the longer I make his death, the more chances he has to escape."
Eto nodded. "Good thinking. But…well, I'm not gonna make it quick for Tsuneyoshi Washuu. Anyway, sorry about the question about love. It's just…"
"Harry," Tatara said. It wasn't a question. The Chinese Ghoul knew that Harry was the love of her life. While wary of such a thing, he also respected Kishou Arima enough to know that Harry was an ally.
"Yeah. He's got vultures on all sides, to say nothing of Voldemort. I'm not saying he isn't amongst friends, just that, well…I'm worried for him. Frankly, I'd love nothing more than to kill Voldemort myself, but even for us, storming his base would only give us a pyrrhic victory at best."
Tatara nodded. "…And the British are truly none of our concern. Harry should leave them to rot."
"He's not like that, Tatara, and you know it. Do you know where the word 'hero' comes from in Europe? The Ancient Greek word meaning protector or defender. Of course, the Greeks were a bunch of misogynistic arseholes. In Japanese and Chinese, the word hero is written using the characters for 'brave person'. Harry has a moral code, even if it's a bit of a loose one. He may despise Dumbledore for what he did, but it doesn't mean he will leave Britain to the Ghouls who emigrated there. Besides…I also think I know what bugs him. There's a prophecy about Voldemort and Neville Longbottom, he told me. Apparently, according to Dumbledore, a boy was to be born as 'the seventh month dies' with the power to beat Voldemort. Neville and Harry miraculously survived the Killing Curse when nobody else would, though Dumbledore and a few others believed it was a ritual based on Lily's sacrifice that saved them. Dumbledore announced Neville as the Boy Who Lived, as Voldemort's chosen nemesis."
"…But he may have been wrong," Tatara said, realising what she was getting at.
Eto nodded. "Don't get me wrong, Longbottom's not too bad. He's a scaredy cat and a wimp. But when push comes to shove, he doesn't run away, he'll stand his ground. He's uncomfortable with killing, though. But…Harry is on another level thanks to Arima. He rarely uses his magic, true, but he doesn't need to. And he's received enough training that he's practically an Auror, and a high-level one at that. Admittedly, a lot of that would be due to Arima's training. But it's also possible that Dumbledore fucked up. Now, I'm not saying that my Harry definitely has the power to beat Voldemort. But I think he is far more likely than Longbottom. And that's not just my bias towards my cuddly little Mini-Reaper talking."
Tatara nodded in his own turn, but offered no other words. The Chinese Ghoul was frequently laconic. This was a combination of his own stoic nature, as well as his relative unfamiliarity with Japanese. He was an excellent speaker of the language by now, but he was still shaky with the written word.
"Still…by all accounts, Voldemort was a monster. And the fact that he managed to come back from the dead shows that he somehow has some means of cheating death. So, even if Harry did kill him, what is to stop him from coming back again? So…what I'm going to do is find ways to research the ways Voldemort could have stayed alive after losing his body. I'll start with the DADA texts Harry has in his collection. I'll also see if the Reaper has any contacts with the local cursebreakers. I wanna do something for him than sit on my arse on the other side of the world…"
"…Well, I could have told you one possibility straight away, actually," Arima said, speaking to Eto the next morning, via burner phone. "When I took Harry to Gringotts to establish his identity, as well as to finalise the adoption, they detected dark magic within his scar. They extracted it, though not without considerable difficulty: Harry's heart stopped beating twice during the ritual, necessitating resuscitation. However, the Goblins confirmed that the dark magic was a fragment of someone's soul, something that they call a Horcrux. He was lucky to survive the extraction."
"A Horcrux?"
"Think of it as a phylactery from fantasy fiction, usually a physical object that contains a fragment of someone's soul. This fragment acts as an anchor to this plane of existence. The local wizards, especially the Onmyoji, despise them for many reasons, those who know of them. The first is that, with a fragmented soul, one cannot enter the afterlife or be reincarnated, depending on one's religion. The second is that, to fragment one's soul requires an act of coldblooded murder, combined with a rather vile preparation ritual that I am sure you'd find excessive even for your books. The third is that any such object ensorcelled in that way is resistant to destruction, save through the most extreme measures. While a ritual the Goblins developed can remove a Horcrux without destroying the object or organism, most other methods require, for example, Fiendfyre or Basilisk venom. I'd imagine dropping one into a blast furnace or a volcano would work too."
"So…it's basically Sauron's One Ring, right?"
"Yes. That being said, I cannot be certain as to whether the Horcrux was one of Voldemort's. Indeed, I would have thought Voldemort more likely to create a Horcrux with the death of Harry or Neville. But if it was…well, it's possible he made more. I never brought this up before as I believed Voldemort to be dead, or at least impotent. As it happens, I've sent Harry a letter to tell Dumbledore. If Voldemort has made multiple Horcruxes, then it's Dumbledore's mess to fix." There was a sudden rustling in the background, and Eto then heard Arima say, suddenly, "Oh. Well…this is concerning."
"What's wrong?"
"I have just had the magical newspaper that deals with international news delivered. The headline is a somewhat concerning one. It seems that Voldemort has broken his followers out of Azkaban sooner than we thought…"
CHAPTER 13 ANNOTATIONS:
Oh dear.
Review-answering time! A lot of you were commenting on Augusta's state of mind. I am basically doing what many people do (including myself) with James Potter in WBWL fics. However, while James Potter's character in those fics are an extrapolation of his bullying and self-centred nature from his Hogwarts years, Augusta's problems are a little different.
I view her as being one of those family matriarchs who is used to getting their way, even in canon (to list them all would take too long, but I'm sure you can name a few that I'm thinking of). The fact that she did nothing about Algie's abuse towards Neville speaks volumes about her character, and while the canon version isn't without redeeming qualities, this version is. Plus, she basically bullies Neville into being a mini-Frank. Her getting her comeuppance in Sinyk's Harry Potter and the Daft Morons was very satisfying.
For WBWL fics, we see at least one character if not more have the fame and power (mostly political through the prestige) go to their heads. They use it for political gain, which breeds envy in their opponents, but the thing about those with power (illustrated very well in canon with Fudge in particular) is that they're loath to part with any of it, and are afraid of losing it or having it taken from them.
Augusta's condition, then, is a form of (somewhat understandable) paranoia, senility from her advancing years, mental issues at having her beloved son taken from her (for those who get the reference, Augusta is, in some regards, a bit like Eleanor Shaw/Iselin from The Manchurian Candidate, especially how she views her son), hatred towards Dumbledore and anyone associated with him, especially the Potters (I view Augusta as being a Blood Purist, albeit not as a violently xenophobic one), for taking her beloved son from him, and discontent with Neville being…well, Neville instead of whom she wants him to be.
Admittedly, making her into a villain, and a WBWL villain at that, does make her more than a little cardboard, but I have the above reasons as probably just enough reason to paper over the cracks. She's not someone revelling in evil for the sake of it: she's just a stupid old woman who's afraid of losing the power she has. She's a cornered animal who has been cornered ever since Fudge and Umbridge's campaign. Harry coming to Britain was merely the last straw that has pushed her into a downward spiral.
Of course, doing it this way will doubtless cause some people to be discontented. Just remember, if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I write fics purely to entertain first, and are written by the seat of my pants.
DZ2: You know, having Eto swallow Rita's beetle form might be amusing. Though what will happen if Rita, on dying, expands? While Ghouls do some impossible feats of biological manipulation, I think Eto would have a terminal case of stomach ache…Mr Creosote-style…
No numbered annotations this time.