"Crucio!" Harry whispered, and somebody was screaming and writhing on the ground, an indistinct mass of black robes. Pathetic. He raised his hand after a short moment. It would not do to get carried away.
"Get up, Avery. Stand up," he said, when the tortured wizard remained lying there, shuddering and heaving. They had all gone soft. Still, his disappointment was enough to command fear in them; Avery leapt to his feet as if struck and retreated back to his place in the circle of wizards. "You want forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Ten years… ten long years… I want ten years' repayment before I forgive you. Do not fret, my friends, there will be ample opportunity to pay your debts."
He stepped forward, and there was restrained shudder in the circle as the masked wizards tensed as one. Harry stopped in front of a short, portly figure.
"Wormtail," he said, "I confess myself astonished to see you here tonight. It appears that reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated. Where have you been hiding all these years, I wonder?"
"M-my Lord, Master, when Si—Black attacked me in the street I was forced to transform into my animagus form. They sent him to Azkaban and I had to stay hidden after that, or they would know he was in-innocent, and he would have really killed me," Wormtail stammered.
"You spent ten years as a rat?" Harry asked with vague interest. Wormtail nodded frantically, and then produced something out of his robes, holding it up with shaking hands. It was a wand, long and bone-white. Fury seized his chest for an icy moment as his eyes narrowed.
"Master, I saved this f-from the wreckage, I knew you would return, I never doubted," Wormtail blabbered. Harry took the wand, sucking in a sharp breath at the thrum of power that sang in his gut and rushed throughout his body at the reunion. His grip tightened around the handle.
"Liar," he whispered, and turned his newly-reacquired wand on the trembling man. "Crucio!"
Wormtail shrieked and sobbed. "You deserve this pain, Wormtail. Do not lie to your master, whom you abandoned out of cowardice. You have returned out of cowardice, as well, not loyalty." He ended the curse and left the man to snivel on the ground. "And yet… you did return. That is commendable. There are others…" His gaze swept around the circle until it landed on a large gap in the ranks. "Others, too cowardly, even, to return. Worse yet, there is one who I believe has left us forever. He will be killed, of course."
"Harry, Harry," somebody was saying, and Harry tried to turn, but he noticed that he could not move his limbs. More frantically, he attempted to flail. His senses faded, he felt far away, before finally he noticed his arm was held in a vice grip, and his head was throbbing. His eyes snapped open—Petri's indistinct form was pointing a wand at him, holding him in a rather peculiar position with one arm and leg in the air.
Before he could panic, Harry felt the invisible restraints release him. His limbs flopped onto the bed.
"You were thrashing and muttering in your sleep," Petri told him.
"I think I had another vision of the Dark Lord," Harry said. It had felt too crisp, too visceral to be a dream, and anyway, he remembered the name 'Wormtail' vividly, though he certainly knew nobody who went by such a strange moniker. He reached out for his wand and glasses and checked the time. It was nine in the evening, about time for him to get up in any case.
"Another vision… what exactly do you mean by that?" Petri asked. "Perhaps you should show me the memory."
Harry nodded, dressing himself and following Petri down into the trunk, where he let his memory be pulled into the pensieve. Petri did not place his face inside, but instead watched the vision play out on its surface. Harry peered at the translucent, three-dimensional figures floating above the basin and did a double-take at seeing himself standing in the midst of a ring of hooded and masked wizards.
"You saw through the eyes of the Dark Lord?" Petri asked once the memory had played through once.
"Yeah," Harry said, remembering that Ness had asked him the same thing.
"It appears to be genuine," Petri said, "but I have never heard of a sympathetic vision between two wizards. I would have said it was impossible, but I suppose I would have been wrong."
Harry thought he seemed to have a bit of track record for doing things that nobody had ever heard of before. Something alarming occurred to him then. "Do you think the Dark Lord might get visions of me, too?"
Petri frowned. "It's hard to say, unless we could know more about how this… connection between you works. However, I doubt he would simply leave you be if he knew about your visions. It would pose a great risk to him that you might see his activities or whereabouts at any time."
"Oh," Harry said, feeling uneasy. "Do you think he would try to kill me, if he found out? Or maybe I should let him know, somehow, so he doesn't think I've been spying on him?"
This suddenly seemed like a very fraught choice. His mind wandered to his tarot cards. What would they have to say?
"I do not think it would be wise to draw his attention to you unnecessarily," Petri said. "Doubtless he has more important things to worry about, and you should hope that that continues to be the case."
Harry nodded, seeing Petri's point, but still unsatisfied. He did not truly think that it was possible to wait and hide, not when the Dark Lord seemed so preoccupied with loyalty and intent. He had tortured Wormtail for acting on cowardice. Harry certainly wanted first and foremost to save his own skin, but which would make him the bigger coward—keeping his ability to himself in the hope that it would go unnoticed, or going proactively to the Dark Lord? He somehow suspected it would be the former.
But there was no way for him to contact the Dark Lord anyway, he reminded himself. It wasn't like one could just send him a letter by owl post. Perhaps Petri was right after all, and the Dark Lord had much more important concerns now.
"Since we are down here," Petri said, "you may as well practise controlling an inferius."
Harry's mouth went dry, and he wondered if protesting that they hadn't had breakfast yet would be valid. Probably not, he decided, and said instead, "Er, in case it doesn't work, is there some other way to, er, not die?"
"Inferi dislike fire," Petri told him, "But rest assured that I have Ulrich well under control."
"Fire, really?" Harry asked. "But if you can just drive them off with incendio, how are they, er, useful?"
When they had lived in Germany, Petri had made inferi for other dark wizards all the time, usually for the purpose of guarding important things, so Harry had assumed that the average wizard would be unable to deal with one.
"You cannot just 'drive them off,' with incendio," Petri repeated with a laugh, "At best it will buy you a moment of distraction so that you can escape. You may destroy them with fire, but as they are not flammable, you would need a strong and continuous magical flame."
Harry nodded, remembering that the regular fire conjured by the fire-making charm would last only a moment without fuel to burn, while the long-lasting bluebell flame would refuse to actually burn anything at all.
"Anyway, there will be no need for any fire. You will find that a single inferius is easily stopped by the imperius curse," Petri said, "which is why anybody sensible will have more than one at hand."
He pulled open Ulrich's drawer, stood back, and cast the imperius curse himself. Ulrich crawled out of the box, not standing up but crouching with his hands on the ground, his milky eyes staring up sightlessly and his teeth bared in a grimace. He looked more or less like a deranged human, courtesy of the preservation potion in his veins, but Harry knew that his enchanted body could move with incredible alacrity and unrelenting force, heedless of damage that would fell any living person.
Ulrich advanced slowly, crawling like hunting cat, and Harry remembered that he was supposed to be doing something about it.
"Imperio," he incanted, and immediately felt the warm thread running from his head to his wand. Ulrich stopped, and stood up, his expression smoothing out. For a moment, they stared at each other, but then the inferius lunged, and Harry stumbled backwards with a yell. "Imperio!" he screamed again, and Ulrich came to an abrupt stop before scuttling backwards. Harry took a shaky breath, waiting for another attack.
He was not disappointed. The moment the inferius reached the table, he suddenly bounded forward again. Harry tried to force him back with a thought, but it didn't work, and he abandoned his position and leapt to the side as Ulrich snarled and struck out with his arm.
"Take control," Petri advised from the sidelines in a level tone, as if he were bored by the proceedings.
Harry tried to stand his ground, but this proved to be a mistake because Ulrich was then upon him, squeezing his body in a punishing grip. He struggled and gasped for air, but it was impossible to break the supernaturally strong embrace, and it was all he could do to keep a hold of his wand and his wits. The connection was still there—let go, he thought furiously, pulling at the thread, let go of me!
Ulrich released him quite suddenly, and he tumbled to the floor, wheezing and trying to shake out the ringing in his ears. Harry kept his wand pointed at the inferius, annoyed at himself for losing his composure. It was just a dead body, an enchanted object. He shouldn't have been threatened by it when he knew how it should be controlled.
Nonetheless, his heart thudded insistently in his chest, and the inferius reached out again, slowly this time. Harry trained his wand on the offending arm, bracing himself against the wall so that he could slide back to his feet without looking away. No. Stop. Go away, he thought firmly. The arm retreated.
There was a sudden pop, and Rosenkol appeared in the middle of the room. Momentarily distracted, Harry yelled as Ulrich's fist slammed into the wall inches away from his head, sending splinters of wood flying. Petri whipped around in alarm and Ulrich stepped back, stumbling and then crawling back into his drawer, which Petri kicked shut.
"What is it?" Petri demanded, turning to Rosenkol, who was glancing around the room with wide eyes. The elf held up a letter clutched in his spindly hand.
"Master, Rosenkol is sorry to be interrupting. There is being an urgent note from Mister Igor," Rosenkol said. Petri took the letter and tore it open, his scowl deepening as he scanned it. He levitated it and set it on fire in midair, before he made for the exit, gesturing for Harry to follow him.
"I'll be gone for a few days. I trust you can take care of yourself with Rosenkol's aid. I'm sure Vlaicu will be eager to help you as well, if you need anything," Petri said.
"What?" Harry muttered, glancing back to Rosenkol, whose face betrayed no surprise. "Why? Where are you going?"
"Norway, to deal with an emergency," Petri explained without actually explaining. They exited the trunk, and he locked it and picked it up, obviously intending to take it with him. "Try not to get yourself killed in my absence. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"I won't," said Harry. Petri threw on his cloak and boots and apparated on the spot, leaving Harry to stare at empty air. He turned to Rosenkol. "What was that about?"
"Master is helping his friend. Rosenkol is not to be saying more," said the elf. "Wizardling is wanting breakfast?"
Now that he wasn't in danger of being mauled by an inferius, Harry remembered that he was, in fact, very hungry. "Yes, if you wouldn't mind. Do you want help? Hold on, isn't all the food in the trunk?"
The location of the food was apparently no obstacle to Rosenkol, who snapped his fingers and produced an assortment of bowls along with a sack of flour, some eggs, and oil. Not for the first time, Harry marvelled at how powerful Rosenkol's magic actually was.
Harry rifled through the loose pages of the recipe book that Mrs Figg had sent him. It was charmingly muggle, written in pen on a spiral-bound notebook with stained pages and apparently a copy of the collective works of the neighbourhood housewives. Harry wondered if it contained any contributions from Aunt Petunia.
Curious, he searched for drop scones and discovered a suspiciously familiar recipe. Certainly, drop scones were not exactly complicated, but that only meant that there had to be hundreds of variations, many of which did not include lemon zest or a dash of vanilla. Harry distinctly recalled Sunday mornings spent sweating in front of the griddle, frantically sliding hot scones onto plates before Dudley and Uncle Vernon could empty them down their endless gullets and begin complaining.
He'd never got to try a proper one, piping hot and topped with butter and compote instead of cold and plain.
"Let's make drop scones," he told Rosenkol. "And apple jam."
While Rosenkol prepared the batter, Harry dug Witch's Brew out from under his bed and searched for how to make pancakes and crepes. Goldstein recommended using the hover charm to keep the batter suspended while casting the rotation and hot-air charms to cook it through evenly, before applying a quick scorching charm to achieve a golden-brown finish.
That was two new charms, which was not promising, but Harry dutifully went to the Compendium to look them up. The rotation charm simply spun something in place, while the scorching charm shot two plumes of fire out of the wand and was apparently intended to be a duelling spell. He glanced sceptically at his cooking guide. In any case, he supposed it would be a useful spell, whether for searing drop scones or deterring inferi.
"All right, you boil the apples and I'll make the scones," Harry told Rosenkol, pointing his wand at the bowl of batter. He found it prohibitively difficult to hover part of the liquid instead of the entire bowl, and tried pulling up a strand of batter with the siphoning charm instead. This proved more effective, and soon he had a hovering globule. "Circumrota," he cast, and yelped as the batter splattered everywhere.
"Wizardling is spinning it too quickly," Rosenkol told him unnecessarily, and then cleaned up the mess with a quick scouring charm that left a bitter, soapy taste in Harry's mouth.
Once he managed to slow the rotation charm, it was easy enough to heat the hovering disc into a fluffy cake. Harry bit his lip, hesitating to try the next charm. If the scorching charm was supposed to be an attack, its natural range was probably very far. He did not want to explain Petri (or Silviu) how he had burned down their house trying to make breakfast.
"Aduro," he incanted carefully, and twin tongues of flame puffed out the end of his wand, thankfully not extending more than a few inches before fizzling out. Relieved by this success, he directed the spell to his drop scone, which promptly blackened. Harry winced, levitating the scone to a plate and prodding at it. The outside layer flaked off and showed pale yellow beneath. It was probably still edible.
Harry burned a few more scones before he managed to restrain his scorching charm sufficiently. It helped when he did not aim directly at the food. By then, Rosenkol had completed his task with far fewer mishaps.
"Wizardling is improving," Rosenkol said, pouring fresh apple jam over the stack of drop scones and providing Harry with a fork.
"Rosenkol is, too," said Harry, digging in. It was delicious despite its simplicity. That, or he was starving after so much magic practice. "The jam is brilliant."
After breakfast, Harry thought that he should perhaps apologise to Shy and Ness for his abrupt departure the previous morning, and assure them again that Petri wasn't a danger. He told Rosenkol that he was going out, threw on his cloak, and headed for Shyverwretch's Venoms and Poisons.
As it was nearly midnight, Knockturn Alley was fairly lively. Hags were peddling their wares from tiny wheeled kiosks, and witches and wizards were stumbling about in various states of drunkenness. The sour smell of alcohol wafted heavily out of the White Wyvern's open door, mingling with the stench of rancid rubbish.
Harry wrinkled his nose and hurried along, pausing to glance curiously at the well-lit interior of Crystal Wonders. A stocky boy whose build reminded Harry of Cassius Warrington stood behind the counter, looking rather bored. Harry continued on his way before the boy could spot him through the window and make any awkward eye contact.
Just as he passed out of the rectangle of light shed by Petri's shop, he noticed a black-clad figure with a cane and a familiar mop of blond hair enter Borgin and Burke's next door. Had that been Lucius Malfoy?
Harry regretted not carrying his invisibility cloak around everywhere, though of course that would be terribly impractical. He then reasoned that he had every right to walk into the shop himself as a potential customer. Just in case, he rummaged around in his pockets to check if he had money, and felt the reassuring coolness of sickles and the indented surface of knuts.
As he pushed open the door and sent off a surprisingly normal-sounding bell, the shopkeeper and the other wizard, who had been in heated conversation just a moment before, abruptly fell silent.
"Are you lost, boy?" the shopkeeper—not Borgin, but a short old man, so it was probably Burke—barked after a moment.
"No," said Harry. "I'm looking for…" he paused as he glanced around the shop, trying to come up with something plausible. His eye caught on a shelf in the back, full of dusty tomes. "…a book."
"What book?" asked Burke, narrowing his eyes. Harry pretended to glance nervously at the other occupant of the shop, who was, in fact, Lucius Malfoy, and who looked rather annoyed at being interrupted.
Harry suddenly had a thought about exactly what kind of book he really would be interested in getting his hands on, except that the topic was perhaps too dark even for the likes of Burke. Now, his trepidation was not feigned. "I'll have a look around, and let you know if I find what I want," he said, and made straight for the bookshelf. Burke looked torn, but did not seem ready to kick him out immediately, so Harry counted it as a success.
Now, what kind of book would have information about horcruxes?
Petri did not own such a book, Harry was sure. He had never given Harry so much as a single page to read on anything that he considered part of the "other" arts, whether enchantment, conjuration, or divination, and Harry understood that all his knowledge was oral, of the sort passed from master to student, generation after generation.
Harry refused to believe that nobody had ever written on those topics, however. They could not be any more dangerous than what was in Secrets of the Hieroglyphical Figures, a book which he had only realised too late contained incredibly rare and powerful information. The philosopher's stone was one way to delay death, and the horcrux was just another.
'Do not touch – objects may be cursed,' read a sign above the books. Harry bit his lip and wished he could do the sort of wizard reading that Vince seemed so naturally capable of. He stared at the spines, most of which were unmarked, and tried to divine the contents of the books just by looking.
"Mr Malfoy," Burke said lowly, though it was no use in the otherwise silent shop to try and keep from being overheard, "I don't understand why you would be looking to associate with such… filth. I am sure we could provide superior services."
"The quality of your services is not in question," said Malfoy. Harry surreptitiously cupped his hand to the side of his glasses, as if pushing them up, and activated the dizzying feature that allowed him to see behind himself, but mirrored. He was certain he would not be able to take one step like this without falling on his face, but fortunately, he did not need to.
Malfoy glanced to Harry but, finding his back turned, seemed to be assured that he was not being observed. Leaning forward, he whispered to Burke, "He is interested in them, and it would not do to refuse his request." Malfoy pushed his sleeve up slightly, as if to show Burke his arm. The shopkeeper sucked in a sharp breath.
"Fine," said Burke, "but you let him know that we are always ready to step in if they prove lacking. You'll want to go across the street, to the coffin store. That's where their leader is."
He was talking about Silviu, Harry realised. And who could the person Malfoy and Burke spoke about in such hushed tones be, but the Dark Lord?
"They work for free, you understand," Malfoy told Burke, as if regretful, and turned to leave. Burke nodded stiffly.
Harry tapped his glasses to return his vision to normal and took a few moments to peruse the bookshelf with more focus. If he really stared at one book, he thought he was actually getting some vague impression about it. For example, there was a book bound in dark red leather that gave him the horrible feeling of insects crawling down his spine. It seemed to be about potions.
"So," said Burke from right behind him, and Harry jumped. "Find what you were looking for?"
"Not really," Harry said, trying to seem casual. This close up, Harry realised that Burke was not uncommonly short, only very bent over, so that his head was barely higher than Harry's. He hesitated, and wondered if perhaps he could just ask, after all. Burke seemed discreet, and Harry did not think that books could actually be illegal, whatever kind of dark magic they described. "Do you have anything about horcruxes?"
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the term," Burke said, straightening just a bit to look him in the eye through his long grey fringe. Harry did not think he was lying, but one couldn't be sure with a character like Burke.
"They've got something to do with souls," Harry told him.
"A philosophical book is what you're looking for, then?" Burke asked.
"No, a book about actual magic," said Harry.
"Magic that's got to do with souls," Burke muttered, giving him a searching look. He seemed to come to some kind of decision. "Apologies, lad, but books like that aren't easy to come by. They'd mostly be collections of personal notes from some nasty wizards. You'd best not let on to just anybody that you're interested in such things. Some would get the wrong idea."
"I understand," said Harry, surprised by the honest advice. Burke smiled with half his face, showing a row of crooked but pearly teeth. "Thank you for your help, sir."
"You're welcome. You have a good evening, lad," Burke told him, and saw him out of the shop without even trying to sell him anything else.
Harry headed straight for Silviu's. It was his lucky night, because Malfoy was still there, right in front of the counter. He whirled around at the sound of the funeral bells, and his eyes widened at the sight of Harry. Before he could make some accusation, Silviu said, "Harry! Not that you're not welcome, but now isn't the best time. Could you come back in, say, half an hour?"
A little annoyed at being promptly kicked out, Harry said, "My uncle's gone on a trip suddenly, and I was wondering if I could stay with you."
He felt only a little bad when Silviu's expression softened and he said, "Oh, of course, here… how about you go in the back for a bit while I handle some business?"
Harry nodded and went into the back room, only to immediately press his ear to the door and activate the piercing-eye enchantment on his glasses, for good measure. He did not doubt that Silviu knew what he was up to, but the vampire was not exactly in a position to do anything about it at the moment.
"That boy has been following me," he heard Malfoy say.
"He lives in the Alley," Silviu said. "I am hardly surprised you saw him around. Please, continue with what you were saying. You understand that I would require some kind of proof?"
Malfoy nodded, suppressing his distaste admirably, though it still leaked from the tightened edges of his lips. He reached for his sleeve and Harry narrowed his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was he was showing on his arm. All he could see was something reddish on the pale skin.
"I'd heard rumours about such a mark," Silviu murmured. "Very well. But I still wish to meet him in person to discuss the details. Would that be agreeable to him?"
Malfoy nodded jerkily. "I will inform him of the conditions of your acceptance."
"Very good. Thank you," said Silviu with a short bow. Malfoy inclined his head briefly before he departed through the floo.
When the fire flared orange again, Harry opened the door and hurried up to the counter, making no pretence of not having listened in on the conversation.
"So the Dark Lord's already asked for your help?" Harry asked. Silviu nodded, frowning.
"What were you doing, following Malfoy around? That man is dangerous," he said. Harry frowned back. So Silviu had believed Malfoy, despite his verbal dismissal of the man's concerns.
"I wasn't," Harry said. "Well, all right, I was, but only for a few minutes. I saw him go into Borgin and Burke's and I went in after him, then came here. I wasn't lying that my uncle, I mean, my master left. Said it was an emergency and he'll be gone for a few days."
"Burke's not one of us," Silviu hissed. "You can't just waltz into his shop."
"I was a customer," Harry protested. "I pretended to want to buy something, and I'm pretty sure he believed me." Harry carefully did not think too hard about what he had tried to buy, focusing instead on Burke's face. "And how did you know it was him, not Borgin?" he asked, wondering if Silviu was still managing to read his mind.
"Burke works nights," said Silviu. "Just be careful. You can't let Borgin or Burke find out that you have anything to do with us. They loathe us, and the fact that we own so much of the alley. If they had an easy way of getting to us…"
Harry remembered suddenly Ness's panic at discovering what Silviu had done, that he could be given the kiss for assaulting a wizard.
Silviu winced, and Harry realised he had made eye contact for too long.
"I still don't understand why you bit me," Harry said, looking away. "You keep apologising but you didn't explain."
Silviu looked confused. "I told you, I was trying to get you away from your master. The bond, it makes you neither dead nor alive, in a way. You can't be tracked by any spell."
Harry vaguely remembered that Petri had mentioned this before. But why would Silviu know such a thing, unless… "Is that what you did for Annette, too? To get her away from her father?"
Silviu nodded. "To protect her, in case he tries to look for her again. Yaxley—Ettie's father, he's… there's no other word for it, he's evil. Your master, he may be the same brand of dark wizard, but the more I get to know him, the more I understand that as a person, he's nothing like Yaxley. He cares about you, and other people, in his own way. Yaxley doesn't care about anybody but himself. I can't count how many lives he's ruined."
"So what happened to him? Is he in Azkaban?" Harry asked.
Silviu laughed bitterly. "Azkaban? He's a decorated auror, claimed to have been under the imperius curse during the Dark Lord's rise. Ridiculous, when he was probably the one who cast most of those imperius curses in the first place."
"Oh," Harry muttered faintly, ever more aware of how little stood between him and people who could easily destroy him and everything he knew.
"Don't worry," Silviu added, "He doesn't care about us. After he threw Ettie away like so much rubbish, he never did come back to check on her. Probably thinks she's dead."
"But he works for the Dark Lord," Harry said. "What if you have to talk to him at a meeting, or something?"
Silviu shook his head. "The Dark Lord sends the likes of Malfoy for friendly meetings. I wager he would only send Yaxley if the meeting was going to end with you dead or imperiused."
"Sounds like a real pleasant fellow," said Harry faintly. "So what did Malfoy say the Dark Lord wanted?"
"More or less what we expected. Pro bono procurement services," Silviu said. Harry stared at him blankly.
"What does that mean?"
"That we'll get him whatever materials he needs. Potions ingredients, ritual items—if it can be bought or even it cannot be bought, we will provide to the best of our abilities," Silviu explained in more detail.
"How does that work?" Harry asked, astonished at the breadth of that service.
"First, we need a lot of money. Not galleons," Silviu said, making a moue of distaste at the mention of the currency, "but pounds. Real money that grows."
"Er, I think pounds are printed, not grown," Harry said, but Silviu laughed.
"I mean interest. Feneration. Are you familiar with the concept?" the vampire asked, an unholy glint in his eye.
"Interest, like when you put money in the bank and they pay you?" Harry asked. Come to think of it, there wasn't anything like interest for his galleons in Gringotts. In fact, if he recalled correctly, he had to pay the goblins a fee for the privilege of keeping a vault there.
"That, but really it's when you lend somebody money, and they have to pay you back more than what they borrowed," Silviu said. "It's only fair after all—that money wasn't theirs in the first place, so they have to pay for the opportunity to use it."
Harry nodded. That made sense.
"Goblins don't see it that way. They think feneration—they'll call it usury—is theft, and they used to execute people for it. Barbarians. That's why the wizarding world still guards its gold like dragons guard treasure, as if you could steal somebody's wealth away from them so easily. Wealth is not gold, it's not things, wealth is credit. Credit means you'll keep your promises, you'll pay your debts. That's value."
Harry stared in awe at Silviu's rare moment of passion, the sort that he was beginning to realise only came out when the vampire was ranting about goblins. He sort of saw Silviu's point, at least a little.
Something of the Dark Lord's views echoed in those thoughts as well. Promises and loyalty; rewards for help and punishments for failure; not forgiveness, but repayment.
"So we're forced to use muggle money," Silviu continued, rolling his eyes. "Unbelievable, that muggles are more advanced in this regard than wizards, but that's the reality. To change galleons to pounds, we first buy ingredients for some key potions—the elixir to induce euphoria is the main one, and then we brew them and sell them in the muggle world."
"What? Isn't that against the Statute of Secrecy?" Harry asked, aghast. "And I thought potions don't work on muggles."
"We don't market them as magic potions, obviously," said Silviu. "We sell them in little capsules, like muggle pills. And potions don't work on muggles in the same way that they work on wizards, but they certainly do work. Actually, the euphoria elixir works much better on muggles. They get the same high with a tenth of the dose."
Harry had the niggling thought that there was something off about this arrangement. He vaguely remembered Aunt Petunia warning Dudley about a similar matter. "You're selling drugs? To muggles?" he asked.
Silviu nodded. "It's good for everybody. The euphoria elixir is much safer than the rubbish that they would otherwise be taking, and it works better too. It's exactly as good every time, no diminishing effect from overuse."
"And this potion is legal?" Harry asked.
"Perfectly legal. Like I said, it doesn't work as well on wizards. It's basically the same as the cheering charm," Silviu assured him. Harry nodded, feeling more in his depth. They had covered the cheering charm in charms club towards the end of the year. It made the target feel upbeat and giddy, but it wasn't anything to write home about. In Harry's experience, it failed to actually emulate true happiness or pleasure.
"All right, so you sell this potion to muggles, to get muggle money. And then what?" Harry asked.
"Then we use that money to make us more money, through speculation and arbitrage. This part really is illegal, if you must know, since it's breaking the goblin treaty about usury. But as I've just explained, I think we're quite justified there," Silviu said.
Harry nodded, unable, in principle, to disagree. "It's that easy?"
Silviu chuckled. "It's not easy, but we have experts helping us. One of our squib contacts is a stockbroker, and he has banker friends. Hags also have a great eye for deals. Leticia's group helps us find arbitrage—I mean, they look for cases where we can buy something for cheap in the muggle world and sell it for more in the wizarding world, or vice versa."
Harry's head was reeling with the apparently huge scope of the company's operations.
"Er, wow," he said. "So what kinds of supplies does the Dark Lord need?"
"I remember last time it was mostly various healing potions, polyjuice potion, and veritaserum," Silviu said. "The last two are normally tricky but we only had to supply the ingredients. The Dark Lord had his own brewer."
"What do those potions do?" Harry asked.
"Polyjuice potion lets you turn into somebody else temporarily—very useful for subterfuge, as you could imagine. Veritaserum forces the drinker to tell the truth," Silviu told him.
"Oh," said Harry. Both potions seemed vaguely horrifying in the wrong hands. Silviu nodded.
"All the more reason not to be an enemy of the Dark Lord," he said.
Now if only Harry could figure out how not to end up as an enemy of the Dark Lord.
"Is there something I can do to help, then?" Harry asked.
"You don't need to do anything," Silviu said quickly, but Harry shook his head.
"But if I want to?" he pressed.
"Well, I suppose you can help Ettie with the euphoria elixirs. They're making them at the friends' house," Silviu told him. "You remember the way there?"
Harry nodded.
The friends' house was down the alley past all the shops and past the graveyard. At night, it looked even grimmer than it had during the day, with dim orange candlelight spilling out of its cracks and casting long, twisting shadows across the overgrown courtyard. The gate was locked, but a quick alohamora was enough to gain him entrance.
He knocked on the door uncertainly, and then saw that there was a string hanging from the roof, which perhaps led to a bell, so he pulled that as well and heard distant chiming.
After a rather long wait, during which he wondered if he should perhaps leave, the door opened up to reveal a lanky, freckled boy.
"I remember you," he said, after looking Harry up and down. "you were with the chairman that one time. Are you a new friend? I'm Sean by the way."
"Er, Harry. And no, I'm er, part of the company. Sil—the chairman said I could help make potions," said Harry.
Sean shook his hand enthusiastically. "Part of the company already, really? Wow. Come in. We're cooking on the third floor."
He led Harry inside, up two creaky flights of narrow wooden stairs and into an attic space. It was very foggy with golden potion fumes, despite the open window, and crowded with friends, all bent over gigantic cauldrons that had been set atop the same round heating elements that they used at Hogwarts.
"Are you all wizards?" Harry asked, confused. He was sure that muggles and squibs could not brew potions. Sean laughed.
"Wizards? I wish. Nah. We're just doing the grunt work. Annette's doing all the hocus pocus stuff," he said.
Harry was impressed by the factory-like setup. There was a station for ingredient preparation on the far side of the room, and then a sorting and measuring area, and friends ferrying ingredients from table to cauldron while others stirred and kept time. He spotted Annette standing by the window, casting ventus in an attempt to clear the fumes.
"You want to try stirring? I think that's the easiest," Sean said.
"Er, I think the chairman probably wanted me to help Annette," Harry guessed, producing his wand. Sean's eyes bugged out at the sight.
"Blimey! You're a wizard!" he exclaimed, smacking his forehead. "I should've realised. Ah, well, I s'pose I should be getting back to work."
Sean scurried off, shoulders a little hunched. Harry thought for a disconcerting moment that the boy might be afraid of him. Harry made his way towards Annette, staying at the perimeter of the room to avoid getting in the way.
"Hey, Annette," Harry called. Annette turned and did a double-take, her brows knitting together.
"Harry—what are you doing here? Did Silviu send you?" She sounded disapproving, so Harry shook his head.
"I wanted to come help," he said, "if you think I can."
"Oh," she said, expression defrosting somewhat. "I could use a hand, or rather, a wand, if you're willing. You know how to cheer people up with magic?"
"The cheering charm?" Harry asked. "I know that."
"Yes, that's probably it," said Annette. "When the potion's brewed for thirty-three minutes and it's very light green, you've got to add that spell. It'll go bright yellow, and they'll be ready to add the sopophorous bean juice. Twelve more minutes and you need to mix all the ingredients with your wand, you know, to finish up the potion. Look, I'll show you, that one's ready."
Annette walked him over to the second cauldron on the left side, where a girl was waving frantically. Taking out her springy wand, she made a moue of concentration and waved it in a frankly nonsensical way that looked nothing like the cheering charm's cadence. The lime green potion did turn suddenly yellow, however, and the girl who had been brewing the potion quickly poured in a dash of oily silver liquid and stirred vigorously.
Wiping some sweat from her brow, Annette limped back towards her previous position by the window. "We've got it timed to every tenth and twelfth minute for the two spells," she told Harry. "If you could do the… cheering charm, you said? I can do the combining."
"Are you sure it's the cheering charm?" Harry asked. "I er, don't remember the wand movement looking like that."
"Doesn't matter," said Annette. "Why don't you cast your spell on me and we'll see if it's right?"
"Euphero," said Harry, obliging despite his scepticism, and a laugh bubbled out of Annette's mouth. She smiled and nodded.
"That seems fine. Thanks, by the way. I suppose I needed that," she said. "Oh. That's my cue." A friend at the next cauldron had his hand raised, but in a fist. Harry guessed that the open hand meant a cheering charm was needed, while a closed one was a potion acceleration.
Annette returned soon enough. "I was wondering… your uncle let you come here on your own?" she asked.
"He's not around," Harry told her. "Had to go out of the country. But yes, I suppose he's been letting me go around on my own. Why?"
"He's not afraid of you running away?" she asked.
"To where?" Harry replied, trying to think of some possibility.
"To us?" said Annette, eyebrows raised. Harry blinked. He supposed that it was a valid option, in principle, only not one that he felt he could consider.
"But he lives like, right there," he said lamely, pointing towards the interior wall.
"He wouldn't be able to find you even if you were right next door," Annette said.
Harry was sceptical about that—he might be impossible to find with magic, but logic would do well enough in this case.
"I don't want to run away, though," he finally said. Living with Petri was better than not living with him. Petri was teaching him things, things he needed to know. "He's my teacher."
"I suppose… you're good at magic," Annette said after a pause. She had a sort of pained expression on her face. "Sometimes I still think about what it would've been like if I were the kind of witch my father could be proud of," she said, laughing under her breath. "Silviu would throw a fit if he knew."
"Er, you seem pretty good at magic too," Harry said. "I don't understand why there's a, er, problem."
Annette snorted. "I'm practically a squib," she said. "I didn't get accepted to Hogwarts. Father even wrote the headmaster. He was so furious, so convinced there had been a mistake, but I knew there hadn't. It takes me so long to gather enough magic even to do basic things."
Gather magic? Harry remembered how the Dark Lord had used his body to cast spells that were in theory beyond his ability by first collecting extra magic. Hadn't he said that it was an advanced technique?
"But it's really impressive that you can gather magic," Harry said. "I have no idea how to do that."
Annette gave him an odd look. "How do you do cast spells then?"
Harry was not sure how to explain something so fundamental that he had never thought about it. "I just… do," he said, feeling that it would be even more foolish to tell her that he simply waved his wand and said the incantation until the spell worked. It wasn't really that simple, but nor could he articulate what else was required.
"It just comes naturally to you?" Annette asked. Harry shook his head.
"I wouldn't say that. I mean, I have to practise," he said.
"But what are you practising?" Annette asked, apparently mystified.
Harry, now also puzzled, said, "Spells? Do you not practise spells?"
"I use spells when I need them," Annette said uncertainly. "I don't go out of my way to just cast them. What's the point of that?"
"To get better at them?" Harry said, thinking this to be self-evident.
Just then, he caught sight of somebody waving, and excused himself to go cast the cheering charm. He waved his wand over the cauldron with some trepidation, but the potion changed colour as expected.
"I don't think magic works like that," Annette told him when he returned. "Even if you did the same thing a hundred times, or one time, that doesn't mean it will or won't work the next time you try."
That seemed patently false to Harry, but he wasn't sure how to object. If Annette thought that no matter how many successes there were, that that was not evidence that the next try would be a success, then how could anything convince her otherwise?
Annette seemed to take his silence as acceptance, and did not attempt to continue their conversation. Harry cast his cheering charms at ten minute intervals until the last five cauldrons of potion were complete, and then he left the friends to package them into little capsules. He tried to find Sean and say goodbye, but the older boy only waved shyly, suddenly reticent.
On Harry's return to the graveyard, he spotted Rosenkol standing in plain sight on top of the coffin house door, pacing back and forth. The elf whipped around as Harry emerged fully from the yew grove and crossed the twenty metres separating them with a snap of his fingers and an echoing pop.
"Rosenkol is looking everywhere for wizardling," said the elf, wringing his hands. "Where has he been?"
"Er, I was at the friends. Down the alley, there's this house," Harry said, blinking in confusion. "You couldn't find me?" He had been under the impression that house elves could just spontaneously apparate to people. How else could Petri use Rosenkol to deliver letters?
Rosenkol shook his head violently, tugging at his ears. "Wizardling is being hidden unless he calls for Rosenkol."
Harry wondered if this was another consequence of his blood bond with Silviu. He supposed it must be, otherwise it would be a very pointless sort of protection, if any house elf could just find him. But what about owls? How did owls find people? Harry was sure that he could still receive post, because letters and presents from friends had reached him just fine before.
Rosenkol was staring at him unblinkingly, so Harry said, "Why were you looking for me?"
"Rosenkol is having a favour to ask Wizardling. It is not being proper but Rosenkol is already a bad elf, and Wizardling is being the best one to ask," Rosenkol muttered.
"Go on," said Harry, curious and unconcerned about propriety.
"Rosenkol's friend Vinky is looking for the Dark Lord for her master. He is also not being easily found. No elf is being able to help her, they are sighing and shaking their heads that she will have to punish herself, because the Dark Lord is dead and she is not finding him. But Rosenkol knows the Dark Lord is being alive, and he is not wanting Vinky to fail," Rosenkol explained in a rush.
"Oh. Well, I'd love to help, but I don't actually know where the Dark Lord is," Harry told him.
"Perhaps Wizardling will agree to be meeting Vinky at least?" Rosenkol asked.
"All right," Harry agreed. He did not exactly have anything better to do.
Rosenkol's eyes lit up. "Wizardling is most kind. Vinky will be very happy. She will not be having to be sad any more."
The elf held out his hand, and Harry took it, bracing himself for apparition. It was much smoother and shorter than he had anticipated, and they emerged across the street from the White Wyvern at the juncture to Horizont Alley, in front of some tall and crooked buildings which Harry had never paid much mind to. Rosenkol led Harry up to a dusty shopfront whose sign, at eye-level and in faded black lettering painted onto a sooty plank, read, "Chimney Sweep Elf."
Rosenkol knocked and the door swung open immediately. A house elf wearing a grimy pillowcase ran up to the threshold and then squeaked, eyes wide as billiard balls, when he noticed Harry.
"I is looking for Vinky," Rosenkol said in heavily accented English. Harry did a double-take at the use of the first-person pronoun.
The other elf was still glancing back and forth between him and Rosenkol, looking a little offended. After a moment, he said, "Winky is being in the back. Mobsy will be getting her. Would sir like to come in?"
"Er, sure," said Harry, ducking slightly to avoid hitting his head on the extremely low door frame.
The inside wasn't much to look at, all dark and dingy. The main feature was a gigantic, unlit fireplace taking up the entire back wall. It looked even larger juxtaposed with the compressed scale of the room—Harry's head brushed the ceiling when he stood up straight. There were some charred logs lying in the grate and an assortment of pokers, skewers, and brushes leaned up against the side of the fireplace. The only furniture was a run-down tea table and a pair of stools that looked like little more than tree stumps which somebody had half-heartedly sanded down.
Mobsy returned in a minute with a tea set and another elf in tow. He snapped his fingers and a cracked teapot poured dark tea into a chipped cup.
"Refreshment for you, sir," he said, and the tea levitated over to Harry, who felt like it would be rude to refuse.
"Thanks," he said. Mobsy's eyes widened. Harry pretended not to notice, and stared into his teacup, trying to determine if it was clean, and whether he should really drink it or not.
"Winky!" said Rosenkol. For some reason both Mobsy and the new elf glanced to Harry and got offended looks again. The other elf, presumably Winky, did not respond. She had deep bags under her eyes, which were red and swollen, like she'd been crying.
"Winky, this is being Harry, my master's pupil," said Rosenkol. "He is agreeing to help your master."
Winky's tired eyes widened at that, and she turned to Harry. "Kind sir, you is really helping? Winky will take you to Master!"
"Wait, wait," Harry said, having only agreed to meet Winky, and nothing else yet. "I don't know if I can actually help, but I said I'd hear you out. First, who exactly is your master?"
Winky withdrew her hand, looking suddenly hesitant, and Harry felt a little bad. She stepped closer, very slowly. "Winky is… Winky is sorry!" she cried, and then lunged. Unprepared, Harry choked as he was stuffed through the constricting tube of apparition, the distant sound of a shattering teacup barely reached his ears before it was cut off entirely.
His last thought, before he was struck by a burst of red light, was that he had to be the only person ever who was stupid enough to be kidnapped by a house elf.
