Being allowed out of the house at last was alas, Harry's only birthday present from Petri, but that was all right because his friends sent him cards and sweets, and Hannah had knitted him a stuffed eagle wearing a witch's cap.
Harry had not yet bothered going out, anyway, as he was not nearly finished with changing the memory. And besides, if he was going to go to all that trouble to get Silviu's blood, he needed to do everything at once. There was no way he was getting Shy's and Ness's blood too, so Silviu was going to need to go out and memory charm everybody.
The problem was that Harry could not see how he could get Silviu to simultaneously believe that the information about the visions was too important to be left in the minds of even his closest confidants, and that the visions were not real. If he were simply concerned about spreading misinformation, it would make much more sense for him to tell the board that the visions were false instead of modifying memories. Or perhaps Harry could just leave the board alone—after all, none of them had solid evidence of his visions. Most likely they had already forgotten all about the matter.
Harry figured his effective deadline was September first, when he would have to go back to Hogwarts. Probably it was even earlier than that, if the Dark Lord had any other instructions to give him, but so far, he had had no further visions.
The sound of footsteps startled him from his erudito charm, and the memory spiralled into formless mist. Harry turned to see Petri eyeing the pensieve critically.
"You've been working on that for days," Petri said. "Surely it is adequate."
He waved Harry aside and flicked his wand, coaxing silvery figures out of the surface. Harry on his bed, Silviu rushing down the stairs, shaking him awake.
"Did you have a nightmare?"
"Yeah," memory-Harry said. There was a little wavering and warping, but not much more than had naturally been present at the start.
"You had a dream about the Dark Lord?" Silviu asked. There was a slight tear where Harry had decided to cut a part of the memory entirely—apparently, obliviate worked on the pensieve memory as one might expect, though Harry didn't think it would be nearly as easy to get right on a person when he couldn't see what he was erasing.
"He's back," said memory Harry. It didn't completely make sense, but Harry thought it passed cursory inspection.
"This looks fine," Petri said, sending the scene splashing back into the basin. "Nobody naturally has pensieve-clear memories. Our minds do a great amount of work to make everything feel consistent even when it isn't."
"All right," Harry said, not feeling as pleased as he'd expected about being done.
He did not set off to see Silviu yet, reasoning that it was the evening of the thirty-first and so technically still his birthday, and he should enjoy himself.
His newfound freedom was put to use in Diagon Alley, where he browsed the colourful, magical displays in the windows, treated himself to some overpriced but delightful ice cream from Florean Fortescue's, and eventually ended up in front of Quality Quidditch Supplies where a gaggle of older teens were ogling a broom with a sleek black handle. Harry pressed closer to see the stylish silver lettering embossed on the stained wood: Nimbus 2001. No doubt it was the new sequel to the top-of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand that Terry had spent all term pining for. The price tag hanging in the corner read, "G297."
"Yikes," he muttered. Three hundred galleons was more than Petri's shop made in a month, if one did not count any illicit side dealings. Still, he felt a stab of raw longing in his chest. He knew he could afford it. With a professional racing broom like that, he was sure he could crush the competition and make it into the relays, maybe even become champion. Or even better, get on the Quidditch team. Captain Birch had graduated, and Patil had announced at the end of term that he was quitting the team next year to focus on his NEWTs, so beater and seeker spots would both be open.
Harry sighed, his fantasies crushed by the reality of living with an evil knut-pincher. If he brought that broom home, squandering his own money or not, there was no doubt in his mind that Petri was going to lash him within an inch of his life, insulting his judgment the whole time. And that was what he couldn't afford—losing Petri's already tenuous trust in his competence.
"We're going to destroy those Gryffindorks this year… I can't wait to see their faces. Flint said…"
Harry's head whipped around as he heard a familiar, nasally drawl. The gleam of platinum-blond hair in the waning light caught Harry's eye. Draco Malfoy had just stepped out of Quality Quidditch Supplies, flanked by Lucius Malfoy and an equally blond woman who must be Draco's mother. Harry wondered if his parents were related. That would explain a lot.
Before Harry could decide which way to slip away, Draco glanced to the side and caught his eye.
"Harry, fancy meeting you here," he greeted, despite the fact that they were decidedly acquainted only as mutual friends of Vince.
"Hi Draco," Harry said, not disguising his lack of enthusiasm. "I live nearby, so it's not that surprising," he said, though it was hardly the case that he visited Diagon Alley often. Behind an oblivious Draco, Harry saw Lucius Malfoy's eyes widen in recognition.
That was right. Malfoy couldn't know who Harry Potter was, but he surely remembered the boy whom the Dark Lord had used to steal something from the Department of Mysteries just days ago. Harry met his gaze momentarily, keeping his face carefully blank, and then tore his eyes away in case Malfoy somehow knew legilimency.
"Guess what?" said Draco, and before Harry could guess anything, continued, "I'm going to get the Nimbus Two Thousand and One. I'll be sure to get on Dragon team this year. And that's if I'm not made Slytherin seeker."
"Okay… that's nice," Harry said, blinking in irritation. He wondered why Draco was bragging to somebody he hardly knew. Besides, he wasn't impressed. Harry had seen Draco fly before, on the rare occasions when he deigned to turn up to broom racing practice, and while he wasn't half-bad, he would whinge incessantly about how terrible the school brooms were and storm off when he couldn't beat the second years at the obstacle course. Harry doubted a better broom was what he was missing.
Then again, hadn't Harry only just been thinking along the same lines? Perhaps he was a little envious.
All right, he was very envious and a little resentful.
"Are you finally getting your own broom?" Draco asked, glancing back to the shop. "You'll need to go inside to do that."
"I know that, thanks," Harry muttered. Draco smirked. He was being uncommonly friendly, in his own sarcastic way. Harry wondered if there was something he wanted besides somebody to boast to.
"I can introduce you to the shopkeeper," Draco said. "Ask him to let you take a test ride on the brooms. Unfortunately, he hasn't got any Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones left, unless you want the display one." He made a face, showing what he thought of that. Harry assumed that was why there was no broom-shaped package in his arms.
"Very unfortunate," Harry began, about to tell Draco that thanks, he was not interested, but the blond boy interrupted him with an imperious hand and turned to his parents.
"Mother, Father, I know you have business tonight. You don't have to stay while I show Harry here how a real broomstick flies," Draco said.
Draco's mother brought up a hand to hide a smile, and his father looked unimpressed with his poor attempt at losing them.
"And where are your parents, Mr…" Mr Malfoy asked Harry.
"Potter," Harry supplied, laughing to himself as all three Malfoys were struck silly by the fidelius, their minds twisting in knots to avoid making the obvious but impossible inference to his full name.
"Mr Potter," Mr Malfoy finally managed after a few beats, "It's quite late to be out alone."
Harry raised his eyebrows. It wasn't even eight yet. They had been out later than this just a few nights ago, robbing the Ministry of Magic.
"I live just down the street," Harry told him, not specifying which street. "My uncle has a shop in the Alley."
Mr Malfoy stiffened all of sudden, and Harry felt a twinge of pain in his scar. His eyes slid down to the man's covered left arm, wondering if he had perhaps just been summoned by the Dark Lord.
"Lucius, what is it?" Draco's mother asked in a low voice. "Is it…?"
Mr Malfoy gave a tiny nod. "Draco, we're leaving," he barked.
"What? But Father, we just got here," Draco began to whinge.
"Lucius, maybe it would be saf—better for him to stay here, with his friend?" his mother whispered, and Draco shut up instantly, nodding in agreement though he obviously did not understand what was going on.
Mr Malfoy hesitated, but relented after a second, glancing around nervously. His wife had already taken Draco aside. "Call for Dobby if you need anything. Floo home before nine, and don't leave Diagon Alley. Stay with your friend—I don't want you to go wandering alone, it's not safe."
"Yes Mother, I know, I won't," Draco hissed, turning pink with embarrassment.
Harry wanted to protest that nobody had asked his agreement, but the elder Malfoys apparated away post-haste, obviously not wanting to keep the Dark Lord waiting.
A little curious, Harry focused on the thought of the Dark Lord, wondering if he could trigger a vision, but nothing happened. Giving up, he turned to Draco and said, "I'm not going to be your babysitter all night. I have things to do."
Draco sneered. "Of course," he said. "Mother treats me like I'm an infant. Just don't tell her anything if you see her, and we're fine. Did you want to look at brooms though? I was serious."
"No thanks," Harry said. "I can't buy one. My uncle would kill me."
"Why? Can't you afford it?" Draco asked suspiciously, shrinking back a little as if poverty were a contagious disease.
"Yes. Doesn't mean I'm allowed to buy whatever I want," Harry said, not sure why he was bothering. He should have just claimed that he was penniless to make the other boy go away. How did Vince put up with his constant grandstanding?
Draco looked confused, as if he could not imagine not being allowed to buy something he wanted, for any reason.
"You said you live here?" Draco asked him. "What's that like?"
Harry blinked at him in incredulity. Was Draco trying to invite himself to Harry's house? He said, "I live in Knockturn Alley, in a graveyard."
If he thought that that would repel Draco, he had been sorely mistaken, because the boy perked up with genuine interest.
"Knockturn Alley? And you said your uncle has a shop there? You must show me," he said.
"Your mother said not to leave Diagon Alley," Harry pointed out.
"Mother also said not to leave your side," said Draco. Harry sighed.
"I'm not protecting you if a hag tries to eat you," he said.
"There are hags?" Draco asked in entirely the wrong tone. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Harry started walking, vowing to chat up the first fingernail-peddling hag he laid eyes on. Maybe then Draco would shut up. Permanently.
Where Diagon Alley was winding down for the day, most shoppers having finished or retired to the Leaky Cauldron for a bite to eat, Knockturn Alley was only just beginning to liven up for the night. There were plenty of people no doubt headed for the Wyvern, not all of them human, and street vendors had begun to emerge out of shadowy corners, hawking questionable potions ingredients and sham amulets.
No hags, alas. Perhaps they were still restocking on human nails, which Harry was pretty sure were leavings from their meals, used to make a quick sickle off idiot teenagers trying to dabble in dark magic.
"It's not so different from Diagon, even at night," Draco was saying, sniffing haughtily.
Harry was tempted to introduce him to some vampires just to get him to piss himself, but he knew that it would be a childish and dangerous thing to do. Vampires had enough to deal with from hateful wizards already; they didn't need the likes of Lucius Malfoy coming down on them.
"Harry! Long time no see, boy," said somebody in a croaky, sing-song voice. Harry looked around for Leticia and was confused when he saw no hags, only a dimpled grandmother hobbling towards him from down the street, the tip of her little pointed hat flopping in the wind.
He did not respond, still confounded by her identity. It had to be Leticia… nobody else he knew talked like that.
"Where have you been lurking these days? No sign of you at the shop," said the old woman, stopping hardly a foot in front of him and reaching out to pat his arm. Her nails were pointed and black, and now that Harry looked closer, he thought he recognised that thick, curly hair and those gleaming dark eyes, but not in that adorable, perfectly symmetrical face with its button nose and decidedly non-green skin.
"Leticia?" he said uncertainly, and the lady broke out into familiar peals of laughter, grating like cracked glass. "What happened to your face?"
"Oh it's nothing, just a little beauty potion," Leticia said, flicking an errant lock of hair aside. "Like what you see?" She fluttered her eyelashes and Harry made a gagging sound.
"Maybe in a century. Are you going somewhere?" Harry asked suspiciously, glancing back the way he'd come.
"The Cauldron," she said, grinning widely and revealing some of her inhuman teeth, viciously sharp carnassials peeking from the edges of her yellow smile. Harry saw Draco take a step back from the corner of his eye, which drew Leticia's attention. "And who is this handsome fellow?"
"This is—" Harry began, but Draco finished for him.
"Draco Malfoy," he said, not holding out a hand. He had a sort of constipated expression on his face.
"Leticia Rabe, at your service," said the hag, curtsying so jerkily that she almost toppled over. She cackled again before blowing a kiss to Harry and skipping off.
"That was a hag?" Draco asked after a beat. "It wasn't as ugly as I thought. Not that frightening. Terrible manners, of course, but what can you expect from riff-raff?"
Ignoring the fact that Draco had called Leticia an 'it,' which Harry figured was unavoidable given the sort of pureblood he was, he said, "That was after a beauty potion. And you haven't seen her while she's eating people, that'd give you a scare."
Harry hadn't seen it either, but he could imagine.
Draco scoffed. "She can't eat people, that's against the law," he said.
Harry didn't say anything, suddenly unsure.
His silence seemed to unnerve Draco, who pressed, "She doesn't, does she?"
Harry shrugged. "Come on. You wanted to see my uncle's shop, didn't you?"
This seemed to be the right change of subject, because Draco brightened up and nodded eagerly. "Father promised to buy me a present. I need to find something I want… What sorts of things does your uncle sell?"
"All sorts of enchanted things, mostly glass," Harry told him, steering him towards the right, past Borgin and Burke's. He almost regretted the move when he spotted Petri's face through the window. The man wasn't looking in Harry's direction—he was engrossed in conversation with Professor Snape, of all people.
"Is that Professor Snape?" Draco demanded, and they both paused outside the shop. "What's he doing here?"
"Buying something?" Harry guessed, since Snape had come to the shop before. Shrugging, he pressed forward, but was stopped by Draco grabbing his arm and pulling him back.
He ripped himself out of the other boy's grasp, frowning.
"We can't go in there. Snape will tell my parents he saw me," Draco hissed.
"How is he supposed to know that you aren't supposed to be here?" Harry pointed out.
"My father says he can read minds," Draco whispered with increasing urgency, backing out of the rectangle of light. "I'm not making this up, I swear," he added, when Harry stared at him incredulously, but that wasn't what Harry was thinking.
How did so many people apparently know legilimency, despite its alleged difficulty to learn? How was he supposed to protect secrets of any kind, especially matters of life and death like the Dark Lord's secrets, when there were people like his professors and headmaster who could just pluck that information from his mind?
The Dark Lord had better arrange his occlumency lessons soon.
"Fine. I have places to be anyway," Harry said. He would lose Draco and go ask Silviu for his blood, and then he would finish his assignment. Two days to fulfill his task—surely that would satisfy the Dark Lord?
"Like where?" Draco asked, dogging his steps. Harry stopped, gritting his teeth. He couldn't let Draco just follow him across the street.
"Nothing exciting," he said. "If you want to look for rubbish to buy, go to Borgin and Burkes." He indicated the store next door with a toss of his head.
"My father's mentioned them before," Draco said.
"So? They probably can't read minds," Harry pointed out. If it turned out that random, non-vampire shopkeepers also knew legilimency, he thought he might as well lock himself up in an underground vault forever and hope that nobody came looking.
"I suppose so. Come on," said Draco.
"I'm not going with you," Harry said.
"I'm not going alone," Draco insisted, all his bravado apparently finished off by a mere glimpse of Professor Snape. Well, he was a Slytherin, Harry supposed, and they weren't known for courage.
"Go home then," Harry suggested. "Or go to the Cauldron."
"What's so important that you have to do anyway?" Draco demanded, looking equally frustrated.
"Homework," Harry lied, hoping that was a sufficiently stereotypical answer.
"Are you serious? Homework," Draco repeated, rolling his eyes. "We're on holiday and you're doing homework."
"We were in fact assigned summer work," Harry pointed out.
"Doesn't mean you have to do it," Draco told him, as if he were slow. Harry narrowed his eyes. "Have you even got a house elf?"
"Yes," Harry said automatically, thrown by the question. "What does that—are you saying you make your house elf do your homework?"
Draco looked wary at Harry's accusatory tone, and said, "Not all of it, just the tedious things, you know, star charts and research about goblin rebellions. You don't think those things are actually worth doing, do you?"
"Well, no, but…" Harry couldn't disagree that Hogwarts assigned its fair share of pointless busywork. Still, this sort of blatant cheating did not sit with him the right way. "So this is how Vince and Goyle passed all their classes!"
"Obviously, I mean, could you imagine those two lumps actually writing their own homework?" Draco drawled, apparently glad to be back on familiar conversational ground.
"They aren't even literate, last time I checked, so no," Harry agreed. "And the teachers don't know about this?"
"They must," said Draco, shrugging. "But how would they prove it? Besides, house elf work is mediocre. They're stupid little blighters. I wouldn't let one get near one of my Transfiguration essays—I'd probably get a T. Father's already been on me about my marks, because I did worse than a mud—I mean, Granger." Draco paused, looking a little pale.
Harry was mystified by this sudden change of subject to something that seemed private. Shouldn't Draco be complaining about his father to his actual friends? Instead of voicing this suggestion, he said, "You can say mudblood, you know. I won't get offended."
"Oh, I thought you were friends with… never mind," Draco muttered, coughing.
"I am friends with Hermione," Harry said. "I wouldn't let you call her that to her face. And everybody got worse marks than her, so don't act like you're something special. She was top of the class."
Draco nodded. "I told Father that the teachers all have favourites, and I can't help if they're blood traitors who don't care about wizarding blood."
Harry was a little amused that Draco was complaining about lack of favouritism on account of his ancestry.
"Aren't Vince and Goyle pureblood?" Harry asked. He tried to imagine a world where they got higher marks than Hermione. She would burn the school down.
"Their families are really old-fashioned. Don't care about their marks, just their magic. I wish my father was like that sometimes," Draco said, sighing. "But he says it's important to keep up with the times, so we can get the respect befitting our blood."
Yeah, that sounded like something that slimy Lucius Malfoy would say, Harry thought. He grunted.
For some reason, Draco flushed at that. "Look, let's get away from here before Snape comes out," he said, glancing around. He pressed his lips together with resolve and pushed open the door to Borgin and Burkes, holding it open for Harry with a raised eyebrow.
Appalled by this underhanded move, Harry strode inside deliberately. Unlike Draco, he had every right to be here. He ignored Silviu's admonishing voice inside his head and glanced over at the counter. Fortunately, it was early enough that it was Borgin and not Burke staffing the shop.
"Can I help you lads?" Borgin asked, his voice unbearably smarmy as he shuffled over like a giant vulture. Harry almost recoiled, but held himself in check. Draco didn't seem to know what to say—he was probably used to hiding behind his father.
"We're looking for something interesting or useful," Harry said. It came out lamer than he had intended.
"As a present," Draco added, affecting his usual drawl. Harry supposed he wasn't lying—it was to be a present for himself.
"Very good. Please, have a look around, and let me know if something catches your eye," said Borgin.
"Don't touch anything," Harry hissed to Draco, who was already reaching for a desiccated hand mounted on a base. "Most of this stuff is cursed." He couldn't believe Borgin was just letting them go around without even a warning.
"Good eye, lad. That's the Hand of Glory, best friend of thieves and plunderers. Grants light only to the holder," Borgin said, giving Draco a craggy smile.
"That does seem useful," Harry said. "How much is it?"
"Hey, I saw it first," Draco muttered.
Borgin quoted an absurd price that instantly caused Harry's heart to clench painfully. "Yeah, and it's also the first thing you saw. Let's look around more before deciding," he told Draco. The rack of books in the back caught his eye again. Even better, they were now on sale for a uniform thirteen sickles each, which was apparently half price.
Draco followed his gaze and immediately sighed. "Books, of course."
"I don't even have that many books," Harry protested. In fact, he owned only one book that wasn't a school textbook, which must be a record low for somebody in Ravenclaw house.
"Sure," Draco muttered, following him. He reached out again but immediately recoiled.
"What?" Harry asked, trying to figure out what had given him pause. All he saw were unmarked, dusty covers.
"Dead bodies," Draco said, shuddering. Harry choked back a laugh. He held out his own hand, not quite touching the spines. He felt nothing beyond a vague impression of earthiness that might well have been just the smell of dust.
"How do you do that?" Harry asked.
"You have to listen for it. You really don't feel anything? Feels like touching a corpse to me," Draco said.
"This one?" Harry asked, pointing to a book bound in grey linen. "You're sure it's not cursed?" He glanced to Borgin, who jerked his head to indicate the sign above the cart. No guarantees, of course. Harry took out his wand and cast a spell-revealing charm when Borgin made no protest. Several books lit up in his mind's eye, but the one in question remained unremarkable. He pulled out the thin volume and opened it. The spine creaked, and he saw loopy handwriting on yellowed parchment.
"Do you feel it now?" Draco asked. "Even a squib could feel that. It's obviously an original."
Harry frowned, trying to concentrate. He did feel something. In fact, it seemed familiar. He thought suddenly of Ulrich's body, human but not human, filled with unrelenting ferocity. That ferocity came from lingering resentment, an unfulfilled need to avenge one's wrongful death.
How had he known that? Petri had never mentioned anything to that effect, he was sure. Harry flipped to another page and held down the stiff parchment, squinting at the messy handwriting. After a few moments he determined that he couldn't actually read it at all—some of the letters were unfamiliar to him, and only a few words resembled the English he knew, like 'fyrst' and 'aune'. Nonetheless, he realised idly that a ghost would form from the lingering resentment if the body was not animated quickly enough. He turned the page without thinking. Not all was lost in that case. The body could still be reanimated and deliberately imbued with resentment, though artificial resentment was never as powerful as the naturally occurring sort.
A shadow fell onto the page, and Harry's heart skipped a beat as he saw Borgin's long form. "This is a shop, not a library," he said lowly. Harry snapped the book shut.
"I'll take it," he said, rummaging around in his pocket for change. He found the thick, ridged form of a galleon, and Borgin's face immediately regained an obsequious expression as he produced payment.
"Excellent, excellent," he said, leading Harry up to the counter. "That will be thirteen sickles. Four sickles is your change."
"I can't believe you bought that thing," Draco muttered as they exited the shop. He did not end up purchasing anything himself—apparently, he had no spending money of his own, and relied on wheedling his father to buy him gifts, which Harry found hilarious.
"It's interesting," Harry said. "I've never had that with other books though, where I could just tell what they said."
Draco sniffed. "That's because you learned to read like a muggle," he said.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked. "Why does that matter? Can't I do both?"
Draco gave him an impatient look. "Not really. It's not something you can unlearn, is it? Once you learn to read words, that's it. You can't see a word you know and not recognise it. It crowds everything out and you have to read one word at a time. Like a muggle."
That was right. The book in his hand wasn't in modern English, was it? He couldn't read the words the 'muggle way', but he had got the gist of the information anyway. He frowned.
"But you know how to read like a muggle, too," Harry said.
"I had to learn," Draco said with surprising bitterness. "That's how it is now, isn't it? Everything at Hogwarts is printed books and essays, so mudbloods can feel right at home. Who cares if it makes it harder for everyone else to learn magic?"
"Oh," said Harry.
"I'd better be getting home," Draco said. "I'll let you go and do your homework."
Draco stalked off. Harry said a belated goodbye and watched him go back towards Diagon Alley for a few moments before he turned around and walked in the direction of the cemetery, newly-acquired book tucked under his arm and the matter of his unwelcome 'homework' coming back to him.
He did not want to go to Silviu's just yet, daunted by the prospect of what needed to happen. Petri was definitely wrong—there was no way Silviu was just going to give him blood for nothing. Harry was going to have to pay for it. He was going to have to tell Silviu that he wanted to renew their bond, and that meant Silviu drinking his blood. Not just drinking it, but biting him again. The thought made him feel queasy.
It couldn't be that bad, he told himself. He was overreacting. This was just like cutting himself for the blood door, a necessary sacrifice.
But it was still his birthday, and he didn't want to do anything unpleasant on his birthday.
At this point, he was more than halfway home, so he continued the rest of the way and promised himself that he would go to Silviu first thing tomorrow evening.
But the next night, Petri asked him if he wanted to try changing Ulrich's fate, and make him do more complex things than simply attack living things indiscriminately. The final step to creating useful inferi—that was something he definitely wanted to learn, especially after what he'd read in his new book, so he found himself back in the trunk under Petri's critical eye.
"Erudito!" Harry cast, with the aim of teaching Ulrich to pick up objects. The inferius was already under the imperius curse and so sat docilely at the table. Harry was burning with questions about the 'resentment' the book had mentioned, but didn't know how to bring it up to Petri without admitting the source of his partial information. He had a feeling that Petri had no books on necromancy for a reason, and did not feel like finding out why the hard way.
The changing of fate obviously came after the basic creation of the aggressive, walking corpse anyway, since there was nothing incomplete about Ulrich as an inferius. Harry was only making an adjustment to its instructions.
Since inferi had once been human, they had the capacity to retain thoughts and memories just as well as a human, if those thoughts and memories were somehow introduced to them. According to Petri, the best way to make a versatile inferius was to imbue it with both a general will so that it knew when to attack and defend, and also specific memories so that it knew how to do these things most effectively.
Harry cast erudito a few more times, focusing on his own memories of reaching out and closing his hand around some small object. Then he placed a teacup in front of the inferius. Ulrich's hand shot out and scooped it up instantly, clutching it around its side instead of by the handle, but it was close enough.
Grinning, Harry continued with his project of making an inferius drink tea like a perfectly civilised person as Petri looked on in exasperation.
About halfway through the night, Harry realised that since the inferius was a preserved human corpse, that meant that it could talk. So he taught it to say "please" and "thank you," with the rather unexpected result that it tried to say "thank you," every time someone made a move in its general direction.
"Silencio!" Petri cast at it, irritated after enduring five minutes of this behaviour. "This is ridiculous. It's not a doll. Corrigio!"
Harry winced as the purple curse hit him head on, drawing a series of stinging lines across his chest. He supposed the constant stream of robotic gratitude had been pretty annoying, and he might have deserved that. Still, he thought what he was trying to do made sense in general.
"If you think about it, he's kind of like a giant action figure," Harry argued. "Why don't people use inferi to do useful things, like mop floors or wash dishes? Seems like a waste to leave them lying around to ambush people when you can do things like this."
Harry placed the teapot at a preordained location on the table and Ulrich reached out, took it (by the handle!) and poured water out, somewhat sloppily, into a cup.
Petri's jaw dropped at this question. "I cannot even begin—firstly, there are house elves, or far simpler spells for any… task you could realistically charm an inferius to do. Most inferi are also not as well-preserved as Ulrich. They'll rot like any other corpse. Not something you want to keep in your presence. Also illegal, may I remind you."
Harry shrugged. "This is fun."
Petri rolled his eyes, stood up, and walked out of the room. Harry felt a little nervous at that—it was technically possible for him to lose control and end up mauled by the inferius, but he would probably be all right.
Ulrich took the cup and raised it to his lips, pouring water all over himself.
That was right… he needed to open his mouth.
"Erudito!" he cast again.
Petri allowed Harry to leave Ulrich operational in the hexagon room during the day. When they went to check on the inferius the next evening, it had a small puddle around its feet, full of shards of broken china, which it was repeatedly picking up and raising, before dropping again. Harry was dismayed that something had gone wrong in the tea-drinking routine. Petri just rolled his eyes again at the whole affair, repairing the mess with a sweep of his wand and nailing the inferius with an imperius curse before it could try to grab the teacup again.
"They do exactly what you charm them to and nothing more when you try to get this specific," he said. "Still, I'm confident you'll be able to charm one normally, at least. Perhaps you should work on your human animation next."
Harry was a little disappointed to cut his project short, but nodded anyway. He privately suspected Petri just didn't want to watch him continue to pervert the dark arts into something frivolous.
Petri let Harry pull open the long drawer and command Ulrich to lie down inside it. Whatever charms were on the drawer activated and all tension vanished from the body, as if it had just fallen asleep. Harry gave a great heave and the box slid noisily on its rollers until it reached the end with a thud.
The muggle corpse that Rosenkol had procured for Harry to practise on was stored in a similar drawer, though under an ordinary stasis charm of the sort used to preserve potion ingredients. Harry cast mobilicorpus to manoeuvre it out and dropped it on the floor, stepping back and wrinkling his nose as the strong odour of formaldehyde billowed across the room, sticking in the back of his throat. At least it wasn't a rotting mess. That would be infinitely worse.
The body was that of an old man, yellowish and a little blotchy but still reasonably fresh. Harry took care not to look at its slack face and lolling, sunken eyes and instead pointed his wand at a limp hand.
"Locomotor," he said, executing a by now instinctive motion with his wand. The hand twitched, not in a lifelike way but jerkily, like a scrabbling insect. Harry shuddered slightly.
"You can move on to the elbow," Petri suggested. "The larger joints will be your next greatest obstacle."
Harry obligingly pointed his wand at the elbow. "Locomotor!" All that happened was that the hand stopped moving, which Harry knew was expected. Trying to animate the entire body with a single charm would be overly ambitious for any but the most experienced of wizards. A workaround was to animate one part at a time in quick succession.
Unfortunately, animating parts of things was difficult when Harry was unused to thinking of them as their own wholes. The hands were all right. For some reason, a disembodied hand as its own creature seemed plausible. Disembodied elbow… not so much while the rest of the body was in plain view.
And of course, he was going to have to be able animate every moving part so well that he could do it in his sleep. If there was a single stumble or failed animation in the whole lot, the body would end up dysfunctional, and the spells to turn it from a fleshy marionette into a true inferius would be exponentially more difficult to apply.
Harry felt more respect for Petri's inferi making business now. The man had made it look so easy, just waving his wand over a body like an orchestra conductor and raising the dead to do his bidding. Now that he knew the stupid amount of precision and effort it took not only to animate the body but also to make it useful, he thought it was no wonder so many dark wizards paid someone else to do it.
Petri left him to his practice once it became clear that Harry was not about to make any miraculous progress. By lunchtime, he had still failed to even coax a twitch out of the elbow, and trying to animate the whole arm at once had resulted in fizzing sparks bursting out of his wand with enough force that the recoil knocked him over. He had given that up quickly and decided to go upstairs to eat and to relate this mishap to Petri, so that he could understand what had gone wrong.
"Just a backfire, from building too much magic in your wand with no outlet," Petri said. "I'm surprised this has never happened to you before. Have your classmates not had similar incidents?"
Harry thought back to charms class and he vaguely remembered somebody setting their feather on fire trying to do the levitation charm, and some singed eyebrows. He shrugged. "I suppose there were some explosions. But I thought those were because of not having enough intent. I swear I knew what I was trying to do."
"What were you trying to do, then?" Petri asked.
Harry flushed. "The whole arm," he admitted. Petri sighed.
"You aren't strong enough for that yet," he admonished. "When you are first formulating your intent in your mind, that's when the spell forms. If you cannot gather enough magic to complete the spell, then it will not work as intended, and all the magic that has been gathered will explode out of your wand."
Harry frowned at the mention of gathering magic. "Is there a way to stop that from happening? Say, to hold it there?"
Petri nodded, "You must maintain focus on the spell without actually casting it. It takes quite a bit of practice, and I would say is not worth it. Any spell you might go to such lengths to be able to cast probably has less power-intensive alternatives."
Harry disagreed. "What about the silencing charm? Or the water-making spell? I'd like to be able to cast those," he said.
"The quietening charm quietus is an alternative to the silencing spell. If you quieten something sufficiently, there is no functional difference from silencing it. As it works on a small area rather than a target, it's much easier. If you are in desperate need of water, you can transfigure it, which takes much less power than conjuring it," Petri told him.
"Hmm," said Harry, annoyed that Petri seemed to have an answer for everything. "Hold on. Can you drink conjured water? What's the difference between food and water for Gamp's Law?"
Petri stared at him like he had grown a second head. "Hogwarts is already teaching about Gamp's Law in first year?"
"Well, no," Harry said, trying to remember where he had first learned of it. His mind kept jumping to Barty—but he had heard about it before Barty, he was sure. Maybe even before Hogwarts. "I think I read it in a book."
"Hm. You can drink conjured water, yes, and it slakes thirst, in my experience. I've never thought too much of it, but I suppose it is a bit odd that it doesn't count as food. I do not know. That is a question for a transfigurer or an alchemist," Petri said.
A little disappointed, Harry nodded, and said, "Speaking of food, have you had lunch yet?"
He knew the answer was no, because Petri didn't eat food without prompting. The question was for the benefit of a possibly eavesdropping Rosenkol, who indeed popped in a moment later to serve them a spread of open-face sandwiches that he had obviously prepared in advance. Harry gave him a thumbs up and a grin before digging in with relish.
As he finished the last bite of his bread and was debating having another sandwich, he heard a light but distinct tapping from the door above.
Petri pointed his wand at the coffin lid, shoving it a sliver to the side, before muttering, "Accio Brief!"
A letter, or rather, a folded note with no envelope, zoomed into his hand. He glanced at it and tossed it to Harry. "For you."
Harry unfolded the parchment with his thumb and pressed it to the table.
"Company meeting tomorrow night at 8," was all it said, written in perfect dicta-quill calligraphy. It suddenly occurred to Harry that this was probably the meeting where Silviu would announce whatever agreement the board had come to with the Dark Lord, and what would need to be done going forward. Would he mention anything about Harry's visions? He wasn't sure, but it was imperative that he didn't—couldn't.
No longer hungry, Harry stood abruptly, sending his chair scraping along the floor. Petri glanced at him with raised eyebrows.
"Company meeting," Harry muttered. "I need to change Silviu's fate before that. Today, while he's sleeping. How much blood will I need? Are you sure it'll be enough, if I just use what's left over from drinking?"
"You will not need more than a thimbleful," Petri said, indicating the distance between the tip of his finger and the first knuckle. "It may work even with less, as you know him personally."
Harry nodded, and went to his potion kit to retrieve a crystal phial. It had a faceted bulb, so he figured more blood would cling to the side than on sheer glass. Throwing on his cloak, he ascended the stairs and popped out into a surprisingly dry night. A thin crescent moon smiled overhead, providing just enough light for him to see where he was going.
What was he going to tell Silviu if the vampire asked why he was suddenly interested in renewing the bond? He could probably conceal information, but he wasn't sure if he could lie outright, even if Silviu was not intentionally trying to see his thoughts. He couldn't say that he was suddenly all right with the entire vampire business. It just wasn't true. Even now, he felt a little sick to his stomach, as if he were walking to his doom.
It wasn't going to be that bad, he tried to tell himself. Realistically, he had endured much worse. He wasn't afraid of pain, at least, not the sort that wasn't the cruciatus curse, and he knew that losing a little blood wouldn't harm him. Drinking blood… well, privately, he could admit to himself that his one experience in memory had been almost pleasant.
So what was he so afraid of?
He touched the graveyard gate lightly, sending the chains scurrying back with a metallic rattle, and slipped through onto the main street, his boots crunching loudly over mangled knotweed stems. The alley narrowed as tall, crooked buildings sprang up on either side, drawing a vicious wind down its length. It beat at his face, and Harry had to shut his eyes, even behind his glasses. That was fine. He knew the way well enough to walk it blind.
It was the lack of choice, Harry thought, the betrayal of having somebody who had been kind to him suddenly take something from him against his will. People like the Dursleys and Petri had never made any pretensions about caring for his well being beyond their own self-interest. Even the Dark Lord, polite as he usually was, Harry had known from the start not to trust, not least because the man had literally murdered his parents. It was Silviu who was full of contradictions, who claimed he wanted to protect Harry but ended up being the very threat he needed protecting from, who had never stopped apologising, but somehow whose apologies were never enough.
Harry huffed and steeled himself. He was being a big baby about this whole thing. It was just like getting a shot… in the neck, but still—it needed to be done, and that was that.
He wondered briefly if he should do as Petri suggested, and just try to ask for Silviu's blood outright. No. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it appeared. He couldn't risk failure, couldn't let there even be the chance of information about his visions spreading.
Resolute, he threw open the Coffin House door and marched in solemnly, only to stop short.
Silviu wasn't there. Annette was the one behind the counter.
"Harry," she called out, waving.
"Hi Annette," Harry said, biting his lip. "Do you know where Silviu is?"
"He's been in Transylvania all week," she informed him.
"Oh. When is he going to be back?" Harry asked, a pit forming in his stomach.
"Tomorrow evening, in time for the meeting," Annette said. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"Oh, no. Thanks," Harry mumbled. He backed up all the way out of the shop. "Right. I'll just be going. Sorry."
He ran down the alley for a few unsteady steps, and then slowed to a walk, shaking his head. This wasn't the end of the world. He would just have to catch Silviu before the meeting and make sure he knew not to mention Harry's visions.
That plan was foiled when he woke up the next evening and saw that it was five to eight. Leaping out of bed, he scrambled into yesterday's robes and ran out the door. The meeting hadn't quite started when he barrelled into the back room of the Coffin House, but Silviu was already up at the podium, engrossed in a silent conversation with Mr Moribund.
Harry took a seat at the edge of the room, next to the scarred man who was going to be married—Markus, had it been? The man waved and shot him a friendly smile, even though they had never formally met. Harry waved back hesitantly.
"All right, welcome everybody!" Silviu called out shortly thereafter, silencing the room. "Let's get started. There's a big announcement today, and a lot to be done. Here's the agenda."
Harry squinted as Silviu sent images through the bond, as if it would help him see them better. For some reason they were a little fragmented and blurry, like he was trying to read something without his glasses on.
"I'll get right to the exciting part," Silviu said, clapping his hands, and Harry braced himself for the announcement about the Dark Lord. "We have a new client as of last week. That's why I delayed this meeting until we could get the details all ironed out. They are requesting a large quantity of rare potion ingredients. I cannot stress how important it is for us to meet this order with the utmost speed and quality. Our reputation as the best procurement company for magical paraphernalia in Britain depends upon it."
Harry blinked, confused at how vague Silviu had been about just who the new client was. His breathing evened with some relief as the vampire continued to describe the basics of the deal without a single mention of the Dark Lord.
Shy went up after Silviu and began talking about market rates for this or that ingredient, and whether somebody in the company could produce or harvest certain things. Harry let this talk flow over his head, sure that it was irrelevant to him. Imminent disaster was averted, and he just had to wait to talk to Silviu after the meeting.
Everybody seemed to have the same idea as him, because there was a queue of about a dozen people trying to get a hold of Silviu's attention. A little intimidated, Harry hung back as the chairman discussed candles and lacewing flies with a pair of skinny hags.
Reasoning that he didn't want the exchange of blood to happen in public view, Harry let everybody else go before him. There were some, like Markus, who had only stayed behind to ask how they might help. Silviu waved them off, saying that he would let them know if there was something they could contribute. Others who were impacted by the "new client" took more time, asking for clarification on what they needed to do.
Finally, it was Harry's turn. Silviu peered at him curiously. "Hello Harry, I appreciate your help with the potions, but as I said before, you don't need to do anything for this."
"I know," Harry said. "It's not about that, it's more personal." He glanced to Annette and Ness, who were discussing something in low tones in the other corner of the room.
"Let's take this downstairs, then," Silviu offered, heaving open the trap door to his flat. The creaking interrupted the ongoing conversation, drawing curious glances. Silviu gave a minute shake of his head and both board members immediately turned away. A little hesitantly, palming the ridges of the phial in his pocket, Harry preceded Silviu down the steps.
As soon as the door shut above him, leaving him in pitch darkness, he shut his eyes and spoke without turning to face Silviu. "I want to renew our bond."
The click of footsteps on the staircase ceased. "Are you sure?" Silviu asked. "I would need to bite you again, and then you would have to drink my blood in return."
"I'm sure," Harry said.
"Not that I'm not very happy to hear this, Harry, but what brought this on?" Silviu asked.
Harry held his breath for a moment. "I think… we would be safer if we did," he said. That was true, wasn't it? They would both be safer when he finished his task for the Dark Lord.
"That's true," Silviu agreed, but he still sounded hesitant. "But there's no immediate danger if we continue as we are now. I want you to be very certain—"
"Yes! I said I'm sure!" Harry insisted, irritation spiking. Did Silviu not trust him to know what he wanted? This sudden circumspection was excessive.
His annoyance vanished when Silviu murmured, "All right," from a little too close by. Harry's heart skipped a beat when he realised that the vampire had somehow crossed the distance between them silently and in an instant. Had he apparated? A cold hand dropped onto his shoulder and gave him a light push. Harry let himself be turned around.
Silviu's eyes were two pinpricks of fire in the darkness, swooping down. Harry's breath caught. He felt like somebody had jinxed him with the jelly-legs.
"Don't. The thing with your eyes," he said shakily, the vision of Nalrod's death, so long ago now and yet so unforgettable, etched in his mind. The twin lights winked out, and Harry straightened up, staring blindly ahead. He could activate the night vision on his spectacles, but he thought it might be better not to see anything.
"It'll hurt more, without the gaze," Silviu warned.
"I don't care," Harry said. "No—no gaze."
He didn't really feel afraid, now that it was happening. He had asked for it, and Silviu was listening to him, was being ridiculously careful even. Cautious fingers touched the collar of his robe and Harry reached up to unbutton it and push it to the side along with his shirt. A hand came up to cradle his head, urging him gently to tilt it back, and another snaked around his waist, pulling him close. His heart thudded in anticipation.
Silviu's cold cheek pressed against his, and Harry felt the strangeness before the pain, the sensation of something going into his flesh where it should not be. Then there was a sharp pinch that bloomed into an insistent burning. The fangs slid out of his throat almost as quickly as they had come, and cool lips soothed the pain for an instant before they pulled at the wound, sending a renewed ache radiating into his neck. Harry held his breath. He heard Silviu swallow, felt the grip around his waist tighten.
Another swallow. How much blood was the vampire going to take? Harry cursed himself for not discussing it beforehand, but before he could begin to worry in earnest Silviu released him, pulling away with a gasp.
Harry could smell his own blood, sharp and sour against the cool backdrop of stone and dust. He touched his throbbing neck. His hand came away wet. Had he expected otherwise? He licked at his fingers and pulled out his wand.
"Episkey," he muttered.
"No. It won't work," said Silviu. "Let it heal on its own."
He heard a grunt of pain, and a distinct scent suddenly struck him. It was still blood, that much was plain, but there was a sort of sickly sweet quality to it that clung to the back of his throat. He tapped the knob on his spectacles and the small flat came into sharp relief. Silviu was down on one knee, his head coming up from his wrist, where blood welled up from two small puncture wounds.
Remembering the whole point of this exercise, Harry shoved his hand into his pocket and felt for the phial, cursing the extension charm for giving him that much more empty space to rummage about in.
"Wait," he mumbled, as Silviu raised his arm. Harry was acutely aware that he was salivating, like he might at the scent of a freshly baked treacle tart at a Hogwarts feast. Finally, his fingers closed about his quarry. He took out the phial and thrust it at Silviu. "Can you put it in there?"
Thankfully, Silviu nodded and angled his wrist so that the blood dripped into the mouth of the phial. He did not hand it back until it was nearly full to the brim.
"Thanks," said Harry and brought it unerringly to his lips, opening his mouth and tilting the glass back. Blood pooled on his tongue. He swallowed and observed the same finish that he had smelled, some lingering sweetness that warmed him from the inside like butterbeer. The world sharpened around him, not in acuity, but in the breadth of his perception, like he could suddenly take in more of the room than he could before. Details he had paid no mind to, such as the width of each book on the back shelf or the precise tessellating pattern of acacia leaves on the rug, leapt out to him insistently.
When the flow slowed, he had to force himself to tip the phial away and let the remaining droplets roll back down. He fumbled with the glass cork and then slipped the mostly empty container back into his pocket.
Silviu stood up, genuine concern written all over his face. "Are you all right? Lightheaded?"
"I'm fine," Harry said, shaking his head. His neck throbbed. Silviu darted across the room to the back shelf and retrieved a ruby-red potion from a rack.
"Blood-replenishing potion," he said, pressing it into Harry's palm.
"You barely drank anything," Harry protested.
"More than you might think," Silviu said, shaking his head. "Take it. There's no reason not to."
Harry drank the potion. It tasted like stale walnuts and left an unpleasant, scratchy feeling on his tongue. He made a face.
His shirt felt wet. "I'm still bleeding," he noted. It seemed wasteful.
At the thought, his chest twisted with overpowering want, only an echo but still stronger than anything he had ever felt in his life. Simultaneously there was the oppressive vice grip of determination to thwart that very desire. Harry looked up. Silviu's eyes gleamed red, not with the light of his gaze magic but ordinary emotion.
"Give it a few more minutes," Silviu said in an admirably steady voice. "My saliva prevents clotting but it'll will wear off on its own."
"I don't remember the friends bleeding this much," Harry muttered.
"It's that charm you cast. Sorry. I should have warned you beforehand that magic can aggravate the curse," Silviu explained. He closed his eyes, but Harry could still feel his unabated hunger, raw and visceral.
He closed the short distance between them and tugged at Silviu's robes. "No reason to let it go to waste," he said.
Silviu let out a snarl that ended in a low hiss, decidedly inhuman, and his arms shot out as if to seize him, trembling as they came to a gentle stop on his shoulders. Harry stood stubbornly, refusing to back away. Silviu pressed his face to Harry's collarbone and a cold, strangely rough tongue lifted the blood that had collected there.
As promised, he did stop bleeding after about five minutes, though his neck still hurt. Silviu helped clean the edges of his shirt with the siphoning charm. Harry supposed the blood-replenishing potion might have been necessary. As it was, he was perfectly fine, and he felt a little silly for overthinking the whole thing before.
Silviu was looking at him wordlessly. By the by Harry felt some strange, shuddering warmth in his chest. It was fondness, he realised, but not his own. He basked in the foreign feeling for a long moment, closing his eyes and trying not to think of what he planned to do in the morning.
So Silviu did actually care about him. He didn't know what to make of it, only that it felt nice.
"I… thanks," Harry finally said, uncertain what he was thanking Silviu for. "I suppose you have things to do. I shouldn't waste your time."
"Not at all," Silviu said. "You can stay here as long as you like. I can ask Annette to watch the shop, if you want to spend some time together. We could go on an outing, perhaps."
"I'd like that," Harry said, "another time, maybe. Tonight is a little sudden."
Waves of hope and disappointment crested and crashed gently against the shore of his mind. Harry looked at Silviu and tried to think of how glad he was that somebody would care to spend time with him like that. He appreciated it. He did.
"Of course," Silviu said, bowing his head. "Another time."
Harry straightened himself out and took a hesitant step towards the stairs. Silviu hurried to ascend first so that he could lift up the heavy trap door. Annette and Ness had evidently finished their conversation; the back room was vacant and the excess furniture had all been pushed to one side and stacked haphazardly.
Silviu followed him out into the shopfront, where Annette was sitting at the counter. She stood up as they walked in and stepped out front, throwing on her cloak.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Silviu said, taking her place.
"No worries," she said, holding open the front door. "Where are you headed, Harry?"
"Home," he told her. "What about you?"
"Home as well," she said, striding ahead.
"Oh. Where do you live?" Harry asked, as it suddenly occurred to him that he did not know. Annette looked at him strangely, slowing down.
"You've been to my house," she said.
"What? No I haven't," he protested. Annette blinked at him, before understanding seemed to dawn on her.
"It's the friends' house," she said, laughing when Harry's mouth fell open in surprise. "You didn't think we just let those children live on their own, did you?"
Harry sort of had. He shrugged. "So you take care of all of them?" he asked. "Like a mum?"
A strange expression flashed across Annette's face for a moment, before she shook her head. "More like an older sister, really. How old do you think I am?"
Harry mumbled something under his breath, reluctant to guess. Annette laughed at him again.
"I'm only twenty-two," she told him.
"Oh. Did you used to be a friend too?" Harry asked.
"Me? No. Back then the company was small, and they didn't keep friends. At least, not for long," she said.
Harry did not like the sound of that. "You mean, they killed them?" he asked.
Annette paused to frown at him. "Just muggles, yes."
"What about now?" Harry demanded.
"Silviu likes to conserve them but accidents happen," Annette said. "Only to the muggles of course. We keep blood-replenisher on hand for squibs."
Harry was appalled on principle. That they were "just muggles," seemed to be Annette's justification, but Harry could make no sense of how that was relevant. "Blood-replenishment potion doesn't work on muggles, then?" He swallowed thickly, the bitter aftertaste of the potion still coating his mouth.
"It poisons them," Annette said, shrugging elegantly. "Muggles have weak constitutions. Some squibs too, if they're especially mugglish. It's too bad."
She expressed this sentiment as one might lament over stormy weather. Harry supposed he couldn't blame Silviu if he was trying his best, but something still seemed very wrong.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, and Harry waved goodbye as he split off at the graveyard.
Exhaling, he palmed the phial in his pocket and hurried home, steeling his resolve. By this time tomorrow, Silviu would know nothing of Harry's connection to the Dark Lord. It was for the best. And unlike Silviu, he wouldn't botch it up. The vampire would never know that he had forgotten anything at all.
