Chapter 28
Harry had sent an owl the previous night, winging its way back to Dolohov holding a letter explaining that the Potters had requested he stay with them to recuperate after his expulsion from Europe, and that he had been unable to find a plausible excuse to turn them down. The response came the next morning, as a gentle throbbing behind his eyes instead of on parchment.
"Stay until needed." A soft voice echoed out in his mind. There was one last thrum from the roof of his mouth before both the pain and message faded away.
"You hear that?" Harry asked, looking down at his chest.
"What are you talking about?"
"Guess not," Harry muttered. "Good news—Dolohov responded, sent me a command through the implant to stay here till he needs me. We've bought some breathing room."
"That is good news. We must make use of it—go to the mirror, let me examine your mouth."
Harry dutifully trudged over to the bathroom.
"You sure you can crack this thing?"
"Of course I can," Riddle snapped, but then paused. "However, if this was truly a creation of Grindelwald's then it might prove—complicated. Best we start as soon as possible."
"Go away!" A high pitched voice cried out from behind a closed door. A flustered Lily tugged on the door handle, only succeeding in producing a few rattling thuds before giving up and throwing her hands down in frustration. She pulled her wand out of her pocket and tapped the door, making it click unlocked. Trying again, she pushed the door and it thumped into something solid behind it, blocking its progress.
"Edward!" She finally said. "I understand you're upset, but there's no locking yourself in your room! You need to come to breakfast!"
"No I don't," The petulant voice came back, muffled through the door.
"You're just going to starve to death then?"
"Yes!"
"Of course," Lily sighed, shaking her head. "Why did I ask?" She finally noticed Harry out of the corner of her eye and spun towards him with a strained smile.
"Good morning Harry! Edward's just having another rough day," She leaned in close, and dropped her voice. "He's rather adamant about getting back to his mum, and I just don't have the heart to tell him. I thought I could play warden if it's for his own good, but he'll have to find out eventually, right? It might be best to rip off the band-aid so to speak. I—can you tell him for me? What happened? You were the one who brought him here after all—oh, I'm sorry for how that sounded," she rushed to correct herself. "I just think it might be taken better coming from you."
Harry looked down into her green eyes, gleaming with distress, and found himself nodding before he even thought about it.
"Yeah, sure Lily."
"Sweet boy," She chirped with half-smile, patting him on the cheek.
He stepped around her, walking up to the barricaded door. He banged one hand into it, rattling it in its frame.
"Kid!" He barked. "Open the door or I'll throw a snake in there with you. A big one." It sounded ridiculous as soon as he said it out loud, but it seemed to land with the eight year old judging by the sounds of muffled scurrying coming from behind the door. There was a series of thumps as something slid away from the door.
"Okay, it's open," Edward said, sounding defeated.
Harry opened the door and slipped into the room. The kid was sitting on the bed on the far side of the room, knees pulled up to his chin, like he could hide behind them, shrinking even further into himself as Harry entered the light. He was swimming in the sweater he wore, the over-sized sleeves dangling over his fingertips—Lily must've pulled out some of Jimmy's old clothes. Harry grabbed the lone chair in the room from beside the desk and dragged it over to the bed, plopping down in front of the child and fixing him with a serious gaze.
"You're giving Lily trouble," He said calmly, simply a statement without any trace of accusation coloring his tone. The child flinched slightly, but only pushed his chin further into his knees, remaining silent.
"She is only trying to take care of you," Harry said, gentler this time.
"I want to go home," Edward muttered. Harry sighed.
"I'm afraid you can't go home, kid. It doesn't exist anymore."
Edward glared up at him with shiny eyes. "Yes it does!"
Harry noticed a small scarf knotted in the child's hand, held closely to his chest. A pattern was sewn into it, repeated over and over again, of a small tornado spinning furiously around a pair of T's. He recognized the symbol.
"You like quidditch?" He got a hesitant nod in return.
"Then you probably followed the league final this year—you hear what happened there? Maybe on the wireless, or from your mum?"
"Y—yeah. Some bad guys tried to attack someone important."
"Yes, that's right," Harry said. "That important person they went after? Mr. Potter. And I was the one who stopped them."
That got the kid to look up, and meet Harry's hard gaze with wide-eyes. He looked suddenly unsure.
"But those bad guys are still around, the ones who got away. And, I'm sorry Edward, but they went after your family, just like they did to this one. That's why you're here, and why you can't go back. The bad people will be looking for you so the Potters agreed to take care of you until they're stopped. Do you understand?"
"But—why would those people want to go after my family?" Edward frowned, his brows furrowed in confused thought.
"I don't know Edward," Harry lied. "I'd imagine it has something to do with your father's position being quite important in our government—and the fact that he was a good man."
"But why can't I stay with mum?" Edward said tremulously. "She could stay here too! I saw a bunch of empty rooms earlier."
"Because I was only able to save you," Harry sighed. Edward blinked, his eyes welling up with tears as his face went slack, the impact of the statement ringing through his mind as it refused to accept the harsh, world-shattering implications.
"You're lying!" He cried, his fierce glare ruined by the wetness prickling in the corner of his eyes.
"I wish I was, Edward, I wish I was," Harry murmured, rising to his feet.
"You are! Let me go home!"
Harry gave him a sad smile. "If you can't believe me right now, I understand that. But remember: I'm the one who brought you here, I'm the one who asked the Potters to take you in. Hate me all you want, but they're just as innocent as you are. Eat your breakfasts, drink your potions, take whatever comfort you can from these good people, and I promise you, you won't be here forever. And then you can leave to find the truth, whether you believe me or not."
He turned to leave.
"I'm sorry, Edward." As he slipped out of the room he muttered to himself, "I wish I'd saved them too."
Lily was waiting outside the room, leaning against the wall with her shoulder to subtly eavesdrop, clearly prepared to rush in to soothe a distressed child.
"He deserved to know," Harry said, reaffirming the decision to both Lily and himself. She looked up at him, and gave a teary smile and nod. Harry walked away, eager to put distance between him and the emotional scene before the knot in his stomach rose high enough up his throat to choke him to death.
His jaw throbbed from how hard he was gritting it.
"Riddle," He spat.
"Yes?"
"I'm not feeling hungry anymore. We're going back to the room and throwing some magic at this bastard in my mouth. The next time I see Dolohov, I better be able to blow a hole through his head."
There was no verbal response from Riddle, nor could Harry see his expression through his robes, but he could sense his approval in the silence, as much of a tacit agreement he'd give.
Unfortunately, it had proven to be a slow process, wading into the waters of disenchanting in their awkward version of a conjoined pair, one an expert who couldn't manage any spells on his own, and the other a total novice with all the magical ability between the two.
Cursebreaking sessions quickly turned into remedial lessons with Riddle where he tried to cram enough theory into Harry's brain as quickly as possible so that he could cast, and process, the necessary spells for Riddle's work. Charms well beyond Hogwarts's curriculum, enchanting principles, the basics of spell encryption—subjects he'd always cheerfully allowed to remain the domain of Dumbledore only, and then later, Hermione. It didn't come easily, possibly due to him being an idiot—Riddle's favorite hypothesis, that he'd often make an effort to remind Harry of—but at least equally from the disconnect between the two that became readily apparent after only a few hours.
Riddle had been dismantling and reassembling enchantments like toy clocks since he was twelve—it came to him as naturally as flying did Harry. When guiding Harry his instructions would often skip over dozens of steps at a time, not to be purposefully obstructive, of course, but because they were things so mindlessly intuitive to him it wouldn't even occur to mention them. That is, until something Harry did fizzled out and he would have to drag Harry through the process with a weary tone, like he was teaching a toddler how to tie their shoes for the tenth time. It didn't take long to realize Harry clearly didn't have an ounce of the same natural talent Riddle possessed, let alone the decades of experience.
But what he did have was dogged perseverance, a tireless effort to document the results from his experimentation, measuring infinitesimal modulations in the detection spells he'd practiced till satisfactory and then using Riddle's mind as a dictionary to translate them into bank of dwindling possibilities for the contained magic, the stack of parchments detailing the interactions growing by inches very day. It was an exhaustive process, drawn out by the fact that half the magic used seemed to be modified or totally novel spells, likely developed by Grindelwald himself.
He spent hours in front of the mirror inspecting the implant, angling his head so Riddle could see, transcribing diagrams to parchment and filling the margins with notes as he prodded it with increasingly complex charmwork. It was a knotted mess of scar tissue, still swollen enough that it was hard to make out against the roof of his mouth. Eventually the structure came to shape on paper, a deceptively complex labyrinth of folded scars burned into the flesh of his mouth, hiding some sort of foreign object within.
Thankfully, while the Potters were excited to have him as their guest, they already had full lives before he arrived and he made sure they felt no obligation to change that for him. They were happy to let him have most of the hours of the day to himself, chipping away at the magic holding him captive.
He did take the occasional breaks, which he spent with the Potters, loitering in the kitchen with Lily and a cup of tea as she bustled around, doing all the talking for the both of them, or taking a casual lap with James on a broom after watching an old quidditch league rebroadcast. The implant in his mouth stayed quiet for a week, no commands from Dolohov or reactions to his meddling, and he started to get comfortable, to slip into routine—until the next Saturday, when his mouth started throbbing as he returned to his room after dinner.
"Come to the house. We have business tonight."
Harry stopped in his tracks.
"What're you doing? We should be getting back to work." Riddle said.
"Dolohov sent a message. He wants us back."
"Damn."
"Yeah. Damn," Harry repeated. "Merlin fuck, Riddle. We're still not done yet—I'll have to follow that bastard's commands."
"We're close Harry, very close, I can feel it. Just a little bit longer, don't throw away our chance tonight. Be smart."
"Yeah, I know," Harry sighed.
Dolohov was waiting for him as he stepped out of the floo. He held out a small token, wordlessly signaling for Harry to take it. There was no explanation, no mention of what was happening, no questions for what had happened with the Potters. You don't need to explain things to a person under the Imperius curse. And judging by the lack of deadly curses heading his way it seemed Dolohov hadn't discovered Harry's deception with Edward—apparently he had enough faith in the curse to not bother checking the bodies.
Something hooked his navel, jerking him to the side as the world spun away. The pair arrived in a large room, the furniture pulled away from one wall to make room for the visitors. A crowd of dark robed people were gathered on the other side, seemingly waiting expectantly for their arrival. Lucius Malfoy stood at the front of the crowd, looking as regal as ever, flanked by his wife, and a rather frail looking older wizard wearing a gaudy amount of finery.
"Thank you for coming gentlemen," He announced, a slight lowering of his head taking the place of a welcoming bow.
"You said you had work for us?" Dolohov said.
"Yes, yes," Lucius nodded, looking pleased. "Right down to business. After Director Riddle, and your—friend—here's efforts, we've been sorely depleted of manpower. It has taken time to regroup and recruit, but, with your arrival, we believe we finally have the strength for action."
Harry looked around the room as they talked, carefully observing the unmasked members with a blank face. It was packed, way more members than they'd estimated to be left after the quidditch incident. As Harry's gaze roved across the faces around him a pattern stood out to him. Old men, some with their wives, some with a hand on the shoulder of their kid who looked fresh out of Hogwarts, a smattering of younger folk, but hardly any who looked like fighting material. Who looked like Death Eaters.
Just a bunch of rich bigots, playing secret society for the thrill because they were bored and self-important. But there were a handful who stood out, apart, cold eyes watching him from the sea of soft bodies. Original members, real members, the dangerous ones. These were the people who were actually willing to commit violence in the name of their cause, content to play civilized because Lucius showed how he could use his silver tongue to bankroll them from the coffers of wannabe aristocrats. But they were few among the many in the room, hardly enough to make up a respectable fighting force. It made sense why they were so eager for someone like Dolohov to arrive.
Lucius and Dolohov had convened at a central table, talking over some point Harry hadn't been paying attention to. He kicked himself for his inattention.
"You'll be with me," Lucius said to Dolohov. "Riddle's whelp goes with Mulciber." He pointed to a dour looking man standing a few paces behind him. One of the men with cold eyes.
"Will he behave?"
"If I tell him to," Dolohov said, a mocking smile pulling at the edge of his mouth, drawing a long-suffering sigh from Lucius.
"Then please do. Are you ready to move out?"
Dolohov nodded. He turned to Harry and give him a quick look. The words spooled out into his mind, playing only to him.
"Play along with them, listen to Mulciber's orders. If they try anything with you, if you catch any hint of them plotting against me—kill them."
Harry didn't show any outward signs of receiving the message but Dolohov gave him a satisfied nod, stomping away after the departing Malfoy. Mulciber stepped up to him and silently indicated for him to follow. Two others joined the pair, an older man Harry didn't recognize, and one Marcus Flint, looking just as intimidatingly large and dim as Harry remembered.
The crowd buzzed around them as they passed through, vicarious excitement bubbling up around them: finally, they seemed to be thinking, they were going to do something, to take some action—well, they weren't, but adjacency was close enough. How exciting! Harry fought the urge to curl his lip.
Harry's group left the crowded room behind them and followed Mulciber into a secluded antechamber. He turned to face them as Flint closed the door.
"This is supposed to be a quiet job, quick and subtle, no shock and awe bullshit. We're going in, grabbing the target and hitting them with an Imperius before they realize their protections have been compromised and contact someone. Our man in the ministry will have the floo shut down at ten after, and keep it down under the guise of scheduled maintenance for the next forty five minutes. That should keep him in place for us."
The two men on either side of Harry nodded in understanding.
"Here's the address, for apparition coordinates." He showed them a piece of parchment. Written across it in precise handwriting: Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, England.
Harry's breath caught.
"Our target is one man, aged thirty eight. Sirius Black."