Harry Potter and the Blood-Soaked Succession

By NonsensicalRants

Chapter 10

The First Misgivings

Hermione peaked through the tent flaps to where Harry stood as lookout.

He was doing the stick thing again. Practicing strikes with a branch as if it were a sword, or an axe. Thats all he did these days. Train. He would train with his fists. He would train with a simulated weapon. And he would train with a wand. Practicing movements, making them sharper and faster, until he could perform the wand movements flawlessly and with less wasted movement. His casting speed was incredible now, and his silent casting surpassed even hers.

He thought she didn't know. He thought she and Ron only ever slept, but how could they? With that wretched locket and the bad thoughts it brought them. No, they never slept. Only ever tried to sleep. Ron would try to stay up to date over the wireless, she would think, and Harry would train, and she hated it.

These were her boys, and they were dying. A slow, spiritual death. The war was killing them all. All Harry did when he thought she wasn't looking was seethe and fantasize about fighting. It wasn't right. This was Harry, the shy, quiet, introspective little boy with a heart so great as to fend off a mountain troll to save the life of an annoying know-it-all girl he could barely tolerate. That boy had no business obsessing over killing people. Not even people who deserved it.

And now all she could do was worry. She was supposed to be the brains of the outfit, the thinker, but how could she plan and research when she looked at the men she loved and all she could see was walking coffins. Harry, moreso than Ron. If the war ended tomorrow she had a niggling suspicion that Harry would end with it. That he had no plans to continue living once Voldemort was dead and gone and she was plagued with terrible visions of them winning the war and seeing him fading away, like dust in the wind. Or a body flying over a cliffs edge.

She hated herself for it, but she genuinely held out hope for the war to continue. Indefinately if need be. Because so long as it did Harry would remain with her. Harry would stay alive, physically and spiritually, and that fire wouldn't go out. Her only wish was for that fire inside of him to remain strong.

Truly, she must have made that wish on a monkey's paw. For here she stood, months later, possessing the body of an innocent man whose mind had been destroyed by magics beyond even her understanding, and before her was a scene of utter chaos as four of the people they had just "rescued" attacked Harry in a blind rage. What else could they do? After Harry just handed over their families to the snatchers.

"Bombarda!" Mrs Cattermole yelled.

With such speed that Hemione almost thought he did it wandlessly, Harry summoned a desk from across the room to intercept the curse. The other new recruits all cowered into corners of the room to avoid any wayward spell, all save for three who came to backup Mrs Cattermole in her assault. Harry focused on batting away the particularly weak stunners cast by her backup while dodging her significantly more lethal spells.

"Avada!" Cattermole began the incantation.

Quick as a flash Harry cast a carpe refractum and yanked her feet from under her with so much force that she came sliding along the carpet to meet his heel with her chin. She didn't get back up. This motivated the "Men" backing her to up their game. Flimsy stunners turned to flimsy cutters and piercers, none of which could pass through Harry's lazily cast protego. The tendon evaporation curse could though, but he dodged it with as much ease as he'd dealt with any other spell so far, a mocking tilt of the head was all it took. Economy of motion in action.

"Test is over." Harry finally said, yanking all three wands of his opponents with a single wave of his own.

That was a difficult expelliarmus variant. A weak one too, only useful against children and crowds of untrained or drunk brawlers. These guys didn't have even the most basic combat training regarding wand-holding and proper gripping. A tight grip would have been more than enough to counter that spell.

"I would compliment you three on your promotions, but as I see things your wife here is going to be in charge of you guys, Reginald." Harry said to Mr Cattermole. "Even still, you showed more here today than the rest of this sorry lot. That was the correct reaction I was looking for."

He turned down to Mary's unconscious form with concern.

"I didn't break her jaw did I?" He asked.

"Didn't sound like it" Hermione answered, the wrongness of the male voice she used making her flinch. "I'd check for chipped teeth though. A rennervate should do it."

Harry cast the resuscitation charm and she woozily came to. He must have kicked her pretty hard because she didn't recognize him as a threat, letting him pick her up to her feet and guide her to a couch. It wasn't until he finished repairing the damage in the room that the hate returned to her eyes and she went over herself in search of a wand, a wand Harry still held in a bunch with the others.

"You can all calm down. We are going to go rescue them." Harry admonished. "Now please, take your seats. And which one of you cast the tendon evaporating curse?"

The four he had fought shared expressions amounting to shrugging with facial muscles before a young man in the crowd, couldn't be older than 20, shyly raised his hand.

"An excellently aimed sneak attack Johnathan Cresspool. But in the future aim for blind spots instead of in their line of sight where they are better able to dodge." Harry said. "As for the rest of you, sit. I have some explaining to do."

"Damn right you do." One of the fathers growled. "My wife and two-year-old are now in HIS camps."

"No, they are not." Harry countered. "Snatcher prisoners are taken to Malfoy Manor's dungeon, where they remain for a mandatory week of processing while transportation to the hidden camps is prepared. It isn't five star accommodations but they are safe. For now."

His words noticeably failed to calm them down.

"And that's better?!" Mary demanded.

"Oh yes. It means our rescue of them is achievable, even with all of you so lacking in training." Harry explained. "If they had been taken straight to the camp then there is no guarantee that they are alive or dead, and I would have no leverage to motivate you all to take this as seriously as I do."

Their anger died down into simmering hate.

"So you effectively kidnapped our families using the Snatchers as a Proxy?" An older woman at the back clarified.

"That about sums it up, yes." Harry answered.

"And what makes you think we will work for you for one second longer than it takes to rescue our loved ones." Said the older woman's husband.

"The veiled threat I am trying to impart on you all, but that you don't seem to be grasping." said Harry.

That shut them up. After all, this was the crux of the issue wasn't it? The clear facts of the situation that were so self-evident that the entire conversation they were having was a waste of breath. Promising that those too cowardly or disloyal to stay and fight the battle will be punished one way or another. Either by Voldemort's wrath or Harry's. A veiled threat without specifics about the extremes the man across from them was willing to go to in order to punish them.

"You are now as trapped in this war as I've been for many years now. You adults who pushed your duties as a generation, as a civilization, onto a little boy." Harry explained. "And now that little boy is hoisting a smidgeon of that responsibility back onto you. Welcome to the war everyone. Isn't it wonderful? Having the people you love constantly under threat of death or worse? It's certainly an effective source of motivation for me. Any questions?"

This time several hands went up in the air and Hermione could feel that each one had a snide question attached to it.

"What's to stop us from killing you when the war is over?" The older witch from before asked.

"Your severe lack of skill, fighting spirit and poor aim." Harry answered. "All issues I intend to ameliorate as much as possible over the next week, and even more in the months of war to come. Although I expect the battlefield itself will do most of that work. Hopefully by the time I put an end to the snake-faced bastard you'll all have what it takes to put me down. I look forward to it, and I'll be ready. Now, any questions before I start training you?"

There was a moment of silence before Johnathan Cresspool raised a tentative hand.

"How can we hope to assault the Malfoy Manor?" Cresswell asked. "Old family homes like that have generations of protections layered on them, to say nothing of the number of guards, shift lengths and endings, the skill of individuals at the Manor, or if any of the way stronger Death Eater are going to be there."

Harry nodded to each point.

"It is a good thing that I left two of my own there to be snatched. One of whom has unparalleled skill in gathering information, can secretly relay information to me from behind any ward, can escape at any time and whom I trust as much as myself." Harry explained, the tongue and cheek joke hidden in his answer lost on all but the shades present.

Ronald actually facepalmed at the joke.

Jessica Roberts sighed in relief when her captors finally removed her blindfold and shoved her roughly into a large cellar, enclosed in black iron bars. She was momentarily surprised at how nice it was, smooth white marble that she assumed must have been magicked into shape instead of machined. She'd started working with such assumptions for a while now.

There were other girls there, with a few women of varying ages, and more joined them as the Snatchers shoved more of the refugees Harry had gotten captured. Including the woman that had her throat cut by her lover in a failed attempt at double suicide. She still couldn't believe Harry had decided to go through with her plan. From the way everyone talked about the man with beautiful green eyes he was too goody two-shoed to ever risk the lives or safety of innocents, even if doing so had great strategic value or applications in psychological warfare. God did she ever love that man and his brutality. She was glad the others were wrong about him but didn't care to learn the why.

She backed away to the furthest cornet of the room and away from the crowd of female prisoners being carted in. It took her a moment to remember how to walk after having to navigate through a veritable maze of hallways and rooms without the privilege of sight, but she made it to the secluded corner and got comfortable. When she was sure nobody was looking directly at her she did her own pat down. The five shot AMT Backup Harry had gotten her for this mission weighed heavily on the hidden inner pocket of her way too big coat. Ignoring that she instead retrieved her little gold hummingbird.

I would consider this a success.

She breathed a sigh of relief at the scratchy words and smiled brighter than she had in a while. Her friend survived the trip. The other magical folk had kept arguing with Harry that his so-called bug wouldn't survive the trip. That if it was electrical or had any sensitive enchantments like the ones he was claiming it had then it likely wouldn't survive the trip to Malfoy Manor, let alone the wards and magic around the place itself. Harry had simply nodded at their concerns and assured them it will work and he would rub it in their faces when he was proved right.

Score one for boss man.

I will scout the building from here for now. Keep you company.

Was it odd to be friends with a ball of gold for magical people? She had seen the portraits, they talked and gave advice if asked, and Harry could speak to the dead, or else was insane and didn't realize she and others could hear him talking to people that weren't there on a first name basis. She asked around about who Ron, Hermione, Moody and the other names were. Dead people. Easy mystery to solve. And so she decided it wasn't odd at all to talk to the metal construct that wrote back to her. Not when around people capable of storing the minds onto paper and speak to the deceased.

And so she fought off the depression and despair of her prison doing what she did most evenings. Pouring her soul out into her little golden hummingbird. Her best friend.

The recruits training went rather well over the next week.

Dudley led the Muggle and Squib members in firearm safety, first aid and - with the help of Hestia - focused on dodging different spells. They picked it up much more easily than Malcolm and the others, as most of them grew up around magic and had an academic knowledge of most spells, if not firsthand experience with rather nasty curses.

Harry took charge of the wizard and witch recruits.

"It will be months before most of you will be any use in a fight beyond strength in numbers. So over the next five days I will be focusing on developing the reflexes and muscle memories to keep you alive through first contact." Harry explained. "That means I'll focus on teaching you dodging, blocking, aiming, spell-casting speeds and, most importantly, how to bravely run away and know when to do so."

He paused then, recognizing a gap in their training that Dudley had covered with his recruits.

"Are any of you trained in medical magic?" He asked.

Five hands went up, including Johnathan Cresspool. Leave it to the guy who uses surgical-type curses from the shadows to be a mediwizard in training. Aside from him the only one with more advanced training was the old curmudgeonly woman, the aptly named Emily Warbeck, had decades of being a lead healer in the Saint Mungos emergency trauma unit. And what a blessing that is, considering he needed them to focus on battlefield first aid.

"You aren't exempt from the dodging or shielding training, but use any time I spend teaching the others that other stuff focusing on your aid." Harry instructed. "Mrs Warbeck, you are exempt from even that as I need you to work out a lesson plan for the next hour while I get them started. You are in charge of teaching all medical magic."

From there he evenly distributed the thirty whole recruits, with two "healers" on each team and gave him their instructions.

"Dodgeball but with stunner spells. Do not cross into the opposite team's side. Do rennervate teammates when they fall. First team to lose all of its members loses. Any questions?" He summarized.

As always, several tentative hands shot up.

"Yes miss?" Harry said, indicating a woman around 23.

"Ellie." She said. "Ellie Cattermole. Question: What should we do if we can't cast a decent stunner spell?"

It took all of Harry's self control not to answer with a frustrated sigh.

"Anybody else not able to cast a stunner?" He asked.

Four hands went up.

"Are all of you capable of casting a simple protego or rennervate?" He asked.

They nodded.

"In that case evenly distribute yourselves between the teams and take up the job of defense." He instructed. "I was going to add this onto the game later, but until you guys can cast stunners properly focus on what you can. Begin."

And so began his days of teaching. Unlike his time with the DA he instructed them for a good 8 hours per day. A lot of that was play, like the dodgespell games, as the closest thing to simulating a real battlefield. He would make it more challenging by conjuring furniture obstacles. But most of it was hands on lessons filling the holes in their defensive knowledge. Either teaching them to cast the stunner faster, more accurately and with less exaggerated movements. In other cases he had to teach them how to cast it from scratch. Same for the protego and rennervate. He did not succeed. Not with all of them. In his heart of hearts he knew none of them were ready, but he was even less ready when he faced Quirrel and the crucible of traps leading up to him at the ripe old age of eleven. So, sink or swim it was.

If he'd had more time he would have liked to teach them the Patronus as well, what with Voldemort being a little too trigger happy in sicking dementors on people, but these other skills took priority.

By day three they no longer needed his help, taking on the task of playing dodgespell and mutual feedback between them to cover up each others flaws. They had already begun forming their own cliques, teams of cohesive personality or complimentary combat skills. Each capable of making up for the weaknesses of their companions. Self-organization without the need for him to direct them. It's a beautiful thing.

This freed up time for him to meditate and gaze through the eye of his other half. Malfoy Manor sure had beefed up security since his escape. An actual rotation of mid-level Death Eaters to stand guard and walk routes. But as with any decent magic castle or mansion it was decked out with a proper potpouri of secret passages and crawl spaces that Lucius wasn't dumb enough to share with his colleagues. With the aid of Madeye Moody's former mad eye he was able to scope out where each passage was, and for most of them their entrances and exits, but not the how. The swiveling piece of masterful enchanting couldn't tell him what enchantments were on a wall, not even if a password charm was in effect on it, let alone what said password was.

And so he set out to watch Lucius and Narcissa more closely. Hoping to catch them opening a secret passage here or there. His other half had been keeping himself busy as of late. Without a body or wand there wasn't much he could focus on, save things that didn't require a body. Lip-reading and the mind arts chief among them. Aside from that all he ever did was observe his surroundings and read. Which for most people would be a chore without he ability to turn pages, but x-ay vision had its perks.

"Do you not sleep?" He asked through the tunnel connecting his mind.

"I am no longer able to sleep." His own voice echoed back through it.

It was a problem Harry could relate to. Although he suspected his counterparts problem was a physiological issue as opposed to a psychological one. Still, as had become a life-saving habit as of late he crushed down any sense of guilt or remorse for subjecting his own soul to such suffering out of fear of mending the break and reabsorbing the horcrux. Such an accident would surely kill him.

Then came the fourth day.

"It was the most compatible. But at least now you and I are both free of the mark, and able to work against our former lord." Peter explained as Draco sat up and flexed his new arm.

Peter had taken it off of one of the dozen or so dead snatchers they had stored in the deep freezer... What!? You never knew when your local necromancer might need a spare corpse or two. Always. They always needed an extra corpse or two. Waste not want not.

"It feels particularly odd. But then again, I'm still marveling at being able to feel anything again." Draco explained as he examined his own body.

The deep dissection scars were a hideous thing. His entire torso and head looked like it had been cut open and peeled apart... Because they had. There were similar Frankensteinian scars along his spine and limbs from where Peter had to carve runes into his bones and apply the different layers of potions on different tissues. It was disgusting work for a disgusting man.

"Master always said that the only way to be free of his mark was in death. Turns out that wasn't true." Peter explained. "It takes death AND an amputation to be rid of that mistake. Or a good old-fashioned round of body snatching. Speaking of?"

Harry nodded.

"Begin on your next projects. How long until you can make the whole set?" Hary asked.

"Five months." Peter answered. "Less if you can get me fresher bodies by way of the killing curse."

"Then you shall have new material soon. Very soon, in fact." Harry told him. "For now, I need you to begin work on another project. Are you familiar with an inferi infested lake within a cave within a cliff?"

"One of my finest works. What of it?" Peter asked as Draco made his way around the room, testing his body with squats, lunges and stretches with each step.

"I need you to... build, I think is the right word. Build a present for your former lord there. He will be returning to check on his precious locket when he learns of my hunt, a secret I intend to reveal to him at an opportune moment. And when that moment arises I am giving you the opportunity to destroy his latest body." Harry explained.

"There's already a lot of material to work with on site. Material I myself made. Turning them on my former master should he arrive will be an easy enough task... But I'm guessing you have something more interesting in mind?" Peter asked.

"I do need it to be more substantial than a meager army of pyrophobic skeletons. And I need you to incorporate this" Harry offered the imitation locket Regulus had left in the basin. "into its design in a very visible way. So as to ensure Vol... you know who, will actually fight your flesh golemn."

Peter's eyes lit up at his use of the phrase flesh golemn.

"Beyond that I give you complete creative license. You are allowed to take the corpses of future felled enemies but be surreptitious please." Harry ordered. "Now go get started on resuscitating a wizard for your own possession. I can't be your helping wand forever."

Peter nodded vigorously and scampered off to the deep freezer. Draco waited for the door to close before beginning.

"I know what you want of me." He said. "But my mother will be spared."

Harry nodded.

"Near as I can tell your mother has never done any wrong, certainly not to me. Her only sins were her choice in marriage, aside from that all things she couldn't control."

Draco glared at him.

"What things she couldn't control?"

"She didn't get to choose who her older sister was." Harry answered simply.

"Yeah. Aunt Dromeda can be a total bi-"

"I was referring to Bellatrix." Harry corrected.

"I know. I'm trying for levity. Everything is so fucked up that I need to find some reason not to simply end this facsimile of life and go back to being dead." Draco explained. "But the fact you can drag my soul along any plane you so choose is staying my hand. Thank you by the way."

"For giving you life again and removing your cursed mark?" Harry clarified.

"Well there's that, but mostly I'm thankful you didn't say her only sin was raising me. Because those would have been fighting words." Draco explained.

"Meh. I always suspected it was Lucius' smarmy ass who raised you to be such a pathetic little piss stain. I always got absent mother vibes from her, and overbearing silver spoon father from him."

Draco made like he wanted to retort, but had to shrug and concede the point with an embarrassed nod.

"Do you want an oath from me?" Draco offered.

"For what?"

"Loyalty? Service? To not betray you the moment your plan succeeds and I take over the Malfoy Manor wards?" Draco clarified.

"No need." Harry said. "I don't believe you will betray me, and furthermore I don't care. You will not rejoin your dark lord. If you betray me it will be to your own ends, becoming an enemy who is also an enemy of my enemy thus weakening said enemy. Besides, I don't trust your word anyways. Magically binding or not."

Draco showed deep offense at that final remark.

"What have I ever done to make you think I'm not a man of my word? Or a liar?"

Harry's glare could have frozen Venus.

"Midnight duel you agreed to but instead ratted me and Ron out."

"Filch almost caught me! I couldn't make it with Vincent dragging along!"

"Apologies. We just assumed you chickened out and instead snitched. Point two, cheating in our duel and cheating your way onto the Hogwarts team."

"Professional Duelists get three strikes in official duels and they USE them, cheating up to twice to get long term edge. The latter I feel zero shame for. It's how a lot of things work in the real world, if you hadn't noticed." Draco countered.

Harry conceded those as well.

"Faking a long term injury from Buckbeak and lying to the Department of Control of Magical Creatures in order to hurt Hagrid. Lying to Rita Skeeter for her articles, and finally, lying to your aunt to save my life."

Draco went from indignant to apologetic to touched so quickly during that sentence that it gave him a sudden case of mental whiplash. He really had no excuse for the Buckbeak incident or the Rita stuff. The former was petty of him, and the latter he had thought was funny at the time. Until Granger wound up getting bubotur pussed, to say nothing of all the hate mail. Didn't seem so funny after that, and he HATED the girl, which went a long way to making him realize how stupid talking to that scag of a reporter was.

"You're right. I'm an abject liar." Draco said with conviction. "So I won't waste my breath with promises you won't believe, and instead I'll just keep lying. I'll lie if I'm captured and asked where you're hiding. I'll lie if they ask for the numbers of soldiers you have and their capabilities. And I'll lie should they ask me about any future plans of yours. That's me, Draco Malfoy, unrepentant liar. At your service."

Lucius closed the screen door behind him and joined his wife on the lonesome porch overlooking their unkept gardens.

For so long their time out here had been solemn as they mourned the death of Draco. For the family magic told the head of house when a member died, among other things. It's how family clocks worked. Every magical family had such magic. Most heads of families choose to keep the magic in the family rings upon taking up the mantle, as opposed to family clocks or other similar devices, allowing him to know if a family member was in peril or dead. Clocks could tell a user more, but the rings were more accurate regarding the few things it did check. Safety, general direction, sexual activity - if the subject were an heir or heiress - and of course, death.

And Draco had most assuredly been dead.

He had hidden it from Narcissa, who would always ask if the ring told him anything about their son. And yet somehow she knew. Of course she knew, she was his mother. And that she hadn't asked again after the family magic revealed his death was proof enough. And then, yesterday, a miracle happened. The family magic registered Draco as being alive again.

He had exploded into the sauna room Narcissa had been moping in with the good news. She had believed him instantly. Mostly because it was a tacit admission that he was hiding knowledge of Draco's supposed death from her. Marriage therapy could wait for later, his baby boy was alive! Still, they were left with a mystery.

How could somebody appear dead to an ancient home's family magic and then come back to life?

He had consulted with Severus about any potions that could allow somebody to seem dead to family magic and then reappear. He had a few near solutions. Several messiah potions involving substances like Tetradotoxin and Bufotoxin - the poisons within puffer fish and tree frogs - could make somebody temporarily dead. Legitimitely dead. But they tend to last only three days and repeated use pretty much assured permanent death. They were mostly used for rituals involving complete metamorphosi of the body, or else a ritual to force a person's soul to experience the afterlife in a spiritual journey. Or else to trick people into thinking you were dead, and sometimes resurrected from the dead as a messiah. Very dangerous, very illegal.

Problem was the most advanced of these potions only lasted three days and repeated use would lead to its effects being... permanent.

His best guess was a freezing potion for cryostasis, a type of potion that was on the cutting edge of the field at the moment and only recently discovered.

It seemed like exactly the kind of unlikely bullshit to happen to those kids. If half of the stories to come out of Draco about that Potter boy's experiences at Hogwarts were to be believed - and corroborating evidence and testimony implied almost all of it was - then somehow getting one of Severus' overseas colleagues to brew it for him was probably the least bizarre thing to happen to the young man this week.

Stranger still was that he attempted to summon Draco through the dark mark, but again, According to the dark mark the boy was dead. Not unconscious, dead.

Then it all made sense.

They had used a messiah potion of some kind, maybe a longer lasting one, and while Draco was "dead" They removed the curse mark. He was free to fight back. It was actually Narcissa's theory but he was going to tell Severus it was his conclusion. If this was true it could be huge! The ability to safely remove curse marks from Voldemort's less-than-thrilled followers and simultaneously faking their deaths. This could be it. This could be what changed the tide of the war and saved their souls from the monster masquerading as their master.

Who knew what Draco and Potter were getting up to out there. Both of those kids were scary brilliant - in their own VERY special way - and the two together could get a lot done. This gave them room to dare and hope. Hope that Draco wasn't just alive, but also well. Hope that they had some kind of plan. That they were actually getting something done from the shadows.

They stood out there for the remainder of the sun's rising over the horizon. Fighting off their nightmarish worries about the state Draco might be in after whatever Potter and he had done to get rid of the Dark Mark. The quiet calm of each other's presence kept them sane.

It was when Narcissa got up to go back inside when it happened. The family magics and wards spoke as one to share a message. Were the ring a magical clock the hand for Draco had just changed from 'safe' to 'home' and the home wards themselves told him exactly where to look. Directly across the gardens, between the two lines of hedges sat the secret apparation point that only they knew about, and there in the clearing he stood.

"Narcissa!" He yell-whispered.

She turned around and he saw her gaze focus right onto the blonde-haired form in the distance.

They lept over the patio railings and sprinted across the garden and through a gap in the hedges that left their clothes torn and dirtied by their branches. There was a time when they cared about their clothes and other wealth. That time was past, and soon they bore upon their lost son.

It took a great deal of self control to gloss over the deep scars on his body, the patchwork face, and rush upon his son to embrace him. And that's how the trio stayed. A tangled mass of limbs in a three-person hug. There may have been a little crying too, but the private little area in the hedge groves was hidden enough from view that they didn't care.

"Why are you here? We know you lost the mark. We thought you'd defected." Lucius whispered

Draco gave him an intense look.

"I did. But I had to come to see you one last time. To say goodbye." Draco explained.

Lucius held him tighter.

"Are you fleeing Great Britain? Is Potter and his people retreating to regroup overseas? What can we do to help?" Narcissa pestered.

Draco looked at her sadly, shaking his head. Of course he couldn't share that information with them. They weren't long for the world here, and The Dark Lord could snatch any of this information from their minds if he shared it with them.

"I just needed to tell you something before I'm never able to say it again." Draco said as he but am uncharacteristically gentle hand on his father's cheek. "I wanted you to know that I love you, father. More that even I ever realized."

Lucius opened his mouth to respond, to say something profound and beautiful to reciprocate for his son the immense pride and sadness in his chest. He choked on his words, partially from the overwhelming emotions, but mostly from the sudden, distinct sensation of being kidnapped by way of portkey.

A red stunner illuminated the rooftop they'd appeared on and dropped Narcissa before either could draw their wands. The second spell hit him just as he managed to level his own on their assailant, but Potter was faster to cast.

"Crucio."

Did you know that every person's cruciatus curse is unique? It's true. Much like the patronus that takes on a form unique to the caster, the cruciatus caused sensations in the victim wholly unique to the caster. The Dark Lord's felt like red hot knives cutting your flesh apart, and Bella's is an imitation of his. Narcissa's felt like stinging nettle and rose thorns filling your veins and being pumped along every artery. This one? This one was different from any other he'd felt before. Harry Potter's cruciatus curse felt like a cold and terrible wind tearing skin, muscle and tendon from every bone as the stinging cold seeped into your soul. As soon as it started it had stopped and Lucius found himself on the ground, spasming and looking up into apathetic, green eyes.

"Hello Lucius. It's so good to see you again." Harry finally greeted before kicking him in the chin hard enough that the last thing he heard before falling unconscious was the sound of his jaw shattering.

"Excellent work Draco. I'm sure that was difficult to see." Harry said as he bent down to check Lucius' pulse.

Draco shrugged. He supposed that was an appropriate response from somebody who just saw you cast the torture curse on his father. Professional speak then.

"Go now. Get your mother to safety and by the time you get back to the mansion you will be the new head of House Malfoy." Harry instructed. "Take control of the wards the moment you get there. Set them against your former allies. I will be coming with an army to back you up momentarily."

With a hateful nod Draco disapparated away, carrying his unconscious mother.

Harry turned to the unconscious Malfoy patriarch and took a breath.

"You know I've only cast this spell twice before, and one was a fluke. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to cast it on command today." Harry said to the floating shades around him. "But then Ron reminded me that Ginn still wakes up screaming at night in a sweaty terror, all because of a harmless little diary this man gave her, and now I think I have my memory to fuel my Cruciatus and Killing curse, one to go with my patronus memory."

He pointed his wand and, squeezing his wand tightly pictured little Ginny on the gold stone floor of Myrtle's bathroom, her hands and front covered in feathers and blood with no memory of how it got there. How she must have felt going through dementia and schizophrenia type symptoms every time she was possessed. Symptoms that worsened with every day of her nightmare of a first year that should have been wonderful and carefree. He remembered her near dead and soul destroyed on the chamber floor. And the night before their return to Hogwarts on fifth year when her screaming night terror woke the whole house.

Never before had casting such a difficult spell come so easily to him. The jet of green flew out of his wand with an almost joyous release. He opened his eyes in time to see it strike true and the warm glow of Lucius' skin to fade and grow pale.

Just to be sure he placed two fingers on the man's neck and checked for a pulse.

Dead.

Harry blew his breath out through his nose and relaxed. Now to just send the signal and put his faith in his army... and Draco.

He returned to his feet and approached the edge of the building overlooking downtown London. It was still early in the morning but rush hour was starting to clear up and the intermittent vehicles were going at a good speed and rhythm. The right speed that anybody unknowingly apparating into the middle of traffic would become quite dead quite fast.

He pointed his wand skyward and sent the signal.

"Morsemordre!" He incanted for the first time, another successful casting of a bright green spell followed.

Dudley grasped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were turning white before the flash of green lit up the sky, when the visage of a snake erupting from the mouth of a skull followed he nearly snapped the wheel in half. Deep breaths. Steady heartbeat. You know the word. Just say the word and the fight begins.

He focused his eyes forward and, after another breath, enunciated clearly.

"Vole-Duh-More."

As he uttered the name of the madman who murdered his aunt and uncle, and whose followers murdered his own parents, one of said followers appeared in the middle of the road two lanes over. He was promptly battered by the fender and wheels of a Ford Escort. Thus began the domino fall as that Escort braked so suddenly that the car behind it was forced to help push it back into the proper speed limit from behind. As the vehicular pileup traveled down the road the telltale cracks of more snatchers appearing filled the air, soon followed by the sound of bullets and spellfire.

Notes:

Yes, there is a theory out there who take all of the historical accounts of Christ and say to themselves. "Well he almost definitely existed. But that three days dead and resurrected thing... Puffer fish poison could have faked that." Usually it takes Christian apologetics of the less sane variety to come up with something as out there as that, but this came from the god-hating atheists.

A hilarious idea, and one that fits in nicely to the Harry Potter universe where Jesus would most have surely been a wizard charlatan. A very wise and learned one wo used his deceit to make the world a significantly better and more godly place, but a conman nonetheless.

Fortunately I don't live in a world where wizards and potions exist so I can keep my hard-earned faith.