The Greater Good
by Kiana Unei
Harry and his world belong to J K Rowling.
Thank you so much! Those past reviews are some of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me! Yes, Yzix is made up . . . Sorry if it gets confusing at times; this is the first serious, long story I've ever written, so it's kinda hard to handle the pace of it. There are some loose ends, like under which rock did Wesson and the fake Minister of Deffence hide, and where Maelani and the psychic went. About those; you'll see. If there's anything else I've missed, please tell me so that I can work it into the story to clear it up. Thanks!
Also, no, Sirius hasn't killed anyone . . . yet.
Chapter XII:
The Dark Lord's Second in Command
"Freedom?"
The blue toungs of flame rose in height, expanding as the fire seemed to move closer to the man standing before it on the bone-strewn ground. Sirius stepped back when the flames licked at the rock centimetres away from his boots.
Harry's arms tightened around his neck; Sirius looked back up to find the face watching him closely.
YES. FREEDOM.
"How can I help?" He knew only to well how it felt to be imprisoned.
WHAT WILL YOU GIVE?
"Give? Like what? What do I have to give you?"
FROM YOU? YOUR WORD.
"On what?"
YOU WILL KNOW. NOTHING THAT WILL GO AGAINST YOUR WILL.
Sirius still looked suspicious. Harry nudged him, "That sounds like a fair deal, considering she wanted my humanity."
He got a weird look from his godfather, before Black turned to face the flames again. "Deal."
With a great rumbling, the pillar of blue fire slowly retracted back into the Earth. The Crest dropped to the stone ground with a metalic *pling* that echoed across the empty chambre.
Sirius gently stooped, and pocketed the thing within a flap of his robes. "Okay, kiddo, ready to go home?"
Harry mumbled something indistinct into his godfather's neck.
The upper level of the fortress was compleatly deserted when the two arrived, showing not a trace of the previous battle. Sirius took his steps warily, blue eyes flicking back and fourth across the deserted hallways, searching for movement. Even the prisoners were silent; not even the most vocal of them shreiked out their tourment into the motionless air.
Sirius stopped, looking around with a more studious gaze. To his left was the passage leading off towards the innards of Azkaban; the High- Security Level. Up ahead and to the right was a stained metal door, leading to . . . to the 'interrogation room', to put it nicely. That left two other hallways, one streaching out to the imidiate right; the other continueing forward.
"I should've paid more attention to that damn skematic," he grumbled, silently cursing himself for getting lost after spending twelve years in this place. "Okay, Harry, what do you think? Right, or strait ahead?"
The warm bundle with his head propped upon his godfather's shoulder made no reply; Sirius suspected that he'd drifted off to sleep during the climp back up to the dungeon.
"Your path depends greatly on where it is you're headed." The voice was cold, and had the quality of a dieing wind through dry leaves. Sirius spun around, squinting into the shadows swarming at the edge of his wandlight. His vision focused- and Black stumbled backwards, feeling his knees go numb. The pale figure of Lord Voldemort melted out of the shadows, followed by at least a dozen Death Eaters.
Sirius clutched his sleeping godson tighter against his chest, instinctly turning sideways to become the smallest possible target he could. He raised the pilfred wand, aiming at the Dark Lord's black-swathed torso.
"Flint tells me that you saved his life," Voldemort said, all the while moving ever closer. Sirius stepped back again, and found himself pressed up against the metal bars of a cell. "You also Stupified two guards and and Auror. Why?"
"I wasn't thinking clearly," Sirius snapped, sounding quite a bit braver than he felt.
"Ah, but I think you were," Voldemort breathed, "as in the old saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'."
"If I had it to do over again, I'd've let them kill the little monster." Sirius felt Harry's weight against him shift; he looked down to find the boy blinking sleepily at his surroundings- then jump when he spotted the cloaked figures.
"You also took charge of the battle, gave an order to young Flint here, I believe." Voldemort's cold face took on an icy smile. "We wouldn't have won without you, Black, and for that I thank you. And offer you the long-assumed position of my second in command."
One of the Death Eaters gave a tiny squeak, shifting about uneasily in his robes; Sirius didn't need to see the man's face to know who it was.
Harry looked up at him, green eyes very round and full of questions.
"Didn't you know, Potter?" Voldemort hissed with the air of a coiled serpant, "Your beloved godfather made it possible for us to take control of Azkaban. He helped us win the deciding battle against the guards. The Dementors have left, as you may have gathered from the lack of screams."
Harry stared disbelivingly up at Sirius, begging for reassurance that the man hadn't switched sides in the war, and not knowing what to do if he had. Granted, the Ministry hadn't done him any favours- in fact they had locked him away for many years of his life- but Harry had always associated the MoM with good, and Sirius had a good heart. Or at least he once did.
The look of terrible rage Harry had seen in his godfather's eyes as the guards led him away was the first emotion he had ever remembered seeing in the man's usually blank face; the pain of betrayel magnified again and again for each injustice he had been delt in the name of the Ministry's law.
Suddenly Harry realized with a shock that he didn't blame his godfather if the man decided to turn away from the so-called 'light side' of the magical war- as long as he didn't become a monster, feeding off the pain of others like himself.
"Well, Black?" Voldemort's chilling voice returned, "As my right-hand you could have the freedom denied you by those you trusted, those you served . . . and the power of revenge against those pathetic, incompatent slugs."
Sirius' face was hard; he shifted his gaze from first Voldemort to Harry and back. "And if I refuse?"
"We leave." Voldemort rased his pale hands in a half-shrug. "We leave Azkaban to the Ministry. I have no need for it; my servents imprisoned within its walls weren't . . . as capable of withstanding the Dementors as you were."
"That's it?" Sirius asked skeptically. "No strings attatched?"
"None."
He glanced down at the boy next to him; Harry looked up with his green eyes full of horrified pleading.
"Then I whole-heartedly . . . " Sirius shifted his gaze back to Voldemort, "tell you to go to Hell."
The Dark Lord's smile turned into a sort of demonic grin. "Somehow, I knew you'd say something along those lines." He glanced back towards the Death Eaters, then again at Sirius. "As promised, we'll leave Azkaban in peace. However," his red eyes glittered with malaice, "I never said anything about you and the boy. EXPELLIARMUS!!"
Sirius' wand flew from his hand; Voldemort deftly caught it with a sweep of his other arm. The man turned to run, then-
"Dementorem Reversito!"
Sirius let out a strangled cry, and tumbled forward into a heep, twitching.
"Stop it!" Harry begged. "Leave him alone! It's me you want!"
Voldemort simply favoured him with a chilling smile. "Yes, Potter, you too will die. But first I'm going to teach you all a lesson in decision making. Black here," his voice rose to adress his dark minions as well, "is reliving every moment of pain in his entire pathetic life, along with whatever he was seeing, feeling, or doing at the time. For instance, he might think that he's many miles away, in a fight; or being rushed to a medical centre because of a broken finger.
Pain, you see, is only so bad. Fear, apprehension, hatred, and helplessness; emotions contained in the memories he's experiancing, make the pain ten-fould worse."
Voldemort swept casually across the hard floor, appearantly in no hurry as he made his way towards his prisoners. Harry moved to couver Sirius' head and torso with his own small body, hugging the twitching man as the Dark Lord stopped before them. Lazily, Voldemort raised his wand. "Finite . . . Incantatium."
Sirius collapsed like a broken marianette, sighing in relief, then gently laid a trembling hand on one of Harry's.
"A-Are we going to duel?" Harry asked.
"No," Voldemort's feindesh grin returned, "in fact, Potter, I'm not even going to hurt you."
"You're not?" Harry realized that he sounded somewhat disappointed, and quickly changed his tone of voice. "Why not?"
"Because . . ." Voldemort's eyes sparkled again; the wicked grin on his face fully returned, "Black's going to do it for me. IMPERIO!"
Harry could feel Sirius' breathing take on a more ragged, irregular pace- but knew in his heart that the man was probably too weary from Voldemort's last curse to even attempt fighting this one.
"Sirius?" Harry got to his knees, looking his godfather strait in his vacant eyes. Slowly, the man's eyes focused. He pushed Harry off of him, and turned to Voldemort, lips curled in a sneer.
"Gigd me a w-wand." He shot the boy a nasty look.
"My pleasure."
Sirius snatched the wand out of the air, then turned jerkily around to face Harry, still grinning.
"Sirius, fight it!" Harry tried to back away, but felt the cold wall behind him halt any progress.
Sirius raised the wand, aiming point-blank at the boy's chest.
"Sirius, please!" Harry reached for him, but Sirius jerked away, keeping the wand level.
"I'm going to enjoy this. You have no idea how much . . ." Sirius' voice was low, and had a slightly surreal quality to it. He raised the wand to point at the jagged lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. "Goodby, Harry Potter. TELEPORTUM PHYSIMAGUS!!"
A sort of explosion went off inside Harry's skull- lights blured his vision, and a great hurricane of wind blasted at his ears. He couldn't feel his body. Goodby, Harry Potter. Sirius' last words to him echoed clearly within the malestrom of his dieing brain.
"Mum, Sirius Black did not kidnap Harry!" Ron had been trying to tell her that for the past hour and a half the five of them had spent in the Ministry of Magic's waiting area.
"Oh, shut up, Ron," Ginny snapped, "you're just bored! Don't you even care about your best friend?"
"Yes!" Ron snapped back, "I'm just telling you that Sirius did not kidnap him!"
"Ron! Be quiet, please, I need to think." Mrs Weasley had her head in her hands, massaging her temples.
"Mum, do you remember the end of the Tournament last year?" Ron asked, deciding to switch tactics, "When you met him? Do you remember how Harry acted around him?"
"Ron, you're not helping my headache," Mrs Weasley scolded, at the same time the twins asked, "Met who?"
"But do you?" Ron pressed, "And remember how Dumbledore gave him a mission for OUR SIDE?"
"What's he talking about?" one of the twins asked.
"Ron, be quiet, please," their mother complained.
"D-Do you think Harry's . . . dead?" Ginny whispered, looking fearfully at her.
"I don't know, dear."
"He's- " But whatever Fred was going to say, it was imidiatly cut off as the person in question suddenly and without warning materialized in his lap.
A/N: Yep, Siri teleported Harry to the Ministry. More comming soon. Next: Ministry mayham, Peter gets a bashing, and Fudge's vacation gets an early end.
by Kiana Unei
Harry and his world belong to J K Rowling.
Thank you so much! Those past reviews are some of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me! Yes, Yzix is made up . . . Sorry if it gets confusing at times; this is the first serious, long story I've ever written, so it's kinda hard to handle the pace of it. There are some loose ends, like under which rock did Wesson and the fake Minister of Deffence hide, and where Maelani and the psychic went. About those; you'll see. If there's anything else I've missed, please tell me so that I can work it into the story to clear it up. Thanks!
Also, no, Sirius hasn't killed anyone . . . yet.
Chapter XII:
The Dark Lord's Second in Command
"Freedom?"
The blue toungs of flame rose in height, expanding as the fire seemed to move closer to the man standing before it on the bone-strewn ground. Sirius stepped back when the flames licked at the rock centimetres away from his boots.
Harry's arms tightened around his neck; Sirius looked back up to find the face watching him closely.
YES. FREEDOM.
"How can I help?" He knew only to well how it felt to be imprisoned.
WHAT WILL YOU GIVE?
"Give? Like what? What do I have to give you?"
FROM YOU? YOUR WORD.
"On what?"
YOU WILL KNOW. NOTHING THAT WILL GO AGAINST YOUR WILL.
Sirius still looked suspicious. Harry nudged him, "That sounds like a fair deal, considering she wanted my humanity."
He got a weird look from his godfather, before Black turned to face the flames again. "Deal."
With a great rumbling, the pillar of blue fire slowly retracted back into the Earth. The Crest dropped to the stone ground with a metalic *pling* that echoed across the empty chambre.
Sirius gently stooped, and pocketed the thing within a flap of his robes. "Okay, kiddo, ready to go home?"
Harry mumbled something indistinct into his godfather's neck.
The upper level of the fortress was compleatly deserted when the two arrived, showing not a trace of the previous battle. Sirius took his steps warily, blue eyes flicking back and fourth across the deserted hallways, searching for movement. Even the prisoners were silent; not even the most vocal of them shreiked out their tourment into the motionless air.
Sirius stopped, looking around with a more studious gaze. To his left was the passage leading off towards the innards of Azkaban; the High- Security Level. Up ahead and to the right was a stained metal door, leading to . . . to the 'interrogation room', to put it nicely. That left two other hallways, one streaching out to the imidiate right; the other continueing forward.
"I should've paid more attention to that damn skematic," he grumbled, silently cursing himself for getting lost after spending twelve years in this place. "Okay, Harry, what do you think? Right, or strait ahead?"
The warm bundle with his head propped upon his godfather's shoulder made no reply; Sirius suspected that he'd drifted off to sleep during the climp back up to the dungeon.
"Your path depends greatly on where it is you're headed." The voice was cold, and had the quality of a dieing wind through dry leaves. Sirius spun around, squinting into the shadows swarming at the edge of his wandlight. His vision focused- and Black stumbled backwards, feeling his knees go numb. The pale figure of Lord Voldemort melted out of the shadows, followed by at least a dozen Death Eaters.
Sirius clutched his sleeping godson tighter against his chest, instinctly turning sideways to become the smallest possible target he could. He raised the pilfred wand, aiming at the Dark Lord's black-swathed torso.
"Flint tells me that you saved his life," Voldemort said, all the while moving ever closer. Sirius stepped back again, and found himself pressed up against the metal bars of a cell. "You also Stupified two guards and and Auror. Why?"
"I wasn't thinking clearly," Sirius snapped, sounding quite a bit braver than he felt.
"Ah, but I think you were," Voldemort breathed, "as in the old saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'."
"If I had it to do over again, I'd've let them kill the little monster." Sirius felt Harry's weight against him shift; he looked down to find the boy blinking sleepily at his surroundings- then jump when he spotted the cloaked figures.
"You also took charge of the battle, gave an order to young Flint here, I believe." Voldemort's cold face took on an icy smile. "We wouldn't have won without you, Black, and for that I thank you. And offer you the long-assumed position of my second in command."
One of the Death Eaters gave a tiny squeak, shifting about uneasily in his robes; Sirius didn't need to see the man's face to know who it was.
Harry looked up at him, green eyes very round and full of questions.
"Didn't you know, Potter?" Voldemort hissed with the air of a coiled serpant, "Your beloved godfather made it possible for us to take control of Azkaban. He helped us win the deciding battle against the guards. The Dementors have left, as you may have gathered from the lack of screams."
Harry stared disbelivingly up at Sirius, begging for reassurance that the man hadn't switched sides in the war, and not knowing what to do if he had. Granted, the Ministry hadn't done him any favours- in fact they had locked him away for many years of his life- but Harry had always associated the MoM with good, and Sirius had a good heart. Or at least he once did.
The look of terrible rage Harry had seen in his godfather's eyes as the guards led him away was the first emotion he had ever remembered seeing in the man's usually blank face; the pain of betrayel magnified again and again for each injustice he had been delt in the name of the Ministry's law.
Suddenly Harry realized with a shock that he didn't blame his godfather if the man decided to turn away from the so-called 'light side' of the magical war- as long as he didn't become a monster, feeding off the pain of others like himself.
"Well, Black?" Voldemort's chilling voice returned, "As my right-hand you could have the freedom denied you by those you trusted, those you served . . . and the power of revenge against those pathetic, incompatent slugs."
Sirius' face was hard; he shifted his gaze from first Voldemort to Harry and back. "And if I refuse?"
"We leave." Voldemort rased his pale hands in a half-shrug. "We leave Azkaban to the Ministry. I have no need for it; my servents imprisoned within its walls weren't . . . as capable of withstanding the Dementors as you were."
"That's it?" Sirius asked skeptically. "No strings attatched?"
"None."
He glanced down at the boy next to him; Harry looked up with his green eyes full of horrified pleading.
"Then I whole-heartedly . . . " Sirius shifted his gaze back to Voldemort, "tell you to go to Hell."
The Dark Lord's smile turned into a sort of demonic grin. "Somehow, I knew you'd say something along those lines." He glanced back towards the Death Eaters, then again at Sirius. "As promised, we'll leave Azkaban in peace. However," his red eyes glittered with malaice, "I never said anything about you and the boy. EXPELLIARMUS!!"
Sirius' wand flew from his hand; Voldemort deftly caught it with a sweep of his other arm. The man turned to run, then-
"Dementorem Reversito!"
Sirius let out a strangled cry, and tumbled forward into a heep, twitching.
"Stop it!" Harry begged. "Leave him alone! It's me you want!"
Voldemort simply favoured him with a chilling smile. "Yes, Potter, you too will die. But first I'm going to teach you all a lesson in decision making. Black here," his voice rose to adress his dark minions as well, "is reliving every moment of pain in his entire pathetic life, along with whatever he was seeing, feeling, or doing at the time. For instance, he might think that he's many miles away, in a fight; or being rushed to a medical centre because of a broken finger.
Pain, you see, is only so bad. Fear, apprehension, hatred, and helplessness; emotions contained in the memories he's experiancing, make the pain ten-fould worse."
Voldemort swept casually across the hard floor, appearantly in no hurry as he made his way towards his prisoners. Harry moved to couver Sirius' head and torso with his own small body, hugging the twitching man as the Dark Lord stopped before them. Lazily, Voldemort raised his wand. "Finite . . . Incantatium."
Sirius collapsed like a broken marianette, sighing in relief, then gently laid a trembling hand on one of Harry's.
"A-Are we going to duel?" Harry asked.
"No," Voldemort's feindesh grin returned, "in fact, Potter, I'm not even going to hurt you."
"You're not?" Harry realized that he sounded somewhat disappointed, and quickly changed his tone of voice. "Why not?"
"Because . . ." Voldemort's eyes sparkled again; the wicked grin on his face fully returned, "Black's going to do it for me. IMPERIO!"
Harry could feel Sirius' breathing take on a more ragged, irregular pace- but knew in his heart that the man was probably too weary from Voldemort's last curse to even attempt fighting this one.
"Sirius?" Harry got to his knees, looking his godfather strait in his vacant eyes. Slowly, the man's eyes focused. He pushed Harry off of him, and turned to Voldemort, lips curled in a sneer.
"Gigd me a w-wand." He shot the boy a nasty look.
"My pleasure."
Sirius snatched the wand out of the air, then turned jerkily around to face Harry, still grinning.
"Sirius, fight it!" Harry tried to back away, but felt the cold wall behind him halt any progress.
Sirius raised the wand, aiming point-blank at the boy's chest.
"Sirius, please!" Harry reached for him, but Sirius jerked away, keeping the wand level.
"I'm going to enjoy this. You have no idea how much . . ." Sirius' voice was low, and had a slightly surreal quality to it. He raised the wand to point at the jagged lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. "Goodby, Harry Potter. TELEPORTUM PHYSIMAGUS!!"
A sort of explosion went off inside Harry's skull- lights blured his vision, and a great hurricane of wind blasted at his ears. He couldn't feel his body. Goodby, Harry Potter. Sirius' last words to him echoed clearly within the malestrom of his dieing brain.
"Mum, Sirius Black did not kidnap Harry!" Ron had been trying to tell her that for the past hour and a half the five of them had spent in the Ministry of Magic's waiting area.
"Oh, shut up, Ron," Ginny snapped, "you're just bored! Don't you even care about your best friend?"
"Yes!" Ron snapped back, "I'm just telling you that Sirius did not kidnap him!"
"Ron! Be quiet, please, I need to think." Mrs Weasley had her head in her hands, massaging her temples.
"Mum, do you remember the end of the Tournament last year?" Ron asked, deciding to switch tactics, "When you met him? Do you remember how Harry acted around him?"
"Ron, you're not helping my headache," Mrs Weasley scolded, at the same time the twins asked, "Met who?"
"But do you?" Ron pressed, "And remember how Dumbledore gave him a mission for OUR SIDE?"
"What's he talking about?" one of the twins asked.
"Ron, be quiet, please," their mother complained.
"D-Do you think Harry's . . . dead?" Ginny whispered, looking fearfully at her.
"I don't know, dear."
"He's- " But whatever Fred was going to say, it was imidiatly cut off as the person in question suddenly and without warning materialized in his lap.
A/N: Yep, Siri teleported Harry to the Ministry. More comming soon. Next: Ministry mayham, Peter gets a bashing, and Fudge's vacation gets an early end.