In The Darkness

Chapter Two: The Past

'I've been living beside the Cauldron for fifteen years, watching and working as a Muggle, I've seen wizards come and go, even the new Hogwarts students each year, it's amazing to see how things change. We never used to need an entire potions case did we? And the first years get to use broomsticks now. Well here's the deal, you know what happened after Voldemort fell?'

'Yes,' Neville said, replacing his mug of Butterbeer on the table in front of him, 'his supporters fled and we've had twenty years of…relative peace.'

'Relative?'

'Well I can't pretend that everyone's been able to live in peace, my department for one thing has had plenty on our hands.'

'Yes, rounding up the supporters and quelling any trouble – I've been watching Neville, I can never identify who your lot are but I have noticed the organisation, always someone standing away from the others but giving silent orders. You have a very effective department.'

'I?'

'Yes,' Harry said with a warm smile to Neville, 'your department, give me some credit; I have had fifteen years to figure things out. Your touch in situations became visible to me after a while; I had known you for twelve years before I went underground.'

'But why did you go underground?'

'Well, after five years I noticed that things had been changing, I was only twenty-three but I could still tell that something was up, seven years at Hogwarts saw to that. But no one else was noticing, not even Ron or Hermione, and they experienced an equal share of weirdness at Hogwarts. So one day I just disappeared to watch…and wait. Something's growing Neville, in the darkness, something I can't see but I hope you've noticed…because it's beginning to scare me.' Looking up from his hunched position Harry's face was no longer the happy and smiling face Neville remembered well, instead it was covered with worry and doubt.

'There's something else, have you had much contact with these people recently?' and from the pocket of his suit Harry handed Neville a scrappy list of names, many marked with stars or other symbols. Taking it from him Neville glanced briefly down the list before giving a small start of surprise while Harry took a small sip of his Butterbeer.

'Harry…this is a full list of my operatives, how-how did you get this?' Neville had almost turned a pale white when Harry took the list back, folding it and returning it to his pocket.

'You saw the symbols by the names?'

'Yes, but-'

'Any idea what they mean?'

'Harry, they're stars, arrows, question marks and crosses, there is no meaning to them.'

'Wrong,' Harry said in a voice that chilled Neville, 'they mean the worst.'

*              *              *

Across the road from Neville's house a car sat unattended with the tinted windows rolled up and the doors firmly locked. Parked in front of a dingy house there was no light showing except through a crack where the door lay ajar. Inside the hall lay the crumpled form of the occupant, blood leaking from a bullet wound to the back of their head. Above the body floorboards creaked as the blond-haired man moved to the attic window, looking through the gap in the boards that crossed over the timber frame the man found he had a clear view into the living room where two men sat, one round faced and dressed casually, the other with brown hair, glasses and a smart suit.

Never shifting his gaze from the scene the man reached for the automatic rifle beside him and methodically began to attach pieces to the frame, a silencer covered the barrel and a laser sight was fitted to the top handle. Breathing steadily he pulled up the rifle and rested to a kneeling position, training the gun-sight over the face of the casually dressed man, being careful not to squeeze the trigger and betray his presence with the spot of the dot-sight.

*              *              *

'Those names with the crosses beside them, I haven't seen them in them from a month to six months ago, and that's what started to give me this feeling that the worst is coming. I know it's not strange for people to be off work, but even when you're ill I see you come in at least twice a week. So I did exactly what went against my best instincts, I followed up on these people…Neville, you know what I found, you must.' From behind his glasses Harry pierced Neville with such a stare that the man visibly shifted. 'They're dead, aren't they? All of them. And I know these people, Neville, they were our friends; Lavender Brown, Ernie Macmillan, Colin Creevey. There were others, people I have never met, but all the same you can't deny something is happening, see the stars, I put them there if I thought someone was in danger, Neville that's half the bloody list and you're on it.'

'Harry, this is all too far-fetched to believe, are you saying these deaths are deliberate, they have no connections, they've all been through Muggle violence, you have no evidence. Colin, he died saving a small Muggle child from a building that was collapsing, Ernie was hit by some damned stupid drunken driver, Lavender was burgled and got in the way…'

'You're telling me what everyone knows Neville,' Harry snapped, 'I read the same stories in the paper.'

'Harry, they aren't stories they are the facts of the matter.'

'NO!' Harry shouted, 'they are exactly what they want you to believe.'

'Harry, you're mad, there is no conspiracy here, they? There is no they!'

'Look at those arrows,' Harry said throwing the paper back at Neville, 'they're tracing the links between all these deaths and...and…they're going for the future ones…'

'Harry this is absurd, look, Dean is alive and well, why question mark him?'

'How do you know?'

'Because he lives across the road from me.'

'Well I couldn't trace him, I had to question whether he was alive or not.'

'And look, the arrow going to him leads onto me, would you mind explaining why you've put that down there.'

'Look at the bottom of the list.'

'What…Vernon à Fred à Ron à Hermione à me…Harry why have you done this?'

'Because my uncle is dead…Fred is dead…' slumping in his chair Harry put a hand against his forehead.

'Fred's…,' Neville began with a small voice threatening to break, 'what…what about Ron and Hermione?'

'I've warned them, I sent Hedwig to Hermione, I've stayed in relatively good contact with her, she's still a little more Muggle than I am, they should be safe, but I haven't got word back from Hedwig yet…' again he slumped into a silence that Neville couldn't break. 'Call Dean, warn him.' Harry croaked into the silence a few seconds later.

'He doesn't have a fire or a phone, I can't contact him.'

'Which is his house?'

'The one with the round attic window, but you can never tell he's in, he boarded up the windows a long time ago.'

'I see light out there, coming from the door.'

'What?' Neville moved quickly from his chair to join Harry at the window, 'that's wrong, he never lets on that he's in.'

As he spoke Harry surveyed the front of Dean's house and saw the chink of light coming from the attic window.

*              *              *

Through the sight the blue eyes narrowed as the round-faced man joined the other at the window, the man had not been expecting to deal with two targets. Breathing out he steadied himself and concentrated on the primary target, then squeezing the trigger he projected the dot-sight onto the forehead of his target for a second before releasing the high-velocity bullet.

*              *              *

The second he saw the chink Harry had raised his hand and when the dot had suddenly appeared on Neville's forehead he was already muttering the defence charm he had created over the time he had been in seclusion. When the flash of the gun signalled the bullet's release he used his left hand to repulse Neville away from him.

As Neville fell time seemed to slow around him, he saw Harry's right hand raised against the glass project a wispy green cloud that seemed to form a green shield around the man. In the slow time it was a few seconds before anything happened, and then the bullet struck the shield causing it to shatter, throwing Harry halfway across the room as the bullet fell to the floor, the casing on the head still intact.

Survival instincts took over and Neville rolled away from the window whilst pulling his wand from the sleeve pocket he had sewn into the lining of his shirt. Standing he released a stream of golden light that flew straight into the boards crossing the circular window which shuddered violently, but made no other move. Gasping he found his beam was beginning to reduce as a red beam pushed along it, driving back towards his wand. A springing to his right made him turn his head as Harry ejected his wand from the holder attached to his arm and sent a sizzling green beam into the window as a bright red beam shot from another point across the street. With an ear-shattering crack the window exploded outwards as a man was thrown through it, landing with a sickening crack in the lamp-lit street and rolling in the darkness.

A/N: Well there you have chapter 2: the past, where will the future lead and who is the mysterious blond man? These are questions that will be answered in chapter 3: undertakings.