― CHAPTER SIX ―

The Ex-Death Eater

>

"The Vampires have been sent out, my lord."

Voice of ice. "And the boy?"

"Tonight, my lord …"

"He needs to resist the Veritaserum they will surely administer. Bring him to see me; I will craft him a false memory that we can later eliminate."

A low hiss and long fingers thoughtfully tapping a mother-of-pearl vial.

"And … have Severus mix the boy more of this Amortentia …"

Lying in his new bedroom, Harry's closed eyes twitched and his scar throbbed softly, but when morning came, he did not remember the dream at all.

>

>

>

"HALF-BLOOD FILTH! IGNOBLE ORPHAN SOILING MY THRESHHOLD! BASE AND VILE USURPER OF THE DARK LORD'S REIGN–" Mrs. Black's shrill screeches echoed throughout the hallway as Harry passed her portrait.

"Shut up," he said calmly. "I live here now, so save your breath."

"NOOOO! NEVER HAS THE ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK BEEN TAINTED BY UNCOUTH BLOOD, BY LESS THAN PURE –"

"Langlock," muttered Harry and watched as the irate woman in the portrait continued twisting her mouth open soundlessly. He drew the heavy drapes before her shut and turned to see Kreacher staring malevolently at him with bloodshot eyes.

"Mistress is right about Master," croaked the ugly house-elf. "Master should not be dirtying this house that Kreacher and Kreacher's fathers served noble wizards in … oh, how shameful is Master's trespass!"

Harry ignored him and began walking to the kitchen for breakfast.

"Oh yes, Kreacher knows who this house belongs to, if last Master hadn't been a blood traitor …"

Harry whirled around and clenched his teeth. "You little … hang on, this is easy … I forbid you to ever mention or refer to any member of the Black family, including those by marriage, the Lestranges and the Malfoys!"

Kreacher sank into a mandatory low bow while looking like he had just swallowed bile.

"Kreacher must do what Master bids," he grumbled. "But Kreacher is glad Master cannot take what belongs here even if he dishonors this house with enemies of the Lord …"

Harry shrugged. "If you mean the old hag's portrait, some creepy decapitated elf-heads, and that moldy genealogy tapestry upstairs then you're in luck. I wouldn't touch them unless to set fire to them. Now go clean out the, uh–" (what rooms were left?) "Drawing room!"

Kreacher gave him an odd sort of leer and slinked off.

"Nutter," Harry muttered to himself as he entered the kitchen. Pouring himself a cup of lukewarm coffee and biting into a piece of dry toast, he thought longingly of the delicious breakfasts at Hogwarts' Great Hall. He didn't want Kreacher to prepare his meals (even with a no-poison policy) because, frankly, it would repulse him to eat anything that Kreacher had touched. Thankfully, Harry wasn't so bad at cooking himself –having had plenty of practice at the Dursleys –but he didn't have the zeal to spend time at the stove beyond what was required for heating porridge, toast, and coffee. Maybe I should learn a couple easy recipe spells from Hermione or Ginny …

An image of chocolate brown eyes teasingly tender swept across his mind. He remembered hugging her goodbye at the wedding, how she had pressed him as if never wanting to let go, and then had stepped back quickly and vanished into the crowd before he could form words to reassure her that this wouldn't be their final parting. Harry forced himself to push the image away and concentrate instead on how he was going to convince his friends not to follow him next week on his trip to Godric's Hollow. They would refuse to let him go alone … maybe he should ask Moody to come instead, seeing as he was a professional Auror …

Crack! "Morning, mate!"

Crack! "Ron Weasley! Watch whose toes you're treading next time you sprint to Apparate …"

"Ow! Hey, it was an acci-"

"Lay off it guys," said Harry. "No love-hate banter til noon at least. And I have something I need to tell you."

Ron and Hermione each plopped down on opposite sides of the bench. Ron grabbed a burnt toast but thought better of it, and Hermione kindly conjured some golden toasted slices and a pot of marmalade for him. Harry never stopped marveling at how fast the pair of them went from cats and dogs to turtledoves. And why they insisted it was 'just' friendship was beyond him. Then again, he knew brothers and sisters could be like that.

"So, what's up Harry?"

"Aside from the warm welcome from Sirius' mother, whose tongue I glued up, and that crazy elf, whom I forbade to speak of Bellatrix bloody Lestrange, everything's great." He took a deep breath. "But about our, er, excursion coming up –"

At that moment there was a cacophonic mix of hooting and tapping behind the small windowpane by the fireplace. Three owls –Hedwig, Pig, and Hermes –were flapping outside impatiently, due to lack of a ledge to land on. Hermione shot up, practically Apparating to the window so fast she moved, and fumbled to get it open. "Argh!" she shrieked, untying the envelopes. "Our Hogwarts letters!"

"So mental," sighed Ron.

Harry silently blessed whoever was in charge of owl post delivery for the perfect timing. Now he had a chance –if indeed the news was affirmative –to persuade his friends to return to school where they belonged, safe and away from his tendency to get people close to him killed.

Hermione had torn her letter in her excitement to pry out the parchment, but her expression was eloquent of the contents of her reading. She trembled and raised her eyes to Harry and Ron, who were watching her with amused grins.

"I –I'm Head Girl," she whispered hoarsely.

"Wow, Hermione, that's fantastic!"

"Bloody hell, did you ever doubt it would be anyone but you?"

She looked ecstatic and then quickly rearranged her features into a composed nonchalance. "But its irrelevant because I'm not going ba–"

"YES YOU ARE!" Harry exclaimed. "You've been chosen to represent all Hogwarts students, and for their sake you will assume your responsibility!"

"But, Harry –"

"No buts, Hermione," said Harry. "Look, you said yourself that there may be a Horcrux hidden at Hogwarts. You can help me best by looking into that, plus you'll have access to the library to do research on leads, and most importantly, the Order needs someone based at Hogwarts –McGonagall will be too busy with her teaching and administrative duties –to watch over the students' security … it's the same as being stationed as Guard there, except you'll have better access to everything with your position, and," (he saw from her wavering expression that she was giving in) "you'll make us all proud when you ace the N.E.W.Ts!"

Hermione turned her doubtful frown to Ron. "What do you think?"

"Hermione," said Ron earnestly, "Harry and I will do better out there knowing that you're doing what you do best: using that clever magic talent you always keep us in line with to keep Hogwarts out of danger." His mouth jerked into a twisted smile. "Believe me, I wish there was a spell to clone you so I wouldn't have to miss your mental company, but there's only one –"

He was cut off as Hermione leaned over and planted a loud kiss on his cheek. Ron took it unblushingly but his voice cracked as he said, "Yeah, and Harry will be getting the benefit of the sparkling Weasley wit."

"So, will you accept," said Harry, holding up the polished silver badge he had extracted from the envelope. "This?"

Hermione took the badge, and turning it over in her palm, breathed, "The title acronym embossed on it matches my name initials … H.G."

"That's a yes," said Ron in relief. "Congratulations, Miss Hogwarts!"

"Does it say who made Head Boy?" Harry asked, scanning over his and Ron's letters and seeing that they definitely had not.

"No," said Hermione, rereading hers. "But I have a lot of shopping to do at Diagon Alley. What a list!"

"Maybe its Neville," laughed Ron. "You never know …"

"It can't be another Gryffindor," said Hermione. "School rules. And you both know which book I'm referencing!"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Yep."

After tiring of trying to guess who the seventh-year male prefect might be, the three fell into a content, comfortable silence, each thinking their own thoughts and watching the glowing embers in the grate. Hermione turned lazily to Harry and asked, "You never got a chance to finish what you wanted to tell us earlier?"

"Oh …" said Harry, knowing that he could not possibly let on that he had wanted them to return to school for safety reasons, because Hermione would think it an ulterior motive in his arguments just now to take the Headship. Looking over at Ron's relaxed face, Harry suddenly knew that it would insult his best friend if he thought Harry didn't want him along, and, Harry realized, it wouldn't feel right without Ron by his side anyhow, after all they had been through together in the last six years. "I just thought we could ask Moody to come with us."

"That would be wise," nodded Hermione. "If You-Know-Who has guessed you might visit your parents' house, he'll have stationed lookouts."

"Speaking of our favorite guy," said Ron dryly. "It looks like he's done in Malfoy's mum."

"What!" said Harry, nearly falling off his chair.

"I overheard Dad flooing Scrimgeour this morning about some sort of midnight Ministry raid at Malfoy Manor. I didn't get the details but it sounded pretty grisly."

Even though he thought it served Malfoy right –he made his bed, let him lay in it –Harry couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for the boy he had seen crying in the bathroom last year, terrified of the death threats against his parents. And even though Narcissa Malfoy was a Death Eater; sister to Bellatrix Lestrange and wife to Lucius Malfoy (the two main players in the orchestration of the trap that had led to Sirius' death), Harry remembered her from last year at Madame Malkin's: slim, pale, and arrogant, yet so ardently protective of her son. It looked like one had failed to save the other –had Voldemort killed Narcissa to punish Draco, or had Narcissa sacrificed herself to save Draco?

"That's awful," said Hermione in a small voice. "Poor Draco."

Harry looked at her and knew that the same thought mechanism had passed through her mind for both of them to think of Malfoy by his first name at this moment. Ron, however, looked unruffled.

"Well, like I said yesterday, the slimy git had it coming."

"I sympathize with him," said Harry simply. "Because I know what it feels like to have your mother murdered."

"But you don't have a nasty skull branded on your arm," Ron pointed out. "You didn't let Death Eaters and a rabid werewolf into a place where hundreds of your schoolmates were innocently sleeping." His voice was harsher than Harry had ever heard it. "And you definately did not try to kill Dumbledore!"

There was an audible silence. Harry sighed. "I'm not saying Malfoy's not guilty of all those things. From day one, he was a thorn in our sides, and now we're formally at war with his boss." He shrugged. "But I saw him suffering last year. He looked ill, he was nerve-wracked to the point of sobbing to Moaning Myrtle, and I –I really hurt him with that Sectumsempra curse …"

"Maybe he didn't have a choice to join the Death Eaters," said Hermione. "Maybe his father forced it on him."

"No, he sounded pretty proud of himself when he was boasting about his mission to the Slytherins on the train," said Harry. "But I think as he realized what the consequences of being Voldemort's servant could be –losing his family, putting his friends in danger –he might have regretted his decision. I say so only because, when Dumbledore was talking to him up there," Harry paused to recall the painful scene in the Astronomy Tower. "Malfoy was uncertain. Even, maybe, he would have surrendered, because at the last moment before the others came, he lowered his wand …"

"Aw," scoffed Ron. "How sweet of him."

"It's useless to talk about this," said Hermione. "Ron's right. Malfoy made his final choice when he ran away with Snape that night, so no matter what he may or may not have learned last year, he's still our enemy."

"Yeah," said Harry slowly. "One thing we've learned –the hard way – is that there's no such thing as an Ex-Death Eater."