~Chapter 19~ The Test – 31 July 1994
(A/N: Thank you for all the amazing reviews here is another chapter in return hehe. Be warned, slight cliffie ahead.)
Harry was packing the last of his newly bought things, all still sealed to guard against his scent, in preparation when he felt Death enter the room. He was getting pretty good at sensing when the entity would appear, or so he would've made himself believe if the entity wasn't currently humming loud enough to wake the dead.
A sense of foreboding swept through his body and gave him goosebumps…Death never hummed…he turned around slowly, half expecting the entity to give him a jump-scare. Maybe the entity was hanging around mortals too much recently?
But no, nothing jumped out at him, instead, the entity held out his arm and Harry carefully took the letter and box. "Uhm thanks?" The entity nodded and disappeared with an amused laugh, leaving Harry to wonder whether it was safe to open the package at all.
He decided to go for the letter first, only to freeze as he spotted the name. "How…?" A groan left him as he realized why the entity had chuckled. Apparently, it was fun to interfere with his plans, but if he were to be quite honest with himself, it was nice to receive a letter back from Voldemort and he wouldn't mind if it continued...depending on the content that is.
He read the letter and was pleasantly surprised by the contents of it, but it was no surprise that the man had figured out the MoD thing so easily, the hints had all been there. He decided to look at the presents before taking a closer look at the test that Voldemort had written about.
He opened the present labeled as 'Harry' first, even though it wasn't mentioned in the letter, and was surprised to find a shrunken travel case and an open return ticket to anywhere in the world. He knew he wouldn't use it soon, and he had enough money to do so at any given time, but the message was loud and clear, Voldemort didn't intend to keep Harry Potter locked away as he'd feared.
It was a nice sentiment and it made him even more excited for the days ahead, even if Voldemort wouldn't know that he was in disguise. He turned to enlarge the other contents of the box and had to jump back to avoid being flattened by the mountain of presents…not that he succeeded.
He came up sputtering and blinking in shock as he glanced around him in a daze, this was Voldemort's idea of only a few presents?!
He finally managed to pull himself free of the newly formed mountain and picked up the one closest to him. Had the man raided a shop in a hurry or had he been saving these up for a while now?
A familiar chuckle clued him in that Death hadn't completely disappeared and he turned around to glare at the entity. "What's so funny? I can't imagine that having the Master of Death die due to suffocation by presents would look good on your resumé!"
The entity merely made himself comfortable on his bed and Harry sighed in frustration. Several footsteps echoed down the hall before pausing at his door and Harry looked up to find Severus, Salazar, Sirius all staring at the mountain of presents in shock…though it was Severus that managed to pull himself together first.
"I take it that the Dark Lord finally managed to send you some of the gifts he's been collecting?" Harry's eyes zeroed in on the man in suspicion as he placed his hands on his hips before gesturing towards the pile with his right hand, "You knew about all of this?!"
The man chuckled and nodded, though he didn't move closer to the bed as he noticed Death on it. Salazar had no such problems though as he walked over and made himself comfortable at the edge of the bed. "Severus told me about it after about the fourth time the Death Eaters were sent out on random errands to retrieve certain objects…the few ones he didn't retrieve himself… and the objects never left the castle again so many Death Eaters have speculated that they were meant for his cons-"
Sirius, who seemed to have sensed an incoming incident of Gryffindor idiocy, not so subtly elbowed Salazar in the stomach before he could finish his sentence, but Salazar merely laughed in response as Sirius glared at him, "Aren't you supposed to be the epitome of Slytherin secrecy?"
Harry narrowed his eyes at his other godfather, "You're a part of this too?"
Sirius laughed and shook his head, "I just know a good thing when I hear it, but I am not revealing any more than that. From what you've told me, you have been fighting for a very long time, so maybe it is time for us and a select few other people to worry about you for once?"
Harry couldn't deny the man's words…but he would deny that the sentiment got him a little choked up, so he turned his attention back to the presents instead.
The presents, even in their now mountainous form, seemed to have been sorted by category. Some of the presents carried books and scrolls or rare yet wondrous magicks, other presents held intricate jewelry that had so many protective charms on them that Harry almost believed that he could stand in the middle of a bomb explosion and still come out unharmed. He immediately chose a piece that he liked, a simple silver bracelet with interlinked fangs that turned from silver to obsidian depending on the angle they were seen at and slipped it onto his wrist before spelling it to be invisible.
He turned to the rest of his presents and was surprised to find three small portraits that made Death sit up in surprise, 'Those are of the three Peverell brothers…'
The entity trailed off and Harry realized that he was gazing longingly at the third portrait of what seemed to be the youngest brother when he'd been around 20 or so. He handed it over, "What happened to Ignotus?"
Death glanced at him before returning his attention to the portrait, 'He stayed with me for a while after his Death, he'd never been afraid of me and we became good friends, but souls were never meant to linger in the realm of Death and his soul became extremely weak to a point that I had to force him to enter the reincarnation cycle…but the damage had already been done so he is currently trapped in Limbo while his soul recovers.'
Harry frowned, "Can't I do something about that?" Death shook his head and for a moment Harry felt frustrated before an idea occurred to him and he slowly removed the portrait from Death's hands and cast the necessary spell to link the portrait to Ignotus' soul.
For a moment, nothing happened, but then the portrait blinked in surprise and looked around. He didn't say anything until his eyes fell upon Death and Harry found it funny to see how Ignotus first froze in shock before his face turned slightly red in anger, "DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE WAITED FOR YOU TO FIND A WAY TO CONTACT ME?! JUST WAIT, THE MOMENT I RETURN TO THE CYCLE I WILL…"
The rest of the man's rant was cut off as Death disappeared as silently as always and it left the four other occupants of the room to look at each other in sad amusement, but no one commented on it and Harry looked at what was still left of the mountain of presents before he cast a tempus and his eyes rounded in surprise.
He hurriedly put away the ones he'd already unpacked and shrunk the rest before turning towards his godfathers to explain but Severus merely shook his head fondly and gave him two other gifts that he'd been hiding since they'd entered the room. "We know you have to go, but this one is from us and the other one is from your friends. They are sad that you won't be at Hogwarts but they understand and they told me to tell you that you should keep out of trouble otherwise they will come to find you."
Harry couldn't help the laugh that escaped him and he turned, only to spot the test still lying on the letter from Voldemort. He was about to pack it away when Salazar grabbed his arm and stopped him, "I think you might want to do that now, even if you are a few moments late. It might clear up something that I have been suspecting for a while now."
Harry frowned, but did as Salazar recommended. He took the potion and poured Voldemort's blood in before spelling in a vial of his own blood as well. He swirled the potion around three times as Salazar directed before placing the provided parchment on the table and pouring the potion over it.
At first, nothing happened and Harry wondered if he'd done something wrong, but the next moment a rune appeared that glowed brightly three times before it seemed to settle. Harry reached for the so-called manual and searched for the symbol before frowning, "This symbol says that we are enemies, does that mean that I haven't managed to change the outcome and that we will be forced to kill each other even with the vow in place?"
Salzar brought his hand to his own forehead before rubbing it over his eyes and shaking his head. He moved forward and took the manual from Harry's fingers before turning to the correct page, "You were looking at the wrong symbol. Though the two look the same, the middle area is more of a double circle in that one, kind of like an eight. The one you are looking for has two oval shapes in the middle, like the infinity symbol."
Harry glanced at the manual and then at the parchment and found that Salazar was right, but his mind stopped working the moment he finished reading the description. His heart started beating rapidly and his palms became sweaty. That couldn't be, right? His crush was his soulmate? Maybe he'd done it wrong, maybe it was supposed to be the symbol for enemies and he'd smudged it somehow.
His forehead suddenly burned and he snapped out of his thoughts and rubbed his hand over the skin to calm the pain, "Oww, Sirius, what was that for?"
The man gave him a sad smile as he lowered his arm, his hand still in forehead flicking position as if preparing to do it again if needed, "You were thinking stupid thoughts so I decided to snap you out of it, besides, that tests never lies."
Salazar nodded and stepped forward. "The real reason for the scent potion was because I suspected that he'd already realized that you were his mate, as you can see with the number of presents you received, and you didn't seem ready for that truth yet at the time because you were completely set against making any other contact except for the letters every December and the one day that the two of you formed the vow."
Harry didn't know what to think as he forcefully calmed himself down, but his mind never once thought of their actions as betrayal and that settled the last of his nerves. He felt his shoulders slump as the tension left him and then Sirius was hugging him, "I know you hate it when people do things 'for your own good' so to speak, but we truly only want the best for you. We were initially hoping that you would figure it out yourself, but we couldn't let you go stay there while thinking that the two of you were still meant to be enemies. Misunderstandings like that never end well."
Harry nodded and he tightened his hold on his godfather before letting him go with a smile, "Thank you." The man nodded and released him, allowing him to hug his other godfather as well as his honorary godfather, "I will miss you, but I have a feeling I will still be seeing you around."
The three men nodded and he grabbed his trunk then stepped back and removed the portkey from his pocket. He'd made it himself seeing as he'd been to Voldemort's castle many times before. He was about to activate it but Severus stopped him with a frown, "If you go in like that I doubt you will ever be coming back out again." Amusement laced the man's voice, however.
Harry felt confused for a moment until his eyes widened and he looked down at himself, Merlin's fried socks! He'd almost portkeyed directly into Voldemort's domain while still looking like himself!
He quickly removed the potion from his pocket and drank it with a grimace as Salazar looked at him with one eyebrow raised, "Should I start getting worried or can I file this under a mere temporary lapse in judgment after the shocking news?"
Harry laughed, but still double-checked everything just to make sure, and sure enough, he'd forgotten to pack the rest of his, now shrunken presents, "I would say the second option. I'm good to go now, right?" The three men nodded and he activated the portkey.
He almost found himself losing his balance, but a strong hand steadied him and he froze in place as he looked up and found his crush standing extremely close to him. The other man seemed to scent the air before stepping back once he was sure that Harry wouldn't lose his balance anyway.
"Welcome, your brother told me of your visit. I am Voldemort…and you are?" The older man held out his hand in introduction and Harry carefully took it as if it would burn him.
"I am Dimitri Ignotus Peverell…" His words seem to dry up as he tried to think of something to say. Would it be too forward to say that it was a pleasure to meet the other man?
Voldemort, however merely turned slightly and motioned him into the castle, "Dinner is ready. One of my house elves will place your luggage in your room."
Harry nodded as his luggage disappeared and he followed the man into the castle while fighting the urge to bolt just before the doors could close with a click. No turning back now.