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An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
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Aftermath: 66% Better Killer
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Morning dew on the grass and early rays of late August sunrise breaking their way across the grounds of Hogwarts School saw Harry Potter and Tamsyn Riddle standing alone, facing the great fortress. They were both wearing standard Auror robes, albeit ones tailored in dark green, both having point blank refused to wear anything which could be misinterpreted as a support for average "Joe" Auror.
Harry was wearing a bandana which he'd been repeatedly assured did not make him look like a Shinobi, Lily's offhand comment had almost made him remove the thing entirely. He would not do something like this at all should anyone start saying he was giving off a Ninja-ish vibe.
The bandana itself was actually a pretty impressive magical object in its own right. It was a long strip of Ironbelly hide, painstakingly shrunk with the might of the Elder Wand, and adorned with a number of protection runes. In theory it should be able to withstand a single Killing Curse, and was predictably tied around his famous scar, a sticking charm holding it in place.
"Sonorous!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, magical creatures, and other assorted enemies. My name is Lord Harry Potter, direct descendent of Godric Griffindor, and my companion is the Lady Tamsyn Riddle, direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin—"
Harry paused and Tam took up the little speech.
"Surrender now, and cede this castle to our control. Do this immediately and without reservation or you will be destroyed."
As Hogwarts was currently defended by hundreds of former Death Eaters, a pack of Giants, two Goblin Armies, and a swath of disloyal Ministry people, this demand was met with incredulity. Tam and Harry were well known as being powerful in their own right, but two people standing there alone, without any apparent backup... They were good, but they weren't that good!
Two people couldn't defeat an army on their own. It was ridiculous.
A flash of Unforgivable green was fired from extreme range, but was miles off target, and the two didn't even bother to flinch.
"I don't think they're going for it," Harry said unnecessarily.
"Excellent," Tam smiled. "Can you still do your Patronus Mist?"
"Yeah why?" Harry asked, ignoring a few other green bolts which were just as off target as the first.
"Have you heard of the spell 'Traumata'?"
"That's one of the standard Dark Curses isn't it? Not even covered by the Interdict of Merlin..." Harry began casting his mind back, it wasn't really his kind of magic, but if he recalled correctly, "—It makes the target feel overwhelming fear and intimidation right? The Trauma Curse?"
"Correct," she smiled, wandlessly pushing the correct intent through her aura. "I've been practicing this since I first saw you wandlessly do the Mist."
Harry hastily pushed said Patronus Mist through his own aura so as not to be affected, and the slivery wisps of energy interacted with Tam's menacing shadow.
"This is gonna be fuckin' awesome!" said Harry
The two took off at a run toward the castle.
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The front door to the Entrance Hall had still been blasted open from where the Death Eaters forced their way in a few days earlier, and even better the fact Dumbledore had sabotaged the castle wards, meaning their enemies could not raise the millennia old protections without aid of the Headmaster.
"Pupugi!" Harry whispered, coming out of a roll, taking a black cloaked figure in the chest as Tam sent roiling green fire at the masked group.
They were ducking, dodging, shielding, and cursing. Harry's animal sacrifice defence working to keep them both shielded. Tam sidestepped a Cruciatus Curse and took another figure with a bolt of purple lightning.
Where the black and silver Mists washed over their opponents, a great jolt of happiness raised spirits and made the enemy uplifted and confident—before a harrowing plummet to the terrible pits of horror and despair. The shear depths of terror displayed on their faces would normally have filled Harry with a detached sense of dread, but the obvious shaking of their morale simply made him smirk.
And curse.
A flowing wave of Hoarfrost took the last three members, covered them in biting cold of sub-zero temperatures, and threw the trio across into the far wall. Tam seemed to be getting back to her feet, and they both carefully made their way through a secret passageway, deeper into the castle.
"Merlin, none of their guys are very powerful are they?" Tam voiced her thoughts.
"They are probably testing us to see if we really are alone," Harry said with a shake of the head. "This terror-joy assault is damned cool though!"
They broke into a wide corridor on the second floor and came across a detachment of Goblins. Tam opened up the Crash & Bash spell-chain they'd learned from Tonks, and Harry joined in using twofold casting.
Harry took another javelin of Goblin Iron in the shoulder with a howl of pain and irritation, but once Tam broke out the Cruciatus Whip the opponents were downed readily enough.
While cauterising the wound the two were again attacked by a more organised group of about a dozen black cloaked figures. They defeated this group too, at the cost of a hexed off foot on the redhead's end, and a big chunk of face for the dark haired man's part.
"Okay, they are starting to do damage," Tam voiced, with Harry just nodding as he couldn't talk. "Just stick to nonverbal, you'll be fine."
And so it was that on the stairs leading from the second floor to the fifth, Harry and Tam were viciously cut down in an ambush from both sides...
—A wide area Confundus derivative hit every attacker, and when they recovered, both bodies were found to be missing.
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"You should have tried some of the tuna." Harry's voice floated over, roaring with magically enhanced volume across the field toward Hogwarts Castle.
"Buttermilk pancakes with black coffee." Tam's reply came bellowing over the grass. "Much better for brunch if you ask me."
It was a little before ten in the morning and the two were wearing identical green Auror robes, sporting no injuries whatsoever.
"Ahem!" Harry's voice carried across the field. "Surrender or be destroyed."
The defenders sent Giants after them, a wave of former Death Eaters in support. Tam kept the humans busy for the most part, using a couple of her famous Hydra constructs, and Harry set about tackling the first Giant. He'd won the coin toss after all.
He had to Vorpal Bunny out the way of a thick club more than once, and he almost got stepped on by one of the smaller females. Direct damage spells were having little effect, here in the clearing between the Forbidden Forest and Hogwarts School, so Harry was forced to get creative.
He conjured a thin rope as long and strong as he could make it. "Tie this to my foot!" he yelled to Tam, before going Vorpal Rabbit once again. Hopping and dodging, making small bunny leaps, Harry kept crisscrossing in and out of the largest Giant's legs until the rope was nicely tangled. After wandlessly scorching the rope on his foot he returned to human form and sprinted toward the Giant's grounded head.
"Just like Dragons." The high level piercing curse stabbed through the creature's massive eye.
Meanwhile Tam watched three Killing Curses being charged to fire at a staggered volley, and aimed her yew wand at her closest foe. "Vetka Sanitas!" Tam's incantation sent an azure arrow into the man's forehead, scattering his mind with a spell known as the Sanity Hammer.
The AK light struck her in the chest, but in shade form Tam flew over to the stunned looking figure wearing black, hastily taking possession of the body in no fit state to fight back.
With a blink and half a moment to get used to being over six feet tall, and in a male body again, Tam looked over to see her yew wand vanish, before turning on this man's former friends. Two swift AKs and they would not be killing anyone again.
Harry died under a Giant's foot, and Tam spent a while shooting people in the back before her host form succumbed to too much Dark Magic and she started to feel dizzy. Eventually she became lightheaded enough to miss the blasting hex which killed her.
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"What's for lunch?" Harry asked, stepping out the cauldron, shrugging on a third set of green Auror robes, and taking hold of his wand.
"We are 'aving lamb with boiled potatoes 'Arry," Fleur informed him, for whatever reason she'd made sure to be present at both rebirths so far. What a pervert.
"Taking a liking to English food?" Harry said with a smile. "And here I thought you were a patriot."
"What's for lunch?" Tam asked a few moments later, doing the exact same things Harry had, in precisely the same order.
"Lamb."
"Nice," the redhead commented, noticing Hermione had made sure to be present for both rebirths so far. What a pervert.
Sitting around the dinner table, the group was in high spirits. Bella was pouting, unhappy she couldn't join in, and Harry kind of felt bad for her. Bellatrix would've friggin' loved this. Fight, and fight, and fight some more, and eventually die in a blaze of glory. Only then you get to do it all over again, no harm done... to their side at least.
Valhalla would probably be a lot like this.
"May I ask the function of the azure spell you cast not a moment before being dispatched by the Killing Curse?" Albus asked, sipping his sugary tea.
"It's called a Sanity Hammer, really obscure but still traditional Latin magic," Tam told him. "Remember the Anima Shatter Potion we used to scatter Harry's mind and help with the intent-only memory charm?" Dumbledore nodded in interest. "Basically a smaller, wanded, and far more transient version of that. Its purpose was to make possession easier."
"Can't argue with the effectiveness," Harry commented happily.
Thirty minutes later Tam had applied a Sonorous and confidently finished her spiel. "Surrender of be destroyed."
It was around one in the afternoon and Albus was following behind the pair at a safe distance, just as he had the previous two times. At the beginning of the day the true Masters of the Hallows had gifted the old man with their trinkets, making him the temporary Master of Death, so long as he followed the True Masters' wishes anyway.
The Cloak of Invisibility kept him concealed from sight, safe to recover their wands and bodies when they fell, and Confund any who saw them die. The Resurrection Stone allowed him to revive his young friends, and in an ever startling realisation, Albus discovered that they were friends, not just allies.
Lastly, his Hallow, the Wand. Possibly least remarkable of all, yet it offered unparalleled force at his fingertips. Enough power to defeat a great many foes, and recover at very least, the head of Harry Potter, and thusly ensure the survival of them both.
The two did not move as seamlessly as he'd seen some move and fight, there was rawness and individuality in Harry and Tamsyn's differing styles. Nevertheless the two counterpointed one another surprisingly well, the unsettling Terror-Patronus Mist was quite astounding to watch. And as ever, the application of wandless animal guardians.
Dumbledore had never imagined such a skill, as it was so out of nowhere, the kind of defence to be found in no duelling manuals or ancient tomes.
Tracking the pair down a fourth floor staircase, both well battered from various flares of spellfire, and it looked as though it were only a matter of time, Albus came to the conclusion that such rare and he'd have to admit bizarre method of combat suited the young hero's personality quite well.
Watching Harry take Telum Glacis—an Ice Spear—to the throat, Dumbledore almost chuckled. Harry would hate being labelled the hero he truly was.
Tamsyn fell a few moments later, and Dumbledore nonverbally sent another wide area Confundus Charm into all the enemy combatants. He retrieved both bodies, and conjured a small snake for the shade form of Ms. Riddle to possess.
Albus didn't much like this plan, but had to agree with Harry's reasoning, the only casualties would be on the side of the "bad guys."
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"They are demons Draco! They get farther and farther each time." Mr. Crabbe was shouting at him, voice surprisingly high pitched for such a large man was a given, but the shouting... that was unprecedented. Vince took control of himself, mask of the bodyguard falling into place with long practice, but his tone was no less intense. "What do you want us to do?"
Draco Malfoy sat behind his desk and poured a large glass of expensive Dwarf brewed rye. The creatures were all but discredited in the current magical world, but their top end alcohol had a kick you couldn't ignore.
"What happened?" asked Draco. Seeing the tale was going to be fanciful he cut across the man before him. "Facts! I do not wish to hear the word demon even once."
"Two full squads massacred," Mr. Crabbe began, shifting into his briefing tone, and showing the world all the competence his family had instilled in him. "They were stationed behind a Goblin ambush, so it was not as though they were coming at us fresh...
"There was this large golden dome, I don't know, it was impossible." Vince halted, clearly thinking back to what happened in an attempt to stick to the facts. "Our spells just bounced off it, and there was a singing... phoenix song! That's what it reminded me of, only there wasn't a phoenix, and our curses were having no effect."
Phoenix song? Draco thought, pondering the possibilities. "Continue..."
"The dome dropped and the demon—, and the two fighters were back on their feet good as new." Mr. Crabbe paused. "Now that I think back, I believe they were using Stims maybe. Dilated eyes, and lack of proper judgement, Potter and Riddle looked to be doped to high heaven." He thought back to the curse which took Greg and put him in the Hospital. His best mate would live, fully recover even, but it had been a close thing. "I'm not too sure what happened next Mr. Malfoy. I was hit with something and woken by a Medi-Witch about five minutes before I got here."
Draco waved the man to sit as he thought on the briefing and today's events. His forces had taken a hammering, and moral was on the ragged edge. With the Dementors having abandoned them days ago things were looking bleak. When the Dark Lord was in charge events, even apparent failures had always been turned into positives, under their Lord's commanding judgement.
The Dark Lord was dead though, Draco knew that, even if he didn't say so out loud. Some of the former Death Eaters would not take kindly to that obvious truth. Bah, he'd seen his father's Dark Mark as a child. Even faded Draco had been able to discern its shape, but now? Now it was gone, as though never there. Voldemort, his mentor, and he'd grudgingly admit occasional source of inspiration, was dead, and dead for good.
"The Lady Riddle and Lord Potter politely ask you to surrender or be destroyed." The strong feminine voice carried across the grounds, powerfully amplified by magic, oh so late on this most hateful of days.
"Fuck it! Can you get Greg on his feet?" asked Draco. Pausing in thought Vincent Crabbe fudged his answer. "Not for a fight, just on his feet."
"Yes Mr. Malfoy, he will be ready."
"Good man."
They moved off, with orders not to engage the duo, and to pull back as fast as possible into defensible positions. A quarter of an hour later Draco was flanked by both his bodyguards again as he applied the amplification magic to his throat.
"We wish to negotiate with Albus Dumbledore and Rufus Scrimgeour," shouted the aristocratic voice of the man in charge of this Castle Fortress.
"You are not weaselling your way out of this one Malfoy," Potter responded from below, dual flaring auras visibly whipping around the two fighters. "Half the reason I accepted this job was so I could legally kill you."
"We are willing to negotiate," Dumbledore replied having removed an invisibility cloak. He must have been standing there the whole time!
"No were not bloody well going to negotiate with this bastard," Potter shouted. "He's named himself a Dark Lord and I've taken a contract to kill him."
"If he wants to negotiate I am well in favour of a peaceable solution." Dumbledore calmly replied.
What followed was an avalanche of childish bickering.
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On the first of September Harry had been made to ride the Hogwarts Express again! He complained incessantly about it, as he always did.
The Sorting Ceremony passed as did every year, the scouse Hat having been destroyed with Fiendfyre months earlier because it kept telling Harry to "Calm Down" in its ridiculous accent. The current Hat had actually been created by Lily mapping her own mind and using it as a template, its voice had a husky sexiness to it which was quite pleasing to the ear.
Professor Riddle was at the staff table for the second year running, so either the curse placed upon the Defence Position had been lifted by Voldemort's demise, or more likely Tam Riddle's magic was immune to its effects. Harry diligently spent the entire Welcoming Feast glaring from the Griffindor Table to the Slytherin Table, attempting to burn the blond seventh year to death with nothing but the force of his gaze.
"If you want me to kill him—" began pretty Bella leadingly.
Harry didn't respond either positively or negatively, despite Hermione's pointed look. Noticing the glare wasn't working, and deciding it was probably a range problem. Harry rose to his feet and stomped his way across the Great Hall, damage still visible from the recent battles. He sat himself directly opposite the man, hoping a closer glare would make his target burst into flames.
"Evening Harry," Malfoy greeted cheerfully.
"I am going to kill you," Harry said firmly. "And you don't get to use my first name."
"Why so grouchy Harry?" His eye twitched at the name, but he kept on glaring.
"How could you have possibly gotten away with everything without any comeuppance at all?"
"Gotten away with what?" asked the blond Slytherin bastard... with clearly feigned interest.
"How about all of your many crimes?" Harry suggested. "Unforgiveable use for example."
"There is no evidence I've ever cast an Unforgivable in my life," Malfoy said. "You on the other hand..."
"You Imperius Cursed Neville Longbottom!"
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did. We can't prove it, but you did!" Harry insisted. "And what about all those volleys of AKs?"
"They were all Slug Spitters. My solicitor said so."
Harry began twitching with fury, hands begging to be wrapped around the man's throat. "You killed me!"
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "I thought your official stance was that you were in Detroit?"
"You spiked Fleur Delacour with Amortentia and attempted to marry her!" growled Harry.
"I also nailed Gerard Delacour with a Draught of Distrust charged with your hair," Malfoy admitted with a shrug. "—unless you really believe the woman's father would go to such lengths to keep her from you without aid?"
Harry hesitated a little. "So you are saying the man doesn't hate me?"
"No, he hates you all right. That is why the draught worked so well."
"Bugger." Harry sighed, before anger at Malfoy returned and he opened his mouth to keep on...
"You killed my father," interrupted Malfoy.
"So? He put me in Azkaban."
"You destroyed my Ancestral Home, and emptied my Family Vault." Harry's lips quirked in remembrance. "This war has cost House Malfoy almost two percent of its fortune."
Okay, that just pissed Harry off even more. How rich was this fucker? He stewed in silence for a while, fuelling his rage as much as he could, eventually grinding out, "So you think you can just come back to Hogwarts like nothing happened?"
Again Malfoy shrugged it off as unimportant. "You win some you lose some."
The blasé, yeah whatever, just taking everything in stride attitude really did a number on the rabbit animagus. Had Malfoy done anything else, anything at all, justifying himself, attempted to come up with some kind of defence, or worse apologise for anything, Harry would have killed him within the week. But to just sit there like it was no big deal, implying Harry was taking life too seriously...
"Dammit!"
Harry stormed out the room to go get drunk—
—just as the Felix Felicis Draco's godfather had given him wore off.
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Harry's victory got worse the next morning, sitting to breakfast with Tam and Hermione down at the Ravenclaw Table, idly chatting. A barn owl carrying a distinctive blue parchment and embossed with a Higher Gnome insignia dropped down in front of him, and Harry recognised it as his yearly bank statement, a little late and a little thicker than was normal.
He opened the letter from Zurich and spent ten minutes absorbing the columns of numbers... before repeatedly slamming his head against the table. "What's it say Harry?" Hermione asked him. He just handed over the letter.
"I didn't know the Rebirth Potion cost three-hundred Galleons each time," Hermione stated in surprise.
"Wow, the Runic Array Cube," Tam said in amazement. "—almost forty-thousand Galleons."
"What's that... like, two-million pounds sterling?"
"Yeah."
"Caerbannog maintenance, motor vehicle repairs..." Hermione listed off the numbers "Wow, I never realised how much all that fancy food and drink you consume cost."
Harry was of course steadily slamming his head against the table, his friends not really helping at all. Hindering, and taunting, but not really helping.
"Twenty-two thousand for our trip to the Black Forest, and all the ingredients for the Daemon Raising plan..." Of course they continued in agonising detail. "Private rooms and, oh my god, polyjuice expenditure... what a huge number!"
"Will one of you float me some cash?" Harry asked in desperation.
"You could always get a job," Hermione sweetly suggested.
"Get a what?" Harry choked. "Don't you swear at me like that!"
"That is how most people raise money," Tam agreed with a solid mask showing absolutely no emotion.
"Bloody fucking hell, I owe Kwan Chang-Ho six-hundred Galleons, I need the cash!" Harry snapped, memory flooding into the forefront of his mind. "That guy isn't like Voldemort, he's legitimately scary!"
"Do not worry Harry, I will lend you exactly six-hundred Galleons. You got me all that gold for helping to defeat Draco Malfoy. It is the least I could do."
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Harry eventually calmed down as the second of September wore on and he thought about it from a few different perspectives. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as he thought, Caerbannog was still in the sky and stocked for a couple of months easy, so he had time to come up with a bunch of ways to make cash which didn't involve getting a job.
His favourite, which he decided he'd probably to do regardless of necessity, was to put Bellatrix on the Duelling Circuit fighting left handed, then place a huge bet on the final match once her odds were nice and long.
No, it was the next day, when Harry's victory got even worse.
The Chocolate Frog Company had approached them after the defeating the Dark Lord and they'd hashed out what they wanted putting on the half dozen new cards which were to be printed. They agreed for his to read:
Harry James Potter
Captain of the Caravel of Caerbannog
Considered by many the craziest wizard of modern times,
Harry is most famous for his defiance of the Dark Lord Voldemort,
winning the Triwizard Tournament,
frequent slayings of dangerous magical creatures,
and his publishing of groundbreaking theories in the field of Arithmancy.
Harry Potter enjoys fifty year old scotch,
and anything played on an electric guitar.
It had a truly awesome picture of himself, fully kitted out to impress, with the Union Jack billowing behind him as Bella in tiger form was curled around at his feet. So when he opened one of the first printings of this new card and found a cute picture of himself fast asleep, looking all of nine years old, he knew something was up. The card actually read:
Harry James Potter
Currently a Student of Hogwarts
Considered by many the friendliest wizard of modern times,
Harry is most famous for his mother's defeat of the Dark Lord Voldemort,
being Hermione Ganger's sidekick at Hogwarts,
and as co-Champion of the Triwizard Tournament.
Harry Potter is a celebrated vegetarian,
and enjoys being kind to small animals.
Hermione was of course, going to pay, and pay dearly for such a slight. But first thing was first, he needed to floo over to Diagon Alley and figure out where the Chocolate Frog Company was located. Muttering "I am not a vegetarian, I just like raw carrots" under his breath over and over, Harry stormed into Minerva McGonagall's office and had to politely ask for some floo power.
He was less than pleased with what he learned. Hermione had apparently purchased a large share of the Chocolate Frog Company with her split of the book series' revenue. Upshot, they refused to go against such a prominent shareholder's orders, and those orders were for them to not change the Harry card regardless of how intensely he threatened them.
Bitch was bulletproof.
She informed him it was payback for turning her into a fictional character whose buxom chest was forever heaving.
Even Bella thought it was funny.
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"Why is this happening to me?" Harry asked his companion on the first weekend of the school year.
"I for one think it is karma catching up to you 'Arry," Fleur told him with open amusement, all the while trying to choke down her food.
They were in a restaurant called the Agincourt, in Muggle London about a ten minute walk from Diagon Alley. The food was truly terrible, given it was an English restaurant pretending to serve French cuisine, and anyone who had actually eaten French food would know this the instant they walked in the door.
"I am an immortal, time defying, super wizard, who fought and vanquished what is arguably the most dangerous human being to have ever lived," Harry said loudly and in front of the Muggles. "I revived my mother after she was deceased for fifteen years, brokered peace with a distrustful nation of Vampires, and defeated an army with only a single wand-mate at my side..." He shook his head and took a bite of something smothered in Crème Anglaise. "No matter how you slice it, this is all pretty fucking badass!"
"Yet you do step on a large number of toes doing these things," Fleur pointed out, anything which saw Harry torn down a notch was fine by her, especially if he expected her to smile while forced to eat this disgusting food. Thinking this, the part Veela chastised herself mentally. He is trying, I should be kinder.
"Only morons and the kine," objected Harry.
"Yet they are still people."
"Fine, just a string of bad luck is all." He trailed off for a while, taking in what a knockout the woman was, the waiter with his Israeli accent couldn't keep his eyes off her. Hmm, that gave him an idea. "If I kidnap all the leaders of Israeli and Palestinian governments and torture them until they sign a peace treaty, do you think the ICW would give me any cash?"
Fleur didn't answer, wrinkling her nose at the stupid question or the hideous tasting meal, he didn't know. "How is your newest book coming?" she asked after a time. "'Zey are terrible and have too many plot holes but 'zat will earn you some money will it not?"
"Duelling with Dark Lords is about finished," Harry told her excitedly. "I recently gotten to the scene where the Hermione heroine gets all her clothes ripped off by a surprising piranha attack just before having to fight this super demon with a big yellow piece of construction equipment."
"You know, 'zat sounds awfully familiar to 'ze movie Aliens..." Fleur commented. "Just as like the six fingered man's name being Lilac Montoya is familiar."
"Really?" Harry feigned surprise. "I wouldn't know, I've never seen it." Seeing the platinum blonde was about to ask an uncomfortable question he went on. "Yeah, and I'm working in this huge twist. You remember how Septimus Snake has this huge following? Well it turns out his Code Name is EVA, and he's been working for the Vatican the whole time."
"'Ze Vatican?" Fleur exploded. "'Zey aren't even in 'ze story at all are 'zey?"
"No they aren't! That's the best part." The French woman just shook her head and smiled.
They fell into companionable silence awhile, returning to their heroic attempts to make it through the whole meal. After a few bites without the distraction offered by conversation, Fleur gave up and let her fork fall to the plate.
"Look 'Arry, I get 'zat you are trying, but 'zis place, eet is awful. Simply awful."
For an extended moment Harry pinned her with the full force of his green eyed stare. He didn't say anything, and his face was completely expressionless. Fleur began sifting her weight a little, and started feeling a bit bad about the complaint.
"It's about friggin' time," Harry said letting out a long breath. "You know, for a while there I thought you were going to make it through the whole meal without saying anything!"
"Wait. What?" spluttered Fleur.
"The place is even called the Agincourt for Merlin's sake."
"You mean you brought me here on purpose?" Fleur asked, and then thought the whole thing through. "You were testing me? Merde! Eet is so obvious now."
Not a second later Harry waved over the waiter.
"Give her the cheque."