I own nothing. Least of all this.
As the Mandalorian saying goes, "Not gone; merely marching far away". Sorry about the delay between updates, but my brain just had too many ideas bouncing around in it for other things. That being said, we are now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Toodles!
11) YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED IN THERE
Damn but if this weren't the most mind-numbing minefield of a lunch he'd ever been forced into.
And that was counting the time that he, Eli, Shaxx, Zavala, and Eris had been dragged by Cayde down to his favorite ramen shop.
Harry slowly sipped his tea. "So; an intern at St. Mungo's. I imagine that must give you quite a few...eye-opening experiences."
Andromeda Black (soon to be Tonks, if he had anything to say about it), tilted her head in acknowledgement. "Sometimes. But considering I spent my last two years at Hogwarts apprenticing under Madame Pomfrey, at this point there aren't many injuries that could surprise me."
"Is the good Madame still threatening students with naming a bed after them permanently?"
Andromeda grinned. "As far as I know. Last I heard, she actually carried through on her threat to the Prewett twins after they resorted to using themselves as Bludgers in the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match."
The Prewett twins…ah, Gideon and Fabian. "At least tell me they won the game for their trouble."
Andromeda shook her head. "Their play was a last ditch-effort. It allowed the Gryff seeker to nab the snitch, but Slytherin still won by twenty points."
Cygnus Black puffed out his chest. "As expected. A true Slytherin never loses."
Charlus snorted. "Come off it, Cygnus; Slytherins lose all the time. They just tend to only do it when it hurts their opponents more than it hurts them."
Cygnus snorted. "Perhaps."
After that, the awkward silence from before his remarks to Andromeda once more descended.
Blimey, if things kept going like this he might actually find out if it was possible to die of boredom.
He snuck a quick look around the room…and had his eyes most firmly captured by Bellatrix. She might have been the least talkative person at the table (and wasn't that just ironic), but there was no mistaking that in this instance, her actions were speaking far louder than words ever could. She had barely looked away from him ever since they'd been seated, not even while cutting into the admittedly beautiful looking steak in front of her. It was all demure glances and half-lidded gazes with her, and the cut of her gown certainly opened up a world of possibilities.
A world of possibilities, but somehow he got the feeling there was only one Bellatrix was interested in.
Minefield indeed.
He elected to take another bite of his roast Nundu in favor of making a decision on the subject. Sure, she'd killed quite a few of his friends in the old timeline, but from his point of view, that was over a thousand years ago. And from hers, it had yet to happen. For most of his life, he'd scoffed at the idea that anyone could be redeemed for the "Greater Good"; that sort of thinking inevitably ended up doing more harm than good. If Luke had just accepted what Vader was (Dark), and taken him up on his offer to team up against the Emperor, then the galaxy wouldn't have fallen into complete chaos before the arrival of the Yuhzan-Vong. The Republic with all of its corruption would never have been resurrected, the second Death Star would never have been destroyed, the Empire could have become more British than Roman…
Where was he? Ah yes, redemption. Ridiculous. But prevention? That was always worth investment. If he could deprive the Dork Lard of any potential recruits, especially one as powerful as Bellatrix…well, perhaps it was in his best interests to "play nice", so to speak.
"And what of your interests, Miss Bellatrix? If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that you were approaching your final year at school. Would I be correct in assuming your passion is Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts?"
Bellatrix finally cast her gaze elsewhere; namely, downwards. "One of them, my Lord."
"Oh? And the others?"
"I find myself quite interested in the legal procedures of our world, my Lord. How the Wizengamot and the Ministry manage to keep our world from advancing, all the while preaching a progressive policy."
"Bella!" snapped Cygnus.
Harry waved his hand. "Quite alright, Mr. Black. I completely understand. I myself have seen enough of the world to understand that any system divided into two warring factions always disintegrates into a standstill."
Hoh boy, had he seen enough. From the Vanguard beginning to fall apart practically the moment Cayde's body hit the floor, to the utter failure that was the Sith's Rule of Two. There was a very good reason that Amy and Rory had lasted the longest of any of the Doctor's modern companions (minus Clara); three was always stronger than two.
"If there were to be, say, a third portion of government, completely removed from both the Ministry and the Wizengamot, it would certainly clear up a lot of power struggles, wouldn't it?"
Slowly, both Charlus and Cygnus nodded.
"And that's more or less what I'm hoping will occur. Eventually. But that's an incredibly distant long-term goal, if not pure fantasy. So, for now, let's just take things as they come. Such as this excellent lunch; and the even more excellent company."
Bellatrix blushed at that, and Cygnus beamed with pride. Charlus merely raised a single eyebrow, no doubt drawing some conclusions of his own. But Andromeda…Andromeda looked thoughtful, almost as if weighing options in her mind.
Finally, after what seemed an intense internal monologue, she spoke. "Mr. Potter."
"Harry, please. Things will get quite confusing if we keep addressing each other solely by our last names."
She gave a small smile. "Harry, then. Father mentioned you were planning on becoming the DADA instructor for Hogwarts; does that mean you intend to invest in the upcoming generation to prepare for your…long-term goal?"
"In a manner of speaking." Killing off up and coming Death Eaters was certainly his idea of a good investment.
"Have you considered branching out even further beyond? At the very least, you will want to retain a lawyer; preferably a firm. One with a reputation for drawing the brightest of the new blood."
Ah, so that was her game… "And would you happen to know such a firm, Miss Andromeda?"
Cygnus gave her a sideways glance. "Yes, Andromeda; would you happen to know such a firm?"
She flushed, but held steady. "As a matter of fact, I do. Doof and Schmirtz; the law offices retained by the Longbottoms. They are quite efficient in their selection of new partners."
Harry pretended to rub his chin in thought. "Doof and Schmirtz; would that be the firm that retained the Hogwarts Head Boy from two years ago?"
Andromeda perked up. "You know him?"
"Know of him. Very loyal man, doggedly so. And moderately intelligent, by all accounts. Not the most magically powerful, but clever enough not to need to be. Tonks, I believe the name was."
Charlus' eyebrows scrunched in concentration. "Tonks. Not a pureblood name; perhaps a halfblood?"
Harry shrugged. "Perhaps. All I know for certain was that he was one of Slughorn's favorites during his time at school."
Both Cygnus and Charlus relaxed at that. "Well, if Slughorn was willing to vouch for him, then that's all that needs to be said on the matter. Old fellow always was an expert at sniffing out talent."
Andromeda mouthed me a silent 'thank you' from across the table; unfortunately, Bellatrix caught it. Her eyes had just begun to light up in the gleam of calculation when Harry decided to derail her train of thought quite spectacularly.
"So, Miss Bellatrix."
"Please, Harry. If you insist on using your first name, then I'm afraid I must do the same. Bella."
He nodded. "Bella. Which of your DADA teachers have you most enjoyed, and why so? I'd imagine you've seen quite a number of teaching and fighting styles in your time at Hogwarts."
As Bellatrix dove into the intricacies of magical combat, Harry relaxed and went back to his roast Nundu.
This really was an excellent lunch.
"My Lord, I bring news."
"Speak, my servant."
"Potter, Black, Zarathos, and two of the Black sisters met for lunch in Diagon Alley. One of the cooks at the establishment was in our employ. He ensured that Zarathos' Nundu roast was deliberately underdone in the hopes of causing a scene."
Underdone Nundu…poisonous when even slightly pink. "Continue."
"My Lord…the target made his way through the entire meal without so much as batting an eyelash."
"…Inconceivable."
"And yet it happened, my Lord. We have several witnesses to the fact."
Nundu venom was the second strongest poison in existence; with iocane powder only slightly behind. And Voldemort knew for a fact an iocane powder immunity would not have been enough to save Zarathos. That left only one possible explanation…some way, somehow, the wizard had managed to not only find Basilisk venom, but inject himself with just enough to create an anti-venom. And, judging by his lack of reaction to the underdone meal, built up that anti-venom until his body was capable of producing it on his own.
Why, in Merlin's name, would someone who laughed in the face of Death go to such lengths to avoid ever being poisoned?
Unless…it wasn't a defensive measure. It was an offensive one.
There were countless dangerous creatures and rituals in the world that required blood to continue; if one were to attempt to use Zarathos' blood for such a thing, there was no doubt in his mind the results would be catastrophic.
Especially for vampires.
"Summon Sanguini; I have urgent business with him."
The nameless servant began quaking in his boots. "Master, I'm afraid I am unable to fulfill your request."
Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
The servant was practically sobbing in fear by now. Bad enough he had to report the failure to his Lord, but this added on top. "My Lord…we…we also…received word from our spies in Gringotts. The…the target…undertook an inheritance test there…earlier today."
"And what was revealed?"
"My…my Lord…Zarathos…is but one of his three names, master."
Whatever designs Voldemort had for the worm in front of him went out of his mind instantly. "Three? Are you certain?"
Three names…Merlin, even having two made it almost impossible to finetune a ritual specifically for a person's destruction. To have magically acquired three…the odds might as well have fallen below zero.
"Y…yes, my Lord. And…and of those, the only one we have learned was from the same cook I mentioned earlier, my Lord.'
"And what was it?"
"Harry. Harry Potter, my Lord."
A Potter.
Distantly related to the Gaunts.
Why was he beginning to get the feeling he really, really, wasn't going to enjoy the rest of his minion's story? "You still have not provided me with an explanation for your failure to summon our vampire friend."
"My…my Lord…once the status of our adversary was made known to the Ragnok, he immediately ordered a message sent to the wizard. The contents of the message are not known, but our agents at Gringotts were able to delay its departure until after Zarathos had left the Alley. They placed a tracking charm on the owl, and once the message was registered as delivered, delivered to a place you have decreed all trespassers be killed immediately…"
Voldemort hissed. "You dispatched the entirety of our ally's forces to deal with him."
The servant fell to the floor crying. "Forgive me for my failure, my Lord! We did not know you wished to speak with their leader! He shall return soon; I swear it!"
"Yesssss." He drawled. "He will. But if what you have just told me is true, then he shall be returning in a wooden coffin, if not an urn. My servant?"
"…Yes, my Lord?"
"Crucio."
So, this was the Gaunt shack.
Somehow, it managed to seem even more dreary than it had in Dumbledore's Pensieve.
Now, he might not be the best at feeling magic, but even he could notice how the closer you got to the place, the more the temperature dropped. Going off a hunch, he stopped just short of where his helmet told him was zero degrees Celsius.
Slowly, he formed a throwing knife in his hand, and then stabbed it forward.
Sure enough, the minute it hit the line, the thing shattered. Frozen solid, instantly. Not good. That meant a nice Blade Barrage was out. Nova Bomb, maybe. Zero point energy. But all that ate was magic, not souls. And if he was going to the trouble of blowing this whole place up, he wanted to try his best to kill as many stones with one bird as possible (heh, Stones). The less energy expended, the faster he could get the hell out of there, the better his chances of avoiding any ticked off Dark Lords.
Thundercrash was right out; no bloody way was he stupid enough to toss himself over the ward line. All Stasis attacks were automatically disqualified just on the grounds of them never being able to get through similar energy fields all on their own. Tether…Tether could work. If he shot the wards, and then waited for them to drain, he'd be free to retrieve the Stone and deal with the Horcrux in his own time. And the awesome thing about Tether was that it instantly (well, almost instantly) suppressed any and all attempts by the wards to contact anyone who might be monitoring.
Yes, that would do…
A flutter of wings overhead pulled him from his calculations.
An owl. A bloody Post Owl, that had just had to follow him directly into the one area he was almost positive Voldemort was watching carefully. He could only pray the stupid bird didn't hit the ward line.
He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding as the owl dropped a letter into his outstretched hand. The rather large, engraved "G" on the front gave him some idea as to the sender; looked like the little bugger had talked after all. Either that, or the Ragnok had. Either way, he'd be sure to deal with them later.
The owl never once looked back; the second its cargo was gone, so was it. Harry didn't stop casting surreptitious glances around until the bird was well out of sight. It hadn't flown across the line, thank the Traveler, but it had still been a near thing. If Voldemort had noticed anything suspicious…he shuddered to think.
And then he shuddered again as the sun suddenly seemed to go dark.
Damn. The Potter luck strikes again.
Every single person and/or goblin in the Gringotts' mail system had just made his hit list.
Voldemort himself hadn't come; hiding in the shadows wasn't his style. Not in the middle of the day, anyway. He always preferred to make a dramatic entrance.
Whatever this was, it was certainly dramatic. But no entrance.
He swiveled from one direction to another almost instantly, all the while silently begging his radar to give him something to work with. The shadows continued to grow, forming almost impenetrable walls of fog on all sides, even above. Reminded him of Oryx's Throne World.
There…two, no, three blips. A perfect triangle. Appropriate.
Now, it was his turn to be dramatic.
"You think darkness is your ally. But you have merely adopted the dark. I was born in it! Molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man…"
He ran his fingers over his holster. "…And by then, it was nothing but…"
He drew. "BLINDING!"
The Last Word cracked three times, Solar energy speeding the bullets on their way.
Three bodies failed to disintegrate.
And in the flashes of Light, Harry could just make out the shapes of what he was dealing with.
Only vampires would be so stupid as to wear such cliché robes in broad daylight (granted, it wasn't daylight anymore, but it was the principle of the thing). Well, moderately stupid. Dragon-hide; must be. Only thing he could think of off the top of his head that would absorb a shot from a Golden Gun.
The Last Word would be useless here; he needed something bigger.
He holstered his gun. "Well, color me impressed. Someone actually did their research, for once. You do know I can do more than just fire, right?"
A voice that came from everywhere and nowhere answered him. "Oh, we know. We just don't anticipate you getting the chance to prove it."
Harry ducked and rolled on instinct. A blade whizzed through the air where seconds before his head had been.
So, that was how, they wanted to play, was it?
"Impressive. Most impressive."
"Enough with the voice modulation, Darth. It's not doing anything for you; there's better ways to track than through sound."
"I quite agree. Body heat, for one."
Harry dodged the blade yet again, this time taking the opportunity to vanish into the smoke.
"Vibration, for another."
A jump into a twist mid-air.
He landed hard, his fist slamming into the ground. A wave of Arc energy spread outwards from the impact, smaller than the normal amount of Havoc he caused, but he trying to conserve energy for the real fight.
It bought him enough time to switch what he had holstered…and to clench his other fist around a certain, glowing blue handle.
He Blinked forward…and buried his Arc Blade in the face of one of the vamps.
The creature disintegrated with a howl, the lightning from the strike illuminating the surrounding area. And also revealing that the rest of his opponents were all on ground level.
All seven of them.
Bollocks.
Time to bring out the big guns.
His left hand came up to point behind him…
BOOM!
And pulled the trigger on Eriana's Vow just as the one behind him leapt to avenge his fallen comrade.
Cue the music.
"Welcome to the jungle."
"WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, WE GOT FUN AND GAMES! WE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT, HONEY WE KNOW THE NAME! WE ARE THE…!
Oh, how he'd missed this. Sometimes, like after you've just spent an entire day in boring meetings and negotiations, it felt so good to cut loose.
He yanked his Arc Blade from the seventh corpse, just in time to watch it disintegrate to ash. That had gone rather well, all things considered.
A sudden tearing pain in his arm disputed that assertion.
Oh, right. There'd been eight of them.
He whirled to retaliate with a Cross Counter to the face…and was met with a sight he never cared to witness again. A vampire, shrieking in pain, as the lower half of its face dissolved.
Basilisk venom in the blood'll do that to you.
He sighed, and buried another bullet from the Vow in the vamp's head. Waste of ammunition, perhaps. But he really didn't feel like having to clean that off his armor.
Whoosh.
Harry whirled, his hand cannon already pointed in the direction of the new threat…only to find another equally large gun being pointed right back at him.
Worse; it was a gun he recognized.
He sighted along the barrel, looking for the telltale hat and cloak, the unmistakable red glasses, and above all, the most terrifying smile in all existence…
"Well, well, well. Alucard. Fancy meeting you here."
The First Vampire grinned (and oh Lord, wasn't that horrifying). "As opposed to just a plain meeting?"
"Something like that. Are you lower yours first, or am I?"
"Let's keep things like this for a while. It's an excellent metaphor, don't you think?"
"Perhaps. Don't suppose you'd care to explain what you're doing around such a lowly bunch of your kind?"
"This lowly bunch, as you put it, was in fact under the sway of one of my greatest rivals. One know as Sanguini to the few mortals he chose to consort with."
"…I know that name."
"Yes, I thought you might."
"Helsing not allowed to deal with him?"
"Unfortunately. He was under the protection of the Ministry of Magic; and the odds of them ever willingly giving an organization such as Helsing any ground whatsoever are slim to none. As I'm sure you're well aware."
"As you said, unfortunately. Mind pointing out which one was the offending party?"
"I believe he was the one who thought it would be a marvelous idea to try and take a bite out of a Dredgen."
"Good. It'll make the message even clearer when I send the body to Voldemort."
Alucard chuckled. "Oh, I like you. But after I reveal certain things that I'm afraid I must, I'm more than a bit certain you won't feel the same way about me."
"…Do tell."
"That message you just received. The one from Gringotts. The Ragnok had it sent himself. It basically declares you a Friend of the Goblins, as in, you can do whatever you bloody well please in their bank and there's not a thing anyone can do about it."
"And just why are you afraid to tell me that?"
"Because I also am a Friend of the Goblins. And I may or may not have arranged for my rivals to track that particular owl to your location in the hopes that you would take care of a few of my problems for me."
"And if I had failed?"
"You wouldn't. I would've stepped in if necessary. As Friends, we're honor bound to help each other. And not even the Ministry is willing to cross the Goblins on that."
"…So, basically, what you're saying is that you set me up to do something I probably would've done eventually anyway, but in such a way that you were allowed to help if it became necessary?"
"More or less."
Harry hmphed. "Ruthless. Good thing I would never have expected anything different from you. We're cool."
"You are certain?"
"Well, aside from the fact I'm definitely recruiting you to express my displeasure to Gringotts as a whole in how they've blown my cover, yes."
"I would be most delighted to assist."
"Good. First things first, though. You might want to put your gun away for this. Oh, and stand back. No idea what effect this might have if you stand too close."
Slowly, Alucard nodded, and lowered his Casull. He then seemed to float backwards a couple of meters, well away from the ward line.
Harry stretched out his arms. If he no longer had a reason to be stealthy, then by Merlin, he was gonna take advantage of it.
Goodbye, Gaunt shack. Goodbye, piece of Tom Riddle's soul.
May you both drown in the Sea of Screams.
"FIENDFYRE!"
