Chapter Seven
Fallout
Remus rubbed his temples wearily. He was certain, now more than ever, that Harry James Potter was going to be the death of him. Even the mention of his name tended to bring on a headache the size of Lord Voldemort's ego, and there seemed to be no end in sight. He, like so many other Order members, were once again gathered around the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place, Mrs. Weasley's stew conspicuously absent, as Kingsley Shacklebolt explained the unbelievable events that occurred at Azkaban prison just hours prior.
"And there you have it," Kingsley said, throwing his copy of the report down on the table. "Enough magical discharge to eat through half the prison walls. four floors completely ruined, eighty-two inmates vapourized. The only known escapees include Lucius Malfoy and Stan Shunpike, of all people." Kingsley shook his head as though he couldn't believe it. "You-Know-Who himself and the Boy-Who-Lived. Wish I could have seen it, actually."
"And we've no clue whether either of them have survived," Tonks said, sighing.
"Harry'll return here if he's alive," said Fred.
"Yeah, well, he'd better not," replied Kingsley. "He's a loose cannon. What was he thinking going after Azkaban?"
"He was thinking about doing what was right, instead of what was easy," answered Ginny hotly. "Don't you go disparaging Harry Potter just because he's got the guts to face the Ministry and You-Know-who."
Kingsley just stared at Ginny as though she'd grown a second head, before turning to Moody and levelling a gaze that said plainly, Why in the world are snot-nosed brats attending these meetings?
Moody just shrugged as if to say, You try and stop them.
Remus just rubbed his temples wearily. "Okay, so Harry may or may not be dead, and You-Know-Who may or may not be dead. Wonderful. Except that even Harry knows he can't win in a firefight against You-Know-Who, because of these horcruxes."
"He may not have had much choice," Moody said. "I reckon You-Know-Who's not just going to let him go if they run into one another."
Remus nodded. "I suppose we can't fault him for that. Besides, if he returns, we at least know he can take care of himself."
"We knew that anyway," Tonks said. "We all saw his little display the night he destroyed the locket."
There were murmurs of assent at that.
Remus sighed wearily and wondered yet again when exactly the war had gotten away from them. It seemed as though, ever since the death of Albus Dumbledore, and, if he were being honest with himself, before that, even, that all they really did in the Order was gossip. He remembered Sirius once inviting him to go for a jaunt to Malfoy Manor to prank his cousin, Narcissa. Remus had scoffed at him and had berated him then, but now, looking back, he wondered if maybe it would have kept Sirius alive. Sirius had always been thoughtless, but maybe the Order needed a little thoughtlessness. A little recklessness in the Marauder vein to keep it fresh.
Not that Remus was prepared to voice these thoughts. Ever since Sirius's death, he had glimpsed firsthand what the Order members really thought of him. Those who didn't think he was dangerous thought he was only half a wizard, capable of performing only half the spells. His only role had been to spy out the werewolves, which had proven mostly futile. He had neither the inclination to go into werewolf dens, nor the kind of personality to impersonate them. There was no way he was ever going to get close enough to Fenra Grayback to kill him, or at least, draw some of his power and support away. Sirius could have done it, Remus mused. Sirius had that sort of charisma, and that sort of raw magical prowess.
Again, it didn't matter now. It seemed to Remus that a lot of things stopped mattering. After the Order meeting came to an end, he took a bottle of fire whisky and a shot glass up to his room, where Tonks was already waiting. He handed her the shot glass, which was now full of the potent liquid and then took a swig from the bottle. when he was done, Tonks was wordlessly holding out the shot glass for a refill. This continued for a good fifteen minutes, until the first waves of intoxication hit them, at which point, Remus tossed the bottle to one side and, his amber eyes glinting, he pushed Tonks onto their bed and began to rip off her clothes with his teeth.
'Bite me," she breathed, as Remus licked her torso from her navel to her collar bone, enjoying the shudders that past through her as he rubbed his warm, wet tongue across her nipples. And, like so many nights before, he complied, nipping at her throat, leaving little scars that would take a long time to heal, sending his lycanthropic poison rushing through her system, making her weak and strong at the same time, inviting and dangerous, like a drug.
Tonks moaned.
"Again," she said, cutting away his trousers and his shirt and wrapping her legs around him as he came for another pass with his tongue, two of his fingers gently tracing the folds of her skin along her vagina. She leaned up into his neck and bit him in return, drawing blood and grinding against his pelvis with her own. They worked each other for some time, taking moments to tease one another, and sometimes just forcing the climax.
It was a strange sort of relationship, Remus would sometimes think during moments of extreme lucidity, which often came on the cusp of sleep. They didn't speak much to one another. They had very little in common. Down-trodden aging werewolf on the one hand, and vivacious, young metamorphagus on the other. The only things they shared in common were their respective feelings of isolation, their burgeoning alcoholism and their desire to have sex with one another. Apparently it was enough, because Remus would eventually propose to her, and they would eventually get married, and he would eventually maul and kill her.
Days past, and not a single sighting of Harry Potter, the Chosen One, was made. Some speculated that he had finally gone off and abandoned them, and others figured he'd just gone into hiding to lick his wounds. Most of the good witches and wizards of magical Britain had become ambivalent over the Chosen One. Many no longer knew whether he was a hero or a villain or some strange combination of the two. The Ministry had had difficulty covering up the battle between Harry and Voldemort, and, with the recent bad press that Harry had been receiving, these new reports just added to the confusion. Magical people weren't exactly the most critical thinkers in the world, but the tennis match fluctuations over him had finally managed to forge a healthy dose of skepticism amongst the people, regarding the newspapers ability to publish unbiased accounts of Harry's psyche. Still, the facts of the situation did not lie. Harry was powerful, and it was not clear where this power had come from, nor was it clear what Harry's intentions were to do with it. All that led to a prevailing uncertainty that culminated in a lot of whispering.
Harry himself couldn't care less one way or the other what people were saying about him, not that he knew anyway, since he had holed himself up in muggle London and was not privy to the contents of the Daily Prophet. He had stopped caring long ago what the papers said. He'd stopped caring after Sirius's death. At the moment, the only thing on his mind was how to deal with the snafu that had manifested itself.
Hermione Granger.
He still couldn't believe it. The jumped up little know-it-all mudblood. Harry reflected back on his life, which is something he did often these days, and found yet another memory in which Hermione had been completely underappreciated. The Firebolt. Harry shook his head to clear it of the memory of McGonagall confiscating it and instead turned to his most immediate concern. His left hand. Whatever Voldemort had done, or whatever his body had to do to survive his encounter with Voldemort at the prison, his hand ended up getting axed, permanently. He found that, despite being able to regrow whole organs within seconds, and despite his ability to survive on magic alone, even when he had lost vital amounts of blood, Harry Potter could not simply regrow his left hand. His first attempts had proven to be excruciating, and had resulted in a deformity the likes of which Harry never wanted to see again. He still shivered when he recalled the cracked, blinking eyeball that had oozed out of his wrist when he had tried to regrow his hand. So never trying that shit again, he thought.
On the upshot, Harry found he could fashion a new hand, much like Voldemort had done for Wormtail during his resurrection. Unfortunately, Harry also discovered that he wasn't that good at complex transfigurations, and this one seemed to be about the most complex there was. Not to mention the fact that the hand in question inevitably became highly magical with the natural energies dispersing off his body, and that had proven to produce undesirable side effects. In one case, his graphite hand had actually tried using sign language to communicate with him before getting frustrated and trying to strangle him to death. No, Harry was not attempting that again. I'm not growing a body part that's going to develop a mind of its own, he thought. And even despite that disadvantage, the hand had proven to be quite useless in conducting magic, and that would simply not do.
No, Harry needed something else. He needed something that was intricate, distinctive, elegant, robust and preferably cool-looking.
And that's how Harry ended up at the robotics department at the University of Texas.
"You want what, exactly?" Professor Lang asked, no small amount of incredulity in his voice.
"You heard me, Professor," Harry replied evenly. "I want a cybernetic hand so advanced, it could win you the Nobel prize." Then, as an afterthought, he added. "And I want it to run on magic. Preferably with some sort of magically shielded exterior."
"Right," Lang said, the light from a nearby window highlighting his skeptical expression. "What's your name, again, kid?"
"Harry."
"Hmm, well, Harry, the problem with your request is that it's impossible on two fronts. First of all, technological advancements would have to occur before such a prosthesis could be created, and secondly, magic would have to exist for said prosthesis to run on it." Lang leaned back in his chair and stared at Harry levelly, waiting for him to respond to what he thought was a rather infallible argument.
Harry just said nothing, instead choosing to consider his next few words. It wasn't as though he didn't know that this line of questioning would bring him to the point of ridicule, it was just that he wasn't quite sure how else to phrase his request. Besides, he had to start somewhere.
Lang seemed to take his silence as bafflement and began ruffling papers as if to ignore Harry. "Please see yourself out at anytime, young sir," said Lang, who was making a point of not looking at Harry.
Harry meanwhile, enjoyed just looking around at the office, which was spacious enough for a Professor, and which had a large desk and an even larger bookshelf, with a whole whack of fancy sounding tomes on everything from biochemistry, to neurology to electrical engineering. "I'd figured of all the people here, you would have been most up to the task," Harry said conversationally, wandlessly conjuring a squashy leather armchair and sitting himself down.
Lang looked up from a paper that he was reading and eyed Harry sternly, taking only a moment to glance at the chair that had appeared in his office. "Are you still here?"
"It appears I am," Harry said, leaning down next to his chair and drawing out a long, finely sharpened kitana-esque sword that he took to idly waving in Lang's face.
Lang's eyes, understandably widened before he slammed backwards, sending his chair skidding nearly a foot until it banged against the wall behind him. "Where'd that come from?" Lang asked breathlessly, his gaze tracking the graceful movements of the sword as they cut through the air.
"It's magic, of course," Harry replied, a hint of smugness in his voice.
"Right, of course," Lang said faintly. It was moments like those that made Professor Lang wish he had his own security detail. "Er, tell you what," Lang said warily. "I'll get right on that. Tomorrow - no, tonight, - no better yet, today, right this second, even. Just, go take a stroll somewhere and come back when I've had a chance to ponder the issue a bit."
Harry smiled benignly in response to Lang's cheap attempt to get rid of him. "I thought you may wish to see a demonstration of magic first," Harry suggested.
"Er, okay," Lang said, his eyes never leading the sword and a fresh wave of sweat streaking down his now flushed face as the blade passed by ever so closely to his skin.
"Excellent," Harry said enthusiastically and vanishing the blade. "Now, what would you like to see?"
Lang just stared, mouth agape, and looking about Harry's person for the location of the impossibly long sword that Harry had been holding. Lang then shook himself and said, "Just do something truly impossible."
Harry smiled widely and said, "Thought you'd never ask."
Eventually, Harry would get a hand. It would be a very cool hand, that consisted of some very funky circuitry, electromagnetic shielding, high carbon surgical steel, rubber, polyesters, and, most importantly, the first magical-electrical interface in existence, and the prototype for future magitek weaponry.
Harry's eyes glittered with anticipation as he sat in the antiseptic calm of Professor Lang's private laboratory. There were high tech gizmos of all kinds, including a giant robotic arm used for hauling heavy machinery, and all of it was bathed in one hundred forty watt fluorescent bulbs that shone intense white light down on everything in the room. Harry himself was sitting in a high-backed leather chair and his left arm was strapped down in the armrest, with the stump sticking out over the edge. It had taken a long time, nearly two months of exclusive, intensive study with no less than a score of underlings, all of whom were either bribed, blackmailed or controlled with the imperius, and over three hundred thousand pounds, which consisted of nearly half Harry's total fortune, in order to finally develop the prosthesis to all Harry's specifications. The hand was magically soldered to Harry's wrist, where several razor-sharp needles dug into his skin and which were designed to draw on the ambient magical energy in his body.
"It should take some time for your magic to retrain the nerves and integrate them with the magical output of the prosthesis," Lang said, fitting the hand into his body. Lang had expected the strange being before him to at least flinch when the sixteen magic conductors were driven into his wrist, but Harry did not so much as blink. Lang would just add this unnerving eccentricity of the child to the already long list of Harry's unnerving eccentricities that he had mentally catalogued in his mind. "Right then," Lang said, standing back and staring at the attachment. He had to admit that the hand blended in perfectly with Harry's body. It was not abnormally large or abnormally small, nor were the joints disproportionate or awkward. It was perfect, he realized, just as Harry expected, and with a simple pair of gloves, no one would be able to tell the difference. Just have to go out and buy some, he thought, before correcting himself. Conjure them, I mean.
Harry, meanwhile, just stared down at his hand, studying it, observing it as it lay dormant. He had spent a long time in the US. It had not taken him long to realize that the US was a biomedical and engineering juggernaut, and that, if there were any place in the world that could do what he wanted, he would find it there. And now he had. He couldn't help but marvel at the design, at the feel of it, at the look of it. It already felt like it were a part of him, as though it completed him in some way that flesh had never quite been able to do.
"Like I said," Lang went on. "Just leave it be for a day, get used to it, and then we'll see how well it functions. Surely there must be a bug or two that we'll have to work on. I'm confident we'll-" Lang stopped as Harry flexed his new hand.
Harry broke the straps that bound his arm and lifted his new hand into the air so that it was just inches from his face. He flexed it once and then twice and then formed an iron hard grip - one which could reduce rocks to sand, and he found that there was only one word to express his feelings at that point in time. "Groovy."
London was a pretty big place. It was busy and full of smog and people all jostling about to hold onto their own little bit of space in a city that was possessed of many different eras blended together in an architectural, economic, social and cultural patchwork. If there was one word that Harry found to describe the place, it was that there was a lot of clutter. Everywhere he looked, he found a plethora of images all seeking to assault him, a plethora of sounds all clambering to be heard. It made Harry aware of the tediousness of urban life, the perennial sense of change that one could not help but bear witness to day after day. It was a place where you learned and learned, but never remembered.
That was why Harry found himself taking refuge atop the tower bridge. Dressed all in black and only barely visible as a dark speck to those passersby down below who bothered to look up, Harry stood motionless, the winds blowing down the river streaming his hair back, his cape fluttering ceaselessly behind him as he stared out towards infinity. It was there, atop unknown tonnes of concrete and steel and who knew what else that he found solace from the tumult of his life. It was a place where solitude was made tangible, where the sounds of London were torn to shreds by the prevailing winds, never quite able to make it to the top of the bridge and, most importantly, where the only thing to see for miles upon miles was the blank vastness of God's grey sky. It made Harry acutely aware of his smallness, and he found he liked that.
The top of the tower that held the suspension wires for the bridge was tapered, but still large enough to comfortably hold three or four people standing. In the midst of Harry's quiet contemplation, Lord Voldemort silently apparated onto the bridge, now only mere feet separating the rivals.
"Voldemort," Harry said, not appearing either perturbed or surprised at the Dark Lord's sudden appearance.
"Potter," replied Voldemort.
This appeared to be all that would be exchanged between the two, at least for the moment. Harry made no move to acknowledge his enemy any further, and instead continued studying the clouds that were drifting lazily toward the horizon, content to let his mind drift through the random whorls of memories that tended to accost him these days. It was as though his life was flashing before his eyes, albeit slowly and only intermittently.
Ever since their tacit truce during the Azkaban fiasco, Harry had gained a new kind of respect for the Dark Lord, just as he suspected the Dark Lord had gained a new kind of respect for him. Having reflected on it, he came to the conclusion that, having shared minds so deeply and intimately in their concerted effort to escape, they learned from one another in a way that they never could have otherwise. Harry had, during his musings, come to the tangential conclusion that now, after all this time, and all they had come through, he had finally become the Dark Lord's equal. They were both powerful, intelligent and cold. They both suffered, and they both had the scars to prove it. But, most important of all, they both had mangled souls, each one being only half-alive. It was for this reason that Harry felt only a deep serenity while standing in the presence of his mortal enemy. He knew that Voldemort wanted to at least speak to him one last time, because he himself wanted to speak to Lord Voldemort.
"How is Lucius?" Harry inquired, his gaze still fixed on the horizon.
"He is strong and powerful, just as he has always been. The dark magic that flows through him sees to it."
"That's good," Harry said, turning to glance at Voldemort. "I would hate it if your efforts had gone to waste."
"Mm, I would have been most disappointed, yes," Voldemort agreed. "His magic is strong, as is his will."
Harry nodded. "I felt it in him. When I destroyed his home."
"Ah, yes, I wondered who exactly perpetrated that event. Beautifully executed, I might add. Lucius was most aggrieved. The flames penetrated all the way down to the catacombs where some of his most prized possessions were stored. There was truly nothing left of the place."
"I thought it was rather inspired, if I do say so myself."
"And how is Mr. Shunpike?" Voldemort asked.
Harry just shrugged. "I think he's muddled his way back onto the Knight Bus. Goes by the name of Dan Fundike."
"I confess I did not understand your purpose for retrieving him."
"Harry smiled benignly. "Oh, rest assured, Stan is of no consequence. I was merely toying with the Ministry. Besides, breaking Azkaban was good experience."
"You do realize that I still intend to kill you," Voldemort said, his words more of a statement than a question.
Harry nodded. "I would be rather disgusted with you if you didn't. And don't worry. The intent is mutual."
Voldemort nodded in acknowledgement of Harry's words, before going on, "I realized after the incident at Azkaban that I don't really want you as a soldier. It simply wouldn't make sense. Even if you were perfectly obedient, and even though you would be a formidable assassin, I would not experience the victory that I so crave. The victory that will only come when I rip your soul from your body, and when I watch the life leave your eyes."
"Well that's a Kodak moment, if I ever heard one," Harry commented.
"You make fun, but you understand it too. I sensed it in you."
"Just as I sensed that you're mortal," Harry replied, a touch of smugness having crept into his voice.
"Hmm, yes. I couldn't exactly hide that."
"No, you couldn't."
"Just as you couldn't hide the fact that you're not really human anymore. You're not even completely alive. I had my suspicions, of course. the ability to regrow whole limbs is not intrinsic to the magic of humans. If it were, we would all be immortal."
"Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I found my injuries healed after my duel with Nagini."
Voldemort fell silent for a moment, choosing instead to gaze out at the world.
It was Harry who spoke next. "How did you find me here, if you don't mind me asking?"
Voldemort pointed to the tower of London. "I was conversing with the ravens, actually."
Harry quirked an eyebrow. "The ones with the clipped wings?"
Voldemort shrugged. "Sort of. The magic that resides in the Tower is old magic. Some of the oldest on this island. Ever since my downfall in 1981, I have taken due time to ponder the nature of it. Old magic is something indefinable by its very nature. It is something intuited, felt viscerally. It is the thing that makes us wizards and witches, as opposed to users of an energy source. It is what makes us better than muggles."
"Ah, I was wondering when the pureblood drivel was going to rear its ugly head," Harry said.
Voldemort then did something completely unexpected. He bitch-slapped Harry across the face, leaving a bruise that was rapidly healing. "You hit me!"
"Because you're an idiot, Potter," Voldemort replied scathingly. "Stop for one moment and pretend that Albus Dumbledore isn't the omnipotent God that he's befuddled you into believing he is. Contrary to the faint delusion that some of the Order members are clinging to, he did not stage his own pitiful death as part of an ingenious master plan to catch me fourteen moves from now."
"What does that have to do with pureblood supremacy?" Harry asked.
Harry found himself getting bitch-slapped once more. "Did I say pureblood supremacy, Potter?" Voldemort paused, and Harry got the impression that he was actually waiting for Harry to respond.
"No," Harry said grudgingly. "You didn't."
"If an angel, or a deity of some kind came down this very second and communicated with you, tried to explain how it was connected to some of the deepest, oldest most wondrous energy that makes up the universe, wouldn't you have the humility and mental faculties to grasp that you are an inferior being?"
"Er, well, yes, but that doesn't make us Gods."
Slap.
"Did I say it makes us Gods?" Voldemort asked. "Don't you even understand how to form a simple conclusion?"
"Apparently not," Harry said dryly, as he rubbed his cheek, more out of habit than anything.
"The relationship is the same. We are part of something. Something more than just a valuable power source. something that-"
"Can we skip the philosophy and get to the point?" Harry cut in, already bracing himself for another hit. Fortunately, none came. "I just want to find out how this whole thing ties in to the killing muggles part."
"I have no interest in muggles," Voldemort said dismissively. "I don't even have an interest in mudbloods and halfbloods."
"So you're just using the purebloods," Harry reasoned.
"Precisely."
"Why, though?"
Voldemort shrugged. "Because I enjoy it."
"Don't you want power? Immortality?"
"Power, yes, immortality, not exactly."
"But-"
Voldemort raised a hand to forestall Harry's protests. "No doubt I have sought out immortality, but it is not a means in and of itself. If it were, I would have simply retired after creating my horcruxes and persisted in relative obscurity. Certainly no one would have bothered me if I elected to lay dormant, to remain inconspicuous. In fact, I could have sought out a position as the Minister of Magic, or even the Headmaster of Hogwarts. By now, I could be running this country however I see fit, with all my soldiers in a myriad of key places. Surely, if you've gone to the trouble of locating my horcruxes, you would have noted that I was in the Slug club, that I was a prodigy with connections to an old family and a powerful following of influential purebloods. Remaining vaguely neutral, I could have secured thrice the influence and power that I possessed at the height of my reign. I could have easily secured immortality. I could have placed one of my horcruxes in the Chamber of Secrets and guarded it with my basilisk, which would have been virtually infallible."
Harry found himself listening with rapt attention to Voldemort. Despite all his efforts, he couldn't find a single flaw in Voldemort's plan. He saw firsthand how far Tom Riddle had to fall to work at a place like Borgin & Burkes, and had wondered even as he saw that why it was that Riddle chose obscurity as opposed to grabbing more power and continuing on the upswing. Eventually, Harry fell upon a decent sounding reason. Slowly, he said, "But you would have been dragged further and further into the spotlight. It would have been next to impossible to learn and execute all the dark rituals that you had undergone."
Voldemort nodded. "Somewhat impossible, though I imagine that, with enough allies in high places, and with access to the Department of Mysteries, much of my work would already have been accomplished."
Harry thought furiously. "But you don't want allies. You want servants, or, at least, you want to dominate, and you couldn't have gotten that if you played by the rules."
"Go on."
"What you need are disaffected pureblood bourgeois and aristocratic types with old money who are driven to follow you through their own addiction to dark magic and through their disillusionment with the system."
"Precisely. If I gave them what they wanted, they would have deposed me eventually. Remember, I am a half-blood, and with my obviously muggle name, it would have been impossible to hide that fact. As it stands, I had to re-invent myself. Only a select few from my time at Hogwarts could have attested to my muggle origins. As a Parselmouth, it is enough proof for those who doubt that I am the heir of Slytherin. In addition, I have studied acutely the dark arts and have driven myself further than anyone else ever has.Now, none of my followers would dare oppose me."
"But you have to give them mudbloods and muggles," Harry concluded.
"I assure you it bothers me not, Potter," Voldemort said, dismissing the issue. "There are billions of muggles out there. Purebloods do not even have a clue as to how to dispatch them. I doubt even the most ardent of them, like Lucius, even care to eradicate them altogether. They just want an outlet through which to stew in their own sadistic urges. I care nothing for them, nor do I care for their victims."
"You care for nothing," Harry said, realizing for the first time just what it was that drives Voldemort, and, conversely, that which drives himself. "I've nothing here," Harry said quietly, almost mournfully. "I look around, and I see nothing but a wasteland. I'm like a deformed piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I don't fit anywhere."
"Fitting somewhere would be nice, I do admit," Voldemort said, "but it will never happen, Potter. You will never go become an Auror, as you once dreamt of doing. Nor will you spawn children. You will do what you have always been meant to do. You will hunt and kill. It makes little difference whether it is me or the next Dark Lord, as I am sure there will be, should you succeed. You will be eternally driven."
"That applies to you to," Harry countered. "Would you really be satisfied with just Britain? What good would it do you? Even if you had the entire country under your thrall, you would not be happy. You can no more stop than I can. There will be no getting drunk and fat and old with your power, because it will never be enough."
Voldemort nodded. "We're both monsters, you and I."
"Except that I'm fighting for the people you seek to torture," Harry said, shaking his head. "You can't make me forget that."
"Can't I?" Voldemort inquired. "Do you not think that I am unable to shatter the fanciful delusion that you still cling to? Let me ask you this, then. Suppose you did in fact destroy my body, but, instead of rubbing me out of this world as you had hoped, I found a way to possess another being. Let's say a rat, for example. What would you do?"
"I'd go after you," Harry said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"And when you found me?" Voldemort pressed.
"I'd kill you," Harry answered, still doing so in a tone that suggested Voldemort was an idiot for even asking.
"And if I survived and managed to move to another rat?"
"Then I'd kill that one too."
"And another?"
Harry just nodded. "yeah, I'd fucking kill all the Goddamned rats in the world to get you. So what?"
"And if," Voldemort continued, electing to ignore Harry's outburst, "if after the rats, I moved to possessing dogs?"
Now Harry hesitated for a moment, but, after reflection, he said in an uncharacteristically somber voice, as though he knew where this was suddenly leading, "yeah, I reckon I'd kill the dogs too."
"And, what if I became so good at possession, that I could fluidly possess humans?" Voldemort asked. "What would you do then, Potter?"
To this question, Harry did not answer.
However, it seemed that Voldemort was not interested in hearing Harry's response anyway, for he said, "You need not say anything to me, Potter. It's a question for your own mind. Perhaps, when you have answered it, you will understand what you really are. You will understand the full consequences of tearing your soul in half, for no longer being truly alive." And with that, Voldemort gave a sweeping glance across the land, where millions upon millions of people, magical and muggle alike, toiled away in obscurity. "When we meet again, we will duel to the death. Good-bye, Potter."
Harry just stared unseeingly at Voldemort, who, after saying his parting words, silently apparated away.
"GOD FUCKING SLUT!" Hermione shrieked, hurling a really old and rather expensive book across the Parkinson dining hall, where it soared past Pansy's still beating heart, which sat idly on a white, Japanese-style dinner plate. Even before it hit the wall, the book burst into flames and disintegrated to ash.
Griffin meanwhile, was slumped in one of the dining chairs, a piece of half-eaten brain jelly still speared on the end of his fork. His hair was mussed, and his eyes unfocused, as he had been drinking heavily. Occasionally, he would throw a glance Hermione's way to see if she were still pacing restlessly about, and, after ascertaining that she in fact was, went back to staring off into space.
It had been several days since Azkaban, and Hermione still couldn't believe the events that had unfolded during the prison. They were supposed to have rubbed out both Potter and Voldemort in one clean, fluid step, effectively paving the way for their ascension as emperors to the new world order they were supposed to be creating. But, of course, that didn't happen.
And the reason that it most definitely did not happen was due to the existence of one Harry James Potter.
Bloody Potter, Hermione silently raged, her magic coiling and uncoiling inside her, desperately searching for a target upon which to release her frustration. She and Griffin, after recovering from the firefight, had gone on a mindless killing spree in order to satisfy their dark urges. A killing spree that ultimately landed them in the Parkinson family home and eating the Parkinson family's organs. As enjoyable as it all was, it failed to quench the underlying discontent that plagued her. No, there was only one thing that would do, she realized, coming to a full stop and eyeing Pansy's heart. It beat once and a pool of blood spurted out one of its ventricles. Yes, Hermione thought fiercely, the dark twinkle returning. If I can't have Potter, then I'll at least have his allies.
"Griffin!" she commanded imperiously, and, upon seeing him in his dishevelled state, immediately pursed her lips in a McGonagall sort of way.
"Mmm," Griffin managed as he tried to wipe drool from his lip.
'Get up, you worthless cad. We're going to pay a visit to the Order."
"The Order?" he asked blankly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, the bloody Order of the Phoenix. We're going to kill people."
At this, Griffin's eyes lit up and his magic immediately began working away the alcohol in order to ready him for the slaughter. "Brilliant," he breathed. "It's been," he paused to check his watch, "ah, yes, it's been six hours since I've last murdered somebody." He delicately plucked the morsel of brain off his fork and chewed thoughtfully.
"All right," Hermione said. "We will strike at eight o'clock. That's when everybody should be around. We can make the biggest splash."
Griffin nodded. "I'll prepare the rune shields."
"Excellent," Hermione said, beaming beatifically and flouncing off to go do her hair.