AN: I won't jinx this by saying that my writers block with this story has finally passed, but fingers crossed!
Chapter 33
The first attempt on Harry's life was so badly misjudged that he initially mistook it as a gift. Almost two weeks had passed since the now notorious meeting in which he had demonstrated his stance on child abuse, and Harry had just returned from an evening spent carousing with his old unit. More than a little drunk, he had slipped beneath the fresh cotton sheets of his four-poster bed still half-dressed, when he felt something cold and slick against his leg. He threw back the sheets in alarm, only to find an agitated viper drawing back it's head and preparing to strike.
Harry, too muddled from drink and not quick enough to reach the wand now tucked beneath his pillow, shouted in surprise; "Holy fuck, how did you get in here?!"
The snake, moments away from attacking, stopped mid-movement as though frozen – for a second, Harry assumed he'd simply performed a wandless Pertrificus Totalus in his alarm - it wouldn't be the first time. Then though, the snake drew back entirely.
"You are a speaker," it said simply. Harry, now suddenly and acutely sober, nodded and let out a breath. He hadn't actually meant to speak parseltongue, but was grateful to his instincts.
"I am," he said. "And you're in my bed, friend."
The snake, a magical breed called a Hilliker Viper if Harry hadn't missed his guess, was one amongst the deadliest snakes in the world. Now it cocked it's head at him in a move that was distinctly dog-like. "Your bed? I was sleeping here. You disturbed me."
Harry nodded his head, conceding the point. "It seems I did, I'm sorry. This is usually where I sleep. How did you get here?"
The snake, growing more comfortable, lowered itself a little on the bed getting cosy against the sheets once more. "I don't know. I was at home in the warm sands, and then hands grabbed me, and then I was here. It was cold, so I stayed where it was warm and dark." Harry nodded. His bed had a permanent heating charm, a fact beyond all other things his friends had told him made him an insane monster.
"I suppose someone thought we ought to meet," Harry said with a shrug. He had missed the company of snakes these last years. Ember he had long ago left at Hogwarts, where she was ever happy in the Chamber of Secrets. He had actually seen her mere days before, when he had dropped Jasper off at school. He had bribed her with a mouse to watch over the boy as best she could, and bribed the basilisk with an interesting tome written in Parselscript, in order to have them protect Jasper from any who might do him harm. Some might call such things overkill, but Harry was already an overprotective guardian. "Would you like to stay with me?"
The snake had acquiesced, and over the next few days they became fast friends. He was not as chatty as Ember had been, but the uncomfortable looks his fellow Death Eaters gave him seeing a deadly snake wrapped around his neck was well worth carrying a few conversations.
The second attempt on his life was rather more obvious. Later that week, he had been about to turn his door handle as he returned from a long day of research, when he noticed at the last possible moment that something was not quite right. Dark magic gives off a sort of aura, especially to those familiar with it, and moments before his fingers touched the door they seem to prickle with warning. He drew back his hand and quickly cast an identification spell. The area, and specifically the door knob, wreaked of black magic. When he had a chance to identify the curse much later, his stomach dropped; the door knob was cursed to boil the blood of any who came into contact with it. It was a cheap and nasty curse, but there was a chance that even he would not have been able to counter curse the effects before he grew too feverish and disorientated to cast.
After this, Harry knew to be on his guard. As the attempts on his life grew; poison in his wine, curses on his belongings, and perhaps most alarmingly a sphinx in his ensuite - which had only allowed him to leave with his life because he'd found Harry to be unusually charming and good with riddles – others became aware of it. Soon it was the worst kept secret in the Imperial Base; someone on the inside was out for Harry Potter's blood.
Harry trusted he could keep himself safe. The first attempt on someones life is the most likely to be successful, or in his case, the first one you notice. After that, any wizard worth his salt could protect themselves from such attacks. He had made his quarters virtually impregnable early on, and tested for curses and poisons as a matter of course. Even after all these years too, the locket seemed to whisper danger against his skin before even his sharp senses could pick up on them.
Others, however, were not so comfortable with this turn of events. After a week of relentless assassination attempts, he was approached by Lucius Malfoy.
"You must lay low for some time, while Bellatrix and I attempt to find the cause of these… disturbances," Lucius said darkly over a light lunch, that the man had brought himself from the manor.
"Honestly, Lucius," Harry said over a bite of a particularly delicious cucumber and cream cheese sandwich, presumably prepared by the Malfoy's famous kitchen elves, "I'm quite alright. Aside from being extraordinarily good at covering their tracks, they don't seem to be much good at this assassination stuff."
It was true. Harry had, whilst presenting an air of amused apathy, been searching relentlessly for some clue to the identity of his would-be assassin. He had tried everything that he was aware of, he had even gone so far as to tell Hermione who, as well as being very concerned on his behalf, had known even more rituals and charms aimed towards revealing the identity or magical signature of those who set curses such as these. Nothing had worked however, although he was relatively certain Hermione was the one to tell Bellatrix, who was now playing the bloodhound.
Lucius gave Harry a stern look, whilst simultaneously offering him a delicate tray of french fancies – the man was a Malfoy after all. "They only have to be successful once, Harry. You have to be successful every time. All I ask is that you give us a few days to… look into things."
"And what will I do in the mean time? Go about in an invisibility cloak?" Harry asked irritably, aware that he was going to end up giving in to the man. Lucius and Bellatrix, though not technically above him in rank and definitively not above him in terms of skill, still commanded a great deal of respect and affection from Harry. Plus the two of them likely did, for deeply unscrupulous reasons, know more about assassination than he did.
"Your rooms should be safe enough," Lucius said wryly. "And they're hardly an uncomfortable place to spend a week."
"A week?" Harry said, exasperated. "What will I do, hiding away for a week?"
Lucius smirked at his petulance, knowing he had won the argument. "Perhaps you could learn to enjoy your own company. Failing that, read a book."
Harry rolled his eyes, assuring the older man that he would be fine of course, that a week was not so long, and that perhaps he'd even enjoy the break.
At the end of the second day, Harry was relatively certain that he was going to go mad.
Of all his weaknesses, his most obvious was likely that he was a deeply social person, that thrived on the company of others. Two days into his isolation, he was ready to climb the walls. Maintaining the sanctity of his ridiculously strong wards meant that he couldn't even send or receive owls, and only a trusted house elf was bringing him meals and urgent memos from the outside world. It wouldn't be so bad if he'd still had the snake to talk to, but the poor thing had been inadvertently killed by eating some poisoned food left out for Harry a few days prior. That, above all else, had Harry feeling vengeful. It had also caused him to once again double the security he had around Jasper at school, just in case.
The boy was settling in fine into the new school year, it seemed. In the short time they had known one another, Harry found him quick and witty. He was a world away from the terrified boy he'd been before. There was a long way to go of course, and the boy needed a lot of mind-healing, especially given he had refused point blank and repeatedly to get the horrific events obliviated as was the standard practice for victims of sexual assault. He didn't want to simply wipe what had happened away, so Harry was prepared to walk the long road with him. He had formally adopted Jasper shortly before he'd returned to school, and he had been over the moon. It was a particularly tender moment for Harry, and he found himself growing warmer towards the boy with each day. Now, unable to contact him for a week, he found himself almost missing him.
By the end of day three, he'd grown bored of reading all day. By the end of day four, he'd grown bored of reading, writing, drawing and even 'enjoying his own company'. He was bored shitless, and found himself drinking a rather too good vintage of Fire Whisky at five o'clock in the afternoon. Against the wall, in a softly glowing bubble, was one of his many contraband possessions; an Ipod nestled into a dock between two rather large speakers was blaring out one of his playlists. He was proud of this item not because he had it, for all the soldiers owned muggle items taken in the field. The higher up the death eater, ironically, the more muggle possessions one was likely to have. No, he was proud because he had gotten it to work properly. Magic and muggle electricity tended to cause issues with one another, with electrical items tending to break relatively quickly. The bubble repelled the magic in the air and building around the Ipod, protecting it from damage. He'd now owned the thing for well over a year, and it was still going strong.
With little else to do but drink alone, Harry meandered around his quarters skipping through songs. He was dressed only in a dark pair of boxers and an open silk robe as he nursed a bottle and sang along half-heartedly to his favourites. He tried and failed to engross himself in the newspaper, but given it was little but propaganda it was hard to view it with anything but vague admiration for Daphne's skill, rather than as actual information.
Eventually he found himself laying down, his back on the bed with his legs planted still on the floor. He sang to the canopy of the bed with an exaggerated lack of tone, "Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash, Just who do you think I am?" he sang, breaking as he took a deep swig of whisky and having to pause his song as he almost choked on the stuff from the odd angle. Once he righted himself, he continued."Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash, Just what do you think I got to lose? I'm gonna leave you. With the backlash blues..." He trailed off, crooning in a way that would make anyone with the slightest ear for these things cringe.
"Salazar, Potter. If this were not already deeply illegal, I'd have to make it so," came an all too familiar voice.
Harry sat up with such a jolt that the bottle fell from his hand, hitting the wooden floor with a loud clatter that fortunately did not cause it to shatter. He was on his feet in a moment, years in the Gravers having trained him to lightning-quick reflexes; his wand was in his hand almost as quickly as he lowered it. The Dark Lord was in his quarters.
"My-my Lord," Harry said, shaken. "I hadn't known to expect you." He wasn't sure how the man could have even gotten through his wards, for that matter. Despite what he might have the masses believe, he wasn't supposed to be actually omnipotent.
When Voldemort merely regarded Harry with those cold, assessing eyes, Harry became rather too aware of several things. Firstly, he realised that this was likely the most undressed he had ever been before the Dark Lord. Or rather, this version of the Dark Lord. Dressed only in his underpants and a robe, even the robe had slipped down one shoulder – his chest, arms and legs were bare but for the copious runic tattoos that covered so much of him. Unfortunately, the ink did not make him feel any more dressed. Whilst not a shy man, Voldemort had a unique way of making him feel exposed when he was caught unawares. He was also conscious that he was obviously slightly tipsy in the middle of the day, and loudly blaring muggle music from the civil rights movement into his bedroom – the bedroom of a Death Eater General – in the Imperial Base.
"Clearly," Voldemort said after a moment.
Gathering himself quickly, Harry silenced the music with a careless wave of his hand. He pulled the robe up his shoulder, but didn't tie it shut – he didn't want Voldemort to think him too nervous, after all. He bowed a short bow, moving away from the bed.
"What brings you here, my Lord?" Harry said briskly, taking a seat at the slightly more acceptable location of the table by the window as Voldemort did the same. Harry was getting his bearings quickly, and reminded himself that he was not a naughty child with his school master. He tried not to be too perturbed by the fact that the Dark Lord was looking even more distracting than usual today. Dressed in dark trousers, brogues and a white linen shirt, he should have appeared entirely unremarkable, but light colours suited Voldemort and were all the more striking for the rarity with which he wore them. Adding to that, the clothes while plain were obviously tailored and made of the most expensive fabrics, they seem to enunciate his biceps and the breadth of his chest just so. Whilst Harry regarded Voldemort, Voldemort did the same, his eyes dipping to the locket still around Harry's neck after all these years and then – if Harry wasn't mistaken – flicking up to admire the Death Eater tattoo around Harry's throat. The tattoo that had first stood him apart from his comrades.
"I have been informed that you are being targeted," Voldemort said, leaning back in his chair with one calf resting on his other knee. The slightest of smirks graced his face then, wolfish. "And have burrowed away in here for the foreseeable future."
Harry bristled at the obvious provocation. "Lucius and Bella asked me to remain… out of harms way… whilst they employ their own skills to tracking the assailant." Harry said flatly.
Voldemort's smirk grew more fully into a mocking smile, his eyes more blue than red this afternoon. "And of course you accepted your grounding with admirable obeisance." The Dark Lord glanced around the room at the obvious detritus of the last days; books half-read, scattered notes, even some mildly embarrassing doodles. "And you seem to be coping with your solitude so well."
Harry, unable to prevent his natural desire to goad Voldemort back, returned the man's smirk with a raised eyebrow of his own. "I assume you've come to offer to keep me company, my Lord?"
It was an astoundingly daring thing to say, the innuendo indicative in his manner obvious even if plausibly deniable. Voldemort clearly understood his meaning but instead of responding with a curse or a threat, he took Harry by surprise by laughing, his chuckle deep and rich. "It seems your isolation has made you more daring. And here I was, concerned that all this…" he gestured to the room at large. "-hiding meant you'd become a bit of a wuss."
"A wuss?" Harry repeated, momentarily dumbfounded. "I'm sorry, am I being bullied by the leader of the unfree world."
Voldemort's eyes darkened at the term, losing some of their mirth. Whether it was because it was a muggle reference, or a reference to the aggressively anti-democratic stance of the regime, Harry couldn't say. "Careful, Potter," the wizard uncrossed his legs, leaning forward with his hands clasped together in a posture that was still at ease, but markedly more predatory. "My presence here is proof of your inability to shield yourself from my ire, should you provoke it."
Harry found that the dark mark around his throat seemed to tingle, growing warm. It didn't hurt, but the heat and pressure had the effect of almost simulating the touch of hot skin against his throat. He very much doubted Voldemort was unaware of this. Harry didn't blush, he was a hardened warrior now and had taken almost as many lovers as he had lives, but the Dark Lord could still affect him. Even as he schooled his expression, his cock stirred. He wasn't wearing nearly enough clothing to continue this game with the Dark Lord, and so he dropped his playful tone into one more serious.
"My Lord, these wards were designed for an incompetent assassin. If I thought you my attacker, I'd have ran a lot further than the other side of your base," he said, his tone still light but more business-like.
Some of the heat left Voldemort's gaze, and the man relaxed back into his chair. "You're supposed to say 'I would lay down my life immediately' or something to that effect, you know," he said dismissively. "Regardless. Instead of sitting around the base waiting for Bellatrix to tuck you in, I want you to do something useful away from here."
Harry sat forward with interest, more than relieved to be getting an excuse to get out of these four walls.
"Yes, my Lord?" he said, a little too eagerly.
It was possible Voldemort noticed his eagerness, given the slight quirk to his lips as he continued. "Verona, it seems, is missing."
Harry's eyes widened at this revelation. He had noted her absence of late, of course. He had never seen her at a meeting of the generals despite being here well over six weeks, but it wasn't unusual for certain individuals to be busy pursuing specific projects or campaigns. He'd assumed that the Dark Lord had her working on something mysterious and important elsewhere.
"Missing?" Harry echoed.
"She vanished under strange circumstances almost two months ago and hasn't been seen since. I am relatively certain that she has fallen prey to the resistance. Whether she lives still is unclear."
At this, Harry was more than taken aback. He didn't have the sort of relationship with Verona that he had with say, Bellatrix, but he still considered her a friend. "And you want me to investigate?"
"We will investigate. I believe that with the use of glamours and disguise, it may even be possible to infiltrate their base. Failing that, we should be able to get close enough to retrieve or avenge dear Verona."
"I'm sorry, 'we' – as in, you will come into the field, my Lord?" Harry asked, sure he'd misunderstood his meaning.
"It's very important that this doesn't go awry, which means I shall handle it myself. Unfortunately, I need a second on hand for a key part of this ruse."
"But- but you almost never go into the field?" Harry remarked, amazed.
Voldemort threw him an irritated look. "How would you ever know, Potter?"
Harry conceded the point in amazement. He supposed it was entirely possible that the Dark Lord had been on the front lines on more occasions than the world was aware of.
"So, just to be clear, we are going to go 'undercover' together to attempt to infiltrate a resistance base?"
"Unless you'd rather remain cowering in your warren?" Voldemort said as he stood up, clearly bringing the conversation to a close.
"Of course not," Harry scowled. "How long will we be gone?"
"We leave this evening, and will probably be away no longer than a week." Voldemort said in a business-like tone, no longer looking at Harry in that distracting intense manner he often did. "That should be long enough for Bellatrix and Lucius to sort out your little problem."
"If it's not, I'll find a way to deal with it myself," Harry said, darkly.
Voldemort gave Harry an amused look as he deftly moved Harry's wards out of the way, as though they were nought to him but cobwebs. "If they haven't, I might even tell you who it is."
Draco Malfoy hated 'the rebels'.
He hated them for a variety of reasons. For one, he was all too aware of the failings of the world they were fighting for. It seemed incredible to him, and to the few close friends he'd discussed such things with, that they were fighting for a world as elitist and hierarchical as their own whilst behaving as though it were some great fight for freedom. He hated their worship of wizards like Albus Dumbledore, who even ignoring the propaganda stories, was a man with a grey history at best. They would slam the way in which Hogwarts students were recruited at graduation as if their movements didn't and wasn't doing the very same thing. He hated that they saw execution and dark magic as the highest of all evils, as if there weren't worse things than death, as though the practices of the world before the revolution hadn't been barbaric; dementors, show trials, muggleborns kept away from the magical world until they were 11, wizards and witches living in relative poverty for absolutely no reason.
Today though, he simply hated their taste in restaurants.
Even after the countless times he had done so in the last year, he was still far from comfortable stepping into the muggle world. It was too noisy, there were too many of them. In the city of Sheffield, where he now found himself as per his contacts instructions, he could barely understand what they were saying either. He still found the cars - which seemed to be absolutely everywhere – uncomfortable. He didn't bother changing into a muggle outfit, simply made himself a little less noticeable with the help of a charm. He had tried jeans once, and had been extremely displeased with the way it nipped in at his skin in a way well-made robes would never.
Walking down the street, he kept his head low and his wand away. Using it now he'd crossed the threshold would raise too many questions, even for a Malfoy. He kept it with him only in case of dire emergency. Soon, he found himself outside of the Chinese restaurant which had been sent to him via protean charm an hour ago. He didn't hesitate to go inside and ask for the 'Smith' party.
He was escorted to the table by the waitress, who either didn't speak English or spoke it in the thick northern brogue that rendered his own received pronunciation unfathomable. Regardless, she ignored his enquiry about the house special that night as he reached the table, wandering off with a polite smile firmly fixed to her face.
"Sorry about that," came the dulcet tones of a familiar woman. "I had to confound her after an incident with our arrival," Nymphadora rolled her eyes at the man beside her. A man Draco had yet to meet, but could recognise at first glance alone.
"Sirius Black," Draco said in a shocked whisper as he moved smoothly into the booth and across from the pair.
Black offered Draco a tight smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Hello, Mr Malfoy. Dora here has told me a lot about you."
Draco glanced at his cousin with an accusatory expression on his face, to which she rolled her eyes. "Draco, he's my contact and I'm yours – I had to discuss it with him. Besides, we're all family here."
Draco had been informing for the rebels now for some time. Whenever he wasn't here in the muggle world, passing information in some terrible muggle dining facility or another, he tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about the squirming fear in his gut at the sheer danger of what they were doing, or the faces of his presumably disapproving ancestors. He tried not to think about what his father or aunt would do if they ever found out, or, God forbid, his wife. Still, Draco was in the unenviable position of knowing a huge amount about what lurked behind the veil of the Dark Lord's regime, and not able to do a thing to stop it. He hated the rebels, he thought them ill-equipped, hypocritical and ineffectual, but once he'd first given them information – to prevent the summary execution of a group of muggle-born eighteen year olds that had been caught sneaking into muggle London – he was effectively trapped. Sometimes it was useful, sometimes he got to tell them about orphanages being bombed (by his own wife, no less), but often it was much more mundane. Vagueries about the Death Eater armies strategems, planned policy changes before they happened. Ultimately, Draco didn't believe that the rebels would be any more just than the current regime, but they were a useful tool to pit against the worst aspects of their current world.
They didn't speak for some time, perusing menus and ordering. This was hardly a social visit, and though Nymphadora lived with his mother – using her privileged position to spy for the rebels - the two were hardly more civil now than they had been when he had slapped her all those years ago.
Once they'd eaten some of their meal and the restaurant had grown noisy enough to cover their discussion better than any silencing charm could, he began to report.
"There's going to be a raid on another potion manufacturer in the Yen Bai district," he said between bites of chow mein. "There should be less civilian casualties this time anyway, but it may be worth evacuating." Nymphadora made a note in a practised short-hand. "And they're about to make one of your young associates in diagon alley disappear, a Martin Holland. I'd move him quick if I were you."
At this, Sirius Black's eyebrows rose a little, but Nymphadora noted it down without comment or expression. The two of them began to probe him with questions, some of which he answered. He didn't give them everything they wanted, even when he knew the answer. He had no interest in helping them win their hopeless war, and it suited him better to pretend to have more limited access than he did.
It was when they moved onto the more 'casual chatting' portion of the evening, something he generally strove to limit and only usually done in the short wait for the bill, that things took a turn for the worse.
"-I'm afraid I haven't seen your son for almost a week, Mr Black, what with him being so busy helping his wife with the band-stratification legislation." Black had been asking after Blaise, who he had apparently not seen in some time, but it was Nymphadora that interrupted.
"Band-stratification legislation?" she asked, sharply. "Are they introducing further stipulations?" The band-stratification, the bands that denoted blood-status, were perhaps one of the most obvious examples of blood-supremacy. He had often heard Nymphadora describe it as barbarism, and it was hardly a secret that the rebels opposed the system.
"No," Draco shook his head with a frown. "I'd have thought you would have heard. Daphne is leading the push to scrap the system entirely."
Nymphadora's expression froze, and she exchanged a glance with Black as both seemed to pale a little. Draco was confused by the exchange, and felt rather left out of the loop. Uncaring of whatever inside discussion they were having with their eyes alone, he moved to get up and make his excuses.
"Draco," Nymphadora said, before he could rise. "Is there- Is there anything you can do to perhaps dissuade Daphne from this path?"
Draco paused, confused. "Excuse me?"
"Can you stop her?" Black said, ever more blunt. His eyes were hard and his lips pressed into a thin line. "From what I've heard, the Greengrass woman is effective, if she pushes for this it might actually happen."
Draco frowned, now absolutely not following. "Sorry, did you both misunderstand me? Daphne is trying to get rid of the blood-status banding. Scrap it. It's exactly what you two want," he said firmly.
Nymphadora looked more uncomfortable than he had ever seen her, up to and including when he had seen her held hostage by their family. "Of course, of course it's what we want, but-"
"But not yet," Sirius said, his volume rising a little more than was comfortable in the crowded restaurant. "Not just yet."
A sinking feeling of disgust was settling into Draco's stomach, as a suspicion began to form. "Why?" he asked, flatly.
They were both silent for a moment, and he considered leaving after all, when Nymphadora finally said. "A lot of young witches and wizards with the muggle-born band know that they're unlikely to get their dream-job after they finish Hogwarts – they're turned away at every interview. Those individuals often come to us when it becomes clear they don't have many other options…"
Even Draco, a man raised to conceal his every emotion behind a mask of impassivity couldn't help but sneer derisively at this. "Are you seriously suggesting that you want to keep the system to help with your recruitment?"
Black, who had remained pale and still, seemed to rally at his accusatory tone. "The resistance is the only thing standing between that monster and doing whatever he likes. It's awful, war is awful, but we've got to keep recruiting if we have any hope of winning this thing. We can't let kids too young to understand the shape of the world start thinking that things are going to change."
Draco was standing now. He stood and glared at the two of them, fully intent on cutting them down with his words, explaining to them how very hypocritical and useless their movement was, but he was too disgusted for even that. He turned on his heel, leaving the restaurant and the two of them behind.
These bastards were all the same.
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