Author's Note: Updated as of January 2020.
Chapter 16 ~ Ghosts of the Past
"Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it."
Leonardo da Vinci
ECOTS
It was sickening, the way the dull warmth encompassed him, bewitching him, making him a slave to the cruel comfort it provided as darkness crept across his deadened skin like thousands of slithering serpents, their tongue-like lashings reawakening his numbed cellular capacities with frightening vigor.
Until the nauseating warmth had found him he had been nonfunctional, his bodily organs systematically shutting down one-by-one, heedless of his subconscious' frantic protests.
Such was the effect of severe head injuries.
Dean Thomas had nearly died.
He also sure as fuck wasn't a poet.
He was dimly aware of harsh sounds in the room. One was a voice, inexplicable in dialect and tongue, its only comprehensible feature a grating hiss.
He swore he'd heard hissing like that before. Hadn't Potter hissed at a snake once? He seemed to recall something about Justin….trying to murder Justin?
With a groan he tried to move, and failed. A little man inside his skull had apparently found a rather large sledgehammer, and that bastard banged with frenzied desperation against, well, everything.
He really needed it to stop. Maybe if they negotiated…
Dean Thomas opened his eyes and blearily the world came into slow focus. Everything looked different. It was brighter, hellish. Dark splotches clouded his vision in between those bright bursts of color. Blood was smeared across the tile floor, while a serpent slithered across his legs.
It was large. It was incredibly large, and it seemed to be pinning him to the cold, uncomfortable floor. Scales glinted in colors he'd never seen before and he blinked, confused.
It continued slithering over his legs, and Dean swore he couldn't feel a thing. That probably should have worried him.
And then, with stark and awful clarity, he suddenly did feel it. All at once his nerves agreed to start firing, and Dean Thomas just about screamed.
The snake wasn't bothered.
Vestiges of hind limbs protruded from its body like small spurs, and they dragged across his calves with suffocating force. Its sheer width could have killed him if it'd wanted, and it was right around then that Dean realized there was blood all around his head on the floor.
His head was also, strangely, bandaged.
Dean lifted a hand to touch it-
That was a bad idea. The convulsing struck hard and sudden, his body lurching beneath the serpent's weight unsuccessfully as he flat out had a seizure.
Dean didn't remember most of it. He just remembered being on his side, something disgusting and acidic dribbling out of his mouth, and he wondered how the hell he hadn't drowned on his own stomach contents.
That hissing again...
The pressure left his legs and Dean rolled over in a dizzying haze. He rolled right into a man, a dark length of cloak swaying against his face, and it was right about then that Hermione's choked gargles registered.
With the trepidation of one who has never been through hell his dark eyes rose, fixing on Hermione's normally articulate lips.
She was there, next to him, gasping and trying to breathe as the serpent coiled around her in tighter and tighter concentric circles. Dean lay there, unable to say anything, unable to do anything except watch as it flat out squeezed, its suffocating force attacking Hermione's small frame.
At some point Hermione's head lolled forward, the witch unconscious, possibly dead.
Dean felt sick. There was another body near where Hermione now lay. It was a man in his thirties, with light brown hair that hung into his eyes. He looked strangely like their new DADA Professor.
And then Dean saw Neville, unconscious with his wand still in his hand. Dean's mouth tried to open, to say something, to call out, but his throat didn't seem to be working.
Dean was grabbed.
Whatever it was, was invisible. It clenched around his chin, and against his will the sorcery snapped his head up, the vertebras in his neck crunching together, dangerously close to snapping as he stared at the creature doing it.
Deadened, slit like eyes met him.
ECOTS
The hunt was on.
The wolf's nails shredded the fallen leaves, its claws digging into the mud soaked forest floor, wet clumps of grass scattering in its wake. The only sound breaking the still death of the little traveled forest the harsh pounding of the small packs feet.
The others were spreading out, winding amidst the trees with the inborn agility known only to hunters.
The scent of live flesh had been detected upon the crisp breeze snaking through the village only moments before, and now the pack was on the hunt, searching for the escaped soul.
No humans were to leave the village.
None alive.
They were to be protected within its walls, but once the borders had been breached they were fair game.
The wolf would not stray from the growled orders of the elder again. A searing warmth welled from his own wounds, proof of what happened if you were disobedient. The elder had wasted no time in sinking its teeth deep into Remus' hide, depriving him of the tantalizing taste of the two fresh specimens – students – that he'd so wanted. There'd been something so familiar about them, and their taste…
He'd wanted their taste.
He'd gotten to taste someone else; the carcass of a Death Eater. The wolf reveled in the stringy tissue caught between its incisors, torn from the fresh corpse that had lain in pools of its own barely coagulated fluids. It licked at the fur lining its snout, its tongue lapping at it, yearning for just one more taste.
The tormenting taste had been satisfying, yet it only served to renew its thirsty desperation for live quarry.
It was then that the wolf spotted a flash of red. The color was atop a human's head, and it was running. The elder's guttural growls signified it too had spotted the prey, its growls urging the wolf's mitts to pound in a faster rhythm, a deep snarl issuing from its own throat, penetrating the late afternoon silence.
No humans were to escape the village. They were to be drug back into the boundaries or killed.
They needed to be brought back within the wards they had raised, before the spell commenced. If they were not, then they were as good as dead anyway.
The spell would provide protection to them for what was coming, and if they did not receive it…
They would die.
The elder leapt, its first thrust of fangs deftly dodged as the red headed prey spun around the base of a trunk, its evasive maneuver effective. The prey was an athlete, clearly. Its meat would be that much more tender and Remus growled hungrily.
The elder had been sent skidding across the slippery leaves, and the novice wolf's indignation resonated cruelly within the forest, its growl heard by all near.
Stalking through the leaves the wolf hunted, rearing up on its haunches as the human leapt up in the air, grabbing at a low hung bough.
It was a single flash of the human's hair that caused the wolf that had once been Remus to hesitate.
It was familiar.
The human hung precariously, gangly feet swinging in a long arc, its wand hand free and aiming as the elder sprung again, not dodging the bright light emitting from the human's wand in time. The spell burst out, the silver particles slamming into the wolf pack's leader.
The elder fell.
Remus watched as the wolf twitched, howling a death throe, and just like that all familiarity was forgotten. This human would kill him! The wolf took fully over and Remus lunged at the young wizard in self-defense, its fangs bared...
The human's foot connected with its head.
But as the wolf fell, it realized something: there was blood on its teeth.
Its teeth had connected with the human's leg, sinking into the young man's flesh, and the gene altering phages carried in a werewolf's saliva had already passed into the bloodstream of that red headed human.
The man would not be human for long.
Remus struck the ground, shook his snout, then looked up with angry amber eyes.
It jumped again, and this time it bit the foot decisively, yanking the wizard down. Together they crashed to the forest floor, the human's wand breaking from its grasp, disappearing amongst the broken branches.
It was then, as the wolf leapt upon the downed adversary, its claws digging into its quarry's chest, that the gnawing familiarity within its mind clamped down hard.
He had bitten a human.
A sickening feeling rose up within the wolf.
The man's freckled face was screwed up in pain, but the blue eyes flashed with pure hate.
The wolf in him hesitated…
And then its stomach churned. The bloodlust reared up and fought, urging him to finish the kill, but something more powerful reared up, screaming and shouting and threatening that he better remember or else.
That voice sounded strangely like a pink haired Auror. He knew her…
The wolf reclaimed its mind for but a second, another wolf limping towards them both, snarling menacingly.
That wolf's intent was clear.
Sliding from the man's chest, one wolf turned on the other, conveying the necessity to not kill this particular quarry.
Moments later the writhing body of the red headed man was being drug across the splintering ground of the Forbidden Forest, back into the ghost town of Hogsmeade.
The man that had fought against the carnal savagery of his darker side had finally lost. The evidence of his failed battle lay in the unconscious form of the red headed student that he had dumped on the outskirts of town.
What the wolf did not know, was that the unnatural chill passing over him was the final incantation being cast upon the village, and all within it.
Phase one was nearing completion.
ECOTS
"Now that you have joined ussss..."
The creature spoke with derision, the sudden pressure upon his face releasing, sending his head snapping into the floor with catapulted force.
The crunching of his jarred nose, nor his pained groans, was paid no mind.
"The pain you are feeling sssshall recede in time, Mr. Thomassss," Voldemort hissed. "It issss only natural after ssssuch injury. Your sssskull was in need of immediate attention."
Lifting his head, barely capable of eliciting a muscular response from his arms, his sleeve drew up, wiping the fresh blood from his face.
The movement was disagreeable, the furious retching of his torso indicative as further contents of his stomach expelled across the floor.
The snake-like man merely raised the dark hem of his cloak, avoiding the putrid stench puddling dangerously close to his unsoiled robes. "I am afraid," it hissed, "that my methodsss have rather unpleasssant ssside effectsss, which you are presssently experiencing."
His skull pounded, the poisonous words filtering in, his heart pounding against his ribcage as this part human thing kneeled before where he lay sprawled out like an infant, face down in his own mess, just trying to breathe.
Dean was screwed.
That same invisible force seized him and forced him to stare straight up at the inhuman creature. The eyes were slitted, just like the nose, the face unnaturally devoid of many of mankind's normal features.
But in the ones the wizard had there was no warmth, only lethal persuasion.
"I trussst I have your undersssstanding in that."
Dean's head bobbed in response, but it wasn't him making the movement. Something invisible was forcing him to move, his jawbone striking the floor with each successive dip.
The thing in front of him practically laughed.
"How good of you to agree," it derided. "I do sssso value obedienccce, Mr. Thomas, it wasss a trait your father lacked. How curiousss that it would passss to his precccciousss sssson."
Everything in his skull reeled, dizziness and blurriness and a strange twist to every single color he looked at all real and there. He lay there on the ground of the pub and felt pain pulsate through his entire body, and he could only stare at the thing in front of him in abject confusion.
But somehow…somehow he already knew.
The creature looked at him and smiled sinisterly. "My apologiessss, for having sssskipped introductionssss."
A cold stone sank in him, and beyond the shadow of a doubt Dean knew.
This was Voldemort.
Potter hadn't lied.
What made it all worse was that Voldemort was looking at him with something disturbing, something terrifying…
It looked like bitterness and pity mixed into one.
The creature stood and looked down at him, any trace of a smile vanishing. "Your father lacked obediencccce, Mr. Thomasssss, but you wouldn't have known, would you?" Silence filled the air for a long, poignant moment. "Assss you know, fathersss can be ssso disssappointing."
Dean groaned and the man with the sledgehammer inside his head resumed pounding with new vigor, threatening to crack his skull in half. Later he might thank the bastard; if it wasn't for how much pain he was in he might actually be afraid.
"What would you know about my father?" Dean managed to choke, blood colored spittle running down his lip.
Voldemort's wand waved lazily, the pungent mess dissipating from the floor as the creature squatted down, eyeing him with an air of superiority. "Everythhhhing, Mr. Thomassss. Everything."
He swallowed hard, choking back another wave of sheer revulsion, Hermione's weak breathing ringing within his ears. How could this monster know anything of his father, when he, himself, did not?
"Oh yessss..." Voldemort continued, eyes glinting. "Your father wassss powerful, but treacheroussss. In the end, hisss refusssal to obey ordersss was not sssomething that could be tolerated."
Dean grimaced, glaring. He had a father; a great one. His stepfather was all he had ever sodding needed.
But his mom had always told him his actual father had been a good man, but she'd refused to let one fact, one whisper of him ever come out beyond that he was no longer here, that he was dead.
She'd said he had died a hero.
And now here was a monster telling him he'd known him all along.
And that he'd killed him.
"My father's dead," Dean spat, "because of you?"
Voldemort merely smiled.
Dean's aching head reeled. His father had been a wizard.
"What did you do to him?" he practically growled, rising as best he could from the floor, ignoring the snake's threatening hissing.
The creature's pale lips tightened in a cruel line. "What wasss necccessssssary. Onccce he met that filthy Muggle mother of yourssss he could no longer be trussssted." The snake paused, looking almost contemplative. "Sssshe tainted him."
Understanding crossed Dean's face, the knowledge of what had happened sinking in. The hater of Muggles had killed his father, because he'd fallen in love with a Muggle.
"Why the hell," he groaned, "would you care about my father and who he hooked up with?"
The red eyed beast looked amused. "Becausssse, he tried to run." The serpentine head tilted, the movement looking anything but human. "You don't jussst leave your resssponssssibilitiesss. He betrayed ussss. But we found him." The slit like eyes narrowed further, disappearing into his skull. "We alwayssss find them."
"You killed him..."
"He chossse his own fate, foolissshly leaving our caussse in pursuit of family." Voldemort stood again, pacing, the snake slithering to allow his master room to move. "If I had been wissser, I would have realized the importance of such things to fools, but now..."
The red eyed, bipedal snake turned on his heel, staring him down. "Now Mr. Thomassss, I do. For foolsss ssshall risk their livesss for sssuch thingsss, however irrational it isss."
His eyes drifted past the snake of a man, fixating upon Hermione. At some point she'd regained consciousness, and her dark, exhausted eyes held his, holding the look of defiance, even as a flick of the serpent's muscular tail sent her small form slumping against the wall, her features contorted in sheer agony.
"Nagini that issss enough."
The reptile's head, perilously close to Hermione's, turned slowly to regard her master, her diamond plated tail flicking lazily near Neville's feet.
Such was the serpent's length that even stretching the length of the restroom, coiling and winding through the stalls, that there was enough scaly surface left over to wind tightly around Hermione, binding the girl effectively.
A forked tongue slid out, Voldemort's grating, hissing words filling the air with the extension of its dagger like teeth, a milky fluid exuding from them until a small drop fell to the floor.
Splat.
The reality of the toxins within that small drop struck him harder than the blow that had fractured his skull, for it would take only a single order from Voldemort, and the serpent would strike.
It could kill them all, and Voldemort would never have to lift a finger.
As if reading his thoughts Voldemort flicked a long, pale finger towards Hermione, and he swore to god the serpent actually grinned.
ECOTS
Everything hurt; her ribs, every sodding muscle, and strangely her bellybutton. It was like something had viciously yanked it from the inside and sprung it back with a rubber band, and Kally let out a low moan.
She found herself sprawled across the ground.
The ground was undeniably cold. Leaves crinkled as she shifted, shivering, but a dull warmth caressed her cheeks from a spattering of sunlight that streamed down through the forest canopy. A light breeze sent strands of hair strewing haphazardly across her face, tickling her nose, and somewhere off to the right a bird trilled.
There'd been a wolf.
Her eyes flew open and the light assaulted her retinas with blinding force. She practically jerked, kicking someone who immediately let out a dull groan.
Potter.
Potter was here and relief practically exploded through her.
He'd thrown himself in between her and that wolf. At the last second he'd thrown her back, behind him, again. It was the fifth time he'd done something undeniably brash in her presence, with the express intent of protecting her. First that shop in Knockturn, then on the train, then again when he'd thrown her out of the way to dodge Remus, then in the pub, and once more with that wolf.
The feel of Potter stirring sent her informal count right out the window.
She'd had no idea, but his arm had been strung across her waist, his legs tangled with hers. They lay tangled in a heap on the forest floor, having landed in a pile of half-dried leaves of every conceivable color, and moss crawled across nearly every other available surface. Afternoon light spilled over them, making her squint, but after blinking several times she confirmed to herself that Potter was there. He was there, very much real and alive, and suddenly she didn't feel quite so alone.
He was okay. That damnable, overbearing, poster boy of idiocy was with her.
His legs were moving, further entangling with her own, and for once she found she didn't mind.
A breath of relief escaped her lips, a choked laugh falling from his.
They just lay there and laughed. It was nervous, relieved, shocked. A strong hand fisted in the wool of her well-worn sweater, as if reassuring itself that she was actually there, and Kally's face turned in the dirt, finding Potter's inches from her own, his eyes reflecting surprise.
Slowly their laughter died; they were alive.
Potter had thrown himself in front of a literal sodding werewolf, again, just to protect her.
The bastard was alright.
She flung her arms around him, ignoring the stiffening of his body, and Kally clung to him as if doing so would fix everything.
It didn't. It didn't. Her chest ached and she was utterly terrified. Potter was shaking. The realization that she cared was something she was ill prepared for. This was awkward, this was uncomfortable, but he was alive.
A second later she was shaking too.
Potter moved. His arms instinctually gathered around her, clinging back with equal desperation, and the fact that he was even doing that…
Gods.
He dragged her up like she weighed nothing. They no longer lay on the ground in a tangled heap. Instead his fists tangled in her sweater and he clumsily gathered her against his chest, sitting up and pulling her close. To her utter shock she obliged, falling against him, and in an impulse she had her face buried against his shoulder. Her nose rubbed within the tangled folds of his cloak, her eyes closing, the rhythmic rising of his chest reassuring her he was safe.
Potter was safe. He could have been killed, the brash imbecile. She'd hex him if she only could.
He smelled of dirt and butterbeer, of leaves and cider. He smelled like autumn.
She started trembling worse, the unwelcome sensation enticing her arms to wind tighter around his neck, and had she been half in her right mind she might have questioned her sanity. But she didn't. Potter responded with equal fervor, and with one strong tug he'd pulled her onto his curled up legs and leaned back, their awkward, backwards descent halting only as his spine connected with the trunk of a tree. Its rough bark scraped beneath Kally's hands as they burrowed within his untamable hair, but she didn't honestly care if it hurt. Potter's own hands had risen to intertwine in her own hair, his fingers tangling and tugging at her scalp, and it was a good sort of pain.
The relief flooding her was unnerving, her silence only bought as Potter's face tilted down, burrowing within the tousled tresses winding past her shoulders.
It was too much for her.
She was relieved; she was scared; she was shaking.
She'd deny it for as long as she sodding could.
He was still touching her and she him. It was like she couldn't stop. His calloused fingers ran along her neck, tracing across her face, and Kally buried her face shamelessly against his neck and tried not to think about how much she liked the way he smelled.
She hated him. She hated him and his recklessness. She hated his self-righteous protectiveness. She hated that he'd strode out into the middle of the sodding street and told Death Eaters to give it their best shot.
Potter's cloak caught against the weathered bark of the tree when he tried to adjust.
It was a moment of clarity, sanity. She tried to move…
He wouldn't let her. His arms just tightened around her, silently conveying his desire for her to stay put, and for some reason she did. She breathed him in as he adjusted, giving an annoyed tug at his cloak until it tore free, and all she could think about was that a salty scent from his sweat lingered upon his collar. It overwhelmed her senses almost maddeningly.
She could no longer see a thing asides from him, the king of idiocy, yet insanely it was all she needed.
He'd nearly died.
"You are such," she whispered falteringly, "an asshole." She shook her head against his neck, her voice choked, and when he went to actually speak she made an upset, angry sound that shut him almost immediately up.
She didn't know what she wanted to say, but she was furious.
She was also still shaking, and Potter let out a low, out-of-place chuckle. His hand remained in her hair, his face tilted to look at the side of hers, the wizard brushing strand by strand out of her eyes.
She kept them determinedly closed until she got herself under control.
When she did she pulled back and her eyes practically flashed. "That's the second time you've done that, and that's if we're only counting your idiotic feats involving wolves. What the hell were you thinking, Potter? You could have been-"
The entire time he'd stared at her. The green of his eyes darkened and he let out a sound.
He grabbed onto her face and suddenly his nose was pressed firm to her cheek, the wizard speaking directly against her skin, Kally about gasping. "Actually," he said, and his voice was low and raspy, "I wasn't."
And that was that.
She practically felt his Adam's apple rise and fall in a hard swallow, his breath tracing along her skin, and Kally simply shivered. "You're an idiot."
He huffed a breath like a damn bull. "Just figuring that out?" A low rumbling humor vibrated through his chest. "Damn Kaylens, knew you were new to all this magic shit, but didn't know you were slow-"
She smacked his chest.
Hard.
His lips twitched, but every other line of his face remained deadly serious. It was like looking at a mask of stone. His gaze raked over hers, and suddenly his hold on her grew stiff, taut, like he wasn't sure what to do with his hands.
"I scared you."
There was a twig sticking out of his hair.
She said nothing.
"You were worried," he continued, and his brow creased, the line damn deep, "about me." He looked as confused as he sounded, and she wanted to smack him all over again.
Her breathing was shaky, but she managed to wet her lips enough to make them move. "You are," she promised him, "a complete idiot."
He looked at her, just looked. Kally remained curled up on his legs, sitting practically sideways on him.
His eyebrows dipped in a low line over his eyes. "So," he muttered, "a thank you wouldn't be coming anytime soon then?"
Her mouth fell open and she sputtered.
Actually sputtered.
He snorted, and with what she could only describe as a look of utter confliction he moved again. He dropped his hands to her waist, fingers flexing against her hips, the wizard studying her for a seriously long time.
It felt like her heart was about to pound out of her chest.
She tore her eyes away from him, staring determinedly at the forest floor. The dirt was fascinating. It really was. It didn't up and do suicidal things like jump in front of hexes and wolves and men in cloaks and-
A finger found her chin, a hand cupping it and forcing her face to turn. He made her actually look at him, and she wanted to slap him for it.
"Kaylens?" he whispered, and it sounded more plea than question.
She willed her eyes to shut and they ignored her. "No," she said. "You are not getting off this easily. Not a chance."
A sad smile graced his face. "So nothing has changed."
"Pr-precisely." Her voice caught and it was horrifying.
His entire expression faltered, his forest colored eyes betraying a sad hint of amusement. "Stuttering Kaylens," he whispered, hand sliding up from her chin to trace her cheekbone. This touching…this sudden touching they were doing…she was about to crawl right out of her skin, but if he stopped she'd hex him. She would.
But he didn't, he just kept touching, talking…
"First you're secretive," he said, "then you're cold, annoying, clever, downright violent, brave, and now stuttering." He paused, looking at her as if he'd never seen her before. "How much more do you expect me to take?"
She bit down on her lower lip, and when she spoke her voice was soft. "How much can you?"
His throat rose in a tense swallow. "Not a lot."
Then he pulled her towards him, his arms fully around her, and Kally's face burrowed back in his neck.
Harry Potter held her and sodding shook; so did she.
In the empty forest, far from where Seamus had fallen, far from the overwhelmed Hogsmeade, and far from Hogwarts, they clung to the only comfort they had.
Each other.
ECOTS
Hermione was gone.
Gone.
He had taken her, the snake smacking her beaten face into the wall, and there had been no amount of knowledge or bravery that could prevent it from happening.
There were times when sheer knowledge failed in the face of the upper hand, and Dean now knew this, for Hermione Granger, cleverest witch of their year, had fallen prey to the python that had clamped its teeth through her clothing, dragging her from the room and into the village's streets.
The monster wasn't killing her, he was keeping her.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
Dean's dark eyes fixated upon the monster, hating him with renewed passion, for until this moment he had been miraculously sheltered from the villain's treachery.
Or at least he had thought so.
"My father was not a Death Eater," he spat dangerously.
Voldemort practically smiled. "Sssso like a Muggle, failing to believe the trutttth, even when it isss dangled right in front of them." Its thick accentuation made its speech sound ill-suited to the language of man. His kind preferred its own speech, the speech of those that slithered upon their bellies, and Dean flat out shuddered.
Voldemort hissed like a snake.
"You are NOT a filtttthy Muggle! Your thoughtssss," he susurrated in disgust, "tainted they may be, but your blood issss pure."
Dean wasn't sure what made him say it. Maybe it was the smear of blood left in Hermione's wake; he could see the exact path Nagini had drug her down. Maybe it was hearing that Voldemort was the one who had killed his father.
Or maybe it was just that he was really pissed off at that bastard in his head.
Either way Dean looked straight at Voldemort. "No it's not. My mother's blood runs through my veins." Voldemort's face narrowed in disgust, and Dean took his time annunciating his next words, "Her filthy, Muggle stained, blood."
The creature's tone was deathly quiet, "Your fattther wassss a pureblood, assss are you. There isss notttthing left to conssssider on the matter."
Dean could only stare, hating the unquestioning look upon the creatures face.
He was insane. Bloody insane.
"Your thoughtssss have been tainted, Mr. Thomassss. We sssshall fixxx that."
Paralyzing fear flowed through him, preventing him from saying a word of dissent as Voldemort's dictation continued.
"I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I dessssire your deattth for your filthy maternal parentage, yet you are wrong."
No he wasn't... Dean knew enough to know that, yet the creature continued.
"I assssk you, would I have ssssaved your life, healed your sssskull, if I were truly an enemy?" Voldemort's searching gaze roamed over him, penetrating far deeper than his outer layer of skin, for he could almost hear the villain's thoughts resonating within his mind.
"You feel it don't you, Mr. Thomassss." He leaned forward, eagerness written across his face. "You can feel your fear disssssipating. You know I am not your enemy, you know how I crave you asss an ally."
Dean Thomas stared into the face of evil, unwilling to believe the words pouring from the serpent's mouth, his own only able to form a single word through the penetrating persuasion ringing through his mind.
"Why?"
"Becausssse you are powerful, asssss wassss your treacheroussss father," Voldemort said, circling his kneeling form. "And becaussse you're alone. Alone asss we all are. I can feel how ssstrongly you dessssire to ssssee the truth, the truth assss I oncccce ssssaw it."
The monster's words were no longer discernible from his own, at least not to him. He could no longer tear his eyes from Voldemort's, such was the power reverberating there.
"Make a choicccce my child. Make your choiccce and I ssssshall free you from thisss prissson."
"No prison...There's no..."
"Oh but there isss. You like sssso many before you jusssst fail to ssssee it. Yet tell me, why do the powerful hide from the filtttthy Mugglesss when we sssshould rule? The Mugglessss, weak asss they are, have imprisssoned usss into our sssshroudsss of sssecreccccy."
Dean could not remove his eyes from the man, his jumbled words making little sense.
"For... For their safety..."
"NO!" The serpent's roar nearly destroyed him, sending him crumbling pathetically to the floor.
It was then that the eye contact was broken. It was then that the Legilimency, the persuasive power of suggestion that Voldemort had mastered, ended.
"We hide from them for our own sssafety! Mugglessss would kill our kind without a ssssecond glancccce if only pressssented with the opportunity! They are an INFESSSSTATION on the earth! They desssstroy all they touch! They will RUIN ussss all!"
The entire room shook as a stall door slammed in the creature's anger.
"It isssss MY job, my DUTY to sssee that it never comesss to that! The presssservation of our sssspecies isss at sssstake, and it isss ussss againsssst them! The ssssooner you ssssee it the sssafer you sssshall be!"
For reasons he could barely begin to comprehend, Dean's eyes remained rigidly upon the floor. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Becausssse your mind hassss not been made up. Becausssse you may not be sssstupid enough assss issss that vile Mudblood Nagini issss ridding usss of. Becaussse I need eyesss and earsss to aid in the presssservation of our ssspecccciesssss, and I think you are intelligent enough to undersssstand the impotenccccy of thossse foolissssh enough to sssstand bessssides that old fool that callssss himssself your leader!"
What the fuck was he talking about?
Dean swallowed back a bit of blood. "Leader?"
"You Headmasssster."
Voldemort again surprised him, dropping to the floor in front of him, the neat folds of the creature's robes lost upon the dirty tile.
"We are at war, and ssssoon you will be forcccced to choosssse a sssside. Today I have ssssought to enssssure that thossse sssstrong enough to do sssso know the truth. Now look at me!"
Again that invisible force forced his head upwards, the red eyes boring into his soul.
"Make your choice."
ECOTS
Tonks stared.
She well and truly stared.
Sirius was dead, but for a fleeting instant she'd had hope.
She'd been wrong. Of course she'd been wrong. The universe took perverse pleasure in getting her hopes up, then smashing them down like an inconsequential flea.
Another ghost sat before her on the rich upholstery, calmly twirling Chardonnay within a goblet, urging her to indulge in one of her own.
She was far too intelligent to drink anything that someone who was supposed to be dead had given her. That second glass of Chardonnay sat untouched on the mahogany table, a small ring of perspiration darkening the rich wood around it.
That ghost eyed the untouched glass forlornly. "Are you really intending to let that go to waste?"
Tonks shot him an extra special look, saved up just for him.
The ghost let out a sigh, then lowered the ornate crystal ware from his lips. And then the ghost of Regulus Black examined her, the man alive and well.
"It's a shame we never got to know each other as children, Nymphadora," his cultured voice informed. "Had we, then you might realize that I am trying to be hospitable, not poison you."
"Forgive me for not trusting someone who felt the need to disarm me," she replied tartly, the absence of her wand weighing heavily upon her psyche. Back in the cemetery she'd hesitated. She'd hesitated because she'd thought it was Sirius standing in those headlights, and that second of indecision had been all the time Regulus had needed to stun her.
She could practically hear Kingsley's yelling already. Auror rule number seventeen: never, ever, ever hesitate.
Regulus' thin lips upturned into a strained smile. "Surely you must understand that I cannot fully trust you, Nymphadora. I remember how hell bent you were on becoming an Auror, and now..." His eyes fell to the Ministry of Magic crest gracing her lapel. "It appears you have succeeded. Terrifying." His words turned into a caustic drawl, "How ever did you manage to pass the group obstacle course?"
She scowled at the reminder. "Geeze, you remembered I'm a klutz. I'm touched."
He ignored her with a dismissive wave. "I had to disarm you, cousin. I could not very well have your self-righteous side stunning me before we had a chance to…catch up."
Her dark eyes narrowed, all characteristic warmth long since fled. "Old times it is then, Regulus. So tell me, how was it, killing Muggles at your masters bidding? I bet it wa-"
"Correction," he interrupted, taking a long, calculating sip of the deep red fluid, "I have only killed one Muggle, be it indirectly."
"I'm sure," she spat. "I bet you were disappointed your homicidal career failed to last longer. After all, you spent your whole life idolizing those cloaked-in-black wonders, but barely lasted a week amongst your precious Death Eaters."
The change was immediate.
Regulus went still, his hand stiffening on his drink, and then in one fluid motion he stood and paced to the end of the study.
Her eyes followed him the entire way.
"So what happened, Reggie?" she asked. "Couldn't play with the big boys and girls when it came down to it? Weren't strong enough?"
He did not so much as flinch. "You should not speak of things you know naught about."
"Oh, but I know plenty, Reggie. I may have been just a child when you left to join them but I knew enough."
"Then you would know how ill-advised it is to speak of this so openly. And it is, Regulus, I believe I told you to drop that infernal Reggie nickname when you were four."
"Drop my given name and I'll learn to enunciate your full one."
An inclined eyebrow was her response, yet she paid it no mind. The pounding of her head was fading, and her eyes were already roaming across the room, regaining her bearings.
"If you are searching for your friends," Regulus' voice broke in observantly, "you will be glad to know they are fine. Their injuries were a bit more severe than your own, but they are presently in the guest suite, receiving some well needed rest."
Her stomach lurched. "How severe?" She looked around. "Why did you bring us here. Regulus?"
He shrugged impassively, placing his wine glass onto an end table. "Clearly help was needed, and you were in no condition to provide it."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know it. You're wondering why your prejudicial cousin has risen from the grave, and instead of leaving your tainted self and your Muggle friends to rot in that ditch you wound up in – excellent driving by the way – choose to help you."
She eyed him crudely. "Well I was wondering why your corpse looked so non-desiccated."
Regulus threw his head back, a dry laugh escaping his throat, echoing off the dark paneling. "Ah, I was wondering when we would get to that."
Long minutes passed, the only sign of its passage being the telltale ringing of the grandfather clock in the corner, as it struck upon yet another hour of the night.
Apparently it was two in the morning.
She must have been unconscious for hours before awakening upon the couch.
"You willingly helped Muggles. Why?"
He eyed her disdainfully. "I will admit, I harbored them no love, at a time. But you'd be surprised what living with them for sixteen years does to curtail one's distaste."
"So that's what you've been doing? Living as a Muggle?"
"In a manner of speaking."
She groaned, never allowing her eyes to leave her miraculously risen cousin. "For once, a straight answer, Reggie."
He laughed hollowly, drumming his fingers across the small table. "The Death Eaters attempted to kill me, Nymphadora, and I was a marked Death Eater to the Ministry. The Muggle world, ironically enough, was my only option for safety." He stopped in front of a large, decorative mirror, his hands tussling his slicked hair. "I started again there."
"Regulus, there was a body. Your body."
He calmly re-adjusted a particularly out of place strand. One would never know, just by looking at the two, that they were discussing his death.
The death of a Death Eater had once been a widely celebrated occasion.
"I was tipped off that my defection had angered certain...members. I fled barely in time, and when they finally found me, the plan to ensure my survival had already been set into motion."
From her spot upon the settee, she watched as his eyes studied his reflection, as if trying to decide if he liked what he saw beneath the surface.
"I had proffered a vial of Polyjuice potion, just enough to ensure the transformation of a single person. A single unfortunate soul..."
He trained off. The ghost of the past stood there, staring at his own reflection, and Tonks had the distinct impression he'd never told anyone this before.
When he finally continued his words were bitter. "They finally found me a few days later on a Muggle avenue. I knew I had no more time to run, but that so long as I was on a busy street I would remain safe. They would not dare attack in front of so many witnesses."
His gaze fell from his reflection, his fingers running blindly across the mirror's wrought iron frame, like he was thinking hard about something.
"The nearest person to convince had been a destitute in rags," he ground out. "Once they had drunk the potion, I disapparated."
A distinct tightening of her chest alerted her of what that actually meant. "Please tell me you didn't…"
He interrupted her as indifferently as if she'd been asking about the weather. "I can only assume what happened next, since my body was found."
"You sacrificed an innocent person to save your own skin."
His fists tightened around the edge of the mirror, his gaze avoiding his own reflection. "I know. But I did what was necessary. My life was of more value than the street urchins."
The horror within her chest was close to exploding. "A-a child? You k-killed a child..."
"A teenage drug addict," he spat. "Runaways like that are willing to do anything for a quick fix, and the likelihood of them ever getting clean long enough to do more than be a burden on their family and society is minimal."
"Who are you to make that choice?"! she cried. "They could have had a chance-"
"Statistics don't like, Nymphadora. Besides, the urchin did not know the things about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that I did."
She felt sick and looked for a weapon. Any weapon. Her eyes landed on the untouched goblet and she considered breaking it off at the stem to stab him with.
He just had to get a bit closer…
"And I suppose you expect me to believe that you were going to come forward with that information?" she said, forcing a strange calm to her words.
His deadened expression deepened. "If self-preservation demanded it, I would have."
She shook her head disbelievingly, her fingers wrapping around the cushions she sat upon. "You're a monster."
He turned on her, "I was, but unlike you the things I grew to do were never my choice. Don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise."
"You always have a choice!"
"No, Nymphadora. Purebloods don't always get a choice. My mother and father taught me that much. We all can't run away like Andromeda."
Her hair had turned red and she stared him down. "You can't blame them for your choices, Regulus."
"Then who should I blame? Unlike you I was taught to hate."
"Sirius was able to make his own-"
He spun and for a second lightning flashed in his eyes. "Sirius was a self-conceited BASTARD!" She jumped, furious, but he was going on. "Sirius was always the strong one! The rebellious one! But never for a second did he try to help me, Nymphadora! He never cared about his poor, pathetic brother. Not from the moment I was placed into Slytherin. Never delude yourself into thinking I could have chosen the path he did."
He spun away, facing the wall. "The second I donned the Slytherin crest he lumped me in with the rest of our cursed family. They were all I had."
"You should be in Azkaban."
"You're probably right, but that is not the reality."
"You're a self-confessed murderer," she replied. "It should be."
"Still living in the sheltered world of childhood are we? You never could accept the cold realities of the world, not with your mummy and daddy sheltering you as they were, encouraging your idealistic fantasies..."
"Better than Pureblooded homicidal mania."
His head fell. "Yes... It was homicidal wasn't it? As was I..."
Silence fell.
Inevitably he was the one who broke it.
"As a Muggle you'd be amazed at the high paying jobs one can achieve if they only possess the proper persuasion." His long fingers caressed the worn wood of his wand, its blunt end emerging from the pocket of his overcoat.
Her eyes narrowed. "You threatened them..."
"No, I confounded them," he responded indifferently. "By the time I was done I had them believing I had the proper qualifications, the proper schooling, the best references..." He returned to the mirror, studying his reflection. "I was doing them a favor really. I am much better at my job than any of those Muggle nutters that profess to be my colleagues. Scalpels indeed..."
"Scalpels?" she repeated dully, having a sneaking suspicion of where he was going with this and really hoping she was wrong.
He nodded curtly. "Yes, Nymphadora, I am a Healer, or a doctor so to speak."
"Being a healer requires years of study, Regulus!" she practically screamed. "You mean to tell me you confounded actual doctors into believing you were-"
"How cute that you think I had to confound only doctors, Nymphadora. Let's not forget the entire medical review board, the licensing agency, the hospital staff..."
"How can you just fall into that?" her voice quivered with suppressed rage, her brain frantically turning over the new information, attempting to process it unsuccessfully.
"I have years of wrong to set right, cousin. That seemed as good a way as any, considering Muggles and their ineffective healing methods."
"You're not a bleeding HEALER, Regulus! You couldn't possibly have known what you were doing!"
"True," he said. "Obviously memory charms were often used, particularly in my early years when mistakes were made. But I practiced it until I got it right."
"You used human beings as guinea pigs?" The shrillness to her voice had reached a crescendo.
He shrugged. "It was no worse than the treatment they had been getting from my so-called colleagues."
"But guinea pigs? You could have killed someone Regulus!"
"I never did, Nymphadora. Instead I saved them, many of them." He spoke with conviction, turning to her, his face as calm as ever despite the clear belief in his eyes.
Until then his eyes had retained the look of the dead. Until then Tonks would have believed that his soul was as dead as his body had been rumored to be.
Until then she had not realized what his hasty risks had meant.
"Many of them would have died had it not been for my magic, Nymphadora, fully trained Healer or not. The magic they lack, the magic the Ministry selfishly keeps to themselves…do you have any idea how many Muggles die from bleeding out when there are simple cauterization charms that could tide them over until a transfusion is received? Or how hard it is to ventilate a drowning victim when the water is still in their lungs? It is a pity that they cannot simply vanish it. The survival rates in children improved dramatically. And then there are the diagnostic charms. Muggles are forced to wait for machines to image the internal organs, and there are often lines at the CAT and MRI machines in trauma centers. Then someone highly trained has to read them and do their best to often guess at what is not showing up. Do you have any idea how many of them die because their alleged hero Muggle doctors are unable to see what is really going on internally?"
She swallowed hard, grasping for the words. "That's how you helped Emily and Kenneth..."
He nodded, his steely gaze boring into her own. "Yes. The girl's spleen had been severed and she had a collapsed lung, courtesy of her father's driving skills. Had she had to wait for such high tech treatment she may have died."
The severity of the situation hit her.
Emily Bothan could have died, and it had taken a reformed Death Eater to save her.
And he had.
Suddenly Regulus Black's resemblance to Sirius ran more than skin deep. Maybe there was something good.
As if reading her thoughts he spoke. "Speaking of my estranged world, how is that dear brother of mine? Back in Azkaban I suppose?" He gestured to a copy of the paper that lay on the small stand beneath the mirror. "I saw his picture in the paper a few years back."
She tore her eyes from him for the first time since awakening. There was no longer a reason to eye him suspiciously.
"He's dead."
There was a pause, the silence heavy, and then a single word...
"How?"
Just a single word answered him.
Just one.
"Bellatrix."
Tonks noticeably jerked as his fist pounded down, grinding into a wooden stand. She stared at him, tense, and he seemed to have forgotten all about her. Rage was in his eyes and a cold burning fury shone on his face.
He took a deep breath…
And then it was gone, as if it had never been there at all.
"I believe it's time I returned," he said with a dangerous note of calm, ignorant or uncaring of how his bloodied knuckles stained the expensive wood. "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named may have been gone for years, but I doubt his true aims have changed. His plan to destroy the Muggle world will no doubt retain the central elements."
"Regulus, you're a known Death Eater. The second the Ministry finds out you're alive they'll imprison you without trial."
The silence was scarcely penetrable by his next words. "I'll be needing to speak to the Minister of Magic in a closed location then. I will not go to prison."
"I'll do you one better: Albus Dumbledore."
Regulus Black grimaced, his face contorting, but it looked like he liked that prospect better. "Fine, I suppose that it is about time I saw how truly great that man supposedly is."
And despite herself, despite every reason not to, Tonks did not break off the goblet's stem to stab him.
Instead she nodded. "Alright, let's go."
