Chapter Eight: You know me so well
"Never let it be said that I run away from chores." Ron grinned as he put another plate in the cupboard.
Hermione rolled her eyes from where she was wiping down the table.
"That is because you're using your powers to do the chores for you." She muttered.
"I don't know what you mean." Ron said, still grinning as his hand burst into flames, evaporating the water on the plate.
Harry handed him a new one from where he stood at the sink, scrubbing the remains of dinner from the silverware.
"You have to admit Hermione; this cuts our time like… in half." He pointed out.
"Not if he ends up burning down the kitchen. Or worse the entire house with us in it." she muttered, not bothering to look at them. More forceful than strictly necessary she shoved the chair under the table.
"I don't know, I think getting expelled is worse than dying, don't you agree?" Harry stage-whispered to Ron, who burst out laughing.
That wasn't the only thing to burst out of him.
The fire on his hand roared up, licking the cabinets on the wall, leaving a dark stain.
Ron yelped, Hermione cursed like a sailor and Harry did the only thing that seemed logical.
Grabbing a part of Rons' arm that was not burning he plunged his friends' entire arm into the water in the sink.
The flames didn't die.
"Turn it off." Harry urged Ron.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder!" Hermione hissed.
"Everything alright in here?"
Swirling around and moving quickly to block Ron from view, Harry and Hermione faced Sirius simultaneously.
"Ahm…nothing…" Harry promised, still keeping Ron's arms submerged in the dirty water of the sink behind his back.
Sirius frowned.
"What are you doing?" he asked, slightly suspicious.
"Playing a game." Hermione burst out, edging even closer to Harry until they stood shoulder to shoulder, effectively blocking Sirius's view of Ron further.
"Ron lost so now he has to keep his hand in the dirty dish-water for another minute but he was trying to cheat so Harry had to restrain him." She mumbled.
"What kind of game is this?" Sirius asked, clearly bewildered.
"Truth or Dare." Hermione and Harry said immediately.
"Okay…" Sirius said slowly. "Carry on then…I guess?"
He retreated slowly back up the stairs, not without looking back at them one last time.
As soon as they were sure he was out of earshot Harry and Hermione turned back to Ron. The fire hat gone out at some point so it was safe to let him take his arm out of the sink.
"Urgh…that is disgusting." he moaned as he picked soggy pieces of leftovers from his arm.
"Could have been a lot worse." Hermione snapped.
"Yeah Ron, when I said dying wasn't that bad, I didn't mean for you to kill us instantly." Harry laughed. Then he turned to Hermione and added: "And how did you know what I was going to say?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh please, there's nothing I don't know about you two." She said dismissively.
"Nothing?" Ron asked with a raised eyebrow as Harry sniggered.
"This isn't a joke Harry." Hermione snapped at him, ignoring Ron.
"Look Hermione, you have to admit that even you have hit a dead end in your research. At some point books won't give us an answer. If I want to control my power, I actually have to use them." Ron pointed out.
"Or talk to a grown-up who might know what the hell is going on with you. I'm just…I don't want you to get hurt or accidentally hurt someone else." She muttered, running a hand through her hair.
"Hey, I'm careful." Ron said with his arms open wide.
Hermione just pointed at the burned cabinet.
"Okay, but that's wood, wood is supposed to burn." Ron tried to defend himself.
She shook her head. "You'll see Ron, I will find something that will help us with…this…!" she promised.
.
.
The next morning marked the last week of the summer holidays and for the first time Harrys thoughts returned to Hogwarts and the school year ahead of him.
How was he supposed to concentrate on things like Charms and Potions and History of Magic when there was a secret war going on? Did they really expect him to just go to classes and let them handle everything?
Apparently, they did but while everybody else was allowed to go to Diagon Ally to get their supplies, Sirius offered to go in his stead.
Well, offered was the wrong word.
Sirius had told him and that was pretty much the end of that conversation.
"Why can't I go? I've been out before and in Diagon Ally since Voldemort's return. Why can't I go today?" he asked, moodily stabbing a piece of toast with his butter-knife.
"Because the holidays are almost over and Diagon Ally will be run over with parents and students and I'm not risking anything. It'll be crowded, the perfect place for an ambush." Sirius said, putting a plate of sliced apples down in front of him.
Harry rolled his eyes and continued stabbing the piece of bread harder.
"This is ridiculous!" he pointed out.
"It's just for the afternoon Harry. And stop playing with your food." Remus reminded him.
"I'm not playing, I'm practicing." Harry muttered.
"Practicing what?" Hermione asked, who was just sitting down across from him.
"The minister, Voldemort, the Deatheaters, take your pick." He replied moodily.
God, he felt awful.
He hadn't slept at all last night between nightmares of endless corridors and locked doors and recurring memories of the prophecy and of course Voldemort taunting him in his dreams. And then the Daily Prophet had once again been filled with bullshit to the brim with Fudge lying like he was trying for a new World Record.
So all in all the day hadn't started off great.
A buzz, like a swarm of bees, was filling his ears and there was a painful pressure behind his eyes like.
"You're in a right mood…" Ron muttered.
He wasn't wrong.
Harry had managed to snap at everyone before breakfast had started.
And he didn't feel like changing now.
"Whatever. Have fun. I hope there will be long lines for you to wait in." Harry replied, pushing his chair back harder than necessary.
After disposing of his left-overs he wandered upstairs into his bedroom.
Through the open door he could hear the others getting ready downstairs and eventually leave.
The buzz in his ears intensified and his scar started throbbing.
Sitting on his bed he realized that he was all alone in the house for the first time.
For a second, he thought of maybe taking the bus to go and see Gina and the others but quickly threw that idea aside when he saw the heavy rain battering the windows outside. Daphne was at the Academy today so no hanging out with her either.
Besides, Sirius would probably be alerted if he left the house.
So what was he supposed to do on his own for the rest of the afternoon?
Well, he wasn't completely on his own, Kreacher was somewhere in the house, probably lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to insult him.
Great.
He could already see that this was going to be a long morning.
.
He found himself back in the living room, trailing his fingers gently over the yellow keys of the old Grand Piano in the corner.
Hermione had taken to playing a few times these past weeks.
It had been ages since he had played himself.
While being babysat by Ms. Fig had never been fun, she did do her best make it bearable most times when she wasn't showing off her collection of cats.
Teaching him French and a few songs from her childhood on the piano being the most memorable things.
Slowly he sat down on the stool, placing his fingers in the same manner she had taught him and gently, carefully pressed down on the first key.
The tone echoed through the room and died away when he released the pressure.
Slowly he pressed down again, adding another from his right hand, followed by more key-strokes.
The melody was wonky and not at the right pace but you could still recognize it.
There had been lyrics that went along with the melody but Harry didn't remember them.
Instead he just hummed along as he replayed the same two cords over and over, gaining confidence with each time.
He was so immersed in his playing that he didn't notice the figure stepping form the shadows until it stood right next to him.
Harry flinched, his hands slipping from the keys.
The melody cut off abruptly.
"Merlin, Kreacher, you gave my quite a scare!" he heaved, one hand placed onto his chest.
Kreachers' eyes were fixated on the piano, his lips trembling.
Was he crying?
"Play it again." the elf whispered.
"What?" Harry asked confused.
"Play it again!" Kreacher all but shouted.
Hastily Harry placed his fingers back onto the keys.
The first few strokes were clumsy but then he found his rhythm and the melody evened out.
Harry eyed Kreacher from the corner of his eyes.
"Sing." The elf instructed him.
"I…I don't know the words anymore…" Harry admitted softly.
To his surprise the elf started to sing for him.
It was by far not a pleasant sound. But the elf sang and his hypnotic gaze never left Harrys hands as they moved over the keys one by one.
As the elf sang, Harrys memories about the song slowly returned and he recognized the familiar words.
Slowly he started to sing along.
The song ended and Harry let the last tune fade away before releasing the key.
Kreacher turned to look at him and tears welled up in his eyes.
Without prompting him to, he began to talk.
"Kreacher sang that song to Master Regulus when he was just a wee baby. It was the only thing that could ever calm his crying."
Regulus, Sirius's younger brother…that was a topic that hardly ever came up in the house.
Harry of course knew about him and he remembered all to good how Kreacher had reacted when Harry had almost entered Regulus's room last summer on accident. It obviously wasn't a soar topic just for Sirius.
"What…what happened to him? Sirius says…he got in over his head with the Deatheaters and tried to run and they…killed…." Harry began but Kreacher snarled.
"The blood-traitor doesn't know anything! He left! He abandoned his own flesh and blood. And now he dares to spread lies! Master Regulus would never run! He was a good master and a good wizard. The only one Kreacher has ever known!" the elf roared.
Harry edged away from the irate creature.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know. What happened to him then?" he asked carefully.
"Kreacher cannot say it. Kreacher vowed to not say anything." The elf muttered, his long and gnarled bony fingers hovering over the piano keys once more.
"That's okay, Kreacher, you don't have to tell me if you can't or won't." Harry said gently.
Kreacher nodded, turned around and walked away.
And Harry wondered what the hell had just happened.
Another mystery to add to the ever-growing pile of 'What-the-hells?'.
.
He kept on pacing through the house like a caged tiger, going from room to room, back and forth, bored and restless.
Finally, he returned to his room and collapsed on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The buzzing had returned.
.
Next thing he knew he wasn't in his bedroom at Nr. 12 Grimmauld Place but in a cold stone room with vaulted ceilings, marble floors and portraits of blond men and women on the walls.
He recognized it as the sitting room at Malfoy manor, the one in which he, Victor and Elijah had battled the Deatheaters for Isaacs freedom.
But nothing in the room reminded of that fight.
The gaping hole in the ground had been sealed and all marks of spell fire were gone.
Instead a long table took up the room with a throne-like chair at the head and simpler chairs with high backs down the side.
And right now, all these chairs were occupied by people in black robes and in the throne-like chair sat the Dark Lord himself.
But there were more people gathered in the room, standing off to the sides, hidden in the shadows. Many had hoods covering their faces.
Wrapped around his shoulders and resting partly on the table was his gigantic snake Nagini.
Her tongue would flicker out of her mouth every few seconds, ghosting over Voldemort's face and neck and arms as she wound herself further around him.
If her weight bothered him the dark wizard didn't show it.
Instead he petted her had with a long skeletal finger while further down the table a wizard ranted.
"We should strike while we have the element of surprise on our side. Nobody suspects anything, they think Potter is lying. The Minister is too scared and there is virtually nothing standing against us."
"Except Dumbledore and his little club do-gooders." sneered another wizard.
He was thin and had a long-braided ponytail.
Harry recognized him. His name was Yaxly and he was as evil as he was handsome.
"They don't match our force." the other Deatheater countered.
"We don't have the numbers yet. If we strike it should be well coordinated and sure to succeed. Otherwise we give away any advantages we might have." said a familiar voice.
Lucius Malfoy sat close to the Dark Lord, looking very healthy and smug.
"Lucius has a point." Silence fell over the gathered crowd and all heads turned to Voldemort from where he had spoken.
"First we must acquire more subjects. Now is not the time to be picky. Get whoever you can. And of course, our little operation should be moved forward. How are preparations for our field-trip going?" he whispered but it was loud enough to carry through the silent room.
A bulky man rose from the far end of the table.
He bowed at Voldemort before explaining: "Preparations are almost complete. I expect to carry forward with our motion within the fortnight."
"That is good."
The Deatheater sat back down, visibly relieved that his words had pleased the Dark Lord.
Something moved in the corner of Harrys eyes and he caught the sight of Narcissa Malfoys blond hair.
He hadn't noticed her before.
She was standing in the shadows of one of the grand fireplaces, eyes surveying the gathered crowd.
She was pale and her eyes looked sunken in.
She looked exhausted.
Of course, the Dark Lord and his underlings crashing in your house was not exactly a pleasant thing.
She was doing her best not to be seen, standing so far away from her husband.
Harry watched as she reached up to tuck away a strand of her hair that had gotten lose and immediately noticed the dark bruises on her wrists. She had lost weight as well.
He felt a twang of pity.
Narcissa was a complicated character, full of contradicting traits and, as he was sure, always after her own agenda.
Which was exactly why Harry wasn't too keen on helping her.
And yet seeing her like this…
.
He blinked and suddenly he was back at Grimmauld Place, lying of the floor besides his bed, head throbbing and everything was spinning.
With a slight moan he sat up, rubbing his face, hissing when he touched his scar and it sent new waves of pain through his head.
He stumbled to his feet and towards the judgemental mirror.
His face was chalk-white and against that his scar burned red.
But how? In the past his scar hurting had warned him of Voldemort being close by but he couldn't be!
Was it because of what he's just seen?
And what exactly had that been?
It had felt similar to his dreams before Voldemort's return and his experience in Godrics Hollow with Luna but he was no seer, he couldn't do stuff she could!
Shaking the pain and confusion from his befuddled mind, he left the room in a haste, trying to find something to distract him from the throbbing pain and racing thoughts.
His goal had been the second-floor bathroom but the room he found himself in was unfamiliar to him. Still it made him stop when he looked around.
It was almost empty but the walls were covered by what looked like a tapestry, spanning in a circle around the walls of the room, heavy and dusty.
The tapestry itself looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though doxies had gnawed it in places; but the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show him a sprawling family tree dating back, as far as Harry could tell, to the Middle Ages.
But in some places faces and names had been burned away, leaving ugly holes in the tapestry.
He stepped up to what looked like the most recent part of the tree.
He spotted Walburga Black right away and the branches that let away from her.
The first one let straight to a brunt hole under which Harry could just make out the name "Sirius Orion Black".
What a charming woman she must have been for burning her sons face off the family tree.
The second branch coming form her let to the face of a young man, who bore a striking resemblance to Sirius.
Even if there hadn't been a name underneath the portrait Harry would have known him as Regulus Black, Sirius' younger brother.
Kreacher's reaction earlier had left Harry puzzled, but Regulus wasn't the only Black he was interested anymore.
This whole family had secrets and he felt like they would be playing a big role in the battles yet to come.
Three of them in particular.
Next to the brothers, coming from a different branch were those three faces next to each other, yet one was burned off again.
Oldest to youngest their names read Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa.
But Andromedas face had been burned off.
Still, the Black Sisters were all too familiar to him.
Andy and her family had been a welcome addition to his own new family. Like Sirius she had, in the eyes of her family, turned out a Blood-Traitor by falling in love and marrying a muggle, Ted Tonks.
As far as he knew, Andy hadn't talked to Narcissa since she had been kicked out of the family a good twenty years ago and hadn't seen Bellatrix since her trial where she had represented the Longbottom-family. She had been part of her sister's life-long sentence to Azkaban. Either you really had to hate your family to do so or you were really detached.
At least with Bellatrix, her husband a few other nastier Deatheaters still detained in Azkaban they had few enemies to be concerned about.
His gaze turned slightly and lingered somewhat longer on Narcissa.
The face stitched into the tapestry resembled her real life self but it was hard to capture the essence of someone like Narcissa. That woman had so many sides to her that Harry still wasn't sure if he'd made the right decision concerning her and her request.
He hadn't heard from her since the beginning of the summer, despite writing he multiple times via their shared parchment.
She was still alive, attending Wizengamot meetings in her husband's stead, according to Sirius but even those had gotten fewer and fewer.
Apparently, Malfoy Sr. was "sick" and not able to attend to his regular duties and she was taking care of him.
Harry had called bullshit on that the second he heard it but nobody around him really disagreed with him so that was that…
But Narcissa was still a matter that didn't give him any peace.
He had made her a promise. But right now, he was making a pro/con list in his head on whether he should act upon it. So far, the cons outweighed the pros by number but the pros were some very solid points. Like, Pro: she had saved his life from a deranged and bloodthirsty Barty Crouch Jr when he was too weak and feeble to hold a wand properly. Con: she was a Malfoy, even if only by marriage and not exactly on their side. She was on her own side. And that was dangerous. She could turn on him any time, nobody he knew liked her and probably would find it very hard trusting her, this whole situation was probably going to run yet another wedge between him and Sirius and her son was an absolute disgrace to the wizarding world and no way was Sirius allowing him to be part of his House.
So, it was a clear win for the Cons at the moment.
Also, she herself though had admitted that between the her and Sirius a lot of bad blood still ran deep and Harry wasn't sure he could be the right mediator between them.
His action could endanger a lot of people if it turned out Narcissa was just playing him.
On the other hand, she had looked rather bad and had made not to bad a case for herself…He could always use a spy.
Downstairs he heard the front door open and the sound of voices drifted up to him.
The others had returned.
Leaving the sitting room behind him he started to make his way to join the others.
There would be enough time for brooding over the fate of the world later.
At least his scar had stopped hurting so bad.
.
Still lost in thought on his way downstairs he almost didn't catch the burning piece of paper hurtling towards his face.
Thank Merlin for Seeker reflexes…
He snatched the piece of parchment before it could hit his forehead, hissing when the flames burning around the edges singed his skin.
Holding it delicately he examined it and found words hastily written onto it, judging by the smear and narrow angle.
As he read, the fire kept eating away at the parchment at incredible pace.
Just so he managed to read what had been written before he had to let go.
As the paper fell the words:
"Meet me at the Melaten Cemetery at ten to twelve tonight. N.B."
dissolved into fine ash that gently rained down onto the old floor-boards.
Harry frowned.
The handwriting had seemed awfully familiar.
Instead of heading downstairs to meet with his friends and family, Harry turned on his heel and hurried back to his bedroom.
Rummaging through his trunk he pulled out the box he kept all his letters in.
From the very bottom he pulled out an almost empty piece of parchment paper.
His magical two-way correspondence letter with Narcissa.
Although the writing always disappeared as soon as the page was full or when the conversation was done, there was always present date written in the top corner.
And the handwriting was identical.
N.B.
Narcissa Black.
She was using a fake name.
Not the most original one but it worked.
So Narcissa wanted to meet. After weeks of silence, now she wanted to speak to him?
Also, the timing seemed suspicious what with his strange dream and all that…
Behind him the door swung open.
"There you are" Hermione exclaimed "We've been looking all over for you…Why are you looking at me like that?" she added immediately.
"Because I have a stupid request for you." He said slowly.
She put her hands on her hips.
"Let me guess. We are about to do something that is clearly going to break some rules, potentially could endanger our lives and you are not going to tell anyone about it."
"You know me so well." He smirked.
With a sigh she dropped her arms.
"Alright…what are we doing?" she asked.