Harry was angry to say the least as he trudged up the apartment stairs. The order and Dumbledore had forced him to come along to this recruitment. Not only did he not want to be there, but he knew it would end in disaster; after all, voldemort was his mortal enemy, why wouldn't his daughter and grandson follow in his footsteps.
He could clearly remember when the aged headmaster told them about the living relatives in America, the uproar from Sirius and ron, the disbelief from remus and the Weasleys, and the anger from mad-eye(if only for not knowing sooner). There were various other reactions from others in the order, but harry didn't know them well enough for their reactions to be of any real consequence in his mind.
Trailing behind him were Sirius, the old professor himself and remus, each in varying states of tiredness from scaling so many flights, with lupin fairing best because of his… condition.
When they finally reached the door of the grandson's apartment, harry was able to take a moment to assess the unease of his elders. While Dumbledore was noticeably unconcerned, the same could not be said for Sirius and Remus. Each was worried about the bastards reaction to their statuses as pure blood and were-wolf respectively.
Dumbledore stepped forwards and knocked the door before anyone could try and escape, a twinkle in his eyes as Sirius groaned in displeasure. Harry took the time that he knew would lead up to lead up to meeting some undoubtably vile character to take in the apartments, not particularly extravagant like the homes he was used to, Durstly or not. Instead the buildings halls were cramped, and the door obviously worn down by a few years of abuse. Apparently, someone had taken to beating the door in their spare time.
The opening door shook harry out of his musings, the group of wizards coming face to face with a young adult with windswept raven black hair and green eyes that were churning threateningly. The man had a scar running down from just below his right eye, down his neck and into his shirt. He had an elegantly engraved ball point pen held in his right hand, knuckles whitening with the pressure that he held it with. His gaze travelled further down to see the toddler peaking out from behind his legs fearfully.
Harry was once again pulled back to reality by a brutal and threatening voice. "who the hades are you and what do you want?"
Dumbledore was the one to respond, "my boy, I am professor Albus Dumbledore, my companions and myself are here to talk to a Sally Riddle about her father"
No sooner had the professor finished his sentence, had a bronze sword appeared in the dark haired mans hand and found its blade rested against the old mans throat.
"don't you dare utter that name in front of me fool!" the man was snarling at this point with the girl whimpering behind him, "my mother was a Jackson and a Blowfis, never a riddle, and if that bastard dared show his face near me I would destroy every essence of his being."
The man had growled out his rant, spite and anger tainting his words, whilst seemingly oblivious to the three wizards now pointing wands at him threateningly. Dumbledore though, still unflustered, looked at him pityingly and replied with soft words, "why don't we sit down and discuss why we are here child, so that we may both better understand each other's plights." He suggested.
The man drew a shuddering breath before lowering his blade and replying reluctantly, "okay" he ground out, clearly not pleased, "come in and sit down, and then you will explain what you are, and how it involves me, after which you will get the hell out of dodge with or without whatever you came here for." He said, with a sense of finality that none of the now guests were willing to contest, before leading them into the apartment sitting room.
The group separated from there, the man walked over to an armchair and sat down, with the girl on his lap, whilst harry and Dumbledore shared a sofa opposite them and Sirius and remus each pulled up chairs beside them, before the six people sat in a tense silence. Sirius was the first to speak up.
"mate, can you tell us who you are, we came here expecting your mother and nobody else, and now you're here and she's not."
The man snorted humourlessly, "I believe its polite to give your name before asking for annothers, especially when they are guests, so I will say it again, who are you, what are you and what do you want?"
Sirius grit his teeth, but before he could reply with a biting remark, Remus chimed in, "of course, I am remus lupin, the headmaster has already introduced himself, the man you were talking to is Sirius black and this young man is harry potter."
Change pov-percy
Percy looked over each person as remus spoke, analysing them, before settling back on remus whilst wrapping his hands around Estelle, "thankyou, I am perseus Jackson and this is my little sister, Estelle, and I have to say, mr wolf wolf, you are the most cordial werewolf I have ever met."
At his remark, both Sirius and harry jumped up defensively, with wands pointed at percy, whilst remus sat there shocked, while Dumbledore still sat there, unfazed.
"you-know-who's been here already hasn't he?" Sirius demanded, "what else has he told you!"
Percy raised an eyebrow, "no I don't know who, I can sense the curse of the moon on him, yet it is different from lycan's brood. Now can you put away your stick before you poke an eye out."
Finally Dumbledore spoke up again, "perseus, if we might return to your original enquiry, we are wizards, and we came here because your mother signified the rejoining of the noble family of gaunt. Whilst you should have gone to ilvermourny as you have inherited the school, I would now extend a future invitation to Hogwarts for tutoring in magic, the same goes for your sister once she reaches the age of eleven. Unfortunately, as we did not know of your existence, this was not the original reason for our journey. No, in England a man named Tom Riddle has reignited a war between pureblood elitists and any that they do not recognise as having pure blood. This man is also know as he-who-must-not-be-named and lord Voldemort. It seems that he is your grandfather, and we came to warn her of him."
At the final name, percy gave a sharp intake of breath, releasing it as a low growl. "unfortunately, your warning has come too late. No-nose was here yesterday while I was out. Its pure luck that Est' is still alive, because when I got home I found my stepfather's head mounted on a chandelier, my fiancée slumped against a wall with her stomach blown open and my mother lying on the floor whilst she blead out of where they had carved the word 'squib' into her throat, whatever that means." Percy leant forwards onto his knees, forcing his sister to do the same, before continuing with a mad gleam in his eyes, "that creature took our mother and father, my fiancée and my child, I've had to kill relatives to protect family, this will not be the first time, nor will it be the last. Unless you are here to tell me where he is, you can fuck off back to wherever you came from."
The faces of the four guests were left aghast, although only Sirius could empathise with the young man, having death eater cousins and his abusive mother supporting them. He was affronted by the fact that percy had to kill whilst barely a man.
Harry felt as if he had been proven right. His enemy's spawn was willing to brush off the death of his own family, he must be some kind of monster. Percy was on his watch list and harry doubted there was anything he could do to change that.
Remus was in two minds. On one hand he understood where percy was coming from, knowing sirius' own up bringing along with the apparent foot note that he was only bitten because of his werewolf hunting father (hard to have a normal child hood when you know that if you step out of line your parents would have no problem putting him down like some animal). On the other hand, he didn't like the fact that percy was so willing to kill. After traveling with wolves in the late stages of the first war he had gained an appreciation for life and from what he could see, percy did not share that.
Ive been trying to type this for too long but I know dumbledore is just going to turn up whenever percy does something 'dark' so lets just say he sat there like a twinkly eyed bastard, while Estelle was just too young to understand further than 'the strange people know where the bad man who hurt mommy and daddy is" (I hate that I wrote 'mom' instead of 'mum' but I'm going to try and use American spelling for the American-raised characters).
After the brief pause, dumbledore replied, cautiously if you looked but still in the grandfatherly manner, "unfortunately mr Jackson, we do not know exactly where Tom is, but young harry here is one of his highest targets and will likely come after him in the coming year. I would offer you a position in our reactionary team, the order of the phoenix, and if you have some combat ability I would welcome you to a position as our professor against the dark arts for this coming year. This way you would be close by when he strikes. Of course we have a number of families in our order who would love to take care of your sister."
At this percy snorted, "I would be an idiot to take a child into what you have told me is an ongoing war zone. Est will stay here with my family; I've got a cousin who would never hesitate to take in a young maiden and if she cant one of my aunts would definitely be willing. I find your proposal… acceptable, but I'll have to take it up with, my family heads I guess you could call them. When will you be leaving?"
"As soon as possible would be preferable my boy," dumbledore said jovially, patting his legs as he swiftly stood up, far too swiftly for a man of his apparent age, percy noted.
"I've told you, I'm not 'your boy'. So, I am going to go and get my affairs sorted while you four can sod off" percy said, wilfully ignoring remus's shocked face and sirius' sniggers, "you can go sit in a café for a bit, I'll find you when I'm ready."
AN: I've been writing this on-off for about a year now, so sorry if it's a bit disjointed, but its just sitting on my laptop and I want to put out the idea of a vengeful percy out to destroy Voldemort. This is going to be more of an action adventure thing than anything else but I'll try and throw in parts where percy copes with loss. Don't expect it to be good though because I've never really lost anyone I was attached to so I'm basing it off of other fics I've read.
In the immortal words of Red(OSP) "don't write what you don't know"