CHAPTER 6:
HEISENBERG
The smell of the factory was an unpleasant one, filled with a hot metallic smell that put Harry in mind of burning blood. The Duke had already set up a Vanishing Cabinet there, specifically in one of Heisenberg's offices, albeit keyed to him and, now, Harry. He'd used a phone to call in advance, so that Heisenberg would come.
Would Harry and Heisenberg get along? He wasn't sure. Heisenberg and Harry were on cordial terms, but even after Harry had a rift with his aunt, they never got too close. Harry thought the magnetic manipulator to be a rather self-centred and morbid manchild who cared little whom he harmed on his way to free himself from Miranda, while Heisenberg felt that Harry, or rather, Henric, was possibly a spy for Miranda, and something of a stick-in-the-mud besides.
Soon afterwards, Harry, back in his form as Harry Potter, saw the door open, and the familiar shambolic features of Karl Heisenberg, dressed in a long coat, a ragged wide-brimmed hat, and glasses with smoked lenses, came through. A massive hammer, cobbled together out of mechanical parts, was held over his shoulder. "Okay, Duke," he said, his English excellent, but having a strange lilting drawl to it that made him seem almost high half the time. "I got your little phone call, but if you're wasting my time with this visitor, I…" He looked up, and saw Harry, before laughing. "What the fuck? Duke, why did you bring me the Boy Who Lived?"
In reply, Harry spoke, in Romanian, "This coming from the guy who's compensating for something with his hammer, like always? What happened to the last guy whose balls you pulped with that thing anyway? What was his name, Radu? If I recall correctly, he questioned your sexuality."
Heisenberg gaped at him. "…What? But that was…what?"
Suddenly, there was the revving of an engine below, and Heisenberg groaned. "Scuse me a moment," he said, before heading to a nearby hatch. "SHUT UP IN THERE, WILL YA?!" he roared down the hatch. Whatever was down there stopped making the noise, and Heisenberg turned to them apologetically. "…I'm glad I've never had kids," he said ruefully. "I'd make a shit father. I'm probably better as the fun uncle. Anyway, Duke, would you like to explain what the actual fuck he meant?"
The Duke looked at Harry expectantly, and he sighed, before changing his form into Henric Stan. Heisenberg stared at him, before switching to the Duke. "Karl, it is him, I swear it. Alcina certainly believes so too," the rotund merchant said, holding his hands up. "And you know how hard it would be to prove it to her. Henric survived in the Cadou Grindlewald stole. It was presumably that given to Harry."
Heisenberg, after a moment, muttered, "Son of a bitch…so you did survive. And that bitch of an aunt of yours…I knew you were on the out with her, but I didn't think you'd give a goddamned Cadou to someone like Grindlewald. Even in disguise, he seemed too smug for my liking."
"Yeah, you don't like the competition," Harry snarked.
"Shut your hole!" Heisenberg snapped. He then calmed down, and walked up to Harry, taking off his glasses, peering at him intensely. Eventually, he said, "Well, I know the Duke knows better than to do something to betray me like this. Fuck, you're leading an interesting life now, Henric, at least in the cursed sense of the word."
"That's what Daniela said."
Heisenberg winced. "So, you met her, huh? Must've been hard. I wish I realised sooner that her bastard of a father had betrayed us, and framed you. I would've put the man into a smelting vat, slowly, but honestly, giving him over to Lady Tall, Dark and Bitchy to feed to her new daughters was poetic justice. Not that there's much justice in this rural shithole." He put his hammer up against a wall, while sitting down on a chair. In English, he said, "So, to what do I owe the honour of this visit? I'm sure Alcina has already told you that the one thing we do see eye to eye on is the fact that we both hate what Miranda did to you and your memory."
"I'm reconnecting with the only people who could be my allies in the village," Harry said. "I don't trust Moreau, and I don't know enough about Donna Beneviento to approach her, especially as she was only given the Cadou recently. You and I were not friends, but you know what they say. The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Heisenberg, after a moment, nodded. "Fair enough. You want revenge?"
"Not at the moment, apart from living well, as the saying goes, but I intend to visit this place on a regular basis. I hope you're still using corpses for your experiments, and not, say, making your own."
Heisenberg chuckled darkly. "You were dead, and it's not like you could have stopped me. Of course, as much as I despised Ceauşescu's regime, one of the few benefits of living under a dictatorship as brutal as his is that there's a decent supply of corpses to experiment on, so I didn't have to make my own. Unfortunately, it doesn't go so well. You heard that engine noise earlier? That was a prototype for a Soldat model I call the Sturm. Unfortunately, he's an idiot. I mean, you know the Soldats are basically cyborg zombies, but higher models can think somewhat, like a sophisticated robot, or a bit like the Lycans. But Sturm…ugh…never mind. Anyway, we're not here to discuss my failures."
"No, we're not."
Heisenberg nodded, before he said, his expression softening, "So, you met Daniela, huh? Did she…remember you?"
"No."
"…Fuck. Tough break. I mean, none of the girls remembered their lives as humans. They still act a bit like how they did before, but…it's painful for me too, whenever I see them. Alcina and I hate each other's guts, but her kids…bloodthirsty bitches though they are, I can't help but see who they were beforehand. Besides, I found myself enjoying playing the role of the uncle. The sad thing is, little Daniela was the one who changed the most. She was always eccentric before the incident, but I think it broke her. Cassandra, as you know, was always a violent little bitch beforehand, enjoyed her hunting a little too much. Honestly, if she regained her memories of being human, she'd probably like being a vampire bug-bitch. Bela…well, she had a bit of a sadistic streak back then too, but even then, she was the most level-headed. But Daniela? I reckon what Grindlewald's thugs did to her broke her even before she died. Hell, she was the only one who was actually dead when the Cadou was used on them, so maybe a little bit of it was brain damage."
"That's not much comfort, Heisenberg," Harry said.
"Yeah, I know," the shambolic man said. "Anyway, I know we weren't exactly friends, what with me playing Frankenstein and you…well, being too close to your aunt, so I thought, but honestly, if you want to be allies now, that's fine. Just know, though, if you sell my ass out, I'm taking you down with me, got it?"
Heisenberg punctuated his point with a jab to Harry's chest, but he met Heisenberg's eyes with a cold gaze of his own. "Crystal. And keep in mind, the same applies to you."
"Oh, I know. I'm not stupid. But what do I get out of my arrangement with you?"
"My knowledge of the Megamycete, the Mutamycete, and the Cadou. They are, or at least were, second only to my aunt. Even if I'm half a century out of date, I can probably give you some pointers. In addition, I have considerable insight into my aunt's abilities, more than you probably found out, even after all this time. I'm honestly not sure how one can beat her, save for a weapon that specifically targets Mutamycete tissue, or else she would regenerate."
"I may be able to find something," the Duke mused. "But I believe that is a conversation for a future time…"
Harry didn't spend that much longer with Heisenberg, before deciding he wanted to head back to Hogwarts. As they returned, the Duke sitting in his chair, Harry put his face in his hands. "…Fuck," he muttered.
"…I suppose asking if you're alright is…well, rather redundant, no?" the Duke asked.
"Yeah. I knew things would have changed, and you did warn me, but…fuck…it's just…she's so like her, and yet unlike her, Duke," Harry said. "I'm wondering whether the memory thing was due to brain damage or the transformation…or whether Miranda altered the Cadou to suppress their memories. I wouldn't be surprised, really. Doing that to spite me sounds exactly like her as she is now."
"Perhaps. Your aunt is usually something of a pragmatist, never one to waste resources, but the rift between you didn't help, and she can be capable of surprisingly spiteful acts, as long as they serve her more than merely acting on that spite. She probably saw you as a threat, hence her subjecting you to a damnatio memoriae. I salvaged some of your belongings, including that journal I gave to you in Knockturn Alley, but most she destroyed. While altering Daniela's Cadou to render her amnesic is a bit of a stretch, Miranda was indeed spiteful enough to consider it. Whether that is the case, or whether it was brain damage, or even a little of both, who can say? But even so, you can begin anew."
"…But she isn't quite the same person. Not anymore," Harry said. "It's not the flesh-eating I'm worried about, believe it or not. I got used to that with Alcina. The question is who she feeds on. Alcina could have obtained criminals from across Romania and beyond, and yet, she didn't."
"Because your demise hurt her, Harry," the Duke said gently. "Because she felt you were too soft, too merciful and forgiving. It was partly because of you that Grindlewald and his men, feigning trouble, were able to enter the village. Alcina does not blame you per se, but your good nature."
"My good nature is what led me to trying to help her. Yes, I fed her, but I took criminals, murderers and rapists, and when the Second World War ravaged our country, I brought in the worst deserters from the Nazis and the Soviets, warring over our country. And yet…" He snarled quietly to himself, trying to suppress the anger and fury warring within him with his sorrow and guilt.
"Harry…you still have a chance," the Duke said. "I do believe, as does Alcina and Heisenberg, that something of who Daniela was remains buried within her. It needs gentle coaxing to emerge, true, but your very presence can erode what encases the original Daniela, until finally, she can break through."
"…I'm not optimistic," Harry said. "We'll discuss this another time, Duke. We'll use the Time-Turner now…"
Harry spent much of the rest of the weekend in seclusion. He did emerge from the Chamber of Secrets for the rest of the Saturday, partly to avoid time paradoxes, but for much of the Sunday, he spent in the Chamber, in his new laboratory, delving into science amongst the ruins of one of the most ambitious and malevolent wizards of all time. He wondered if Slytherin would have appreciated the irony. If the histories were true, and Slytherin founded or at least publicised the Blood Purist views, he doubted it.
In truth, Harry knew such views were bunkum. He knew it even before he regained his memories as Henric Stan. Harry Potter may not have been as educated in the sciences, but Hermione had taught him enough concepts. Plus, Aunt Marge espoused vile views that weren't out of place with the Nazis, he felt. He'd learned about the Holocaust, and other vile acts of hatred against other races.
Now, as Henric Stan, with knowledge in genetics, and the remembrance of living through a time when Adolf Hitler espoused his doctrine of Aryans being the Master Race, Harry knew with utter conviction that so-called purity of blood was a lie. In fact, it was the so-called mongrels, the heterogenous, the hybrids, that were better. Even Mother Miranda, for all her megalomania, would sneer at a doctrine like Blood Purity or the antisemitism that the Nazis and their quislings brought to its natural conclusion.
And the thing was, it was filled with hypocrites and idiots who didn't know or care about the dangers of inbreeding. Even Voldemort was a Halfblood with a huge chip on his shoulder, Tom Marvolo Riddle. Already a psychopath as a teenager, if his willingness to have his Basilisk petrify and even murder his peers was anything to go by.
Now, he bustled around a number of projects. Re-creating the blood substitute for Alcina. Working on a number of cures using the Mutamycete that would be called miraculous, even today. And refining and growing his own abilities. He even began studying the Patronus: Lupin wouldn't be able to help him yet, as he was still preparing for his classes for the next few weeks, and by the time he would be ready, he would be absent during his transformation.
One thing that did concern him was an anecdote about the Patronus. Dark wizards normally could not cast it, as there had been documented cases of the charm backfiring, and consuming them with magically-conjured maggots. Would the same happen to Harry? He did have the blood of dozens on his hands, after all.
Well, he'd worry about it later. Between that and having his soul eaten by a Dementor, he'd choose the former. Horrible though it was, it still sounded less so that having his soul consumed.
So Harry studied, intensely, spurred by what he saw in the village where he was born in his first life. Hoping beyond hope that the woman he had loved was not lost forever, and that he could do something to leave the world a better place than he left it in. And that he would not die before that day came…
CHAPTER 6 ANNOTATIONS:
So, there you have it. Harry's met Heisenberg, and they've entered an alliance. For all Heisenberg's evil acts, if he had worded things better, you reckon Ethan might have taken him up on the offer. Heisenberg was the only one smart enough to consider an alliance with him.
Review-answering time! LoamyCoffee: Alcina is canonically a singer. You can see a CD of 'Miss D and the Pallboys' in Ethan's house at the beginning, apparently. It suggests that, prior to becoming the tall vampire woman we know and (some of us) love, she'd been a jazz singer in the US. I extrapolated from there.
No numbered annotations this time.
