Disclaimer: I don't think I magically turned into JKR in the last couple of days... Yep, still not her, therefore anything recognizable isn't mine.
A/N: Yes, I really did research the information on hummingbirds in the previous chapter; unfortunately, I didn't save what websites I consulted, so I can't properly cite them – sorry!
FINALLY got to a library to upload this - it's been taking up space on my IPod for the better part of a week now.
In this – I want to call it an 'episode' – chapter, we will see many things, including more of Harry and Amelia, more of Chad and Moody, a little more about BKE, and Harry meets up with Voldemort for the first time. Those of you hankerin' for a little more action should be pleased with this chapter. grin
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Nightmares Come to Flesh
The seasons slowly started to shift as winter imperceptibly gave way to spring. Harry was happier with the warming weather – he'd never been all that fond of winter – and on days that were barely above freezing was often seen out in the back yard, painting. He needed to finish up several projects for his 2D art class, as well as figure out what he wanted to do for his final project. There were only two months of classes left, after all, and his art instructor wanted the themes for their final projects no later than mid-April.
On Saturday, April 4, Harry was staring intently at a perfectly blank canvas. The canvas was oval, about two and a half feet wide and three feet or so long. It was supposed to be covered by Monday morning with something that would qualify as 'surreal.' Harry didn't care for surrealism, cubism, or any of that, he much preferred realism in his artwork. He sighed and closed his eyes. Almost immediately, remembered images from his dreams surfaced. Try as he might, he wasn't able to get the images to go away…
Damnit! I knew this was going to happen! He almost threw the canvas across the muddy yard, but was able to restrain himself… barely. He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "Fine… Maybe the dreams will slow down a bit if I paint something… Thought occlumency was supposed to be helping with that…" he muttered to himself as he readied his pallet with several globs of paint.
Over the next two hours, he laid down layer upon layer of black, red, and green. When he finished, the background he'd created was suitably creepy enough to have come from his visions. He smirked a little when he realized that though the assignment was to paint something surreal – and when he was done, the teacher would think he'd stuck to the assignment – but he was really painting an image directly from his dreams, as realistically as he could.
The canvas would need to dry before he added the next layer of paint, so he set to cleaning up his brushes, pallet, and taking everything back inside. "You're nuts. It's bloody cold out there," Jenn commented when he pulled off his jacket and hung it on a peg behind the back door.
"So you keep telling me." Harry grinned at her. "What's for dinner?"
Jenn shrugged, "No clue. Allen said he was bringing something home. I just hope it isn't pizza again."
"Nothing wrong with pizza."
"Yeah, but we've had it three times in the last two weeks. I could stand something different, for a change." Jenn suddenly snapped her fingers, "That's it!"
"What?" Harry asked while she hurried from the kitchen to the den. Whatever it is, it must have been important… Wonder who she's working for this week? Harry chuckled, knowing that inspiration could come from the strangest places, and sat his supplies down on the counter before making his way to his room. He noticed that he'd missed two calls while outside, and checked his voicemail.
"Hi, Harry. This is Amelia. Was wondering if you're busy tonight? My friend, Lila, told me about this new club opening up this evening, and I wanted to know if maybe you wanted to check it out with us. Call me!"
"Hey, boss. Nigel here. Since Arthur made his decision on what floor to work in, I've taken the liberty of getting a magical contractor for us. Don't worry – he's completely on the up-and-up, re-did the wards for the American Auror Central Training Facility about ten years ago – in case you didn't know, it's the sixth side to the Pentagon in D.C. Anyway, he wants to meet with you to discuss your plans for BKE later today, preferably after five. Call me when you get this."
Harry sighed once more. Decisions, decisions… Do I go to the meeting, out with Amelia, or try to do both? No contest. Amelia's nice and all, but we went out for dinner last night, and agreed to do so again on Tuesday. She'll understand if I say I had to 'work' this evening. He dialed Nigel's number and waited until the answering machine picked up.
"Nigel Smythwick. You know what to do, and if you don't then you shouldn't be using a phone in the first place." There was a lengthy pause, followed by a sharp beep.
"Nigel, Harry here –"
The line clicked, "Hey, Harry. You got my message?"
"Yeah. Screening calls?"
"Mmhmm. That realtor woman won't leave me alone."
Harry snickered, "That's what you get for flirting with someone who probably had never had anyone pay attention to her before."
"I suppose. About that meeting, though. You free tonight? If not, the next time we can meet with him will be in July."
Harry coughed, "Busy, isn't he?"
"I would imagine so."
"Yeah, I'm free tonight. When and where?"
"Six-thirty good for you? At O'Malley's Pub."
"I'll be there."
"See you then." Nigel hung up. Harry clicked his phone off and checked the clock. It was a quarter to five. He dialed Amelia, who picked up on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"Amelia?"
"Yeah. Harry?"
"Yeah. Sorry, but I just got your message. I can't tonight. I have to work."
"Oh, that's too bad." She sounded disappointed. "Maybe next time, yeah?"
"Yeah. See you on Tuesday, right?"
"For sure."
"I've got to go, I've only got an hour or so before I need to leave. Talk to you later?"
"Yeah. See ya, Harry."
Harry disconnected the call and perused his closet for something appropriate for his meeting that evening. Once he was showered and spruced up, he grabbed the notebook in which he'd started keeping his ideas for BKE, and headed down to the kitchen. He left a note on the dry-erase board on the refrigerator, grabbed his keys, and headed out to Viridian. He paused by Sirius' long enough to grab his co-founder and called up Arthur on the floo while he was there. Arthur, Fred, and George joined them in the living room. Harry looked from the assembly out the window to his truck and back. "I think we've a small problem."
"And that is?" Arthur asked.
"My truck only seats three, and that's if the one riding in the middle doesn't mind having the gearshift in their lap."
Arthur chuckled, pulling out his wand. He turned to Sirius, "Anything in that garage of yours?"
"Just some empty boxes… I still haven't had the chance to get a hold of Hagrid to find out just what he did with my motorcycle."
"Go open the door for Harry, then. Harry, you pull your truck on in, and make sure the door gets closed. Fred, George, you know that grey box with the rusty latches on the top shelf of my work shed?" They nodded. "Run home and get it for me, would you?" The twins disappeared with simultaneous pops.
"What are you going to do?" Harry asked, his tone showing both curiosity and hesitation.
"Just a couple of simple charms, Harry," Arthur smiled.
Harry could see an almost manic gleam in Arthur's eyes. It was somewhat frightening, but oddly reassuring, too. I know he's really into this combining technology and magic… I didn't realize, though, just how obsessed he really is with muggle stuff… Harry hurried out to the truck and waited while Sirius opened the garage door. He pulled the truck in, and Sirius closed the door behind him. "Where's the light-switch?" Harry asked, the garage was completely dark. He couldn't even see his hand in front of his face.
"Don't know." There was the sound of rustling fabric and a muttered 'lumos.' Blue-white light spilled from Sirius' wand. "Ah, there it is." He pointed to the switch next to the door into the house. At just that moment, Arthur opened the kitchen door and flicked the switch with the ease of someone who had done so all his life. "Nox." Sirius put away his wand. "Didn't know you knew where my light was, Arthur."
"Common sense," Arthur replied. At the incredulous looks on both Sirius' and Harry's faces, he elaborated, "I spent the summer between my sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts living in muggle London. Had a blast, and learned quite a bit about muggle life. Ended up with the top score in Muggle Studies because of that summer."
"I'd imagine so," Harry replied. He heard faint pops as the twins apparated back into Sirius' living room.
"We're in here, boys!" Arthur called out. A couple of seconds later, the two twenty year-olds arrived, carrying a very large grey metal box between them.
"Here you go, Dad." The one on the left said as they sat it down.
The other opened it up, "Are you going to do to the truck what you did to the Anglia?"
Arthur shook his head, "No, not just yet. We just need to resize the inside for now. While I'm working on that, why don't you tell Harry about the family car?" Arthur reached into the box and pulled out a tape measure and a pencil. He opened the driver's side door and started measuring things, seemingly at random, using the pencil to write down the measurements directly on the item measured. Harry noticed that unlike a normal pencil, this one wrote in glowing green lines, and that Arthur was adding a string of runes to the end of each measurement's number.
"What about an Anglia?" Harry asked, turning to the nearest twin.
"Oh, it's the family car," the one Harry had asked replied.
The other grinned, "Though Dad did some work on it. It can fly…"
"…Run invisibly…"
"…Carry about twelve people comfortably…"
"…And their luggage…"
"…Never needs petrol…"
"…The tires don't go flat…"
"…The windows never fog up or ice over…"
"…It's always a comfortable twenty-three degrees inside…"
"Whoa," Sirius interrupted the twins. "I think we get the idea."
Harry shook his head, as though dislodging water from his ear. "Your dad can really charm a car to do all that?"
The twins nodded, "Sure."
Arthur, who was still measuring things inside the cab of the truck, spoke up, "It's not as easy as they're making it sound, Harry. It took me a good five years to figure out how to get it to run on magic. Resizing the inside, though, should only take another ten minutes or so."
Harry checked his watch. "Good. That should give us just enough time to get to O'Malley's Pub. Told Nigel we'd be there at six-thirty, and it's just now coming up on six."
Arthur, tucking the pencil behind his ear, emerged from the truck. "All right, now I can cast the charms to expand the inside." He leveled his wand at Viridian and began incanting a long string of Latin. Harry snickered when he realized that it translated to 'You are bigger than you appear, and you're going to stay that way, whether you like it or not.'
Chad was staring down at a yellow legal pad, crammed with notes and suppositions. He refilled his coffee cup for what had to have been the five-hundred and ninetieth time since he'd last slept – three days prior. Moody was snoring on the sofa in the run-down living room just up the hall. Chad felt as though his brain were melting; so much information had been crammed into it in the past few weeks that he didn't know how it all fit. He flipped through the legal pad and realized that it was completely filled with notes. He sighed and retrieved another from his briefcase. He sat clicking his pen in caffeinated agitation. When bouncing around the obvious leads an investigation nowhere, what, then, should the investigator do? The phantom voice of his criminal psychology professor from college rang in his head. He remembered answering the question, clearly confident of his answer, In that instance, the investigator should look to the improbable, unlikely, and possibly even the impossible in order to solve the case. After all, a hundred years ago people wouldn't have thought it possible to level an entire city with a single bomb, yet we accomplished it at Hiroshima. What's impossible is merely a matter of perspective; or, to be more accurate, something is only impossible so long as there isn't anyone stubborn enough to try it until they get it right.
He scrawled large blocky letters across the first page of the legal pad, going over them several times to make them dark. He then pinned them to the wall he'd been blinking at prior to re-reading his notes. The note simply read: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
With the fresh legal pad in hand, he turned his considerable knowledge of psychology back to what he did best – figuring out how the bad guys thought. About four hours later, Moody clumped his way back into the kitchen and refilled the battered percolator with fresh water and coffee grounds before using his wand to boil it. Pouring a cup of the bitter beverage, he turned to face Chad. "Getting anywhere?"
Chad blearily looked up from his notes and shook a cramp out of his wrist. The new tablet was mostly full already. "I think so, but to tell the truth and shame the devil, I'm so damned tired right now, I could have just spent the last four hours sketching the playmate of the month and not realized it."
Moody, not altogether unfamiliar with the muggle world – and, in truth, had a copy of the Playboy issue in which Marilyn Monroe was featured – laughed heartily and took the notebook from Chad. He snorted at the question adorning the top line of the first page.
If I were an evil megalomaniac with unlimited magical power, what would I do if…?
The next line was clear, and the question below it read, I needed a body – my own – in order to 'return to life?'
Moody sat across from Chad and began reading in earnest.
Firstly, I'd need someone I trusted – implicitly – to do my fetching and carrying. They'd need to be pretty powerful themselves, as I wouldn't want to have to deal with a weakling. They're supposed to be protecting me until such time as I can protect myself. Who are my most loyal supporters?
Lucius Malfoy – age 49, location Wiltshire. Currently embroiled in playing shadow politician. Claimed mind-control so as not to go to prison. –Wouldn't be my first choice. People who delve into politics change their stances too much to be completely trustworthy.
Rodolphus Lestrange – age 42, location Azkaban. Currently in prison. 'Nuff said.
Rabastan Lestrange – age 43, location Azkaban. See Rodolphus.
Bellatrix Lestrange – age 43, location last known as Azkaban - I'm beginning to sense a pattern here - currently not available... Unless... Maybe I've already gotten her support... Would support Harry's dreams and vice-versa.
Who is trustworthy that's not in prison? Igor Karkaroff? No… He turned on his fellows to keep from going to prison. Who else? Walden MacNair? Not powerful enough with anything but an axe, if rumors are to be believed. Crabbe? Goyle? Same issue with MacNair. If I truly need someone both powerful and trustworthy, it looks as though I'd need to visit Azkaban.
Would I visit Azkaban? Possibly. If the creatures that guard the place don't affect a non-corporeal entity such as myself? (No information in any of the notes, ask Moody.) Assuming that they don't, I would likely see if I could get there and perhaps work to free one of my followers…
Moody read through page after page of Chad's cramped handwriting, and when he reached the end, he realized two things about the profiler. The first was that he was highly skilled in what he did, and had he been a wizard, would have made a damn fine auror. The second was that said profiler was soundly asleep and drooling on his kitchen table. Hovering Chad to the sofa he, himself, had so recently vacated, he thought back over Chad's notes. When the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, a line from a muggle book he'd read as a boy that had stuck with him throughout the intervening years slipped into his mind. It had been a mantra of sorts which had gotten him through more than one investigation over the years.
Once Chad was safely deposited on the sofa, he sat down at the table, re-reading parts of the notebook. When he'd heard that Harry Potter had been having visions regarding Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, he had brushed them off as the delusions of a teenager suddenly thrust into a situation wherein he was eventually going to be hunted down, likely killed. Even though he was retired, he was still a high-ranking auror, second only to Madam Bones in the MLE Auror Division, and he'd ordered Tonks and Shacklebolt not to pursue what he was sure was a dead-end. Now, though, he wondered if maybe he hadn't been a little hasty in that decision. It wouldn't hurt to check, in any case, he thought, setting the tablet down. He quickly quaffed the last of his coffee, grabbed his cloak from the peg behind the back door, and portkeyed to the Ministry.
On Tuesday afternoon, Harry hurriedly finished up the last of his homework before getting ready for his date that evening with Amelia. They were going to go to an early movie and then out to dinner. Once showered and dressed, he drove over to Amelia's house and waited at the front door. He was a little surprised that none of Amelia's family seemed to be home. Amelia answered the door looking rather nice. She had a strange expression on her face, though. Harry ignored it and smiled a greeting. "You look nice. Parents not home tonight?"
Amelia shook her head, "No, they decided to take my sister out for dinner."
Harry could hear something off in Amelia's voice, but couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was. "Well, shall we, then?"
"Why not?" Amelia strode over to Harry's truck and climbed in. Harry was grateful that the charms Arthur had placed on Viridian were such that the inside only expanded when there was a real need for the extra space. It would have been hard to explain to Amelia why the truck was so much more roomy otherwise.
Following Amelia into the vehicle, Harry started the motor and paused, turning to face Amelia. "Have I done something wrong?"
Amelia, who had yet to smile in Harry's presence that evening crossed her arms over her blue t-shirt. "I don't know. Have you?"
Harry figured that was girl-speak for 'Yes, you have, but I'm not going to tell you what.' "Are you angry at me for something?"
Amelia's gaze narrowed, "Should I be?"
Harry resisted the urge to bang his head on the steering wheel, Why can't girls speak English like the rest of us? Instead of placing his foot in his mouth, he simply turned the engine off. "What did I do?"
Fire flashed in Amelia's eyes. "What did you do?" she coldly repeated. "You lied to me, that's what you did!"
Harry blinked in confusion. "At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, exactly how did I lie to you?"
"If you didn't want to go out with me Saturday, you should have just said so! I know you've got other bloody friends! You didn't have to lie and say you had to work, when, since I bloody saw you at the pub, you obviously didn't!" Amelia wasn't yet shouting, but Harry knew it was going to go that way unless he could somehow figure out exactly the right thing with which to reply.
Harry held his hands up, whether to show surrender to her argument or to somehow subliminally ask her to back down he didn't know. "Hold up a tic, Amelia. I didn't lie to you. That really was work-related."
Amelia glared, "Just how is sitting in a pub with a bunch of other guys drinking beer 'work-related?'"
Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. His basic sense of honesty wouldn't let him lie to her, not even to keep her as his girlfriend – Though really, can she be considered my girlfriend if we've yet to do more than hold hands? "I can't tell you that, Amelia, but it was work-related."
"Don't you trust me?"
"It's not that; because I do trust you. It's just that I really can't talk about it."
Amelia huffed and reached for the door handle. "If that's how you're going to be, I don't think we should see each other anymore."
Harry reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Come on, Amelia, don't be like that."
"Like what? I'm sorry, but if you can't trust me with what's going on in your life, how do I know I can trust you with mine?"
Harry sighed again and hung his head, "Maybe you're right. I'm sorry, but I honestly can't tell you."
Amelia pulled the handle and pushed the door open. "I'm sorry, too, Harry. It's been fun, but…"
Harry sighed for a third time in as many minutes. "I know." He started the truck and after the passenger door slammed shut, he backed slowly out of the drive and meandered aimlessly for several hours. Eventually, he found himself outside Tim Marshfield's apartment building without knowing quite how he got there. He got out of the truck and headed towards the building. He pressed the buzzer for 14B, "Tim, you home? It's Harry."
After a moment or two, the intercom buzzed into life, "Yeah, Harry. Come on up." There was a clicking noise from the security door, and Harry let himself in.
Tim let him in at the apartment door, and without any words on Harry's part, handed him a beer from the icebox. "She broke up with you, didn't she?" Harry nodded. "That's rough, lil' bro. Still… This just means you're free to go out looking again, innit?"
Harry chuckled a little humorlessly. "I suppose. How do you and Nigel do this all the time?"
"Do what?"
"The dating thing."
Tim laughed, "Oh, lil' bro, it gets easier with practice. Kinda like refinishin' a paint job. The first few are always a lil' rough-lookin', but by your fifth or sixth, you got it down pat."
This time Harry's laugh was genuinely amused, "Don't you know any analogies that aren't related to work?"
Tim grinned and shrugged, "Sure. But they're all model-related, so I guess it balances out in the end."
Harry finished his beer before realizing that he'd driven most of his evening hours away. He sat the bottle on the counter and finished up his discussion with Tim about his odd observations of girls over the next hour-and-a-half. Tim informed him that he was ahead of where he'd been as a teenager simply with the realization that girls thought differently than they did. Still chuckling a little, Harry bade Tim a good night and apparated home, not being the type to even risk driving after as little as a single beer. Luckily, no one was up waiting, and so he could leave uncomfortable questions for the next day.
Harry's eyes snapped open. He blearily groped for his glasses and put them on. It was only three in the morning. He groaned. At least it wasn't a bloody vision that woke me this time, he thought, reaching for his wand. He'd found that using his wand for a lumos to go down the hall to the bathroom was less likely to wake the house when he woke in the middle of the night. He wasn't sure why he'd woken so abruptly, but a glass of water did sound good just then.
He stepped quietly into the hall after putting his slippers and house coat on over his pajamas. He barely got three steps into the hall before he felt someone grab his wrist from behind and place a hand over his mouth. He was about to try to wrench out of what he thought to be Remus' grasp – ever since being reunited with Sirius, he'd been participating in more pranks of late – when a disturbing hook-like sensation grabbed his bellybutton and the dark hall of the Kellerman house spun away in a haze of magic.
Harry wasn't given much time to ponder his surroundings when he finally felt his feet slam into the ground. He did, however, have enough time to be momentarily grateful that it was now, technically, the sixth of April, and as such there wasn't any snow remaining, though it was still rather chilly.
Mere milliseconds after his hard landing, the hand at his wrist deftly plucked his wand out of his hand and laughed shrilly. The person's other hand was still over his mouth. Even lacking any sort of caffeine, Harry had been sufficiently awakened by the sheer amount of adrenaline now present in his bloodstream. He worked his jaw open under the slim hand and bit down, hard, right on that fleshy pad just under the thumb. His captor dropped their grip on him, shrieking, and Harry spun around to see the dark-haired woman from his visions.
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry stated flatly.
The woman sneered mockingly at him, "Oooh, the widdlest Potter's been learning of the big, bad, magical world, has him?"
Harry grit his teeth against the grating noise of Bellatrix's baby-talk. "Give me back my wand."
She stepped back a pace, and Harry saw she had another wand in her hand now, "I don't tink so, widdle Potter." Why she persisted in the baby-talk, Harry had no idea, but he really wished she'd stop.
Harry made a lunge for the wand she held, not caring in the least that it might not be suitable to his own magic. Bellatrix laughed and sidestepped him easily. "Ah-ah-ah," she said, wagging the finger of her injured hand scornfully, "Wands is for grown-ups, yes them is!" She shrieked her maniacal laugh once more.
"That's quite enough, Bella," a new voice said from somewhere nearby. This voice was male, low and rumbling. "Our Lord wishes him in one piece. He's promised you your fun after he has his."
In the faint starlight, Harry could see Bellatrix pout. "You're no fun, Barty."
The man to whom she was speaking stepped out of the shadows among a clump of trees. "On the contrary, dear Bella, I can be quite fun, when the situation calls for it." Somehow, Barty's voice was more disturbing than Bella's. "It is not called for now, however. Come, Bella. Our Lord shan't be kept waiting." He aimed his wand at Harry. Harry didn't see a hex or spell, nor did he hear an incantation spoken, so he was unaware that he should have ducked or moved out of the wand's line of sight because the next thing he was aware of was snapping into a rigid statuesque figure. Had he been able, he would have winced when his head hit the ground.
His eyes had been frozen in mid-blink, and in the blurry periphery of his vision, he could barely make out a streak of red as it headed for him. All the while, he could hear Bella, sans her baby-talk, saying, "Still showing off that silent petrificus, Barty? What are we, third-years?" It was the last thing he heard before he was dumped into unconsciousness.
Remus woke slowly, a bit at a time, something he'd done every morning of his life for as long as he could remember. First, there would be the realization that he was no longer dreaming, but thinking. After that, all his body-parts would check in with his brain. On the mornings immediately following a full moon, this usually involved some level of pain or stiffness, days not following the full moon merely let him know that he hadn't been pranked again – that day in second year when he had to be carried to the hospital wing because Peter couldn't remember how to restore his feet has been humiliating enough to spawn a lifelong habit. The only thing out of the ordinary was a stuffy head. Great… A cold. Just what I never needed.
After determining that he was, indeed, all there and in one piece, the yawns started. It wasn't something he could help – when he was little, his dad had told him he'd done it even as a baby. Great wracking yawns, accompanied by a slow stretch of nearly every muscle he possessed, starting at his toes, and eventually traveling upwards through his arms and hands. For the last ten years or so, he'd also begun feeling his age a bit more than the average wizard, and at least six vertebra and usually an ankle or shoulder would pop noisily as his limbs stretched to restore circulation. It wasn't that thirty-eight was all that old for a wizard, but he had most of a lifetime of lycanthropy behind him, and even a teenager could have joint problems if cartilage and bone had been torn or broken as many times as Remus had suffered.
After the yawns, pops, and stretches, he slowly opened his eyes. After the past several months of living in the Kellermans' spare bedroom, he was no longer surprised to see the cream wallpaper and blue curtains. The first few days, he kept expecting to wake to see the old flat he used to rent – when he had the cash to do so – above a 'bookstore' in Knockturn Alley. Or even the inside of the Shrieking Shack, one of the few places he could stay when he was completely broke.
Now fully awake, he sat up and checked the bedside clock. It was eight. Hmm… Slept in. Didn't mean to, but hell… Haven't got much to do today until Harry gets home from school. Was probably this damn cold, anyway. He eventually pulled himself into the bathroom for a shower and found some clean clothes. A side-effect of Sirius' return was that Sirius had returned to doing what he'd done while they were in school – giving Remus a plethora of clothing that he damn well knew Sirius had purchased without ever intending to wear them himself. It was always the same 'Oh, Remus, I picked this up the other day, but I honestly don't know why. Did you want it? It seems more your style than mine,' or some variation thereof, and Sirius would hand Remus a brown jumper or a pair of corduroys or something similarly as far from Sirius' normal tradition of black jeans and t-shirts as possible. Remus sighed and pulled on the aforementioned cords and jumper, thinking that Sirius should just come out and ask him what he wanted when he went to the store. It'd certainly be easier. Then again, Padfoot probably thinks I don't notice. Hah. I think I figured it out about the third time he gave me a t-shirt back in first year. Remus couldn't really complain, though. He knew he'd put up with Sirius' strange need to take care of him and a whole lot more. At times, he had to remind himself that Sirius wasn't in Azkaban any longer.
Finished dressing, he grabbed a book on advanced dueling theory and headed to the kitchen. He had the day off, Allen's shop wasn't particularly busy, and Allen – succumbing to the inevitable of eventually losing half his employees to BKE – had wanted to take the time to interview some applicants for Nigel's position. Nigel had agreed to stay on until they'd made sure his replacement was adequate. Pouring himself a cup of tea and helping himself to the basket of scones on the table, Remus settled in for what he had assumed would be a good long hour of reading on the theoretical application of transfiguration in formal dueling. However, halfway through the second paragraph, the phone rang.
Remus got up and answered it, "Kellerman residence. How may I help you?" He cringed inwardly when he realized he was using the same tone of voice – and almost the exact same greeting – he did at the shop.
"This is Kerry Hawthorn," a female voice replied. "Is either Jennifer or Allen Kellerman available?"
Remus checked the dry-erase board on the fridge, Jenn had left a note that she'd be gone most of the day discussing a program with a client. "Sorry, ma'am. May I take a message?"
"That's quite all right," she replied pleasantly. "I was just calling to see if perhaps Harry Potter were sick. He didn't show for his first class this morning."
Remus' throat suddenly constricted. "Harry's not at school?"
"I believe I just stated that," this time her voice was somewhat bemused, sounding like she had to repeat this type of phone call far too often.
"Sorry… It's just not like him not to be at school, unless there's a good reason…" Remus found himself wising the phone was a cordless, so he could go check the driveway to see if Viridian was outside. "If you'd hang on a moment, I'll see if his truck is still here. Maybe he had some car trouble."
"Certainly."
Remus sat the phone on the counter and hurried to the nearest window with a view of the drive. He let out a relieved sigh when he saw that it was empty. Returning to the phone, he picked the receiver back up and said, "Well, that settles it, then. His truck's not in the drive, so he probably had some trouble on the way to school."
"Thank you, mister…?"
"Lupin. Remus Lupin."
"Yes, Mr. Lupin. Thank you for your time."
"No problem," he replied, and then hung up the receiver. If Harry'd had any problems with the truck, I wonder if he called the shop? Remus picked up the phone once more and dialed the shop's number. It was answered on the third ring.
"Kellerman's Service Shop, Allen speaking."
"Hey, Allen, it's Remus. Did Harry call you this morning?"
"No… But I've not been in the office the whole time, let me ask Mike and Tim," there was a beep and hold-music began playing. After a couple of minutes, another beep sounded and Allen was back on the line. "Nope, sorry. Tim said to tell you to tell Harry that he needs to retrieve Viridian from the lot at his apartment before the manager has it towed… Just out of curiosity, though, why were you wondering if Harry'd called?"
An uneasy feeling crept into the back of Remus' mind and sat heavily in his stomach. "The secretary at Stonewall called a couple of minutes ago – Harry didn't show for classes this morning."
"Is he sick?"
"I don't think so… I'll double-check his room, though. Talk to you when I figure this out, okay?"
"Keep me posted."
Remus hung the phone up and sprinted up the stairs three at a time. He threw the door to Harry's room open and saw a messy bed, obviously slept in, but no Harry. A closer look showed that Harry's cell phone was still on the charger on his desk, but his glasses and wand weren't where he kept them on the bedside table. Harry's heavy coat was hanging on the hook on the back of the door, but his slippers and house coat weren't in their normal places. The unease blossomed into full-blown panic. He raced back to the phone and hit redial. This time, the phone was answered in only half a ring. "Remus?"
"Harry's not here, but I don't think he went anywhere… His coat is still on the hook, and his mobile is here, but his glasses and wand are gone."
"I talked to Tim, he said that Harry and Amelia broke up last night. Maybe he just needs a day to himself… God knows, I did the same thing a time or two when I was his age." Allen tried to sound reassuring, but Remus could tell that the man was likely as worried as he was.
"I'm going to run over to Sirius', maybe Harry's hiding out there…" Personally, Remus hoped so, but couldn't let himself believe it. It wasn't like Harry to cut school, even if his godfather pleaded with him, as he had done on numerous occasions.
"And I'll give Jenn a call, see if maybe she's heard from him."
"Good. I'll take Harry's mobile with me, call when you have news."
"Will do."
Once Remus had hung up the phone once more, he sprinted back up to Harry's room and grabbed the cell off the charger, and then dashed full-speed down the street to Sirius' house. He knocked loudly before flying through the door. "Sirius!"
"In the garage!" Sirius' muted shout replied.
Remus rushed through the house and into the attached garage. Sirius was tinkering with his motorcycle – he'd spent the previous Sunday first talking to Hagrid and then retrieving it from a storage unit in Manchester. "What's wrong?" Sirius asked, setting a wrench on the motorcycle's seat.
"Have you seen Harry today?"
Sirius shook his head, "No… Thought he had school today… Why? What's wrong, Moony?"
"Harry's school called and said that he'd not shown up for class –"
"What!" Sirius nearly shouted, but held back at the last possible second. "Did you call Allen?"
Remus nodded, "Yeah. He's not heard from Harry, either. Said that Tim mentioned Harry's truck was still over at his place."
"What's it doing there?"
"I don't know, I didn't ask!" Remus snapped.
"Do you think that he's maybe spending the day with that girlfriend of his… whatshername… Andrea?"
"Amelia, and I don't think so. Allen also said that Tim said that they'd broken up last night."
Remus could tell that Sirius was starting to get as frantic as he was. "Did you call him?"
"He doesn't have his phone with him… In fact, I've got it with me right now."
Sirius slumped visibly, he was rapidly running out of ideas. "Maybe he's with Jenn?"
"Maybe, Allen's going to call her and call me back."
Almost as if saying so had caused it to happen, Harry's phone rang. Remus fished it out of his pockets and answered it. "Yeah? … Shite. … No, stay at the shop, you still have those interviews this afternoon. I'll go back to the house. … When? … Okay." He pushed the button to end the call. He met Sirius' inquisitive stare. "He's not with Jenn. Apparently, Jenn called Chad. He and Moody are on their way over – Harry's not with them, either – with information about something else, I didn't ask what."
Sirius sighed and Remus could tell his old friend was resisting changing into his animagus form by sheer force of will. It was a side-effect of having spent so much of his time in Azkaban as a dog, now that he was free, whenever his emotions felt like they were getting too far out of control, he retreated into his form as a coping mechanism. Remus knew the better way to keep Sirius human for the time-being was to give him something useful to do. "Why don't I go back to the Kellermans' and wait for Chad and Moody? You should go floo Arthur and see if maybe he or his sons know where Harry is. Come over when you're done."
Sirius straightened and nodded. Remus patted Sirius' shoulder before ducking out the half-open garage door and heading back to the Kellerman home. He arrived mere moments before Chad's rent-a-car pulled into the driveway. Moody clumsily got out of the passenger door, Chad only a step behind him and carrying a pile of yellow notebooks.
"What's this about Potter missing?" the retired auror asked when Remus showed them both in.
"We don't know if he's missing, we just… can't find him," Remus slumped into the sofa.
Chad cleared his throat. "Well, considering what Moody and me found out, maybe we can help in locating him, if he doesn't turn up?"
Remus looked up at the American profiler and gave a weary smile of thanks. "What did you find out?" he asked, as much to keep his mind off the current situation as for any genuine curiosity he harbored.
Chad merely handed over the top notebook in his stack and Remus forced himself to read through the man's excessively neat printing. About ten minutes later, Sirius popped into existence in the entrance hall. He poked his head into the lounge before entering the room properly. "No luck with the Weasleys, Moony. While I was at it, I flooed Albus, too, thinking maybe Harry'd gone up to Hogwarts to talk to Hermione. No luck there, either." Though his voice was clear and strong, Sirius was obviously quite worried. He sank into the sofa next to Remus, pulling his feet up onto the cushion. He lasted almost five full seconds before melting into the large black dog better known as Padfoot.
"No matter how often I see that," Chad said, trying to lighten the atmosphere, "I can't seem to get used to it."
Moody grunted in acknowledgement. Remus realized that though he'd read the better part of five pages of Chad's notes, he didn't remember a single detail. He sat the notebook on the coffee table and sighed. "Why don't you just tell me what's in that? I can't concentrate."
Chad opened his mouth to start explaining, but was interrupted by a low growl from Padfoot. Though only moments earlier, the dog had been sitting dejectedly on the couch, he was now standing on the cushion. The fur around his neck was standing on edge and he was growling, scenting the air. "What's wrong, Padfoot?" Remus asked. "What do you smell?"
Moody looked sharply at Remus. "Thought you'd know that."
Remus shrugged a little. "Seem to have a cold. Can't smell a thing."
Padfoot jumped off of the sofa and ran out of the lounge. He paused at the doorway long enough to send a doggy glare to the three other occupants as though saying 'Are you coming or not?' Remus, followed closely by Moody and Chad, followed Padfoot out of the parlor and up the staircase. They watched as Sirius sniffed around, his growls getting louder with each breath. When Padfoot snuffled his way to the empty corner of the hall next to Harry's door, the dog blurred and a furious Sirius slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. "That bitch!"
"Who?" Moody asked.
"Bellatrix. She was here, sometime last night. Check for a portkey."
Harry slowly came to consciousness. His head ached from where it had hit the ground when Crouch petrified him. Other than that, though, he was only a bit chilly and rather stiff. Opening his eyes found him to be in a small room. Though he was tempted to call it a dungeon, mainly due to the lack of windows and the stone floor and walls, the empty wine racks lining the wall beside him told him otherwise. The only door to the room was closed and Harry figured it was probably locked, too. A quick check of his person revealed that he still wore his slippers, pajamas, and house coat, and, oddly enough, his glasses, but he no longer had his wand. The wine cellar was very dim, though not completely dark. Light filtered in from the two-inch crack under the door.
Harry slowly got to his feet and stumbled over to it. Most of his stiffness was because of sleeping on the stone floor, and the rest was likely because it was very cold in the cellar. He knelt down and peered through the crack. Beyond the door was an empty room with an identical stone floor, though the walls were aging wood. A couple of sconces on the wall held stubby candles – the source of the weak light. Harry sat up and sighed.
Though he'd thought he had understood the circumstances of having an evil wizard with a plethora of minions out for his blood, he had never truly appreciated the danger he had been in. He took a moment to thank whatever deity might be listening that so far, he was relatively unscathed. I need to figure out how to get out of here, he thought. He stood again and half-heartedly tried the door. It didn't budge. Like I expected any differently. Standing at the door, Harry took a closer look around the room. It was bigger than he'd assumed. There were several isles of racks designed to hold wine bottles and he could sense a larger area just out of sight, beyond the reach of the faint light. The racks all appeared to be empty, though Harry couldn't be absolutely certain. I need more light. Suddenly, Harry remembered what Professor Snape had told him during his occlumency lessons, '…a wandless charm like lumos or wingardium leviosa. Those merely require force of will and an adequate supply of magical power; nearly anyone higher in power than a squib could learn to cast wandlessly if they so desired.'
Having never researched wandless magic, though he was interested in it – he simply hadn't had the time – Harry had no idea what the proper way to learn such a skill would be. He did recall, however, how Remus had taught him to cast a wanded lumos. So, he purposefully sat in the middle of the first isle where he'd woken up and began breathing, entering into a meditative trance. He fell inward and saw his magic. It was no less beautiful than the first time he had seen it. The rainbow of threads, ropes, and cables of power seemed to pulse, something Harry'd not noticed the first time through. He located the thread that felt like light and, much as he had several months earlier, guided it through his arm. He felt his hand tingle, and pictured himself holding a ball of the blue-white light that he normally saw at the end of his wand. He opened his eyes and very nearly cried in relief. Well… that worked. He was, indeed, holding a small ball of blue-white light.
After a couple of minutes experimenting, he found that he could direct the ball of energy to go where he wanted. Satisfied with himself so far, he got to his feet and began exploring the wine cellar. He didn't find much besides cobwebs and dust, but he did manage to locate an old, moth-eaten, colorless blanket under one of the wine racks. The large, empty-feeling area had three barrel-stands, one of which still held its barrel. The other two barrels had long since been destroyed, barrel-boards and iron bands littered the space. When he tried the valve of the remaining barrel, a vinegary-smelling reddish liquid poured out and onto the floor. Somehow, I don't think that's drinkable anymore.
As he made his way back towards the door, he noticed that the last wine rack wasn't totally empty. There was one bottle on the bottom-most shelf, nearest the wall. He pulled it out and saw that the label, old and yellowed, wasn't in English. It wasn't a language Harry recognized, the letters seemed to be a combination of Greek and Latin, with some really strange ones thrown in almost at random. It was about three-quarters full of a clear liquid, and it didn't have a cork, nor a twist-cap. Instead it had an odd metal clamp holding a stopper of what might have been cork or rubber in place. It looked a lot like the lids to the jars his aunt Petunia kept the flour and sugar in. He unclamped the stopper and sniffed the contents. The sharp smell of alcohol hit his nose. He took a tiny sip. Ah, vodka. Must be Russian on the label, then. He re-stoppered the bottle and tucked it under his arm.
He sat the bottle and the blanket on the floor near the door and then took a closer look at the door, itself. It was wooden, but seemed to be in better shape than most of the other wooden things Harry had thus far encountered. Either it had been constructed of better materials, or – and this Harry thought was far more likely – it had been repaired recently, perhaps even replaced. The hinges were on the other side of the door, so he had no hope of getting out that way. It didn't have a key-plate on the inside, either, and the handle was a simple pull-bar, so Harry assumed that the door was kept closed either with magic or by a bar across the other side. Looking closely at where the door met the wall, he was pretty sure it was a bar. A crack between two boards, where one was missing a piece of its corner showed that the stone wall on the other side overlapped the top edge enough that it wouldn't swing outward.
I need a plan, Harry sat on the floor, pulling the old, ratty blanket around himself, and I need it yesterday
It was nearing three o'clock in the afternoon, and though she was more worried than she'd ever been before in her life, Jenn had to suppress a chuckle at the sight of Remus, Sirius, Chad, and Allen all behaving exactly alike – pacing holes in her kitchen. She understood, though, and had she been a pacer, she'd likely have joined them. As it was, however, she watched them while nursing a mug of tea. If she distanced herself from her own worry, it was almost hypnotic. The four men were similar in height and it almost looked as though they were engaged in some sort of strange dance. Remus and Sirius were pacing in opposite directions from the kitchen window to the stove and back again. Chad was doing lengths of the kitchen, along the inner wall, mumbling to himself and reading one of his notebooks while doing so. Allen seemed to have fallen into orbit around the table. It was a wonder that no one had run into anyone else at this point.
The entire room stopped and looked up when Tonks apparated into their midst. "Well, we know that the portkey took him somewhere in Little Hangleton, but that's about all we've got right now. We're organizing a team to sweep the town, see if we can locate his magical signature."
Chad flipped through his notebook, "Little Hangleton, did you say?"
"Yes, why?"
He stopped flipping pages and handed her the notepad. "That's were Voldemort's parents are from."
Tonks looked to be a little surprised at that revelation. "Where did you get this information?" she asked, reading some of what Chad had written down.
"Dumbledore," he replied.
Tonks looked up from the tablet and handed it back to Chad. "I'll be back as soon as I can with news," she said before apparating out.
Harry had a plan. Sort of. There was still plenty that could go wrong with it, and it would be risky in the extreme, but he hadn't come up with anything better. I hope this works, he thought, bringing his lumos back – it had faded some time ago, when Harry's concentration faltered. He gathered bits of the broken barrels and laid them at an angle to the door before pouring half of the vodka on them. He then thoroughly wetted the blanket and his clothes with the wine-turned-vinegar from the remaining whole barrel. The last thing he did was send an incendio to the wood stacked against the door.
It had taken him ages to get the incendio to work properly, every time he tried to cast it, it had faltered. Finally it had dawned on him that he was trying to cast it through a wand that he didn't have. He meditated and corrected his mistake.
When the spell hit the wood, bluish flames burst into life. Before the alcohol could burn off, Harry hurried to the furthest corner of the cellar and draped the blanket over himself, creating a pocket where he would have air untainted by smoke. He wished he knew that charm Remus had mentioned a few weeks earlier – that one that ensured the caster would have fresh air – What did he call it again? The bubble-something or other…
After a relatively short wait, the cellar was filled with thick smoke. At least it's not cold anymore. Harry carefully maneuvered with the blanket over him, crawling along the floor like they'd taught him to in primary school. He squinted through the haze of smoke from under a corner of the blanket. He grinned. The door was almost completely gone. He took a couple of deep breaths before standing up and racing through the flaming doorway. He wasn't in contact with the flames long enough to get burned, and his wet clothes made sure that they didn't catch fire, either. The bottle of vodka was in his robe pocket. Harry had no idea what use it would be, but he kept hold of it, in any case. If I have to, I can always use it to cosh someone on the head…
Harry carefully climbed the staircase to the main floor of the building. He looked carefully around himself, there didn't appear to be anyone else there. Either that or they are just too used to being up all night and sleeping all day… Harry smiled a little humorlessly at the thought. I need my wand.
Walking as silently as he could, he started searching the large house for his wand. It was slow going. The light coming through the dusty windows was rapidly failing, so it had to be getting close to six or seven. Harry couldn't remember what time the sun set in April.
He had just determined that his wand wasn't on the main floor of the house when he heard footsteps overhead. Damnit, Harry get your arse out of here. You can always replace the damn wand. Picturing his bedroom in Little Whinging, Harry tried to apparate. He didn't get very far. Opening his eyes, he resisted the urge to swear. He was still on the ground floor of the house, a mere six feet from he had been standing moments earlier.
Through the thin haze of smoke that permeated the house, Harry heard loud voices and rapid footsteps again. Screw this, where's a door? Harry wasn't about to let himself be re-captured. Hopefully, the fire will keep them busy. He abandoned all pretense of stealth and raced for the nearest door. He flung it open and raced across a broad expanse of what had once been a well-tended garden. He hoped to make it to the line of trees he could see in the rapidly-fading twilight, just down the hill. Halfway there, he felt someone slam into him. He tried to fight back, really, he did, but Barty Crouch was a solid foot taller than he was, not to mention fully grown and had no qualms about fighting dirty. Before long, Harry found himself petrified again.
"Bring him to the graveyard, Crouch. It is time," a voice Harry had only ever heard before in sleep reached his ears.
What felt like years later, but was in reality only a few minutes, the petrificus was removed from Harry. He was now standing, though he couldn't move any more than he could previously. He tugged at the ropes that held him in place and only succeeded in rubbing his wrists raw. There was also a wad of material in his mouth that kept him from talking, not that he had much to say just then anyway. While trying desperately to escape, he caught sight of the name on the tombstone to which he was secured. Tom Riddle.
"It's no use, you know, trying to escape." Crouch said nonchalantly from somewhere behind Harry's left shoulder.
"Quit baiting our… honored guest, Crouch."
Looking around, Harry saw that there was a huge cauldron setting directly on a fire only a couple of yards from where he stood, tied to the tombstone. The voice of Voldemort had originated from a bundle of tattered rags mere feet from the cauldron. Bella was hovering between both the cauldron and the bundle of rags. "It is ready, milord." The liquid in the cauldron was glowing, sending up silver sparks. If he weren't tied to a tombstone and in the presence of the man who had murdered his parents, Harry would have said that it was rather pretty.
Bella picked up the bundle of rags and dumped their contents into the cauldron. Harry had a glimpse of something utterly vile and disturbing – something that could have once been a child, but was so twisted by evil it was no longer recognizable as human. He knew better than to hope that something that evil could drown.
Barty stepped into Harry's line of sight and raised his wand. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son."
Having seen one – count it, one – zombie movie in his entire life, Harry yelped around the gag when the grave below him split open. He had been half-expecting to see a rotted corpse come climbing out, so he felt rather foolish when all that emerged from the crack was a thin line of dust, snaking its way out of the hole and through the air to land in the cauldron. The potion hissed and sent sparks flying before settling again, now a putrid blue.
Next, Bellatrix spoke. "Flesh of the servant," she intoned, reaching into a fold of her cloak and retrieving a long, wicked-looking dagger. "Willingly given," her voice was clear and confident, and perhaps a touch prideful. "You will revive your master." With that sentence, she cleanly sliced off her own hand, which landed with a plop in the glowing blue potion. Harry felt more than willing to empty his stomach of every meal he'd ever eaten, and absurdly noted at that moment that Bellatrix was left-handed.
With the addition of Bella's contribution, the potion had turned a burning red. Crouch stepped forward, taking the dagger from her hand. Harry could faintly hear him telling her to take care of it before she bled to death, and Bella's hissed retort that their lord wouldn't let her die like that. Shaking his head, Crouch approached Harry. Harry realized just a moment too late what Crouch intended, and despite his thrashing, was helpless to stop it.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken," Crouch ran the sharp blade through Harry's housecoat and pajama sleeve, the material parting with about as much resistance as water. "You will resurrect your foe." The knife pierced the crook of his elbow. Harry yelped around the gag, but it didn't help. Crouch held a vial so that blood could spill into it. He then carried the vial to the cauldron and poured it inside.
It seemed to Harry that the world had melted in a blinding surge of light from the cauldron. When the light faded from his eyes, though, he found that wasn't the case. A man was crawling out of the cauldron. He seemed impossibly tall and rail-thin, but his voice commanded in a manner which Harry doubted anyone could resist. "Robes, Crouch. My wand, Bella." They scurried to comply; Harry couldn't describe it any other way.
Distracted by the gruesome events to which he had been forced to participate, Harry hadn't noticed the pain emanating from his scar, but when Voldemort turned to face Harry, that pain increased enough that Harry whimpered around the gag. "Ah, Harry Potter. At last we meet, at long last." Voldemort stepped closer to Harry. "You stand on the remains of my late father," he said softly. "A muggle and a fool… very like your dear mother. But, they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child, and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself in death?"
Voldemort laughed, a cold, cruel sound, and began to pace. "You know that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him, but he abandoned her when she told him what she was. He didn't like magic, you see.
"He left her and returned to his muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a muggle orphanage… but I vowed to find him... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name… Tom Riddle…" Harry already knew much of this, of course, from Chad's discussions with Dumbledore, but he couldn't very well say so through the gag in his mouth.
Voldemort was still pacing. Harry thought that he looked as though he were relishing being in a proper body. "Listen to me waxing sentimental about ancient history… But family is at the forefront of my mind. Bella!"
Bella, cradling her injured arm stepped forward and bowed low. "Yes, milord?"
Voldemort smiled. "Come now, my Bella. Give me your arm."
Bella let go of her wounded arm and held out her left. Harry was a little surprised at that, he would have assumed that the Dark Lord was going to heal her injury. He held her hand and with a careless grace pushed her robe up to reveal her forearm. A glowing red image was burned into her skin. Harry recognized it from Remus' descriptions. It was the Dark Mark.
"It is back," Voldemort said softly. "They will all have noticed it, and now we shall see… Now I will know…" He pressed a long white finger to the brand. Harry's scar let out another wave of pain and the brand turned black. Bella showed no sign of any discomfiture. With a satisfied look, Voldemort straightened up. "How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his eyes staring at a point somewhere behind Harry. "How many will be foolish enough to stay away?"
Several minutes passed in silence, and Harry could swear that the night was growing brighter… but that had to be his imagination, didn't it? Without warning, the air was suddenly full of the cracks of apparation and the swishing of cloaks. "Look, Harry," Voldemort hissed, "my true family returns!"
Over the course of the next half an hour or so, Harry listened intently to Voldemort, taking care to memorize what names he revealed, even while his mind was frantically trying to figure out a way out of his current predicament. His whirling mind paused when interrupted by a scream of pain from one of the assembled Death Eaters, and again when Voldemort rewarded Bella's sacrifice by giving her a shining, silver hand. Even with all that was going on around him, the pain in his arm, the pain from his scar, and the strange, glowing brightness of the night, Harry spared a moment to think I believe that online list is right… All megalomaniacal nutcases seem to suffer from diarrhea of the mouth… His moment of surreal humor was short-lived when he heard a most unlikely sentence come from the Dark Lord's lips. "Now untie him, Crouch, and give him back his wand."
Crouch once again approached Harry and pulled the gag out of his mouth. Using the knife he'd used to slice Harry's arm open, he made short work of the ropes binding Harry to the tombstone. There was a moment when Harry considered running for it, but he immediately discarded that notion when the assembled Death Eaters closed ranks. He, Crouch, and Voldemort were in the center of a circle of about thirty of the Dark Lord's followers. Harry knew there was no way he'd be able to get through them. Crouch pressed Harry's wand, retrieved from a pocket, into his hand, before joining the ranks of Death Eaters surrounding them.
"You have been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?" Voldemort asked, red eyes glinting in the darkness. Now that Harry was released from the ropes, he looked around and saw that the growing light of the night hadn't been his imagination. The fire he'd started in the basement of the Riddle mansion had spread. Most of the house was totally engulfed in flame. He wondered if perhaps the muggle authorities would show up and save him. He had to stifle an urge to laugh. What could a muggle fireman do against this crowd?
Apparently tired of waiting for Harry to respond to his question, Voldemort began speaking again. "We bow to each other, Harry," he said, bending a little, but keeping his gaze locked on Harry. "Come, the niceties must be observed. Dumbledore would like you to show your manners. Bow to death, Harry."
Harry smirked a little, and finally addressed the Dark Lord. "You don't know me all that well if you assume I give a damn what Albus Dumbledore thinks of me," he said, mimicking Voldemort's little bow. That seems to have surprised him…
"Can it be that the lauded Boy-Who-Lived is not the shining, spotless hope of the wizarding world?" Voldemort looked honestly intrigued. "However did that happen, I wonder? Perhaps the old man is losing his touch."
Harry's smirk grew somewhat, "Perhaps."
Seemingly coming back to himself, Voldemort shook off whatever thoughts had crept into his mind and smiled. "And now, we duel."
Voldemort raised his wand, firing off a curse Harry remembered as being listed as an unforgivable. He quickly jumped out of the way, "That's not standard dueling practice, Tom," he chided, ducking behind Tom Riddle's gravestone.
Whether Voldemort was upset about the use of his given name or not didn't show in his voice, "It was, Harry, until the dueling code was reworked in 1944."
"Oh, the Grindelwald-thing," Harry replied from behind the tombstone.
"Despite your absence from Hogwarts, you have been learning, haven't you?"
"What was your first clue?" Harry suddenly realized that though he was surrounded by Death Eaters and in the presence of the Dark Lord, himself, none of them had raised a wand to him… Barring the earlier petrificus from Crouch, of course. Wonder what they'd do if I did make a run for it?
"Come now, Harry, what would everyone think if they knew that not only were you hiding, but being rude as well?"
Harry laughed, he couldn't help it. The darkest wizard in an age telling him he was rude? Like he was some primary school kid acting up in class? "You're one to talk about rudeness, Tom. What kind of leader curses his own followers?"
"A strong one, Harry. I'm sure even you can understand that a true leader cannot afford to show leniency to a follower who has disobeyed."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Harry peeked around the corner of the tombstone. Voldemort was just standing there, looking mildly amused at the whole situation.
"We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry," he said as he began walking closer to the tombstone. The Death Eaters chuckled. "You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you tire of our duel? Do you want me to finish it now? Come out, Harry, come out and play. Then, it will be quick. It might even be painless; I would not know, of course, having never died."
"Who says I would die?" Harry asked, ducking as low as he could behind the stone before sending a trip jinx to catch the Dark Lord's ankles. He was rewarded with a small stumble from Voldemort, but the man recovered quickly.
"Clever boy," Voldemort hissed, raising his wand. Harry could tell that the Dark Lord had reached the end of his patience with him. Before he could blast the tombstone into dust, Harry stepped aside, his own wand held ready.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Harry ducked under Voldemort's blasting curse and sent back a quick stunner, which was deflected easily. The two of them sent curses and hexes back and forth, colorful light danced around the graveyard. Several of the Death Eaters had been hit with deflected hexes, and openings now graced the ring of spectators. Harry took a deep breath, it was now or never.
Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!" at the same moment that Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"
The two curses met in midair, and the Death Eaters later would be hard-pressed to say who was more surprised when the wands connected – Potter or their Lord and Master. A golden beam of light now connected both wands, and Harry tightened his grip on a wand that was shaking and vibrating.
While the thread splintered and formed a glowing cage of energy around them, Harry heard frantic voices asking Voldemort what they were to do. Voldemort's reply was that they should do nothing until he said. An unearthly sound filled the air when the last thread of energy finished forming the strange, glowing cage around them. It was beautiful, moving. It sounded like hope, life, and joy. Harry had no idea what it was, but he could feel the music talking to him.
Don't break the connection.
Harry rolled his eyes. I know. I know I mustn't… Harry's wand was practically bucking in his hand now, and he reached out and gripped it with both hands. The thread connecting the two wands now sported beads of power. They looked rather like giant drops of dew on the support filaments of a spider's web, if not for the fact that they seemed to be traveling along the thread, inching ever nearer to Harry's wand.
Harry didn't know precisely why, but he knew that if those dewdrops touched his wand, it would be very bad indeed, so he forced all his concentration to stopping their progress. Slowly, slowly, it seemed to work. The beads halted in their journey across the filament of power and began to reverse their course.
Through the ache of his injured arm, through the pain in his scar, through his bone-deep terror of the situation and his wonder at what was happening, and through the sweat that was dripping into his eyes, Harry could see that Voldemort was scared. It was the single most heartening thing Harry had seen since waking up in that wine cellar only hours before.
The bead nearest Voldemort's wand suddenly made contact. Flashes of muted color erupted around Harry, followed by echoing screams of pain and a dense, smoky hand emerged and immediately disappeared. There were more screams of pain, and Harry suddenly realized that whatever was happening, it was forcing Voldemort's wand to essentially regurgitate the spells last performed with it. Despite this realization, however, Harry was shocked when a person began emerging from the wand. It was the boy he'd seen in his dreams – visions – all those months earlier.
He looked like a hundred other kids Harry had known over his life, with short hair and an unmemorable face. "Hold on, kid," he said, his voice echoing as though from far away.
Harry nodded, unable at that point to do anything else. Ignoring the echoes of the other spells cast from the wand of the Dark Lord, he began looking for the next victim. An old man appeared, looking a little shocked at what he was seeing. "He was a real wizard, then?" he said, his eyes on Voldemort. "Killed me, that one did… You fight him, boy."
Another ghostly gray body was already emerging from Voldemort's wand, followed by another and another. Harry wondered if the wand had ever done anything but cause pain and death, and then his thoughts were interrupted by a familiar head of messy hair emerging from the wand. A man stood and looked directly at Harry. Harry understood in that moment just why it was that everyone said he looked just like his father.
"Your mother's coming," he said quietly. "She wants to see you. It will be all right, hold on."
Harry had only a moment to realize that the reason he looked so much like his father was the fact that his parents had only been a mere three years older than he was now when they died before Lily Potter showed up. She hurried to James' side and whispered in Harry's ear, "When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments, but it will give you time to get away. Do not apparate! Do you understand?"
"Yes," Harry gasped, fighting hard to keep a hold of his wand with sweaty palms.
James spoke again, "We're very proud of you, son, never forget that."
"Do it now," Lily said. "Run fast, Harry. We love you." She kissed his cheek and Harry would later reflect that it had been warm… nothing at all like the stories he'd heard about ghosts touching the living and leaving an icy chill.
Harry wrenched his wand upwards as hard as he could, shattering the connection between the two wands and ran. He pushed his way past a couple of stunned Death Eaters and sprinted as fast as he could towards the forest.
He didn't look back, though he was dying to know how the grey shades of Voldemort's victims managed to keep the wizard busy. He simply ran until his side ached and his heart pounded in his temples, until his legs felt like lead and he began tripping over things that weren't there.
He didn't know if he was being pursued or not, he didn't stop long enough to find out. After what felt like hours of dodging through trees and jumping over small streams, he finally couldn't take another step forward. He tripped again over a fallen log and laid there, gasping for breath. The moon had finally risen sometime during his flight, and it cast plenty of light for him to see rather clearly in the forest. It had been full about five nights earlier.
In its silvery light, Harry spotted a small, dark opening in the side of an exposed wall of rock. He shakily got to his feet and stumbled over to it. He cast a lumos and inspected the small cave. It wasn't much, but it beat sleeping exposed. He quickly noxed the lumos, just in case, and huddled in the darkest corner of the cramped space. In his exhaustion, it wasn't long before he was soundly asleep.
A/N2: Sorry this one took so long to post, I've had half of it written for a long time, but I kept dallying on getting to the part with Voldie there at the end… I still don't feel that it's true to what I saw in my head, but I re-worked it three times, and this is – by far – the best version.
I'll admit I was rather tempted to leave everyone with a cliffy just after 'He was about to try to wrench out of what he thought to be Remus' grasp – ever since being reunited with Sirius, he'd been participating in more pranks of late – when a disturbing hook-like sensation grabbed his bellybutton and the dark hall of the Kellerman house spun away in a haze of magic,' but I thought that the readers I have who know where I live might just kill me in my sleep or something. So… No real cliffy this time. Hope it was fun, all the same.
Be it ever so humble, there's no thing like reviews.