Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I own anything in relation to Harry Potter except my plot, and my OC's.
"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, Albus. It is only a matter of time before I'm found out. What then?"
"You must continue, the fate of the world depends on it."
"I must save a world I can not live freely in?"
"If not for the world, old friend, than for me."
"I don't see how I owe you anything. You should be paying me some sort of tithe! The things I do for the stability of the Universe..."
"...You may be correct. Though I have always had my reasons, I suppose I've brought more harm upon you than you me. But as long as he still poses a threat to this world, I must be endlessly vigilant. And that, my oldest friend, requires your help. His return could occur any day..."
"Any day! How could you have let this come so far! You must delay his return. Inevitable as it is, at least give me time to prepare myself. I've nary been able to establish myself here, let alone been able to truly build a proper network. I am totally unprepared for his return! Stop calling me your friend, Albus!"
"...I will do what I can. The hands of my watch are turning faster now than ever before."
The wind whipped, ripping the smallest of hairs he had only recent gained clear off of his uncovered wrists. Harry Potter was falling. His eyes brimmed with burning tears as he tried in vain to open them. He thrashed about on instinct. His legs flailed in the air, his jacket, well-worn and far from being salvageable by non-magical means, flapped loudly in the wind. His normally black hair was caked with dark blood and wet clay. The mountain side flew by as he approached the terminal velocity of a fourteen year old British male.
As he fell, he screamed inwardly. He couldn't physically scream of course; but mentally screaming was just as satisfying at this point.
'Accio wand.' Nothing happened. Cursing his previous moment of bad grip, he continued to try to wordlessly summon his wand. 'Accio wand! GET OVER HERE YOU DAMNED TWIG!"
Suddenly, his foot came into contact with something. His obvious lack of any kind of footwear, something he was all too aware of in the freezing temperature of the Appalachian peaks, had suddenly become a boon, for had he been shoe'd, he may never have felt the sensation of grainy wood rubbing against numb flesh. Acting on instinct, he reached out and grabbed the object between his toes. The back of his mind prayed it was his wand, and not an actual twig (he might have died from irony), but his conscious had bigger things to worry about, like the rapidly approaching ground.
He threw himself forward, a tough thing to do considering the winds battering every inch of his person. Grabbing his wand from his toes, he proceeded to relax back into his instincts. There was no time for calculations; no time to set up the perfect matrix and appreciate it's complexity. No, there wasn't even time to estimate just how far the ground was. He was probably going to splinch himself, but at this point, that'd be fine. Nothing but the quick wrist flick and a great will to not be where he currently was was on Harry Potter's mind.
The air around him rushing to take his place let off a resounding crack, which would have alerted any living thing around for miles had there been any to hear it. Harry Potter disappeared. All that remained was a tiny, bluish-pink blob that fell out of th sky, disappearing into the heavy snow.
With another crack, this one even louder, Harry Potter appeared on the forest floor. He fell to his knees almost immediately, quickly checking himself over for splinched body parts. After a full once over, he smiled. He'd only lost a pinkie toe, and a frost-bitten one at that. Only a week ago he never could have managed an apparation from free fall without splinching himself in half. He'd made progress. Wordlessly, he conjured some heavy bandages and began to wrap his feet up. Vanishing his boots had been a cruel thing to do, he found comfort, however, in the fact that Joseph's attempt to torture him had saved his life.
He stared up at the mountain peak, barely visible in the snowy haze, cursing his lack of subtlety. His loud apparation technique had given him away on his last attempt, and he once again cursed his inability to speak. Wordless spells were often more complex and much less powerful than loud ones. Without an incantation a wizard had to direct the magic all on there own, without the help of of a secondary matrix support provided by a word or two of will. It was of course, easier than preforming a spell without a matrix support entirely via wandless casting; wandless casting was still far out of Harry's reach.
Harry returned to staring at the mountain peak. If subtlety wasn't going to work, the only thing that would was overwhelming force. Harry smiled; he liked overwhelming force. With a flick of his wrist he disappeared again, this time with a reverberation of power that blew the branches of the surrounding trees straight off, and sent the few remaining animals scrambling away from their shelters.
He reappeared at the summit, perfectly, or so he hoped, intact. He wasted no time in checking his surroundings, however, and immediately began firing of spells.
'Herrywedla! Dawedog Bell Bwra' The hunting hex, followed by the sniping hex flew off the tip of his wand, flying straight before sharply turning towards some shrubbery, the hunting hex leading the deadly sniping blast towards the nearest magical signature. Normally the signature tracker, also knowns as the hunting hex, was useless. It followed the shortest path to the nearest magical signature that wasn't it's caster, making it rather wasteful in battle. You were just as likely to hit a random magical object, a magically infused piece of land, or even worse, a comrade as you were to hit your opponent. However, here, isolated on a barren mountain side, the tracking hex was a irreplaceable tool. The only other magical object in the forest, and the only place the grid lines would lead, was his yellow-bellied mentor.
Harry Potter had grown up in too many places to ever have a true grasp of pop culture, so he had never heard the common expression about what assumptions do to people. However, had he known it, he would have agreed entirely.
Harry had, of course, followed up his sniping hex with a few other simple curses. A single 'stupefy' had revealed, by the lack of body falling out of the bush, that the bush was, in fact, magical. After further inspection, Harry realized he was examining a Holly bush. Holly was ever so slightly magical, never enough to set off a normal tracking ward, but apparently enough to trip the hunting hex. And while Harry was not vocal about it, his flushed face indicated a great amount of anger at that particular fun fact.
'Shitshitshitshitshit,'Harry frantically searched the area. It was guaranteed that Joseph had chosen this area particularly to trap Harry, but, as Harry had just discovered, assuming that was probably a very bad idea.
A purple ball of light rushed past his nose as he flattened himself to the ground. He scrambled towards the Holly bush for cover. A second purple flash smashed into his side.
Harry screamed his throat hoarse. He realized later that this must have looked very creepy, with the lack of real noise and all. Three of his ribs had been shattered. Lying just barely awake and in a cacophony of intense pain, Harry watched through blurry eyes as Joseph stepped out from what appeared to be a mountain of dirt. Inwardly, Harry cursed his own lack of perception. Joseph always preferred to rely on his own-made cover then that of the natural forest.
Joseph walked towards him, leisurely swaggering back forth, taunting Harry with his victory. He bent down, putting himself at eye level with Harry.
"For someone whose been silenced, you made a shit-load of noise," he said, smiling cruelly. "You might have actually escaped if you'd ran after shooting the bush. Staying in the area was foolish. Of course, I shouldn't have expected anything better from you, apprentice."
With that, Harry did his best to turn his pain mired face into a mimicry of Josephs sneer.
'Hypa!'
The silent pushing charm shot out of Harry's wand, and was sent directly into the ground in front of his face. The loose dist sprayed upwards, straight into Joseph's unprotected eyes.
"-argh!" Joseph faltered back, wiping his eyes as best he could. "You brat!" Leaning back, Joseph charged forward, slamming his leather boot into Harry's injured side.
If Harry had screamed silently before, this was more of a unheard wail.
"Let's go, you ungrateful wretch," Joseph paused, "you've already failed this exercise."
SCENE BREAK
Cassius Valmont had known that the day ahead would be a terrible trial when in the morning, for the first time in his life since his fathers death, he slept through his alarm. The tiny bells whose chime had brought him out of sleep for the past ten years had failed to sound. Cassius Valmont considered himself a master of his own time, and because he could not control what he dreamed of, he settled for falling asleep at precisely the same time every night in precisely the same position, on his back with his arms at his sides, palms up. To lose time in his day could only mean disaster, he knew.
Valmont's suspicions came to fruition much earlier than he had thought. He wished he had noticed that all of his servants had failed to come into his room, at 5:15, to dress him. He wished even more that he had recognized the significance of silence that permeated his villa. If he had, he might have simply decided to skip the day. It would not have been simple, but he was so sure he could have made it to the shed disguising his most secure vault. He was even more sure that his time-turner, carefully constructed out of an ancient grandfather clock, would not have exploded, and nor would it have imploded had he gone today. Unfortunately, it was not to be. He walked with renewed purpose, shoulders back, resigned, and entered his own ante-chamber.
Now, Cassius stood in front of twelve men dressed in black hoods, with pearl white masks covering their faces. Each mask depicted a face contorted in hatred, fitting, considering the faces they concealed. He glanced slowly, taking care to use only his eyes to roam over them. They varied in heights, and weights, but eleven of them carried the air of a coward. They leaned back, and their hands hovered over their wands, shaking ever so slightly. Had it not been for the twelfth figure, Valmont might have taken amusement in their fear.
The twelfth figure was the shortest of them, though he stood at the center. He slouched, and appeared almost bored in manner. That alone, however, would not have been cause for Valmont's concern. No, it was the way the other eleven crowded around him, how they all had there masks, intentionally or not, turned towards him, that inspired caution in the self-styled Roman wizard. Valmont's observations turned out to be quite correct, on a scale far larger than he had hoped.
The short, slouching man, for he was most obviously male, stepped forward. He leaned a bit, leering. And then, he hissed.
"It has been a long time since we last spoke, Cassius."
Valmont noted with only the slightest bit of horror that the voice had most obviously not originated from behind the man's mask, but from behind his very head.
"Long enough, it seems," Valmont spoke as he walked forward. He held himself with all of his inherited authority and every last shred of his pride.
The figure leers became even more pronounced as he continued to speak in a forced whisper, "It is complete then?"
"It is." There was a short lull in the conversation, and the silence that had before stood as an unseen warning was suddenly broken by the cackle and pop of magical build up. Valmont shielded his eyes only slightly, soaking in the pure magic being sent through the air in waves, carefully memorizing each bend and curve of the magical matrix. Failing to notice even the slightest deviation from the grids normally rigid form could be disastrous.
"Then let us begin," the figure said. The voice's change was pronounced and obvious. It was no longer the voice of a half dead man that echoed throughout the small ante-chamber of Valmont's villa.
Valmont led the group into the vast dome that comprised his "presentation room." Normally used to show off alchemical processes for rich investors, the room had seen very little use lately. Valmont was quite prepared to retire from both the world of business and that of alchemy.
Valmont crossed to the center of the room, flicking his wand casually towards a cabinet positioned high of the ground. The cabinet sprung open, and twelve identically sized pieces of white chalk floated towards the center of the room. They arranged themselves in a circle, and with little warning snapped into action. With the conductor-like grandiose movements of Lord Valmont's wand guiding them, the pieces of chalk flew across the chambers smooth stone floor. They curved and crossed, forming hundreds upon hundreds of symbols and glyphs, all contained within a single, larger circle.
When it was finally finished, Valmont took a step back, and gestured towards it's center. Sweat fell from his brow onto his traditional red robe. Not even the most observant interrogation auror in Europe could have guessed that Cassius Valmont was nervous.
The short figure glided forward. Valmont could only call it gliding, as it appeared his feet were not touching the ground. Three of the eleven others, the largest, carried barrels towards the center of the circle, following their master, but keeping their distance at the same time. When they reached the center of the magnificent design, the short one turned, and nodded in recognition of the other three. They nodded back, though nervously, and proceeded to dump the contents of the barrels onto the floor surrounding the slouching figure.
"Water, wood, and various stones. I have brought all you have asked for alchemist," the short man spat the last word like spoiled wine. He gestured again to the piles of material and various rocks around him, "Is this enough?" he questioned.
"Yes," Lord Valmont chose his words carefully, "it is enough." The shorter figure proceed to dismiss the three others. He floated there, hovering inches above the direct center of the circle. Valmont raised his wand slowly, gathering magical energies as he brought it to a zenith above his head. The lines being bent around the wand were now so far out of place, that they began to distort reality itself. An outside observer would have seen a twisted and misshapen space where the wand should have been. Slowly, Valmont brought the wand down towards the very edge of the circle. All of the other clocked figures had long since fled from the room, knowing they were unneeded for this particular procedure. No words were spoke, for no incantation could possibly bring this experiment control.
In the moments before Valmont's wand made contact with the edge of the chalk, two inexplicable things occurred. The man floating in the middle jerked suddenly, and his head spun in a way it was never meant to. The blood leaking out of his ear marked him as quite past dead. As well, the moment that occurred, a blue glow appeared around the body, as it fell onto the cold stone beneath. The second occurrence had almost escaped Valmont's notice. However, it is hard to escape the notice of memory. A brown owl flew quietly out of the third window to the left of the window three floors above the grand entrance to the presentation room, the only window left open in the entire villa.
After noting the owls flight, Valmont slammed his wand violently into the chalk, and pushed.
The result was nothing short of spectacular.
Magical power exploded in a boom of sonic energy multiple times, rendering the leading alchemist of his age near deaf. The blinding colors exploded out of the center as wave after wave of power and foul smelling smoke poured covered the room. The chalk itself glowed with ethereal energy, spinning the air above it into a miniature gale.
When the winds died down, and stench of rotting flesh began to clear from the room, Lord Valmont, a man who had once dreamed of empire, stood at the edge of his own alchemic circle, cursing his own life. He glanced upwards only when laughter erupted.
Valmont could just barely restrain his gasp as the newly created golem, his newly created golem, became visible. It was tall, exactly two meters in height. It's overall demeanor was slim, almost sickly. However, underneath the pristine whiteness of its unblemished skin, muscles and sinew rippled horrifically. And its face, Valmont could not bring himself to lift his gaze to its eyes. He knew what lay there. A perfect face. A face unmarred by scarring and untouched by the rays of the sun. Totally white, a perfect jawline, a handsome jaw. Two deep set, and sickeningly charming green eyes that glowed with life, and power. He had even given it hair. Long, shining black hair, that splayed across its back. He almost retched.
The creature, or creation, was leaning its head back. The sound that it emitted was similar to laughter. But it was dulled, scratchy, as if it hadn't been used in ages. The sound held none of the human quality of laughter. It was cold, devoid of human characteristics. As its laughter calmed down, Valmont could hear it breathing in short gasps. It was growing accustomed to its new lungs, he knew. It was all he could do to discipline his face as his hideous and most vile creation cocked its head towards him. Despite having skin made from stone, he was the palest of tones. In fact, if not for the detestable aura of lifelessness that surrounded it, Cassius himself might have thought him human. Green eyes gazed into his own. It smiled. Before it could speak to him, though, a loud crash followed by a quick shuffle echoed throughout the domed chamber.
The creatures head snapped towards the sound, and its muscles tensed, ready to pounce on the intruder. Valmont, thinking quickly, or perhaps not at all, took the action he knew he would take. He stepped forward with his wand, pointing it at the indescribable horror of a being before him. But he did not speak an incantation. It did not matter, for he knew quite clearly that he would not have time for a spell. When he had first motioned with his wand, the golem had already sprung into action, flying across the floor and making use of its inhuman speed and strength. No, he spoke the only words that came to mind, and continued them, even as his heart was ripped violently from his chest by the creatures claw like hands.
"Forgive me, Minerva." And with those words, Lord Cassius Valmont fell. He was, in death, as heartless as the creature he had created.
The golem turned slowly, breathing deeply, savoring the taste of life. He held his arms out as the previously hidden acolytes stepped forward, bearing a back cloak of silk. As two of the hooded figures clothed him, the other nine bowed deeply on their knees.
One acolyte removed his hood, revealing a pale face and a head of long, platinum blond hair. He looked up with the utmost reverence, displaying his heritage of pride and ceremony as well as only a Malfoy could. And with the words, "Welcome back, my Lord Voldemort," Lucius Malfoy welcomed the newly reborn Dark Lord to the world.
SCENE BREAK
Many would say that the Department of Mysteries is filled with mysterious things. Those people would probably follow that statement with a light chuckle, and would also probably only discuss that particular department around the water cooler of some other department, and even then only in jest. They were the majority of the Ministry of Magic's employment. Drones and political dregs who would never question, nor ever receive answers about all that is magic. Of course, there were also those who do indulge in the great depths of the DoM. They were the few, the always heard of but almost never seen, unspeakables. Those men were almost always alone. They had no family, and very few friends. They devoted their lives to the study of magic, and all that that pertained, walking as close to the edge as there sanity would allow before taking a flying leap over the side. Alexandr Petranova was such a man.
A Russian immigrant who had arrived in magical Britain when he was only three years old, Alexandr had no family to speak of. His parents had died of disease, and he had no siblings. Most who knew him said he had no friends but the ones he created. For Alexandr was a creator. He headed a very particular division of the DoM, called The Creators. The Creators did exactly what their name suggests, just like every other ministry job. They created spells, procedures, artifacts, inventions, news, and devices of all sorts. Established by the enigmatic Caractacus Burke in the early 1900's, The Creators division of the DoM was responsible for a lot of the strange goings ons in the Department. The various rooms of the DoM contained many failed experiments of The Creators, who were far to busy to see about disposing of them. Of course, it was none of those rooms that currently concerned Alexandr Petranova as he walked steadily through the corridors of the DoM.
Passing by several other unspeakables on the way, Alexandr, who nearly hobbled in his old age, made no attempts at conversation. Unspeakables rarely did, but most would at least acknowledge others. Alexandr was not most. He stopped his ambling at a seemingly normal door. It was like any of the other hundreds of doors that filled the Department. In fact, the doors were all so identical that if one doesn't already have a good idea which door is the door they have been assigned, one could get lost very, very easily.
Alexandr proceeded to open the door in front of him. Unlike the other unspeakables, he exhibited no caution. In his old age, death by creation seemed like a fittingly ironic end.
He smiled slightly when he walked through the doorway totally unscathed. He cursed his luck in jest, and continued onwards into the dark room. It was long before he met another unspeakable who was currently observing multiple subjects.
"Progress?" Alexandr's voice cracked with disuse, and he neglected to so much as turn his head towards the other unspeakable. The other unspeakable unrolled a short piece of parchment, and began listing off his current results.
"The following are the results of experiment 10777, code name 'Project Our Rock': Subject 009847, dead by natural causes. Subject 009848, dead by magical overload to the brain. Subject 009849, terminated by Unspeakable Andrews. Subject 009850, terminated by Unspeakable Fjiord. Subject 009851..." The Unspeakable paused, turning himself fully towards Alexandr.
He continued, "Subject 009851, successful integration of human characteristics." Alexandr continued to stare up at the subject before him. The boy lay preserved in a tube of Streeler jelly, the only subject of just under 100 left alive after ten years of study. The number 009851 was printed just under the preserving chamber. Alexandr smiled, though only slightly. Turning on his heel, he began to again hobble out of the dark room.
"Wake him up, and send him out," he ordered. He did not need to look back, just as the other unspeakable knew there was no reason to nod.
Unspeakable Andrews, now quite nervous after enduring a visit from his highest ranking supervisor, stared up at his remaining subject. He had been working with him for the past three years, ever since the boys connection to the lines had become stable. He had been nearly a squib when he was inducted into the program. Subject 009851 was the first perfectly integrated human/golem hybrid. He would do great things for the Ministry.
As he turned to leave the room to that he could relay the order to awaken the subject to his handler, Unspeakable Andrews turned one last time, to look upon the boy that he so strongly believed to be the savior of modern magical Britannia.
"Yes, Mr. Longbottom, you will do great things."
Scene Break
Harry knew exactly what his job was. When he had started to accompany Joseph on his 'missions' (Harry refused to call them something so juvenile, and only called them such using obvious verbal quotation marks to annoy his mentor) he had only been an observer. He might have continued to stand watch quietly if Joseph hadn't discovered that two wizards were infinitely harder to capture than one. While Joseph could not be in two places at once, with Harry's help, he could appear to be. As well, the addition of a second wizard on his 'missions' threw off the scarce few detectives who had even the slimmest chance of tracking him. Harry didn't mind of course.
Killing people was interesting. Or, at least, that was the way Harry had looked at it in the beginning. Joseph had been forced to teach him at least a dozen new spells before he could be useful on a job, and while Harry had never actually assassinated anybody, by his fourteenth birthday he'd been an accomplice in the murders of twelve different dignitaries from various nations. His role varied, depending on the situation. In the beginning, he played the look-out, wielding tripping jinxes and sloth spells to slow down any pursuers. As time went on, Harry began to play a larger part, taking on the job of a scout. By sending Harry, Joseph could scope an area and its warding without ever having to be on site. It wasn't until he had discovered Harry's ability to interact with wards that he began involving Harry directly. While his magical sight was pathetic, his ability to sense and understand how spells and wards interacted with the magical matrix was uncanny, especially considering that the two skills almost always went hand in hand.
It was that particular skill that Harry would be using today. Currently, he was lying near flat against the packed dirt of an Albanian hiking trail. The hike itself had been rather tedious; his skills at silent apparation were still lacking. As in he didn't have any.
He had already set up a camouflaged hollow out of surrounding brush. Unfortunately, a bush tall enough to hold a human standing or sitting comfortably would have been suspiciously out of place, so he'd been forced to lie low. He felt a small itch on the back of one of his legs.
"Fucking spiders," he said. Or at least, he would have if he hadn't been previously silenced. As much as he despised Joseph training sessions, they had the benefit of forcing himself to cast silently. He could cast all but his most difficult spells, which consisted of three warding spells and a particularly nasty curse-counter, without an incantation. Of course, he had a tendency to over-do the wand movement as a result, but he'd always felt more comfortable using movements and actions than words. He was the opposite of Joesph, who greatly preferred minimized wand movements and powerful words. He supposed it had to do with how they approached interacting with the matrix. Incantations were like asking magic to do what you wanted nicely, sometimes ordering it. Movements were more like grabbing it yourself and bending it to your will. Harry supposed he would rather bend than speak.
"Welcome, one and all, to the first meeting of..." Harry's eyes snapped open when he realized the small gathering in the clearing below had begun there meeting. Harry had no need to move yet, his arm was already in position.
The small circle of stones that encased the Soviet Resource Protection Society instilled a great sense of security in its members. Harry almost snorted at how unready they seemed. He would have mocked the incompetence of the KGB's wizardry division, if he had not already seen at least four agents in the surrounding area. He bristled, escape would not be as easy as it normally was.
They, they being Joseph, had been contracted to take out one of the last remaining magical leaders of the Soviet Union. While the muggle socialist governing body had fallen apart a few years before, the muggle-born communists that ran it's wizarding side still clinged to power. Most had been ousted from office, and it was only a matter of time before an uprising occurred, probably from the slighted pure-blooded upper class. Of course, they were a bit impatient, hence their choice to hire an assassin to speed things up a tad. Killing a high ranking member of the remaining government, especially in such a public way, would be highly demoralizing to those who opposed revolution.
Fyodor Marmelodov was one of the final department heads left in the Soviet governments hidden wizarding branch. He was a portly man, and his ruddy skin appeared to be constantly flustered. A muggle-born wizard, he was of mediocre power. His networking abilities were considered sub-par, as he had the tendency to alienate those around his with his radical view points. No, it was because of his passion and his ability to bring passion to others that he found himself in one of the most cushy jobs in Eastern Europe. As the Head of the Department for the Preservation of Soviet Resources, an arbitrary title, Marmelodov made his living speaking. He spoke out against the "crimes" of pure-blooded aristocrats, and inspired the masses of poor wizards and witches with promises of "resources", welfare and help. He told them, with tears in his eyes, of the horrible greed of the aristocrats. He screamed at them, with words of unearthly passion, that they must take arms against that most detestable foe. He was here today to give a powerful propaganda speech about the importance of handing over once resources to the government to manage.
However, he was not a politician of words and no heart; Fyodor Mermelodov believed every last bit of his hot air. A radical in every sense of the word, it had been decided almost unanimously that his death was the most appropriate to send a message to the remaining government officials.
Harry continued to eye the large, pale ward stone surrounding the proceedings. He could just barely see the shimmer of ward lines snap into place when he squinted. His role would be simple, weaken the wards enough so that they did not hinder Josephs sniping hex.
He concentrated hard on the shimmering purple of the second level 'variety shield' that blanketed the both the crowd and the platform. It was weak, slapped together at the last second using expensive looking ward stones to show the governments great care in protecting its citizens. It would shatter at the first signs of magical pressure. It was the second ward array that worried Harry. Had they been allowed to kill him anywhere it would not have bee a problem. However, they had been contracted to kill him mid-speech, the best way to send a message. Unfortunately, the powerful ward array surrounding the podium made that much more difficult.
Harry did his best to study the array, but it was marred in shadow. He swore, realizing it was covered in a 'fog of war' ward, a complicated ward that was based on a simple concept. The 'fog of war' ward obscured a curse breakers vision of the wards in play in an array; what a curse breaker cannot see, he cannot break.
The only way anyone would be able to break such an array was by lifting the fog. Which would have been simple, if he had a few minutes to do so. If he didn't break them all at once, however, he'd be easily found and killed before he could even attempt to view the wards behind the fog.
Harry smiled. It was time for some creative spell work. He sifted through each spell he was learned, reviewing there purposes and more importantly, there effects. Within a few minutes, he'd worked out a plan.
He slowly maneuvered his arm into the hollow part of the bush. First he would 'light up' the wards with a particularly loud spell. The whistling hex was one of his favorite spells, after all. Created by Wolfgang van Houtwen out of jealously of one of his peers musical talent, the whistling hex was used to damage the hearing of one Ludwig van Beethoven. When he'd originally been taught the spell, which seemed to be nothing more than a screaming (literally) flash of light, it had been for use as a distraction. Harry discovered, however, that the hex was loud magically as well as physically. It caused an amazing disturbance in the magical matrix.
Pulling his arm back, he slashed it horizontally in a wide arc, screaming the incantation in his head.
'Dolarba!' The shimmering, pale hex flew at great speed across the forest, shattering the first shield like glass, and continuing to smash into the ward array surrounding Marmelodov. The loud screeching noise of the hex had left Marmelodov speechless, if only for a split second.
Harry almost turned away as the whistling hex made the wards scream. He could feel the reverberations of every ward and every ley line pulled out of place. Making a split second decision, Harry chose the spell he thought would best destroy the wards in place. Normally he would have studied the array for at least a few seconds before even consulting his list, but in this particular case, time was to valuable to waste. If he guessed wrong, it meant less money. If he didn't guess quickly, it meant less time to live.
"Lubrivacuusio!" he screamed,the silencer having worn out minutes ago. After making a largely exaggerated arc and slash movement with his wand, a line-like blur flew at high speeds towards the baffled Marmelodov. He had no reason to worry about stealth any longer, the whistling hex had ensured that.
The tightly bound slicing hex slammed into the wards, tearing through the loose matrix with the satisfying feeling of making a fresh cut into a page of construction paper. Harry looked on proudly, taking what moments he could to find satisfaction in a job well done.
He continued to look on, now not in pride but in horror, at the fat, Russian dignitary at the podium. Marmelodov had been effected by the slicing hex meant only for the wards. In fact, one could say the Russian's entire neck had been effected. The decapitated body slowly fell to its knees, and Harry watch in morbid fascination as his head slowly rolled towards the edge of the stage, before falling off with a sickening splat.
Paralyzed in shock, Harry continued to stare. "No," he whispered, "I didn't, I couldn't have," but he had. Harry knew he had. No sniping hex had killed Fyodor Marmelodov. It had been unneeded. Unfortunately, Harry rarely had the time to stand and contemplate his actions. After catching the white armband of a KGB wizard in the corner of his eye, he sprang into action. Quickly shouting off a shield spell, Harry would have been killed, or at the least captured if not for a blinding light that exploded onto the scene.
"What the fuck are you doing, brat?" For the first time in his life, Harry was relieved, not annoyed in the least, to hear his masters voice and experience the results of his paranoia.