CHAPTER 8

Tonks rolled out of bed at noon that day. She'd pushed off all her blankets at some point during the night, so it was simply a matter of turning over and getting her feet under herself, and clumsily grabbing for her wand from the cluttered bedside table.

Rubbing her palm in one eye as she haphazardly navigated the obstacle course that was her room—clothes strewn here and there, misplaced stacks of case files, her three guitars, that big crate of phosphorescent goldfish in little plastic baggies from last night's anticlimactic raid on a muggle carnival—Tonks mentally cursed the night shift, anonymous tips, and Harry Potter with equal vitriol.

The rest of her apartment was similarly full to the brim of the bits and pieces of her life. Why bother to organize? She knew where everything was.

The place was on the top floor of a spindly building crowded in amongst similarly aged buildings in downtown London. It must have been some rich family's townhouse at one time, because the attic apartment was, in fact, shaped much like an attic; all odd angles and swooping ceilings. Luckily the attic floor had been taken out long ago, leaving her with something like a floor-and-a-half of airspace, which she had filled lovingly with moving posters of all kinds, along with hanging bits of bric-a-brac. There were souvenirs from the job, and mementos from her travels with her parents. An old pair of snowshoes hung over the sad little heater huddled in the corner, and a tattered old Quidditch flag for the Wimbourne Wasps hung from the rafters just in front of another for Australia's Woollongong Warriors.

She'd painted over the ancient walls with a vibrant indigo blue in the living area, and a burnt orange-red in her room—strictly speaking, she wasn't supposed to make alterations to the apartment, but then she also wasn't supposed to have an owl, or play her guitars obnoxiously loudly, or come in through the cupola window up in the rafters on a broomstick, but magic was funny that way.

She blearily set herself up with a piece of toast with jam and pair of boiled eggs—she wasn't much of a fan, but as an Auror she was obligated to get a certain amount of protein, and was too lazy to fix anything else—and pulled the fresh copy of Witches Weekly over. The Daily Prophet also lay nearby, but if it was already noon and she hadn't been summoned by the Order, it was a good chance there was still no news about Harry.

Her owl Beauregard clattered onto the table from wherever he'd been lurking, making a pass at her eggs, an attempt which she deflected with a half-hearted swipe at his face. He wasn't the handsomest bird, despite his name; the mottled cream and brown feathers around his head stuck up rather randomly as if he'd been hit in the face with a gust of wind, giving him a permanently shocked and bewildered expression. It probably didn't help that Tonks was always smacking him around, either in irritation or simple clumsiness.

"Bloody bird," she muttered, trying to read. "Go hunting or something! Catch a rat, for once…" She changed her mind, digging out a couple of owl pellets, at the same time that he gamboled away across the table, and ended up pelting the owl in the back.

He hooted indignantly, twisting around, but was overcome with such enthusiasm when he discovered the treats that he fell off the table.

Tonks just sighed, and went back to reading.

An item in the Table of Contents caught her attention—Harry Potter: Birthday Special Feature! Tonks smirked at the page numbers: 45 – 55. No doubt half of them were blurry shots from 'public sightings!', like a couple of muggle Bigfoot shots, but still. If Harry knew his virtues were expounded upon so often in Witch Weekly, he'd probably have a conniption. Chuckling, she couldn't help flipping to the article. Heck, it wasn't every day one of your friends was written about in a popular publication—only every week.

She waded through the usual diatribe—his life's history, his interests, his friends—before flipping to the partner article.

HARRY POTTER: SUMMER FUN?

World Exclusive

When her eyes absorbed the luke-warm title, she scoffed, and immediately shoved the magazine aside. These people had no idea how Harry spent his 'holidays'. She'd seen the Dursleys—she'd been on watch duty often enough to know that Harry's summers were never 'fun.' With a final snort, she went back to her breakfast.

Beauregard the owl, however, had found his way back up to the table, snapping up owl treats along the way, and ended up stooped over the article. Tonks watched the crazy looking bird, amused, and if she hadn't known any better, she would have thought the owl was reading.

As it turned out, the bird was reading.

Unfortunately for them both, Beauregard didn't know how to speak, so he could only hop up and down in a manic sort of way, until Tonks pelted him with more owl treats before finally stuffing him out the kitchen window. If she had read the article, it would have gone something like this:

Is Harry Potter living a secret, double life? Some think so. Various sources claim to have spotted a young man who is the spitting image of Wizarding Britain's darling—in a pit fight! When most of us think of summer vacation, we think of backyard barbecues, picnics, and trips to the seashore. If the rumor is true, Harry Potter spends his down time in much the same way he spends the rest of his time: dramatically and dangerously.

Those of you familiar with famous wizard ship the Galloping Galleon will recall that tickets are invite-only and highly sought after. It wouldn't surprise us if Harry Potter managed to score a pass, but the circumstances surrounding the sightings are highly suspect. Yesterday, before awestruck crowds, a young look-alike faced the challenges of the Pit, a competitive arena style match-up against monstrous magical foes—without a wand! One anonymous spectator told us, "he took down a Mountain Troll with nothing but a handful of nails!" Another stated she had, "never seen anything like it, not in all [her] years!"

As you can see, the images we've been able to acquire show only a young man with dark hair, and no one affiliated with the Galloping Galleon has come forward to substantiate the rumors. So what do you think? Could Harry Potter really be moonlighting as an exhibition fighter? Send us your thoughts…

But Tonks didn't read the article, and because the Order hadn't reported Harry as a missing person, there hadn't been a reason to print anything in the Daily Prophet. It would be hours before anyone else bothered to look at the magazine. They all had too much to worry about to waste time on a quiet moment of leisurely reading.

Harry sat cross-legged in the smoky gloom, rhythmically tapping his blood wand against the hardwood floor, and watched the door.

The wand was something of an aberration, he knew. An average wand was somewhere around 10 inches long, and this one was more than two feet in length, for starters. It should have been cleanly varnished, but it was instead covered in scrolling gold leaf and pearly finish, chipped on the thick end where he'd broken it off from the table to show the midnight wood beneath.

He'd capped the narrow, hollow end with the iron nail, and sealed it as best he could, but he wasn't sure how well it had worked out.

Probably the worst was that it was full of his own blood, along with whatever residue of troll's blood there had been left on the nail. Would that count as two cores, or one core from a half-troll?

But, in spite of the crude design, he'd been able to perform spells. Not spectacularly, by any stretch of the imagination—it seemed to respond better when he was angry, and the further away his intended target, the stickier the spell got, but it worked.

Of course the first thing he'd tried after sealing it off was a desperate 'Aguamenti!' He'd been madly optimistic with the anticipation of imminent escape, but regretted casting the spell almost instantly. The humidity in the room, which was already low from when he'd tried to set fire to the door, dropped so sharply that his throat went dry as parchment, his lips cracked, and his eyes stuck to the back of his eyelids. He'd dropped to his knees, coughing harshly, and watched with disbelief as his wand spurted out a mean trickle of water. It spattered the floor, before quickly evaporating again. Harry might have wept, except he didn't have enough water for tears.

But the wand worked.

And it was for that reason that he waited with unbridled anticipation, almost humming with newly discovered energy.

He just needed someone to open that door. That stupid, reckless part of him—the part that was still much too loud for his liking—hoped it would be Lucius. In truth, anyone else would be better. Maybe just a cleaning maid to check on the room—but no, that's what the house elves were there for, and it didn't seem this room was on their route anyway.

He very much wanted to lay waste to the beautiful room, but decided against it. That would only alert the first person who walked in to the fact that he had a weapon.

He resumed thumping the blood wand against the floor. A long dormant part of him was pleased with his Frankenstein creation; he hardly ever had a chance to create things. When he was younger, it had been because Dudley would eat all of the play-dough or crayons or whatever it was they might have used. Not to mention that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia probably thought Harry would create voodoo dolls or something if given the opportunity. Now, it had more to do with the fact that, in order to make anything with magic, one needed special training. Maybe it wasn't really as hard as he'd thought.

As much as he was fascinated by the process, the better part of him hoped against hope that his real wand turned up—that it had been dropped at some point in transit, and not simply snapped in half like a twig. He thought about losing the protection afforded by having the brother to Voldemort's wand, and shivered.

Long minutes passed. The view of the ocean from the window—the only source of light in the otherwise darkened room—told him that it was around noon. Time ticked by, marked only by his rhythmic tapping.

He became aware of footsteps and voices that lingered outside the door. Harry caught his breath, tensing. Was this it? Would he have his chance? Heart racing, he leaned back against the wooden column in the middle of the floor so it would seem he was still tied up, and carefully propped the blood wand behind him.

The door latch clicked, and was slowly pushed open. "Good afternoon, Mr. Potter," came a silky voice. With a flick of the unseen cane, the chandelier above Harry's head burst into light, and Lucius Malfoy stepped gracefully into the room.

Harry didn't answer; it was all he could do to not launch himself at the man immediately, though every muscle was ready.

"I must congratulate you," Malfoy continued, carelessly baring his back to Harry as he pushed the door shut and removed his gloves. Now! But the other man was already turning back with a cruel grin. "on another birthday. None of us ever expected you to live for so long."

Harry stared at him. He couldn't help himself, and barked out a short, hard laugh. "You remembered! Did you get me anything good? I'm not picky—last year the Dursleys gave me a clothespin. Not very useful on its own, really."

Lucius' smile twitched, but he regained his cool derision after a moment. "The Boy Who Lived. Your life has been so… difficult. Perhaps I can help put an end to it."

"Is that what you're here for? To finish me off? Don't you think you're a little late to the party?" Reckless anger spurred him on. "You're like a baby bird who has to have its food digested first. Well here I am, beaten to a palatable pulp, Death Eater."

Lucius gave him a strained sneer. "Believe me, Mr. Potter, the very moment I learned of your presence, I leapt at the chance for a visit. It is hardly any fault of mine that so very many people wish to, ah, beat you to a pulp."

"I'm flattered. Are you even allowed to kill me?"

Lucius' grin widened further, and for the first time, Harry caught a glimpse of teeth. "You have no idea, you pathetic child. You cannot even comprehend the chasm that stretches wide between life and death, just waiting to be filled with pain. You cannot fathom how long a person can be held right at the very cusp, and still live."

Harry met the malicious smile with a stony glare. It was all talk. "There's nothing you can do to me. You can't kill me, and I'm not afraid of pain."

Lucius took a soft step forward, suddenly looming large in his black velvet robes. There was a crazed light in his eyes, zealous and gleeful. "You expect me to leave you whole. We have very different ideas of alive, you and I. Do you need legs to live? Do you need arms, or ears, or a tongue, or eyes? The Dark Lord cares not whether you have eyes, Harry Potter. I'm tempted to render you completely incapable of even sensing your doom, as I deposit you at his feet."

Harry swallowed a cold rush of dread. He'd thought, at first, that Lucius had emerged from Azkaban completely unscathed, but he was wrong. The man had cracked. Harry wondered if Draco knew. He was suddenly ill with uncertainty that he would survive this, but managed to summon a snarl. "So you're going to have bit of fun before taking me to your master? Not a very punctual minion, are you?"

"The Dark Lord is… indisposed at the moment. He will hardly fault me a few days of enjoyment, nor you a few missing sensory organs."

"I suppose you'll come over here and carve them out yourself?"

Lucius scoffed elegantly. "Hardly. There's a spell for that, stupid boy. Would you like to learn it? I'm afraid there's only one test dummy in the room, but I don't mind showing it to you. Although… I'm frightfully concerned that you won' be able to… see it." He laughed, low and rolling, a sound of true amusement, while disengaging his wand from his cane.

Harry's heart threatened to leap from his throat as he watched. He needed to move, now, but his imagination rose up to pelt him with images of bleeding, empty eye-sockets, and his breath came in shallow gasps. He was paralyzed.

Move. Move.

Lucius' wand was already whipping through the air, and he muttered some harsh sounding incantation.

And that was when Harry felt it—an itch along his left tear duct, and a probing, stinging sharpness behind his eye. His breath hissed sharply—he imagined the man's foul magic working, severing, slithering in his head—and his insides coiled in violent reaction. "No!" he shouted, panicking blindly. He lashed out, pushing everything away.

The needling presence disappeared with a sucking sensation that left his eyes watering, while everything else in the room crashed into the walls, as if in the path of a blast of wind.

Lucius hit the door with a loud grunt, but to Harry's dismay, he regained his feet easily, laughing. "O-ho, you have a bit of fight in you yet, boy!"

Harry's eye was streaming, and it was only when a drop fell to spatter on his trousers that he realized it was not tears, but blood that was smeared across his cheek. Fury constricted his throat. He had never felt himself, his personal security, so easily and thoroughly violated. His left eye throbbed in time with his heartbeat—how close he had come to losing it. He would not give the man another chance.

Lucius was still laughing delightedly; apparently he liked his victims to struggle.

Harry was done playing. He surged to his feet, whipping his monstrous wand out like a club, and sent a severing charm at the chandelier over his head. Its chain snapped with a crack, and before it could fall, Harry banished the ungainly thing at his enemy.

Lucius barely had time to erect a shield; he'd been too gob-smacked by Harry's apparent split second escape and the revelation that he was armed.

The chandelier smashed against the hasty shield in a spectacular explosion of glass and light. Harry was already moving. He tore a length of drapery from the bed hangings, tossed up a shield between himself and Malfoy, and transfigured the bolt of silk into a massive sidewinder.

"Bite the man," he hissed at the powder-grey snake, and it regarded him for a second from beneath spiny brows, before whipping toward the older man with frightening speed.

Malfoy gave a strangled curse, and while he was momentarily occupied with trying to land a hit on the blindingly fast reptile, Harry was summoning all the broken glass in the room. He remembered his fight against the first Dumbledore clone, and knew that simple shards of glass wouldn't be good enough.

His rage was easy to focus, especially with the flashing gold blood wand buzzing in his hand. The cloud of glittering glass began to heat. Just before Harry's shield could phase out, he managed to collect a clot of molten glass that glowed with heat, causing the air around it to ripple.

Lucius finally dispatched the snake with a sizzling purple curse at the same time that Harry shot a swarm of glowing orange globs at him.

Lucius, thinking it was some kind of magical attack, summoned a shimmering white shield. The molten glass phased right through it, and the older man shrieked as the boiling globs burned through his velvet robes. He immediately cast some kind of misting spell, and summoned up the floorboards, creating a wall between himself and his opponent.

Harry, still levitating the remainder of his molten glass with his off hand, sent a roaring bludgeoning curse at the barrier, cracking through the wood and sending splinters flying. But Lucius had already moved to the side, and before Harry could figure out what the man was doing, something massive and heavy clubbed him from behind. He dropped to one knee, head spinning, as the wooden column, standing a moment before in the middle of the room, rolled off his shoulder and thudded to the floor.

Harry growled, shaking his head to clear it, and in a blink he levitated the heavy column and shot it like a javelin across the room.

Lucius was too quick for this, deflecting and stepping aside at the same time, and the column buried itself six feet into the wall. No doubt it was now sticking out into the hallway, and would have made a good option for earlier escape. Harry had no time to worry about that. He needed to finish this, but he needed his opponent distracted and off-balance.

Malfoy, hunching painfully over the deep burns that covered his torso, sent a hissing bone-breaker curse through the air.

Instead of trying to dodge, Harry blasted off a powerful stunner, and took the curse in the chest. For the second time in as many days, he felt his ribs shatter, but he only grunted. While Lucius was distracted by the stunner, which crackled so brightly that it illuminated the whole room, Harry levitated a heavy vase from behind the man and blindsided him with it.

Lucius stumbled, and it was easy to see that he lost it at that moment. He straightened, showing the whites of his eyes. Harry banished the molten globe of glass straight at him at the same time that Lucius shrieked, "Crucio!"

Harry knew a second—an eternity—of blinding, paralyzing, heart-stopping pain, and was vaguely aware of falling to the floor. That was it; he'd lost.

But to his amazement the pain vanished in the next heartbeat, leaving him aching and drained. Harry dragged himself up from where he'd fallen, to see Lucius howling and clutching at the side of his face. With a roar of pure fury, the man cast the molten glass aside, his flesh smoking, and whipped around to face Harry.

Harry, trembling with the aftershock of the Cruciatus, lifted his hand. With a grinding wrench, the wooden column burst free of the wall, and clubbed Lucius in the back of the head.

The man fell bonelessly, and the log crashed to the ground, clattering to a halt, just inches from Harry's feet. The room was suddenly, impossibly still.

Harry almost dropped in a swoon of relief and exhaustion. Lucius did not seem to be moving. The room was utterly destroyed, and Harry could see, through the small hole in the wall left by the wood column, that people were milling around outside.

Harry limped toward the still figure of Lucius Malfoy, sprawled in the dust, his blond hair splayed out like a silky fan. Harry, wand arm tensed in case the stillness was an act, hooked a toe under the man's shoulder, and rolled him over.

He nearly gasped out loud at what he saw. The man's aristocratic features were marred by a massive burn that extended across the upper right hemisphere of his face. It was blackened, and cracked, and the ear on that side had been reduced to a stump. The glass seemed to have splattered, making the burns look like a massive, blackened handprint.

Harry swallowed a rush of bile. He'd done this. It wasn't even a spell, not really—he might as well have picked up a rock and bashed the man with it. He took a faltering step back, hearing the voices rising outside.

Then he noticed blood was pooling beneath the senior Malfoy's head, likely from getting clipped by the log, and quickly crouched to find a pulse. The idea of killing someone was one he couldn't stomach—not even Malfoy. The pulse was weak, but it was there. The man was losing too much blood, though. At this rate…

Harry wracked his brains. What was that spell Hagrid had used? Sil—sit—sut—yes! That was it. "Sutura!" he muttered, trying to use the correct wand movement. He was rewarded by a faint blue glow, but nothing else. It was as if his wand knew his reluctance to help the man.

But he didn't want Malfoy to die. He wanted him to be tried, and go to prison—to suffer the humiliation of failure every day for the rest of his miserable existence. The damn coward—he had no right to die like a martyr.

Harry tried the spell again, to no avail. Maybe he had the incantation wrong.

He groaned in frustration. If he left the man here, Lucius would eventually recover from his wounds with the help of his friends on the ship, and then he would be back to torturing and murdering innocents in general, and would probably be out for Harry's blood in particular. No, he couldn't leave him here.

Harry had to bring the man along, or kill him.

Looking at the sprawled form, Harry knew he didn't have it in him to do it—to kill a helpless person with cool, logical purpose.

But Lucius was losing so much blood, it began to seem like Harry's decision wouldn't matter either way.

He froze, staring at the eerily growing pool, even as the cries outside grew louder, and an insistent pounding began. Blood. Blood was mostly made of… "Water."

Shit.

Crunch time, Potter, he told himself. They're going to knock down that door any minute, and they're going to see Lord Malfoy, esteemed socialite, all bludgeoned and burned on the floor. And he's got at least one friend on this ruddy boat—a friend who has no trouble incapacitating you.

But Oh God, that blood… could he do it? Could he step into that dark, mirror-like surface? It would be sticky, and warm… or was it cold by now? He imagined it coating him from head to foot, and nearly gagged.

He swallowed hard, and shook his head. He didn't even know if he'd survive a trip through that other, dark world, and his chances didn't improve with Malfoy in tow.

He'd sworn to himself he wouldn't go back.

"Damn it," he muttered harshly.

The pounding grew louder by the second, but when they finally broke through, it was too late. By the time the last wards were brought down, and the door pushed open past the heavy log and the ruptured barricade of floorboards, the only thing they found was a dark pool of blood, and the smear of a moved body.