The Dark Lord Part One: The Dead Will Rise

Lavender Brown strolled through the parking lot of the rental shop she owned. It had been a quiet evening, so far. If no more customers turned up, she could probably shut the doors early…

The sudden appearance of a man in front of her startled her. She hadn't heard his approach. His appearance sort of gave her the creeps for some reason. Maybe it was the out-of-date hat he was wearing on his head or the pallor of his skin, or perhaps it was something about his eyes.

"Can I help you?" Lavender asked.

"I'd like to rent a truck," the man replied. So he could speak! He probably wasn't a phantom, then.

"Then you came to the right place," the young woman answered.

"How about that one," the man pointed to a nearby truck, "with the spraying equipment on the back?"

"No problem," Lavender managed to smile. "What purpose are you renting the truck for?"

"…Agriculture," the man supplied.

"Okay, I just need to see some I.D., and then I'll fill out the paperwork."

The customer handed her a driver's license. It said his name was Pius Thicknesse. Lavender hurried into the booth where she kept her desk and punched the name into her computer. Then she frowned as an error message popped up reading: DECEASED. Shaking her head, she jogged back over to the man and handed him back the apparently fake I.D.

"Okay, now I'm going to need to see some real I.D. This one says you're dead."

"I am dead," Thicknesse replied.

"What?"

In answer, Thicknesse lifted up his hand, full of some sort of powder, and blew it into her face, so she'd have to inhale it. Lavender coughed, and then slumped to the ground, her eyes wide, but unseeing.

"The dead will rise," Thicknesse proclaimed.

INSERT THEME MUSIC

Albus was absorbed in his videogame, as his mother watched on from the kitchen. Harry sat near Al on a chair, waiting for Al's turn to be over.

"Don't skip my turn again," Harry chided his son. Al didn't react.

"Do you want any popcorn, Al?" Ginny called from the kitchen.

"Yes," Al called out.

"Me too," Harry added, and then his eyes returned to the television screen. "Hey! You just skipped my turn again! Al? Al?" The boy didn't answer him. Harry went into the kitchen and stood next to his wife.

"Al, your fingers are going to become stuck to the control if you keep on like that," Ginny teased her son. She didn't react to her husband's presence beside her.

"Ginny?" Harry asked. She didn't respond. "Look at me, Ginny. LOOK AT ME!" But the redhead would not look at him. She kept looking at their son, as if, as if…

They can't see or hear me, Harry realized with horror.

"Ginny, I'm not dead! I'm still alive! I'm not dead!" he repeated in growing desperation.

Harry woke up to hear banging on the door of his hideout. He took a moment to get his bearings. He was not at home with his wife and son. They still believed he was dead because he hadn't disabused them of that notion. (Well, he'd tried with Al, hadn't he? As the Cape, he'd told the boy that he would see his father again someday.)

Harry got out of bed to answer whoever was incessantly knocking and found Mad-Eye Moody and Ron on the other side. He stepped back to allow them in.

"Potter, you have to come with us. There's something you have to see. Leave the cape. We need the cop," Moody informed him.

~HP~

The three men stood at an open grave in the cemetery, the coffin before them recently unearthed.

"It's Lavender Brown," a miserable Ron told his best friend. "A girl I used to date. They found her body two days ago. It looked like she was strangled, but an autopsy would've been against her parents' religion, so they had her buried yesterday without one."

"And someone dug up her grave today," Moody added. Harry lifted the lid of the empty coffin to examine it.

"No, she dug herself out," the former cop corrected him.

"What?" Ron asked.

"There are scratch marks and blood on the inside of the lid, see?" Harry indicated. "She was buried alive and she clawed her way out."

"Then where is she now?" Weasley wondered.

~HP~

"You're talking about miles of shoreline property," Mayor Cornelius Fudge stated. He was seated at an outdoor restaurant table with Neville Longbottom and Severus Snape.

"I know what I'm talking about. That's why I'm offering you seven billion dollars for it," Snape replied, trying not to let his irritation show.

"Excuse me, but if you buy the ports, who would inspect your ships?" Neville asked Snape.

"The local authorities," Snape replied.

"But you are the local authorities," Neville pointed out, facing the CEO. "What are you going to do, check your own passports and then set sail?"

"What Longbottom means—" Fudge began.

"I know what Longbottom means, what I want to know is why Longbottom is here." Snape narrowed his eyes at the secretary of prisons. "Last time I checked, I wasn't offering to buy a prison."

"The ports come under the Port Authority," Neville answered, reminding Snape that he was also in charge of said agency.

"Fine; I don't need this. I can take my business to somewhere else, perhaps Tottori, Japan."

"Japan's seventeen hours ahead of us," Neville responded without missing a beat. He plucked his cell phone down on the table in front of Snape. "Here, give them a call," he called his bluff.

Snape made no move to pick up the phone.

"The offer will be open for forty-eight hours," the billionaire told the mayor. "Make no mistake I will kill," he stared at that thorn in his side, Longbottom, "this deal," he finished.

~HP~

Later that day, Neville sat on a bench near the pier. Hermione, a ball cap pulled over her head and headphones on, jogged up to him, and then sat down, pretending to stretch and adjust her shoes.

"Pull out your sandwich," she muttered to him. "You're being watched." She nodded to men in the distance, presumably Snape's. Neville suppressed a shudder and took out his lunch as he was told.

"I thought Orwell was coming," the secretary muttered. Hadn't his message been clear? He'd wanted to speak directly to the blogger.

Hermione suppressed a sigh. If only he knew.

"Orwell didn't save your life from frog toxin, I did," she said, reminding him of his close call with a Tarot assassin. "What do you have for me?"

"These are Snape's clients," Neville passed her photos of overseas terrorists. "He sells arms and drugs. He's now put in a bid to buy Palm City's ports. If he's successful, he'll be able to smuggle his products out of the country without anyone there to stop him.

"So I went scouring the records to see if I could find something, an obscure law or a violation Snape might've committed, something to keep him from buying the docks. I was coming up empty-handed, until I turned to the chain of title." The chain of title would record how ownership of the property had changed hands from one owner to another over time.

"Up until a few decades ago, all of that land belonged to the Riddles," the city's founding family. "When they all died in a plane crash, without leaving an heir, the city took over the property without having to buy it from anyone. But, check this out," he handed her a newspaper article. There were two photographs of Merope Riddle: One showed her heavily pregnant, the other with a flat stomach. The caption was: "WHERE'S THE BABY?"

"Merope was pregnant, but photographed getting onto that plane when she was no longer pregnant. No one ever knew what happened to the baby; they assumed there had been a miscarriage. But what if there wasn't? What if there's an heir out there that the ports lawfully belong to?

"I found this when I was looking through the chain of title," Neville handed her a document labeled "Record of Birth."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle?" Hermione asked, reading the name aloud. "Who is that?"

"Someone who doesn't officially exist," Longbottom explained. "No birth certificate for him was ever filed. But if you find him, the missing heir…"

"Then Snape wouldn't be able to buy the property from the city, because the city wouldn't have title to it."

"Exactly," Neville concluded.

"I'll post this to the blog within the hour," Hermione reached for the file he'd brought.

"Is that necessary?" Neville asked, suddenly afraid of the repercussions. Snape had already tried to have him killed for standing between him and the prisons. If he found out that Neville was also keeping him from getting the ports…

"I understand your concern for your safety," Hermione assured him. "Knowing Snape, it's justified. But posting this to the blog is the best way to get someone who knows about Riddle to come forward. So, may I?"

Neville hesitated and then handed the evidence he'd uncovered over to the woman.

~HP~

Moody, Ron, and Harry climbed onto the abandoned bus. It appeared that the bus had become a shelter for vagrants, but the only occupant using it now was…

"Lavender!" Ron exclaimed, running to her side. She opened her eyes, but didn't focus them. "Lav-Lav, it's me! Ron! Remember, we met at that party?"

She didn't seem to recognize him.

"Does this bus go to the parade?" she asked.

"Parade?" Ron repeated. "No, no there's no parade."

Hysterical, she bolted to her feet and started spouting gibberish.

"I have to find the parade. I serve him. He wants me to go to where the land meets the sea!" Lavender babbled.

"Who?" Harry asked.

"The Dark Lord," Lavender whispered.

Harry took a step towards her and she struck at him. Moody came to Potter's aid; he put the young woman in a chokehold, shocking Ron.

"Moody, what are you doing to her?"

"Just making her sleep," Moody reassured him. He let go of Lavender after she lost consciousness.

"Did you catch the name she gave?" Ron asked.

"The Dark Lord," Harry repeated.

"You've heard of him?" the redhead questioned.

"Yeah," Harry nodded.

"Good. Tell me his address," Weasley cracked his knuckles.

"I can't. I don't think the boogieman has an address."

Author's Note: Welcome to part one of The Dark Lord! The actual title, "The Lich" spanned episodes seven and eight, so this story arc may be as long as six chapters. Of course, we're not ever going to get to the end of that arc if the story doesn't get reviewed. I do hope that wasn't too subtle for you. I'm only posting this now because, sadly, the first chapter had more reviews than the recent updates to either of my other works-in-progress.

But on the plus side, I get to post an update to a Cape fic on the night of NBC's pathetic attempt at replacing it, Revolution. Therefore, if you do nothing more than read the fic rather than watch that drek, I must thank you.

Thank you to IronAmerica for beta-ing the chapter! Thanks also to dem bones, Orwell, and IA for reviewing!

(Incidentally, as some of you may know, tired of the wait, I posted the first ever Pence MV to YouTube.)