Yo.

Not beta'd. I think. Yeah, not beta'd. Hope you don't think this is utter rot...not to the awesome parts where people start screaming at each other. Or something. Yeah.

Uh, still dedicated to Smile-Evily. Dunno if she's even read this yet. Maybe. Also, thanks for the upload by Nica from Colorado, because I know she's doing this.

And from the Otherworld, I love you Princess. Just so you know. And I'm sorry. Forgive me and don't forget me. I love you l'amour.

Ja ne!
UK.

-
The Brightest Evening of the Year

—

UchidaKarasu

Chapter One
Definitely Not An Orphanage

3 August 2001

Harry was grudgingly appreciative.

Wammy's House was brilliant, honestly, and there was nothing that could really diminish that initial thought, not even him being as pissed as he was. He stared up at the place, massive and absolutely gorgeous, and wondered absently to himself if the Dursley's would've dropped him off at this orphanage if they had followed through with their threats of throwing him out.

Yeah, right, he thought with a snort.

There was a digital intercom system from the looks of it on the right hand side of the closed gate, so he rolled down the window of the Mini Cooper that he had borrowed from Hermione. He looked for a button, finding nothing except the words The Wammy's House on the digital screen. He frowned, debating on just ramming the car into the gate and totalling it to get attention, but then there was a blinking purple light and the screen refreshed.

Unrecognised visitor. Please wait for assistance.

"Oh fuck a monkey," he grumbled.

He stared at the doorway of the most prominent building, trying to burn a hole through the thick-looking wood, and he heard Draco Malfoy drawl from the passenger seat, "I wouldn't act too hostile, Potter, or you'll end up getting off to the wrong start."

"But I could just blow the gate down with a reducto or something, you know, or just ram the car into the gate. It'd get attention, and if I could just get in there, I could find Nate pretty quickly and get the fuck out of this place. I could so Obliviate every motherfucker in this place if I have to."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "As your lawyer, both in our more superior world and in this ridiculous legal system, I advise you not to. You might be the famous scar-head who defeated the Dark Lord, but there are even aspects of your fame that won't pass through the Wizengamont and Obliviating an orphanage full of Muggles is one of them."

"But why?" Harry whined, even though he understood Malfoy's point.

Malfoy didn't have a chance to respond because a dark, unmarked vehicle came into Harry's sight from the left, advancing quickly towards the gate. Immediately, he tensed, and he figured he wasn't the only one—Malfoy tended to be a hell of a lot more paranoid than even him sometimes. Which was really saying something, since Harry was almost as paranoid as Voldemort had been. Between the press, the job of being an Unspeakable, sporadic attacks from rogue Death Eaters, having a newborn and a wife to worry about, and the simple fact that he had lived through a major role in the largest Wizarding war in the history of the world, he was supposed to be a paranoid sonofabitch.

"You know," Harry pondered out-loud, frowning heavily, "if those people adopted him, which there's no record of but who the hell knows with these weirdos, what in the world are we going to do? You've explicitly said half a billion times already that we can't just go in there wands blazing, so you better have something super-awesome-sneaky up your sleeve."

"Amusing that you call them weird," Malfoy droned, watching the vehicle speed towards them smoothly. "But in that case, I do have something of such absurd description up my sleeve, as you've so well put it. Your Muggle slang is truly abhorrent, Potter."

"Aww, go to hell, Malfoy."

"I'm in an automobile with you, in close proximity. I'm already in hell. The first circle, in fact. Much longer, and it'll be an immediate transport to the fifth circle via the river Styx, complete with Medusa and a bunch of old harpies."

The vehicle, something pretentious and expensive by the looks of it, stopped at the gate and two big chaps slid out of the seats. They were wearing stereotypical bodyguard clothing in the Muggle world: dark sunglasses hiding their eyes, three-piece black suits with ties, pressed and sleek black trousers, and dress shoes that sparkled in the sunlight. They also had guns strapped to their belts, unbuttoned and ready to pull at a moment's notice.

"I think that this place is not an orphanage," Malfoy said, clicking his tongue in thought. Harry just stared, jaw dropped, because who needed crap like this at a orphanage? Sure, it was nice and all, but still! It was an orphanage, for chrissakes! Malfoy narrowed his eyes at the two men and continued, "Let me do the talking. You might open your mouth and ruin everything."

The black guard pulled out a key from his inner coat pocket and unlocked a previously unseen side-gate that was solely for walk-throughs, which distracted Harry into not replying to Malfoy's ridiculous accusation. The white one stood at the closed entrance to the gate, all tall and proud and completely failing at menacing. Harry could feel the comforting weight of his Disillusioned wand holster on his right arm, his wand ready to be brought out at the second's notice, so he wasn't too concerned. His wand could take the gun, and Harry himself could take the guards down without trouble. He was hardcore like that (and maybe a bit prideful, but he blamed that on Malfoy, his irritating but highly-skilled lawyer, like, yeah).

The dark-skinned guard walked up to Harry's opened car window. Since it had been rolled down already, Harry had no qualms about immediately saying quite loudly, "Hello, sir. I'd like to speak to the head of this establishment as soon as possible."

Malfoy shot him a look through the side-mirror that said he was not amused. Harry didn't really care, regardless.

"What is the nature of your visit?" asked the dark-skinned one, his accent hard to place. It definitely wasn't native British. Maybe Scandinavian, or perhaps Polish? Harry thought vaguely. Nah, it's too smooth. Denmark? Aw, this is fucking pointless. Concentrate, Potter.

"Good evening," Malfoy finally said, leaning in towards Harry's side of the vehicle and smiling good-naturedly. He had always had a way with charm, that was for sure. Definitely his I'm-Better-Than-Everyone-Else upbringing. Harry wasn't sure if he thankful for the fact that Malfoy was the best at being a fake git on the Island or irritated that he seemed to be better at this than Harry himself. Maybe it was the public thing. Harry did avoid the public, if his rather untoward career change from the highly publicised Auror Department to the secretive Unspeakable position had anything to show for it.

Malfoy, with that same easy smile, said in a voice that all-but gave away the seriousness of the visit, "My name is Draco Malfoy. I'm an attorney at law in London, and I've recently been contacted by my client here that you have a resident here of blood relation to him. We have the paperwork to prove this, so unless you would like to meet us in court in a very public setting, which I'm very sure you wouldn't like considering the secrecy surrounding this place, I'd suggest contacting the owner of this orphanage as soon as possible."

Harry fought the urge to whistle appreciatively. Malfoy was an pompous prick, but he sure was damn good at his job.

The guard seemed to sense this as well. "Credentials?" he asked, holding a hand out, and Malfoy obliged by giving him a card. Considering the nature of the place, despite McGonagall and then Malfoy and Hermione's researching, they would probably find everything about this man in the name of security.

God he hated people with money and secrets sometimes.

Well, all the time.

Nothing but trouble, they were.

As the guards returned to their vehicle and drove back to the establishment, Harry resigned himself for a bit of waiting. It would've been better if Malfoy hadn't been there, but he was stuck with him.

Harry groaned, and Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Fifth circle, you overenthusiastic moron."

Maybe Malfoy was right. This was the fifth circle of hell.

In a room with no windows, a man sat in perfect stillness.

Surrounding him were piles upon piles of papers, some in files and some fluttered around without sense. The one in front of him was complete with glossy, high-definition photos of three bodies. One, the mother, was lying naked on the floor, her body perfectly kept. She had been raped and then strangled, the ligature marks (fishing line if judging by circumference) on her neck and wrists surrounded by bruising, but her body had been redressed in an evening gown. She was wearing dinner-party jewellery, a small purse on her elbow, nice shoes, pantihose, and her hair and make-up was done impeccably. She had been left on a freshly-made bed, arms crossed as if with remorse and her eyes closed as if sleeping.

Her husband, on the other hand, had been chopped to pieces. Literally. With an axe.

Her son was found in a bathtub, but he hadn't been drowned. He had been chopped to pieces as well, as his face had been beaten in with a golf club. Dental records were confirmation of his identity, as that was the only way.

He had watched the blue Mini Cooper pull up to the gates, expecting another tourist looking for the châteaus that were opened for mock tea parties to placate the Americans, or perhaps the home of Jane Austen to placate the Germans, or the people who thought that Charles Dickens had left a treasure map somewhere in Hampshire to find a secret collection of books and short stories not published.

That last one belonged to the Americans too. It was the head country of conspiracy theorists.

Perhaps that would be the new topic of Dan Brown's new book. After all, he was the king of said conspiracy theorists, and he barely ever wrote fact within his novels. It was a potential playground for that man, that was for sure.

Picking at his bottom lip, he turned back to the file. It was the fifteenth family—bringing the total victims up to fifty-seven— to be found dead within the Ukraine, but he had finally solved it. He had placed the call to the President a few hours ago and was just waiting for confirmation on the arrests of the three men responsible. They would be sentenced to life in prison, since the death penalty had been abolished, but he was more worried about the criminals declaring insanity. It was such a uniform defence.

He felt a wetness against his fingers, and he dropped his hand to look at the tips, finding them smeared with red. He licked his raw, stinging lips, fighting the urge to cringe at the metallic tang, and took a large swallow from his overly sweet tea to compensate.

As he rubbed hand sanitiser on his fingertips, wiping away the blood on a clean dishcloth, he watched as the security walked away from the British vehicle and drove back toward the House. The car, itself, did not move, the occupants shrouded behind the shadow of the vehicle, so in curiosity, he manoeuvred his way through his security cameras and localised the one on the entrance monitor.

Then he frowned heavily.

A hand was covering the optical lens, the sight a fiery red from the light shining through. All he could see was the lines upon his fingers and palm, giving him nothing in the viewing. However, he could hear them, most definitely, and he frowned.

"You know," said a male in an airy, melodic British timbre, "they might bring out a bazooka or something, and we'll have to have an epic fight for our lives."

Another voice, also male, answered back with a self-important drawl, "Oh do be quiet, you imbecile. I'm a lawyer, and you're the scar-head. I dare them to try such a thing. Also, for some place like this, Potter, covering the lens of the camera doesn't cut out the audio. And here I thought you were someone who was vigilant about security."

"No way. Wait, damn. You're right. There it is right th—" Then the sound went out to a mere muffle, not enough to get a clear phrase out of the two men. Hopefully there weren't more people in the vehicle, but then there was a ding on his computer and he opened up the message from Roger Ruvie, who clearly indicated that the two men were alone.

He read:

There are two men, a lawyer named Draco Malfoy and an unnamed client, who are currently at the House entrance, awaiting instructions. They told the guards that they had paperwork confirming that the client is a blood relative of one of our orphans, and that they will take the case to public trial if they aren't seen by the head of the House. I'm sure you have been alerted to a presence of outside interference through your computer, so I shall await your instructions on how to best deal with this manner. -Roger

The man frowned, biting his already sore lips in thought. It was highly unusual that someone had acquired paperwork affirming the existence of a bloodline, because he made sure the orphans all-but disappeared. It was even more unusual that he had missed said bloodline in the first place. Before accepting children to the House (especially the main Letters, the ones that were in the Race of Succession to the L title), an extensive background search was authorised, to make sure things like the current situation didn't happen in the future. The children didn't have any close relatives left in the world to take them in—it didn't work to have living family members, because people were human, and after a while there was a chance of family trying to reinstate contact. Orphans almost always yearned for family, so it was guaranteed that they would want to return back to their home lives, especially if they had been old enough to remember the relatives.

He needed a name.

The man pulled up a few search engines that he had designed himself while pressing a button on the intercom. As he began searching for anything to do with one Draco Malfoy, he heard the kind voice of his handler over the speaker. "Yes, L?" said Quillish Wammy, his voice as kind and yet blank as possible. The man identified simply as L looked up at his security monitors with dark eyes and watched him as he prepared for his outing, coded Watari. He was carefully placing the long, rather suspicious trench coat into a suitcase, but he kept his bespectacled eyes on the intercom of his personal computer.

"We have a problem," said L, picking at the skin around his nails absently. "It seems that the House has a security breach." He didn't admit that there was a twenty-eight per-cent chance that the breach had been because of an overlook on one of the orphans' backgrounds, but he didn't need to. Wammy simply stilled, his posture remarkably elegant like usual as the result of a wealthy upbringing, and frowned.

"Do we have a name of the orphan in question?" he asked, not even seeming to breathe.

"No, I do not, but I have the name of the attorney that is present. I'm searching now."

There was a small pause as Wammy looked into the floor-length mirror to adjust his appearance. When he deemed it satisfactory for his outing into London, where he might be recognised as the famous inventor, he continued, "I shall have a vehicle ready for after the meeting with Scotland Yard. I have a feeling that we need to go deal with this problem as soon as possible."

"Yes, indeed," answered L, bringing up his right index finger to chew on the pad.

He watched Wammy leave, suitcase in hand, through the monitors. He had tapped into the security of the London hotel he was staying at, so L followed his movements throughout the building until Wammy finally climbed into his dark vehicle. He would change into the Watari getup as soon as he had switched vehicles outside of London. After all, he just had to throw on the trench coat over his ordinary clothes, the wide-brimmed hat on his head to cover his hair, and meticulously place the mask that was attached to a thin shirt under his clothing over his moderately known features.

When he drove off, L finally returned to picking at his lips and reading over the profile of Draco Malfoy.

He was definitely an attorney in London, where L was currently was stationed. He was a well-respected criminal lawyer, and had been successful with winning all but one of his cases. He had never involved himself in common law, particularly with family law, but L had no doubt that, being a bloodthirsty lawyer, he could find something in both worlds that would make him a threat.

His mind helpfully supplied: perverting the course of justice, which would be ironic, but essentially correct, because if we missed a relative, it could be considered a violation of human rights that we didn't notify. They could even go as far as kidnapping, which is absurd but lawyers will be lawyers.

Some of the children were adopted, but that only went for the Race of the Letters. If they were just at the House for intense learning for outside fields, they were cared for immensely but not adopted by Wammy himself. However, the potential heirs had all been adopted—Near (Nate River), Mello (Mihael Keehl), Matt (Mail Jeevas), Linda (Laura Arquette), Xenith (Xavier Jones), Zeke (Zachary Budhari), and Yasmin (Yvette Jakobs)—to make sure that there was a legal paper-trail to justify their stay at the House.

However, some of the children would want visitation with family, adopted or not, and that was complicated. Not only did they slack on their studies due to being gone or distracted, they became loyal to human beings instead of intelligence and fact, which wouldn't hinder the children unless they were in the Race of the Letters.

The heirs needed to be kept focussed.

Not only that, but if the lawyer had concrete anything, and didn't get what his client wanted (probably full rights to one of the orphans), they would threaten court.

That was...unfortunate.

But that was only for the Race. The other children were going to be architects, business leaders, artists, professors, doctors, scientists, mathematicians...if L had missed something, then it was not particularly a big deal. Children, especially genius children, had goals that they wouldn't stray from, and if something happened to them outside in the real world after regaining contact with relatives, it would be a tragic but not a travesty. If the outsiders, the lawyer and his client, were looking for one of these children, he could see the benefit of letting them have partial visitation but nothing more. Well, unless the child would go to a better home, and then he might make an exception. Studies could still be conceivably learnt at the House, so the child could commute.

Absently, as he looked at his blood-stained fingers, he debated on what he would do if it was one of the main Letters. L wondered what it would take to get them to sign over rights. Money was a powerful motivator for dropping a case...but so was a public court case against the House. It was something they absolutely could not afford. The purpose of Wammy's House was for it to be a safe, but completely isolated orphanage industrialised solely for mass producing heirs. That sounds totalitarian. I should rephrase. The purpose of Wammy's House was for it to be a safe, but completely isolated orphanage set to advance already brilliant minds with a healthy goal of becoming the next beacon of justice.

The addition of other genius children for special areas of expertise had been an afterthought to give the Letters more social experience with people that could actually socialise.

L blinked.

Not that it really helped, if you take Near and Zachary in account, but no one wanted another Beyond Birthday (because who needs another potential heir with no social contact except me, which spurned an unhealthy obsession that bred a murderer?).

He tore himself away from that line of thought when he finally brought up a photograph of Draco Malfoy. He was an attractive blond with steely grey eyes, rather elegant features, and body language that screamed of self-entitled superiority. Almost immediately, just by working through his security features on his website, he knew that he would be a force to be reckoned with.

Once he had more information about which child the two men were seeking to acquire, he'd deal with the extreme of the development. If it was one of the genius orphans that wasn't in the Race, that was a total different story. L could see no harm in allowing visitation rights—besides, what sort-of relative would deny said genius child an education with the House, where the primary focus was individual talents by superior staff?

As for the Letters...that was a problem. They had to be kept secret from the world, because the Letters, all of them, ended up working detective codes in the future. It was just the top heir that would take over the top seventeen of them, including the L code. It was important to keep all the Letters invisible in the world, to keep up with the nameless, faceless idealisation of the L name, regardless of whether or not they received the honour or not.

L would fight with every legal (and illegal) trick up his sleeve if it was one of the Letters.

And he would win.

They were escorted past the gates by two unmarked SUVs.

The unwillingly famous Harry James Potter looked at his pompous lawyer, steeled himself for some hardcore arguing on both sides, and said softly, "Definitely not an orphanage."

Malfoy snorted. "No shite Sherlock."

Harry threw a cold French fry at Malfoy's smirking face.