TITLE: "THE GUNMAN"
AUTHOR: sordid humor
AUTHOR E-MAIL: Adventure
SUB-CATEGORY: Humor; Romance; Drama
RATING: fine, PG-13, already! don't let the six-year-olds see Harry Potter drunk ...
DISCLAIMER:
I do not own them in a box,
I do not own them with a fox,
I do not own them while I'm bowling,
They all belong to J.K. Rowling.
Realistically, I think we all know by now who's making several billion euros a year off the boy who lived, and we all know that's not me. No copyright infringement intended, sorry-sorry, et cetera, et cetera. You know the drill.
- Much love of the split-chapter sentence; kudos to Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
namagomi mazoku, I do hope you're bleeping happy.
count: 4400 running: 10,600
German done by yours truly.
I have a great attachment to Vampire Hunter D, most especially Bloodlust. Fellow lovers of D, please don't panic. I'm working on a side angle for partially comedic effects. Fans of D will be in stitches by about chapter ten, I hope... if you don't know Vampire Hunter D, you should. If you don't think I'm funny, you're not alone, rest assured. Please feel free to make suggestions: though "go to hell" is tried but true, I'm open to the evolution of ever-vigilant vituperation... but never calumniation; no, never...
((don't question the lexicon))
PART I
CHAPTER II:
THE LION & THE FOX
down the ladder the twins had placed there, and was on his way to Knockturn Alley.
-
He crept between shadows, endolithic with the dark. He kept his head down and the feather in his hat held irascibly high. Decent people skirted him in the street, whether from the mien or the effluvium he never bothered to discern. He was on a mission. His mind was ahead of his actions.
Soon he turned down an alley, away from the affronted glances and fearful inhalations. Few others walked the alley, giving him leave to walk with his back straight and head up. He quickened his pace as he scanned the windows of dusty shops, awaiting some pinching of his innards that might alert him as to where he should go next.
He slowed as he saw a woman approach from the shadows at some distant end of the alley. Her sheets of dark hair reflected non-existent light. Framed by the hair was a pinched face; hollow, much like the appearance of his own. He recognized her from a distance and halted in a dark space, tipping his hat to further obscure his face as she neared... but he was too late. She had seen him and was fast approaching.
Possessed by the potions imbibing his brain, he stepped forward into her path.
She started, reaching for her wand yet he already had his wand as well as his crooked, poison-tipped dagger held fast to her throat. Her black eyes snapped fully open in shock or fear.
"Bellatrix Lestrange," he vituperated in an accent he himself could not place, "what you have done... let us simply say:" he was scaring himself, "what you have done does not sit well amongst many of my acquaintance." Bellatrix had gone white. "You would do well to take caution in the future." He traced the tip of his blade across her neck, watching her worried eyes fall to it, warily. He paused, spit in her face, and stormed cholericly into the nearest dirty building. He heard rather than saw her run.
"Highly impressive, Mister...?" said an unmistakable number four rasp from the back of what Harry found to be a bookshop. A knobbly, white haired man in dusty black robes emerged from shoulder-high piles of books stretching back as far as the naked eye could see. Harry could make out a back wall of shelves bearing jars of fermenting mysteries in varying shades of brown and yellow sludge, shelves framing a small fireplace. The old man offered Harry a liver-spotted hand. "Mister...?"
"D," Harry said, mysterious accent firmly intact and Felix controlling his every breath.
"I take it you're a bounty hunter, Mister D," the man rasped. Harry merely nodded in ascent and adjusted his hat. "Aunders Kavall. What can I do for you?"
"My daughter," Harry heaved a sigh and gesticulated furtively. "She... has her mother's looks, but my blood..."
"I understand, Mister D," Kavall warmed immediately, conjuring Harry a comfortable, moth-eaten armchair and resting himself precariously on a shortish pile of books. "I, too, am a father."
"Young women can be murder, if one is not careful."
Harry watched Aunders Kavall's angular, wrinkled face creak into a battered smile. The old man laughed bitterly, earnestly; as though everything he had ever striven to know had been reduced to a single sentence.
"I believe we understand one another, Herr Kavall," Harry said quietly, relaxing back into his armchair and allowing his hat to slip slightly to the side, revealing a bruised jaw and the side of his face.
"Und ein Österreicher, auch, Herr D?" (And an Austrian as well, Mr. D?) Kavall lit up, smoothing the many fine hairs that ornamented the top of his head and leaning further forward on his stack of books.
"Deutsch ist Ihre zweite Sprache, richtig?" (German is your second language, correct?) While the mysterious Mr. D was eerily chilled and mildly detached, Harry was in a state of panic... I know German? How am I going to pull off this disguise again? What the hell am I doing? ... and what the hell kind of name is D?
"Sie haben recht, in wirklichkeit," (You're right, actually) Kavall conceded with a nod. "Aber zu Ihrer tochter, bitte!" (But, please, back to your daughter!) he offered, pinkening about what Harry could only assume was a terrible accent on Kavall's German. Harry's guts seemed to have been curiously replaced by a mixture of cement and gelatin—heavy on the bottom and nauseatingly wiggly toward the top. He prayed his Felix would hold up.
"... von meinem Mädchen..." (about my daughter) Stop speaking bloody German! Harry's mind screamed at his lips. "Sie ist so viel eine schöne Frau am diesem Tages... (She's very much a beautiful woman these days) Harry put a hand to his cheek and leaned forward to confide in Kavall... in English, he hoped. "I agreed to teach her... some of what I know," D and Kavall exchanged a private, devious, knowing smile—Harry was glad he could understand himself. "I recently took a very large commission. She was enraged when I would not allow her any part with it—she stormed out of the castle and I did not hear from her for weeks... she is very bold in that way," Kavall smiled ruefully, as though he knew all-too-well about bold women.
"This was one month ago," D said while brushing a bit of dust off his knee. Kavall regarded him very closely, seeming very clearly curious to know what had happened to D's daughter. Harry was curious too, he realized with a minor jolt. "This morning I learned she had been captured."
"Ich bin allein, mein Herr!" (That's terrible, sir! or I'm terribly sorry, sir!) Kavall really did look shocked, Harry was interested to see. The old man was wringing his bony fingers in his lap.
"Dankeschön," (Thank you) Harry said as he leaned against an arm of the chair. "She was... too bold, you see. Not enough precaution, not enough cover, no alternate plan, hardly a disguise... it is remarkable she was not killed."
"She is alive?" Kavall asked, sounding relieved.
"Ja, gewiβ," (Yes, of course) Harry checked the brim of his hat with a blood-crusted, gloved forefinger. "She is, after all, my daughter." Kavall smiled.
"Her capture is the reason I have come," Harry said plainly, gesturing lightly around Kavall's bookshop. "I am a devoted follower of more ancient magics, and understand you are the only man I must know in England." Kavall merely reddened and made a miniature bow on his precarious little seat.
"Whatever I may help you find..." Kavall added.
"Disguises, as well as the best protection gold can attain," Harry said bluntly. "And I am always looking for curses with a ... pointed effect," and another errant smirk was shared between them. "Yet—more than anything—I will need a way to correct my daughter's ways. Immediately. I must make her cunning."
Kavall shot up. "I have just the thing!" And he disappeared behind towers of dusty books, many of them rising from the floor and fleeing from his hasty path. Soon the air was full of natant books—like too many fish in one tank—jostling one another and casting down dust like rain. Harry stood and was soon crowded by the books: they peeked under his hat and navigated the regions between his body and his cloak. He could not move without being gently assailed, trapped in a hazy sea of floating tomes.
He snatched a leather bound volume from a place on his body it surely did not belong. Clearing away the dust, he saw that the leather was deep green and had once been written upon in gold, though the letters were now long since faded. He opened the cover and found a title; The Darkest Room: Illusion & Elusion by Salhim Ahmed Shakbar and translated by A. Kavall. Intrigued, Harry turned a few pages to find the table of contents.
"Part I: Elusion," he read aloud, "Chapter one, Evasion in Cities; Chapter two, Evasion in Large Buildings; Chapter three, Evasion in Small Buildings; Chapter four, Evasion in Single Rooms." In excitement, he skimmed farther down the page. "Part II: Illusion... Chapter one, Fear, Shock, Anger, & Other Emotions; Chapter two, Physical Appearance; Chapter three, Disease & Death," Harry let out a low whistle.
"Ah, The Darkest Room! I hadn't thought of it!" Kavall had returned bearing a number of books. "Egyptian illusions, yes—some of the best ancient magic there is, Mister D. My great-grandfather, Adrian Kavall, translated it... though I believe that's the only English copy remaining," Kavall tutted sadly. "The Ministry of Magic has the other 49..."
"I shall have to see about returning a few, in that case," Harry said covertly. "Such treasures should not go unseen," and he closed the book, tucking it under his arm. Kavall smiled and bowed, conjuring a long table and setting down his load of books for Harry's approval.
"This is The Book of Talismans," Kavall said, sliding a smallish, black book across the table, its silver bracings leaving tiny scratches in the wood. "Quite useful if you'd like to read up on recognizing or using them, but positively instrumental if you're interested in creating a very powerful protective talisman."
"100 Days, which is another book of illusions—more contemporary, but rooted in the classics. Also has some wonderful mind illusions and memory tricks which are near impossible to guard against. I also brought out The Mind's Eye, but The Darkest Room will serve you far better I believe." Harry leafed through 100 Days, which had charts and diagrams enough to keep Hermione perplexed for days, but the memory charms did look doable, even to a dunce like himself.
"This," Kavall rasped almost reverently, stroking a hand over an especially dusty wooden box, "this is a true one-of-a-kind," Kavall appeared suddenly very nervous, as though he doubted the safety of his own establishment. His eyes flashed about in a purely paranoid fashion as he leaned forward and said below a deathly whisper, "spoken by the Dark Lord himself and penned by his followers. Each gave curses and spells enough to fill every page..." Kavall drifted off, still caressing the box with a misty look in his eye.
"How did you come to have it?" Harry asked, feigning skepticism as per Felix's instructions.
"The Ministry does a poor job of raiding homes, you see... they pass over dusty boxes in the libraries of suspected Death Eaters," Kavall shook his head and smiled savagely. "One of my men found it under a floorboard," he chuckled.
"Which speaks volumes for the man who hid it there," Harry said scathingly.
The best place to hide is in the open.
It flashed through his head, though he couldn't seem to place it. "How can you prove its authenticity?"
"Have a look for yourself, friend," Kavall smirked, opening the box with a series of charms and handing Harry a book almost identical to the diary of Tom Riddle's that Harry had encountered during his second year. Harry opened the book to an arbitrary page, which—due to Felix Felicis—proved not so completely random at all.
"Sectumsempra" read the top of the page.
Harry snapped the book shut.
"How much do you want for it?" he said firmly.
"200,000 galleons."
"No," Harry handed the book back. Kavall looked shocked.
"175,000, then."
"My answer is still no," Harry insisted. "It is not worth my head, being found with such a thing."
"120,000." Kavall was clearly distraught.
"I have never traveled with so much as a tenth of such a sum."
"I see..." Kavall wrung his hands. Harry could see perspiration on the old man's brow... then his angled face lit up. "But there is a spell here—one for your daughter!" He scurried to find the page and then handed the book proudly to Harry. "The Lion & The Fox... you see? Bold and cunning combined. Yes, I knew you'd like it!"
Harry did not bother to read the spell—Felix told him that the spell was right and it could be done. Harry even recognized the handwriting as being the same as that of Tom Riddle's diary, which gave him an idea...
"This spell was written by the Dark Lord himself," Kavall muttered, barely audible.
"No," Harry said firmly, tossing the book back yet again and watching the perspiration on Kavall's forehead turn to desperation... and Harry knew just what to do. "This is a woman's writing, not the Dark Lord's, and you and I both know it, Mister Kavall," Harry spat. "I knew her once; she died before the Dark Lord came to power—before," Harry repeated contemptuously, pausing before he went on, "meaning that this book was part of a personal collection, but not the Dark Lord's collection, Mister Kavall." Harry turned away to pace the room.
"Mister D," Kavall pleaded, taking a step around his table to chase after Harry like a house elf. His breath was shallow, coming quickly and in sharp pulls. There was a defined note of panic in his voice. So, Harry realized, he doesn't know what he has. "Please," Kavall clutched at the back of Harry's robes. Harry turned out of the man's grasp.
"How much for the others?" he asked flatly.
"500 galleons, a bargain," Kavall offered plaintively.
"I'll give you 400 for all of it."
Kavall bowed his head. A bounty hunter could simply kill him and take the book. Worse, a hunter could simply leave knowing what Kavall had stolen. This bounty hunter could report him to the Ministry of Magic. He could tell the true owner where the book was, and where would that leave Kavall? He had absolutely no choice. This bounty hunter was too good. The man really is who he says. Kavall sighed.
Harry emptied two of his three purses onto the table as Kavall wrapped his purchases.
"A pleasure doing business with you," Harry said in a somber voice, tucking his parcels under his cloaked arm.
"A word of caution, if I may, Herr D?" Kavall said breathlessly as Harry turned to go. "You may want to be careful with your accent... it's memorable..." There was an awkward silence between them.
"To be sure," Harry replied coldly, suddenly without any accent. "Good evening, Mr. Kavall."
"Good evening, Mister D."
And Harry departed with a minor flourish of the hat and cloak.
-
-
-
"Boo!"
"AAHHH!"
"WOAAAA!"
CRASH!
"Don't scare us like tha', Harry!" Fred Weasley wheezed, catching his breath as he and George clung to one another in the aftermath of inebriated fright. Harry climbed the rest of the way through the window, removing his hat with another flourish—and a particularly self-satisfied one at that. Fred and George broke apart as they took in the arrogant smirk on Harry's face and the parcel under his arm.
"How'd it go?" George asked.
"You can never imagine..." Harry sighed, pirouetting about the bathroom in the giddiest of all fashions. "But I'm not done yet," he informed, holding up a playfully flippant finger.
"What's going on, Harry?" Fred insisted, halting the jovial spinning by seizing Harry firmly by the shoulders.
"Better not to know," was Harry's portentous response. "Could you hold these for me?" he offered his parcels.
"What are they?"
"Best not to know," he insisted, "but I suggest you not open them," and he forked over the books. "I need to settle about Dumbledore's things at Gringotts. Half an hour more, alright?" The twins nodded and Harry snatched up the Gringotts key. "We're out of the woods now, men."
Fred and George jumped, panic-stricken as the bathroom door flew open.
"What's going on in here?" Ginny demanded of her older brothers, hands on her hips and her mother's fire in her eyes. "I heard yelling—and who jumped out the window?"
"Window? Rubbish, woman! Dunno wha' yer talkin' about," Fred insisted in a convincingly drunken voice.
"Don't you dare lie to your own sister..."
Harry chuckled merrily to himself, making his way down the ladder and stealing off into the night once more.
-
"Winky! Kreacher! Dobby!"
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!
"Kreacher, not a word out of you unless it's 'Yes, master.'"
"Yes, master."
"Hello, Winky. Hello, Dobby."
"Forgive Winky, sir, but... master sounds funny..."
"Yes, Harry Potter, sir!"
"It's a long story, Winky. Can you three disguise yourselves as other house elves? You know, look different? Change your clothes into rags like Kreacher's?"
CRACK!
"Ace. In need you to get some things from Gringotts and bring them back to the house. You must understand that these things could be very dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands. I need them to be safe—"
"Harry Potter can trust us!"
"And you must tell no one—you must swear it."
"Yes, Harry Potter, sir!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Swear it."
"Yes, master."
"Come with me—we haven't got much time..."
-
-
-
Gringotts was empty but for a few goblins scribbling menacingly in their notes and a few moths flitting near the candles sparsely stationed around the main hall. Harry—the only human in the place, he noted awkwardly—approached the nearest goblin, Dobby, Winky and Kreacher in toe.
He cleared his throat loudly.
Nothing.
He cleared it again.
Still nothing.
"Excuse me." It came out more gruffly than Harry had intended, his temporarily deep voice making him sound impatient and annoyed rather than tentative and inquiring, as he had actually intended.
"What do you want?" the goblin snarled back, not taking his eyes from his notes. Customer service was obviously making a come-back amongst the goblin race.
"I'm here to empty my vault," Harry retorted sourly. He dropped his key onto the goblin's book with an air of blasé detachment to rival any Malfoy.
The goblin picked up the key and stared at it blankly. Then he looked up at Harry for the first time, and with a puzzled, somewhat worried expression now creasing his ugly face. Then he took off at a speed which Harry had previously doubted goblins were capable of.
Harry tapped his foot impatiently. Dobby and Winky leaned against the goblin's high desk. Kreacher looked as though he had something scathing, vituperating, or perhaps menially vicious to say. "Not a word," Harry reminded him arrogantly.
"Yes, master," he mumbled.
"Sir?"
Three goblins had appeared while Harry was dealing with Kreacher.
"Are the elves to take your belongings?"
"Yes," Harry replied, "but I'd like to make sure everything is in order, if you don't mind," he added.
"Then please come with us."
-
Past two fierce-looking dragons and a legion of goblins seemingly on patrol, Harry came to rest before possibly the most heavily fortified door he had ever seen. It took the goblin five different keys and ten minutes of "scratch here" and "poke there" just to get the door open. And beyond the door a hundred yards of memories... an underground lake leading to another door, reminding Harry of such a lake where he and Dumbledore had...
He cleared his mind of any such thoughts and climbed obediently into the tiny boat that the goblin had drug up by a chain. Dobby, Winky and Kreacher clambered in after their master. The goblin gave the boat a push, and it began to glide natantly across the lake.
"Dobby," Harry muttered under his breath to the elf at his elbow, "do you think you can move anything from this deep underground?"
"Yes, Harr—sir," Dobby modified his words in the knick of time.
"Alright," Harry adjusted his hat and stood as the boat landed on the opposite bank. "I don't know what's in here... but let's find out."
He stepped out of the boat onto a narrow ledge only to find himself faced with a door without handle, lock or hinges. "Shit."
"Master must put his hand on the door, sir," Winky whispered. "Wand hand, sir!" she corrected just as quietly, as Harry had been about to use his other hand. Knowing the eccentricities of the wizarding world, he may very well have just averted an entire lifetime as an armoire.
"Thanks, Winky."
And the door slid open to reveal the most frightful and painful sight Harry could have imagined—dozens of mysterious little gold gadgets and gizmos silenced, resting dusty and dead on the vault floor; an empty pensive erected on a lonely pedestal; open boxes of precious potions and books that Harry could never dream of comprehending; the Mirror of Erised collecting dust in a corner; pointed hats in varied colors, bearing stars and moons and one still decorated with a Christmas bauble from years ago; Fawkes' empty perch...
"Where should it all be kept, master?" Dobby asked, tugging on the end of Harry's cloak like a lost child.
"Somewhere I won't see it," Harry sighed. "At least for now."
Dobby stepped tentatively away from Harry to join Winky and Kreacher. After a few moments of hushed discussions between Dobby and Winky—Kreacher's remarks being limited to "yes, master"—the three raised their arms and the room seemed to shimmer, bending and swaying as though viewed through heat and haze. Harry blinked slowly, opening his weary eyes to find everything gone.
"Everything done?" Harry inquired brusquely.
"Yes, master," Kreacher responded iritably, siezing the rare opportunity for speech.
"Good. Go take a bath." And Kreacher was gone with a crack and a huff. "Don't expect me for at least a week." Winky and Dobby nodded curteously and were about to disapparate when Harry added, "And please cover that painting in the hall—you know the one," both elves nodded fiercely, suggesting that they had already had some encounter with the late Mrs. Black. "And be careful not to let the potion boil too hard... ruins the potency..."
"Yes, sir," Winky smiled, happy to be given orders like a regular house elf.
"Call if master needs Winky and Dobby again, sir!" Dobby chirped.
Crack, and Harry was alone. He clung tightly to his bottle of fire whiskey as he made his way out of the mines and back into the cool night air.
By the time he reached the Weasley's ladder, he proved too drunk to climb it.
-
"... 1... 2... 3!" Fred and George lifted Harry into his bed back at number four. It was close to five in the morning, but the party back at their premesis was still going strong. Fred was looking forward to borrowing Katie Bell from Oliver wood; George was looking forward to trying to get Ron drunk enough to ask Fleur for another kiss. But Harry...
"Poor Harry," Hermione sighed, setting down the package with Gryffindor's sword and starting to untie his trainers. Harry made a noise in his sleep.
"Yeah, poor bloke's gunna have one hell of a hangover when he wakes up," Fred muttered.
"Which'll be sometime next Thursday," George snickered. "Where's that stuff for his eye?" he added as an afterthought.
"Here," Fred handed over the jar and George slathered some onto Harry's black eye.
"Where do you think I should put this?" Hermione asked in general, indicating the oblong package in her arms. Something wasn't quite right about her behavior: she wasn't bossing anybody around, or asking impossible questions...
"His desk, 'suppose," Fred froze in the middle of tugging Harry's cloak out from under his bum. Fred was bent in half at his labor, but his head swiveled up to stare at Hermione. "Where's the other package?"
"There was another one?" Hermione looked confused, though she had only had one glass of sherry with Mrs. Weasley... or six... Fred let out a string of curses terrible enough to render Hermione momentarily conscious. She hit him over the back of the head, sherrys or not. Then she went back to...
"He said those were important," George admonished his twin in a sing-song voice. Fred's blank, staring head swiveled around to George.
"Better go get them, then," Fred mocked George's obnoxious tone. Hermione managed to pull off Harry's trainers and Fred managed to get the cloak out from beneath his slumbering corpse... but George hadn't moved at all.
Hermione and Fred fixed him with twin glares.
"Oh, right!" George nodded feebly. "Right." He disapparated, leaving his pants behind in his rush. Hermione giggled a little, hiccuping. Fred looked at her, mock-scandalized.
"I've got it!" George called loudly as he returned, holding the package from Knockturn alley aloft and staggering into the corner of Harry's desk. He didn't appear to notice the absence of his pants from his body.
"SSHHH!" Hermione and Fred hissed together. Vernon Dursley gave a bestial grunt from his bed in the next room. Hermione giggled again, drowning another hiccup as though subduing a discontented populace.
"Oh, right!" George whispered, nodding exaggeratedly... and not entirely on purpose.
"He's the funny drunk," Fred informed the now snoring Harry Potter. "I'm the dashingly handsome drunk," he continued, patting Harry on the shoulder and making his way towards Hermione. "May I have a dance when we get back?" He swung her around in his arms and she giggled yet again.
"Alright," Hermione blushed and smiled... and disapparated coyly. Fred and George—sharing devilishly handsome smirks—followed.