TITLE: "THE GUNMAN"
AUTHOR: sordid humor
CATEGORY: Adventure
SUB-CATEGORY: Humor; Romance; Drama
RATING: this episode brought to you by the letter M: "M" is for mother fucker...
I can say that now because I bumped up the rating. I can say whatever the fuck I want now! My Grandmother enjoys drowning kittens in rain barrels... okay, maybe I can't say whatever the fuck I want to. But she does; go ahead and ask her!
This ratings rant dedicated to Josie with love, because she actually reads them. Hearts!
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, no copyright infringement intended, sorry-sorry, et cetera, et cetera. You know the drill.)
- Radiohead, original lyrics to Paranoid Android (back when the track was titled Subterranean Homesick Alien)
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
count: 4700 running count: 26,700
Got another demand the other day. The mazokus request "an underground death cult: a cult, underground, having something to do with death." Interficiemus. Next, it'll be a shrubbery. Also, the requirement of "Walt Whitman allusion" has been retracted—though I do love my first American gay poet, this retraction is a good thing... as I had no idea how I was going to successfully maintain the allusion. I've got my hands full with Macbeth, Don Quixote, Faulkner, and Vampire Hunter D...
In the future, don't expect me to be posting this fast. Let me be, Jules This chapter was started on 10-2-05 and it's only out now. I edit at the speed of snail. And KP my master beta and my God--big G tells me I can't spell, and he's oh so very correct.
-
we demand that Fred be recognized as the true funny one
- because we all know this already
we demand that the idea of killing McGonagall never enter your twisted little brain
no killing Draco Malfoy, either
((namagomi means "raw sewage" in Japanese))
PART I
CHAPTER V:
MANHOOD & EVIL
The breath of the morning, I keep forgetting
the smell of the warm summer air
I live in a town where you can't smell a thing
you watch your feet for cracks in the pavement
Up above angels hover, making home movies for the folks back home
If all these weird creatures who lock up their spirits draw holes in themselves
they'd reveal their secrets ...
Harry, Ron, Fleur and Charlie apparated to St. Mungo's shortly after lunch. Fleur seemed to have the way to Bill's room memorized, and the rest of the party merely trailed along behind her. The staff seemed to be on edge, as though at any moment they half expected hundreds of cursed, bleeding, dying wizards to be rushed through the nearest door—they seemed to dread it yet they were determined, set upon some personal design. They prowled the hallways with their chins high, like Fleur, pretending they all had something urgent, pressing, productive to do, something that would save them all. Harry felt overpowered by the presence of so many people stubbornly determined not to crack before the pressure arrived.
And Bill, too, sat in his bed determined not to crack, determined not to show pain or fear or any sign of emotion beyond a smile for welcome company. Fleur flew to his side, smothering him in sighs and kisses, barely leaving him a hand to extend to either of his brothers. He managed a gesture of welcome to Charlie, Ron and Harry behind Fleur's back. She was momentarily oblivious. Bill looked especially blue in the face.
"Dearest, you're hurting me," Bill said mildly from under his fiancée. She responded by squealing in a somewhat dignified way and leaping from the bed so as not to cause him any undo pains or sufferings. She opened her mouth to apologize, but Bill took her by the hand before she could begin. He obviously didn't want to have any more of a scene.
"Nice of you all to visit," he said casually, indicating with his head that the three of them should find a place to sit down and make themselves comfortable. "What's the occasion?"
"Zehr is no 'occasion,' you silly! Zeh all wanted to see you, and I wanted to... too?" she said the last part more tentatively, cocking her head to the side, unsure of her English. Bill nodded—she had said it correctly—and she smiled more broadly. Harry suddenly felt a little better about the world for no apparent reason.
"How's the new position treating you, Charlie?" Bill asked conversationally. "Not exactly what you're used to, I'll reckon!"
"Quite right! But it's growing on me," Charlie responded congenially, laughing a little and sitting down in a nearby chair. "But I'll tell you one thing you're sure to enjoy!" And he launched into a very involved and highly amusing tale about a wizard from Algiers who had attempted to sell a Hungarian Ridgeback to what turned out to be a muggle antiques shop in Surrey. By the end of the story, Bill was laughing, as promised. Harry found it particularly funny, having some personal experience with the breed and knowing exactly what Charlie's comedic descriptions truly entailed. Harry also knew the antiques shop, making his mental image of the entire ordeal all the more vivid. Ron was pink in the face as he leaned against the wall beside Charlie's chair, in which Charlie sat cackling at his own story. He was laughing so hard he started coughing.
"Drink of water?" Ron put a hand to Charlie's shoulder. Incapable of speech, Charlie nodded. Ron helped him up and they went out into the hall in search of the nearest guest room.
"Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Um, while there's a chance... there's something Fleur and I have been meaning to, uh, talk to you about..."
Harry had known it was coming; but had he thought about it since Lupin mentioned it? No. Of course not. He'd been busy with his office, his preparations for the Horcrux, his books... he hadn't had time.
That was a lie, he'd had plenty of time—hours, days, five times as much. He'd merely blocked the subject out because of its personal and most uncomfortable connotations. Of course he hadn't thought about it. Why would he think about something that so blatantly reminded him of Dumbledore, his parents, Sirius, and all the wizarding world? He'd been busy with Voldemort.
"'Arry?"
"Er—sorry—what?"
"Oh, how stupid of me!" Bill knocked himself on the head until Fleur made him stop. "Of course! You wouldn't know what a Protector is. My fault, Harry, my fault—"
"I know what a Protector is. I just... couldn't have heard you right," Harry lied believably. Fleur shot Bill a look that read "Don't underestimate him! He is the Chosen One, after all!" Harry's gaze quickly traveled to the floor.
"Well, Harry, we'd be honored if you'd take the job."
This was it, wasn't it? The first test of his manhood. He couldn't rightly back down now. He couldn't say something mismatched or juvenile. He couldn't get away with not having done the reading. He couldn't look at Hermione's answer, he couldn't ask Ron, and he couldn't re-take the test. This was the real thing now. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, looking across the room to Bill and Fleur sitting together through hell or high water, werewolf bites or mothers-in-law. He felt the answer come to him.
"No," he said softly, regarding the two clearly for the first time. "The honor would be entirely mine."
Fleur launched herself at Harry, eyes watery. Bill just smiled and shook his head, content that his bride-to-be had gotten her way.
Harry was being smothered with tears and kisses as Ron and Charlie returned.
"What happened here?" Ron asked Bill, as Harry was otherwise engaged with the overjoyed half-veela.
"Harry's going to be our Protector," Bill informed.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Fleur released Harry only to fling herself at Ron, startling him with a watery hug. Ron patted her back awkwardly until she let him go, a dazed expression on his face.
"Congratulations, all of you!" Charlie said, shaking Harry's hand and then Bill's.
"Now all we need is the wedding date!" Bill joked from his bed, motioning Fleur to come closer to him.
"Don't talk zhat way," Fleur admonished. She gave Bill a playfully stern look.
"I'll be back to normal before you know it, I promise." And Bill kissed her.
-
-
-
Later that same day, a massive Quiddich match was struck up at the Burrow.
Meant only as a form of civil entertainment, the entire household was quickly whipped into a frenzy. Victor Krum versus Harry Potter was the talk of the house, and everybody was taking sides with rapid speed. Fred and George were to serve as Harry's Beaters; Ron as his Keeper; Charlie and two of Bill's friends as his Chasers. Krum had convinced few of Bill's other friends and schoolmates to join his ranks, but the offers only started to pour in once Ginny volunteered as Krum's first Chaser. The match was on. Team Potter versus Team Krum. Dinner was eaten at odds and from opposite sides of the table, no more than four words spoken together: "Pass the potatoes, please" and "Good game tonight, eh?" all of which came from Mr. or Mrs. Weasley, or perhaps one of the slightly more dignified guests.
Yet many a more dignified wizard had committed his evening to the game, none the less. Both Mr. Weasley and Remus Lupin had volunteered to referee, yet both were ruled to have bias, and—after a lengthy and convivial shouting match between Harry and Krum—Mad Eye Moody was deemed the only adult present without preference either way. Moody had spent most of the afternoon in raucous laughter, declaring the very principle to be juvenile and ridiculous. He found himself on a broom that evening, wearing a bright orange rain slicker belonging to Arthur Weasley, with an old whistle round his neck. He was still mumbling to himself under his breath as he kicked off to inspect the field before the match; he was checking at the insistence of both captains, who were both equally convinced that their opponent had most clearly sabotaged the playing field somehow in one way or another.
"Nothing, children. Nothing at all," Moody said sternly, landing between Harry and Victor with a harrumph.
"You checked thoroughly?" Krum questioned, shouldering Moody playfully.
"Yes."
"You're sure?" Harry laid shoulder into Moody equally from the other side, preventing the older gentleman from the escape he had been attempting. Both captains cracked toothy grins of anticipation.
"Yes, Potter! Now will you give an old man room to breath?" Moody squeezed out from between the overzealous captains and started making his way back to the Burrow. Harry, Victor, and the two teams followed in hot pursuit.
"Where're you going, Moody?" Charlie shouted, his broom slung over his shoulder. "Isn't the match about to start?"
"Isn't the pitch in the other direction?" Fred muttered agreeably. He received muffled sniggers from both teams in reply.
"We need you on the pitch!" protested Williams, one of Bill's friends from Egypt. Williams was tall and broad, twenty-something, and carried a Beater's club with an ease gained from many years of play. He gave Harry a measuring glance as the two captains stood shoulder to shoulder.
"The old man is going for a second helping of treacle tart," Moody shouted over his shoulder, still retreating to the house. "Captains, take your players to the pitch... and mind your manners. No funny stuff, you hear me?"
They didn't. Harry and Victor were already racing each other to the Weasley's apple orchard.
-
"Victor's in the lead, 120 to 80. Ginny just scored on Ron again, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione informed Mrs. Weasley as the older woman approached from the house. "How's Williams doing?" Williams had taken one of George's bludgers to the head and was currently recovering up at the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley shook her head and tutted as Harry called a time out from the air, signaling his team to come in.
"He'll be alright in the morning, I'll dare say. But this game is getting a little too rough for my tastes, Hermione..."
"Oh, we fixed Ginny's eye, alright," Fred told his mother, out of breath. "It's all good clean fun and games, Mum!"
Mrs. Weasley mumbled something about "a little too much fun for one day" and walked off to the other side of the field to check on her only daughter. Hermione approached Harry before the rest of his team landed around him to absorb his attentions.
"Harry!" she called, waving her arms to catch his eye. "Harry, haven't you had enough?"
"I'm not quitting, Hermione!" he said hoarsely, moping sweat from his brow with his sleeve. On the other side of the orchard, Victor appeared in similar condition. "Anyway, the match isn't over yet. I can still get 'em!" Ron landed beside Harry.
"Don't worry, Hermione," Ron panted, winded. "I won't let Harry kill your precious Vicky... well, not completely, anyway!" He laughed and clapped Harry on the back, still wheezing.
Hermione tossed her bushy hair over her shoulder and went to cheer on Krum's side of the orchard.
"C'amon, everybody," Harry said passionately, turning to his huddling team. "With Williams out of the way, I think I can finally get Krum."
"How's your nose, Harry?" Charlie asked.
"Better." He touched the bridge of his nose gingerly, feeling where it was still bruised. He had taken one of Williams' bludgers to the face earlier in the game. Blood everywhere, he had barely made it to the ground to get patched up. Blood still caked down the front of his shirt, he considered himself rather lucky compared to Williams; the man had taken a George Weasley special to the back of the head. He'd be alright when he woke up, though... in a day or two. Harry diverted his mind back to the matter at hand.
"Fred, George, I need you two to head off Baker, and don't be afraid to send one at Ginny, either. Ron, you've got to start blocking some shots. If you can do that, and you two keep Baker off me, I can trick Krum. I've got an idea. Just keep Baker the bloody fuck away from me and I'll be alright! Got all that?"
There was a collective nod around the huddle. Harry was pumped up on dried blood and adrenaline.
"Ace. Let's go!"
"Captains, are we ready?" Moody asked from the relative center of the orchard. Harry and Krum nodded. Nasty comments were shouted across the field, nasty hand gestures peeking between the apple trees. Moody blew his whistle and play resumed.
Harry flew high over the pitch, scanning the sky for the snitch as well as for Baker's stray bludgers that had been catching him off guard every few minutes previously. The man liked to send bludgers straight into the air, inevitably striking a Seeker, and sometimes his own Seeker. Baker didn't really seem to care weather he hit Krum or Harry—he was happy just to hit something, Harry thought bitterly. Harry soared higher still, keeping a wary, bloodshot, twitching eye on Krum.
His enemy was circling the goal posts, concentrating on the action of the game and shouting commands to his players: the ideal captain. Harry just let people do relatively whatever the hell they wanted, being more concerned with his own job than with anyone else's.
Then he spotted it. Glittering golden among the apples of the orchard, the snitch was flitting around the trunks of the trees, weaving in and out in random surges. He began to lower himself, casually, hoping to keep his advantage over Krum as long as possible. His opponent was busy shouting orders at Ginny, who had just gotten her hands on the quaffle. Harry seized his opportunity while Krum's back was turned, shooting like a dart toward the snitch at ground level.
But Krum was on to him. World-class seeker, he was speeding along the ground like a snake as Harry hurtled down from the sky in a graceful dive. They raced like bullets, set upon a target. They danced between the trees, darting around trunks and dodging stray branches, eyes fixed upon their glittering goal.
Then, ahead, there was a boulder with an unpruned branch above it. Harry would have no choice but to fling himself over it after the snitch. Krum, whose path lay unobstructed before him, would surely get the snitch if Harry dodged the branch. He stole a final look at Krum: iron jaw jaunty but determined. Something at the back of Harry's mind began to grow, taking on a form and a life of its own, feeding off the very air he breathed. Before he could stop himself, he acted.
"Oi! Krum!"
Krum turned to look at him.
Harry smiled.
Sparks flew. The blast from Harry's wand tossed Krum into the nearest tree. Harry's smile broadened as he took Krum's path without a glance behind. Arm stretched out before him, he grasped the snitch with sure fingers, blood on his hands.
-
"HARRY POTTER, I COULD KILL YOU!" Hermione shouted.
"Harry Potter, I could kiss you..." Fred muttered.
"I assume this means my services are no longer required," Moody mumbled, disengaging himself from the orange parka.
It worked,Harry realized with a jolt. No one knew the difference—not even Moody! He had used Dark Magic right under their noses, giving Krum a nosebleed that only a certain counter jinx would stop, then casting an illegal mass-memory charm so that no one would remember the flash of light.
"Nice hit, Harry," Krum said in a friendly voice, head between his knees with a bloody rag held to his face. His accent was more pronounced when his head was upside down. Hermione hovered at his side, casting murderous glances in Harry's direction. Ginny—nose in the air—had marched off into the house the moment her broomstick hit the ground. Harry figured that if she hadn't been angry enough to hex him before the match, she certainly was now.
"Nice hit? NICE HIT!" Hermione repeated, sounding more wounded than her charge. "He punched you and all you have to say is 'nice hit?'"
"It was a really great punch, Hermione," Ron said mildly.
"Harry, I thought you had more class," she added in a moral voice, ignoring Ron's comment entirely and fixing her guilt-inspiring glare on Harry. He felt his ears burn a little under the sheen of sweat on his face. She always managed to make him feel like dragon dung—it was a great talent of hers.
"Victor, please let me take a look at that..." Krum obliged. He lifted his head and removed the cloth to display a brilliantly blackening eye and a copious amount of blood pouring out of his nose.
"No hard feelings, Victor," Harry said, flinching.
"It's nothing," Krum said over the top of Hermione's head as she examined him, her back turned squarely and purposefully to Harry and Ron. "But... how did you know I was about to hit you?"
"Er—" Harry hadn't known. He hadn't known a thing. "I just knew."
Krum smiled and nodded as his nose continued to bleed.
-
-
-
Harry wrung the last few drops of Krum's blood out of the dish rag while standing at the work table in his office. Hermione was tending to her precious martyred Vicky in the Burrow's kitchen. Ron was in the shower. And Fred and George were outside with Ginny, setting the scene for Harry's dirty work. The last drops of blood having been coaxed into a jar, Harry threw the rag into the fire. He snatched up his invisibility cloak and headed back to the Burrow, ready to do what must be done.
-
"Victor!"
"I am fine, Her-my-oh-ninee," Krum mumbled, half-conscious from blood-loss.
"No you're not! I can see it in your eyes..." She held his face in her hands.
"It will stop bleeding as soon as you stop worrying," Krum said, gazing sweetly back at her. Harry thought he was about to gag under his invisibility cloak. He aimed his wand at Krum's back, turning his head before he had to watch them kiss. Thinking the counter curse with all his might may not have been entirely necessary, but it helped block out the sound that was undoubtedly Hermione's surprised moan of joy as Victor kissed her. Harry really didn't want to think about kissing anybody. He fired off the counter curse that would prevent Krum from bleeding to death and then got the hell out of the kitchen, thinking it was a very good thing that Ron was just as bad a legilimens as he was.
-
"Are you sure, George?" Ginny asked, genuinely not wanting to paralyze her brother.
"Yes, it should be perfectly safe," George said back. He was standing with his back pressed up against the Burrow's outside wall, just beside an open window. "Just give me your best shot—right at my chest. Got it?"
"And you're positive that that hat will stop it?" George was in fact wearing the single most hideous of all bowler hats that has ever been seen. There was a pause.
Harry—wearing his invisibility cloak—was standing next to Fred. When he tapped Fred on the shoulder twice, that meant that everything was ready to go. Should he tap Fred only once, that meant abort mission. Harry tapped twice and ran over to George.
"Yep. We're positive," Fred said with a smirk. However, no one saw this evil grin but Harry, who was perched in the open window. But it was too late for George.
"Alright, then." Ginny pulled out her wand and took aim at George. She froze. "And if it doesn't work, and the Ministry comes out here to cart me away for under aged wizardry?"
"Then we'll say it was Harry," Fred said coolly. "The Daily Prophet will love it: 'Disturbed Potter Hexes Innocent Entrepreneur.'"
"Fine by me," Ginny said, smiling. "Here goes..." And she fired a spectacular Bat-Bogey Hex right at George.
Harry leapt from the window sill, placing himself between George and the spell. George's face was screwed up in nervous anticipation—the hat Fred had given him was nothing more than a dreadfully ugly bowler hat and all three men knew it. Should Harry somehow not be there to capture the hex, George would be toast.
But Harry was there, capture phial in hand. Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex was reduced to a tiny whiss ten inches from George's nose.
George let out a sigh of relief.
"I owe you one," Harry whispered to George.
George nodded, too much fear dissipating out of his system to allow for speech.
"I guess it works, Fred," Ginny said, turning to her brother. "How much are you selling them for?"
"We were thinking fifteen galleons a piece."
"You'd better charge less if they're all that ugly..."
"Hey! This one's actually my hat!" George yelled. His lousy humor was back: he was fine.
Harry slipped through the open window, his prize in hand.
-
-
-
"I'd say it went rather well," Fred whispered.
"Yeah, you would..." George whispered back.
"How many times do I have to tell you? You don't have to whisper. No one can hear us." Harry had cast Muffliato the moment he entered the upstairs bathroom for his three-o'clock-in-the-morning meeting with Fred and George. Secrecy was key.
"But it did go rather well," Fred insisted, tentatively at normal volume.
"Yeah, it did," Harry agreed. "But I need to ask you one more favor before I kip out for a while."
"What's that?"
"Well," Harry curled up on the over-large windowsill, as Fred and George had previously seated themselves on the rim of the bathtub and the toilet tank, respectively. He paused for a moment to collect his words. "How did you say you got the idea for that disguise, again?"
"Book of old 'wanted' posters we bought a while back—"
"Fred used to be crazy about dark wizards who got away—"
"Anyway," Fred continued, "There's this one guy I've always been interested in; he was amazing. No one knew exactly who he was, but the Ministry called him 'D.'"
"'D?'"
"Yeah, I know! Cool, huh?"
George rolled his eyes, as though he'd heard it at at least a hundred times before.
"He wasn't a bounty hunter, was he?" Harry asked, thinking back.
"Well... I guess he was. He was part of the Ministry's Vampire Raids, back when George and I were real young. He was a foreigner, you see, and he came to England after the Ministry hired him. He did what they paid him for but... he started taking jobs on the side, I guess. Murders, selling Ministry secrets, assassinations, torture... the Ministry put a price on his head, and he spent the next couple years killing all the guys trying to kill him; his friends, you know?"
"How'd you know he was a hunter?" George interrupted.
"Er—" Harry coughed, "just guessed."
"After he took out most of his competition, the Death Eaters came after him. I'm not sure why, though. Some people thought he tried to double-cross them. Other people say the Death Eaters saw him as a threat. He ended up killing a lot of them, but then he disappeared. People never knew much about him specifically, but most Ministry workers have at least heard of him."
"How long ago did he disappear?"
"Ten years ago?" George suggested.
"More like eight or nine," Fred corrected after scratching his head in deep contemplation. "Anyway, no one's ever seen him. He could still be around..."
"And wouldn't you just die?" George teased.
"So that's where you got the idea?" Harry asked Fred; Harry had learned long ago that sometimes, you're better off ignoring George.
"Yeah. I bought the hat about the same time he disappeared..."
"You said that the Ministry called him 'D,'" Harry got up to stretch his legs, thinking back to find any other questions he'd had. "Didn't anyone know who he was?"
"Nope. That's partly why I liked him, I suppose. With that big hat and cloak, he could have been anybody, you know? I'm sure there were some people who knew who he was, but they were probably other assassins. There were rumors that he was a real ladies man, but there were a lot of other rumors, too. Some people said he was trying to overthrow You Know Who. Some people thought he was a friend of Dumbledore's. Still, other people thought he was part vampire. But no one ever knew anything for sure."
"Then that makes my request that much more difficult," Harry sighed. "I need a name."
"For 'D'?"
"Yeah."
"No way..." George muttered. "Harry, there's absolutely no way..."
"A name, an address, someone else's name, anything! I just need something so I can track this guy down, or at least find out what happened to him."
"We'll see what we can do," Fred said.
"But no promises," George added firmly.
"No promises," Harry agreed. "But... you said he was foreign. Are you sure?"
"Relatively."
"Well..." Harry said slowly, "sources tell me he was Austrian. And he may or may not have a daughter near our age."
"Sources?"
"Better not to know."
"Harry, why do you want to find this guy? He obviously doesn't want to be found..." Fred leaned forward, a worried expression creasing his brow.
"Assuming he's alive..." George was ignored.
"Best not to know any of the particulars," Harry responded portentously, pacing the length of the Weasley's tiny bathroom. Running his fingers through his hair, he turned to face the window. The countryside was silent, no wind awake at this hour to stir the fields into a frenzy. Nothing moved as he stared out the window with unfocused eyes. "I think he knows something: something big. And even if he's dead, I know he must have left some kind of clue behind. You can't cover up something like this."
"Like what?" George was hit upside the head following this statement.
"I'll be gone in forty-eight hours. If you've got anything to say, I'd suggest you say it now."
"Can you tell us where you'll be?"
"Well..." Harry thought for a moment. He had already told Lupin, so chances stood that Harry had already told the entire Order of the Phoenix, too. If the Order knew about it, then everybody knew about it, for all practical purposes. "I'll be at Godrick's Hollow with Ron and Hermione. We're leaving at night, so Ginny won't know that we're gone until your Mum and Dad can, er... restrain her." Fred and George chuckled.
"I should be there for a day or so. Then... I really can't say."
"You'll make contact, though?" Fred asked.
"I hope so. If things go well, you should hear from me about a week after I disappear. If things don't go well..." Harry stifled a yawn, "could be up to a month or so."
"And if we find something on 'D,' how do we make contact with you?"
"I'm hoping to have someone to send within the month. Can't say who," Harry added quickly, sensing the question George was about to pose. "But I'll think I'll have someone by then."
"You're coming back for Bill's wedding, right?" George asked suddenly.
"Er—I can't miss it, actually," Harry pronounced awkwardly. "I'm, er, in it."
"You're Bill's best man? When did that happen?"
"Um... it's, er, worse," Harry rolled himself into a ball on the windowsill, staring blankly out the window once again. "I'm his protector."
"Shit," Fred muttered.