x
Harry was proud of himself for not having panicked when he found that Dumbledore's comatose body wasn't where it was supposed to be. He managed to suspend the warring emotions that would have immediately alerted Tom that something was amiss, and went to investigate.
The Nott Manor kitchens were dark and vast, built in the then-contemporary medieval style and left in the care of house elves, to whom modernisation was not a familiar concept. Needless to say, the ceilings were low, walls blackened with layers upon layers of smoke which not even elf magic could scrape off, and the oven was built of mud bricks and covered with an iron plate. A creature that itself was blackened with smoke stood in front of each fire, and every once in a while shoveled a few pieces of coal inside.
Harry wished he had never had an opportunity to visit this place. He had, naively, imagined something akin to Hogwarts kitchens, a huge bright hall filled with busy, diligent little green people, a place of cheerful activity where the stray hungry wizard was always welcome. This was nothing like at Hogwarts; if anything, the kitchens resembled a dark, over-heated elf-hive, complete with sleeping cells hewn into the back wall, as far away from the fires as possible.
"Master Lord Harry is bad here," a hoarse voice sounded by Harry's knee.
He looked down and found a grayish elf standing next to him, leaning on a gnarled cane, staring unseeingly through his fellows. Harry didn't take offence at the comment, mostly because the rudeness was caused by lack of proper education in the use of English language.
"Is Chatter available?" Harry asked, wiping a trickle of sweat from his face and casting a Cooling Charm.
The old elf flinched, but righted himself quickly, and inclined his head. "Chatter is be sent to Master Lord Harry. Master Lord Harry is wait out."
Deeply uncomfortable, Harry accepted the 'suggestion' and removed himself. He felt relieved when the heavy oak door slammed shut behind him, cutting off the horrible screech of the unused hinges. The thud echoed through the basement corridors of the Manor – a part that Harry hadn't had a chance to reconnoiter yet. He shivered in the sudden chill and cancelled the Charm.
Chatter appeared with a pop, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"Report," Harry ordered.
"Masters' prisoner is being the same, Master Lord Harry," the elf replied swiftly and tonelessly. "He is being guarded by Turvey and Dock-"
"How much did you sleep since I gave you this duty?" Harry asked, disconcerted.
"Chatter is sleeping hours and hours, Mas-"
"Rest, Chatter. I will speak with Dock."
The elf bowed and disappeared.
Harry gritted his teeth. Habit made him want to chew on his lower lip, but Tom had successfully weaned him off many of his vices, and he wasn't going to start falling back into them. He was mightily unhappy about Chatter's state, though: he had quite clearly commanded her to draft sufficient assistance, and it seemed like she had utterly exhausted herself. He hadn't thought her incompetent, but apparently basic mathematics wasn't within her scope.
Perhaps he had been too quick to discount Hermione's house elf liberation movement. Maybe the treatment of house elves needed revolutionising as well…?
"Dock!" he snapped, and set out toward the stairs.
There was a soft crack and patter of tiny feet as the elf struggled to keep up with Harry's relatively long steps.
"Report on Dumbledore!" Harry said before the creature had a chance to annoy him with obsequiousness.
x
"What is this?"
Harry was initially surprised by the greeting he received. Tom's temper had gone worse in the past three days, and there was barely an hour to take a break and relax, here and there. Everything seemed to be happening at once, with their involvement or without it – apparently, at times without even their knowledge.
Tom, angered further by not having received a prompt response, thrust the copy of The Daily Prophet at Harry and stalked off to seat himself in his chair and glare at the stack of never-ending correspondence. The black liquid in the inkwell froze within seconds, while Harry pulled the newsparchment from his chest and read the headline.
'Albus Dumbledore Sentenced For Life!'
He let out a loud breath of surprise, and skimmed the front page. It featured a huge photograph of the – apparently public – trial, complete with an uncompromising Scrimgeour, deathly pale Amelia Bones, and an entirely too smug Lucius Malfoy. The article itself described the trial at length, quoted the jury and various righteous members of the Wizengamot, and finished with the hopeful message of unity and peace now that the 'worst of the warmongers' had been put away. That, at the very least, explained why Dumbledore's comatose body wasn't where Harry had believed it was supposed to be, and why he had been forced to make the trip to the kitchens in the early hours of the morning and wake a half-coherent Chatter.
"Just what we wanted, I think," Harry said, even though Tom quite obviously had stopped expecting an answer. That in itself was strange, and Harry suspected that the stress was getting to his husband in a much more disastrous way than he had thought before.
A ping signaled the arrival of post, forwarded from the portkey room straight into Tom's inbox. Harry picked one at random and opened it: it was an overly wordy congratulation from Hu Chang. "I assume Lucius took your orders and ran with them – to a most successful end."
Tom bared his teeth in a silent snarl, scrawled something across the tidy lines of someone's handwriting and flung the parchment into the outbox.
"He has too much of his own mind," Harry continued, "but we knew that, and he works efficiently enough without us pre-approving his every movement."
"We should have been there!" Tom hissed. "Everyone should have seen us there! This is our victory!"
Harry set both the Prophet and Chang's letter down onto the edge of Tom's desk and shook his head. "Everyone who can be effectively intimidated knows it was our doing," he said, hoping that Tom would see reason through his cloud of ire. "Half the Ministry saw us in front of Azkaban; they know we have defeated Dumbledore. Additionally, the simpering public will eat it up and believe that Dumbledore was evil and had them all fooled, and they will be indignant. That will save us the trouble of persuading them."
"Did you know it was happening?" Tom asked, lifting his eyes to Harry and actually flooding the bond so that Harry was certain they shared even the shiver that ran down his spine.
"No," Harry replied.
Tom nodded, stood from the desk and walked past Harry to the exit.
Harry, feeling injured and confused about why his confusion didn't bother Tom in the least – for he certainly was aware of it – followed closely.
x
They arrived just past four o'clock. The sun was nearing the horizon of awe-inspiring, snow-topped mountains towering over the vale. Hardly anything grew there – moss and lichen, a smattering of the most durable white flowers and the occasional scrub pine – and with the exception of the deep blue tarn, the entire land was grey.
Harry shivered as the portkey deposited them in a gap, right in front of a long, straight stone bridge that looked as if it was cut out of a vampire film. On its other end stood one of the most impressive buildings Harry had ever seen, and although it was only about the size of the White Tower, the sight chilled him to the bone.
"Where is this place?" he asked of Antonin, who had touched down nary a second after them.
"The Alps, my Lord," was the terse response, and Antonin busied himself by casting a series of charms that protected him from the weather.
Harry shook his head and stared up at the structure. In comparison to many other buildings it might have been tiny, but here in the middle of the inhospitable land it was nothing short of monumental. The bridge was raised on pillars, which continued up on both sides and created the impression of gates: Harry felt ward after ward scanning him. Most of the Death Eaters in their procession, including Antonin, were stopped at one or the other. Tom pushed through with force and Harry refused to be separated from him, so he followed the example. Apart of the two of them, only Theodore Nott Junior, Apollonia Greengrass and Mnemone Radford were allowed to reach the last tier. They stood under the iron wrought sign 'Warheit Verwirklicht' overhead and waited for further instruction.
"We could have used your Light wizards now," Tom muttered, scowling at the pitiful remnants of his originally intimidating retinue.
Harry was about to point out that he had not been given enough time to assemble his following, and that he had brought Alastor Moody and Nomiki Meadows, but both of them had been detained together with the majority of the Death Eaters, when the gate in front of them opened.
Tom walked through without a pause, entirely too assured of himself. Harry watched him for a moment, hesitant to enter the, admittedly chill-inducing, building without a second thought. Theodore took a deep breath and, clutching his wand in his fist to reassure himself, stepped up to Harry. He exuded stubborn determination, even though it was obvious that he was going against his instincts.
Radford mumbled something unintelligible – some kind of mantra – and walked in Tom's footsteps without once looking over her shoulder.
Greengrass, though…
"Go back to your husband," Harry ordered.
The witch looked like she was going to protest, but then she saw how shadows crept out of nooks and crevices and practically swallowed Radford, whereas Tom was nowhere to be seen, and she obeyed.
"Do you want to return?" Harry asked Theodore.
The boy let out a strangled scoff. "Yes, my Lord. But I want to accompany you more."
Harry nodded. "Come on, then."
They stepped forth side by side. Usually Theodore would follow, but he had meant to go first to offer himself as some kind of a human shield, which Harry wasn't inclined to accept at the moment. Virulent magic struck at them from both sides, but Harry's magic held out against it. Shadows enveloped them like they had done with Radford, but an instance later they stepped into the golden-reddish light of the approaching sunset.
Harry blinked and looked around. They were standing in a gatelodge hardly bigger then a Hogwarts classroom yet much taller, with several floor-to-ceiling windows that let the sunlight in. It was still cold in there, but not as cold as it had been outside, which suggested that even though there were no windowpanes, magic didn't allow the wind in. The floor and the walls were made of the same grey stone as the rest of the building, the perfect picture of desolation, making Harry melancholy at the mere sight of it.
There was nothing there, with the exception of Tom, Radford's limp body on the floor, and a pair of wizards dressed in uniform – grey – robes. The only thing the place was missing, in Harry's opinion, were the dementors.
"…not very likely, sir," one of the grey-dressed wizards, a bear-like, tall, hairy man was saying. "The defences are designed to stop all intruders." He was holding his wand at the ready, and a knife in the other hand, which Harry had noticed only because the blade had glinted. His partner was similarly armed.
Tom cast a very basic Diagnostic Charm on Radford. It came back negative.
Harry gritted his teeth. The woman had been a damn good Obliviator, a leader of a squad and well-connected in the Ministry. Damn Tom's faith in his own invulnerability! Couldn't he have paused to think? The worst that could have happened would be them missing the arrival of the Ministry delegation-
With a series of whooshing sounds, dozen wizards were deposited in the hall. Harry swiftly inventoried faces: Lucius Malfoy was standing in the front, next to Gawain Robards, who led the whole group. There were Hayes, Tonks and Ector Weasley, but the rest Harry didn't know… except, naturally, Dumbledore.
Harry stepped closer before he could stop himself, and Dumbledore raised his head, piercing him with a pair of cerulean eyes. Harry had expected the accusation, naturally, but he wasn't quite as confident as to not be affected by it. The old man didn't look too bad – he hadn't been starved or beaten, hadn't been subjected to great many distasteful things that usually happened to prisoners of Voldemort… but still, there was something ugly about him, about the way he looked at Harry like he was telling him-
"Don't look into his eyes," Tom hissed.
Harry blinked and the spell was broken. He had to bite his tongue, otherwise he would not have been able to control what came out of his mouth at the moment. Dumbledore was silently casting a compulsion on him – now, on the front steps of the prison he had been sentenced to, while Tom was but a few steps away.
"Is he trying to provoke us into killing him?" Harry asked, worried. It wasn't easy to anger him that much, but with Tom, especially lately, one never knew.
"Cursed old crook…"
"Lords Riddle!" Lucius exclaimed, exuding benevolence with an edge of indignation. He glanced at Robards, before he decided that the man wouldn't try to stir up trouble, and continued: "How good of you to join us! Will you accompany us to the cells?"
"Can we trouble you for medical assistance?" Harry asked, conforming to the tune of the conversation in a way Tom never could, for Tom always controlled the conversation and dictated its tune himself. Harry gestured to Radford's prone form. He was well aware that she was dead and no one could do anything about it, but it still didn't feel acceptable to him to just let her lie there like that.
Weasley and one of the unknown witches separated from the group and crouched next to the dead woman. The rest of the procession moved, led by one of the guards, into the depths of the building. Tom found a place near Dumbledore, observing the old man, searching for the tiniest sign of an attempt to escape. Harry made certain that Theodore wasn't separated from him, and followed.
The remaining guard gave him a blank look that somehow conveyed a threat as Harry walked past his station.
They passed through the first and the second floor, and came to a grille at the mouth of the staircase on the third level. Through it Harry could see a corridor that spanned from the front of Nurmengard to the back, but that only had three cells on each side, most of which looked unoccupied. The guard pulled out a ring with huge unwieldy jingling keys, and paused to select the correct one.
Suddenly, a voice spoke from the furthermost cell on the right: "Versuch gar nicht mir zu sagen, dass du noch 'was vergessen hast! Jürgen! Jürgen?"
Harry didn't understand the words, but his eyes were drawn to a pale, long-fingered hand that was gripping one of the bars, and his heart skipped a beat when he realised who the speaker was.
Theodore, on his side, drew a sharp breath.
The guard laughed, pushed against the grille and then held it open for them to come through. "Sie bekommen Gesellshaft!" he called.
Tom went first, followed closely by the two men in Hitwizard robes who dragged Dumbledore between them. Harry somehow passed through the throng, absently clearing his way – even Malfoy stepped to the side to let him through without being bidden – and stood next to Tom, close enough so that they could feel each other's Shield.
Now they could see the insides of the occupied cell; it looked more like a luxurious suite, complete with a study and a library. The man inside was old. There were frown-lines on his face, although Harry guessed that there was far less of them than there should have been at his age. He had shoulder-length white hair, a neatly trimmed short beard, and wore a warm, comfortable robe. His eyes – the colour reminded Harry of Remus Lupin – took in the spectacle, and a smile played on his lips. He closed the book he was holding in his left hand and deposited it on a desk.
The guard unlocked the door to the opposite cell, and the Hitwizards manhandled Dumbledore inside, with entirely unnecessary vehemence.
"Oh, the unfathomable irony!" The prisoner threw his head back and laughed until he started wheezing.
Dumbledore's brows furrowed. He righted his robes and looked up as the bars clanged shut behind him. "I admit I still feel slightly too bitter to be able to properly appreciate it."
"Oh no, I did not mean your residence within this humble abode, although that undoubtedly is an ironic twist of fate on its own. I meant this!" the old man gestured to Tom and Harry, who were standing inside each other's intimate zone. "History indeed repeats itself! The Dark Lord, the Champion of Light, and the entire epic, star-crossed love-story – don't tell me they don't remind you of us, Albus!"
"Gellert?" For once, Dumbledore looked utterly gobsmacked. Those few in Robards' entourage who had not as of yet recognised the warlock stared, in several cases open-mouthed.
Harry smiled and turned from Grindelwald to Albus, recalling their scuffle in front of Azkaban, and what had been said there. "We promised. We delivered."
Tom was somewhat exasperated with the comment, but at the same time it stroked his ego, which he needed after he had missed out on Dumbledore's trial.
"If we're done here, Mr Malfoy," Robards spoke, uneasy in the charged atmosphere between four inimical ultra-powerful wizards, "my men and I ought to return to the Ministry."
"Indeed," Lucius replied, collected as ever, except that Harry would have bet that beneath his gloves his knuckles were white from gripping his cane so hard. "If the Lords Riddle do not mind, I shall accompany you – the Minister wanted a word with me." He looked at Tom, silently asking for instructions.
"Certainly," Tom allowed. He presented the very pinnacle of magnanimity as he stood off to the side, looking – absurdly – as though he was elevated above the other men, as if the procession trickling towards the grille held open by a warden was there for him. Harry might have felt almost waylaid, except that he was content to stand in Tom's shadow, a mere supporting presence and strength to occasionally lean onto.
The Nurmengard guard gesticulated, and Harry hit him with the finest Confundus he could manage, just enough to make him uncertain if he was supposed to lock up or not, and then sent the man off with an imperious wave.
The four wizards remained alone in the corridor. Time was short, for the warden would return momentarily, once his fellows downstairs would question him on why he had left the two Lords unsupervised. Harry had intentionally not put enough force behind the spell to cause him long-term trouble; he wasn't even sure what Tom wanted. To gloat? It wouldn't be entirely unlike him…
"What now?" Harry asked.
Grindelwald was watching them with a glint in his eyes, regal even behind bars, in his comfortable robe, with his aura of content that made it seem like he was enjoying his retirement at a tropical resort. He had charisma that deeply impressed Harry, who was married to Tom – it was hardly a surprise that Dumbledore as a boy had fallen for it.
"We can do pretty much whatever we want," Harry suggested, observing Dumbledore.
The old warlock sank into a chair – a bone-like, wooden, hard piece of furniture that, Harry would have bet, didn't have Cushioning Charms on it – and fastened his eyes to Harry's face. Astonishingly, even locked in a cell he was still doing his damnedest to put the one he considered the easier victim under a compulsion. He displayed tenacity not expected of him, which could, abstractly, be respected… but the effort was in vain.
"Until they stop us," Tom said pensively, watching the former Dark Lord with a mixture of pity and concern.
Harry looked away from the erstwhile headmaster to the German wizard, who was much more interesting.
Grindelwald shifted his weight, making himself more comfortable yet. His expression was mild even as his sharp eyes met Tom's with an unspoken challenge. "You are wise, for such a sprite," the man said.
"I assure you I am older than I look," Tom replied nonchalantly, which almost set Harry off in a fit of laughter. Fortunately, he managed to hold it back.
"Stomachache?" Grindelwald asked, nonplused by Harry's strained expression.
Harry snorted.
Tom shook his head, trailing his gloved fingers along the stones that separated Dumbledore's new home from the corridor. He was either detecting spells, or leaving behind a treat. "I should have tried harder to teach you propriety," he muttered.
Harry recalled the many do's he had attended during his seventh year at Hogwarts, being introduced to higher society and the way higher society lived. Looking back, it baffled him just how much he had been willing to change for the boy he had fallen in love with. It had happened at the only point in his life when he might have been capable of such a change – surely, today he would expect a much greater tolerance for his opinions and idiosyncrasies. Back then Tom had appeared so self-assured, as if he had untangled the mess of politics and money and favours and baseless pride the wizarding world consisted of, and he had made people believe in him simply by appearing like he knew what he was doing. Harry missed that unshakeable faith, but at the same time he relished in being able to see his husband as a human, healthily flawed, as opposed to the somewhat supernatural being 'Voldemort' had set himself up as.
"I'm sorry, Tom," Harry said, shaking his head. A teenage Voldemort had been a force of nature, cold and hot in unpredictable intervals. "I just cannot reconcile the word 'sprite' with what I know about you."
"It is you who made me look like this, Harry," Tom pointed out, almost gently. "Now hush – I want to talk to this carcass."
Grindelwald didn't show affront. He took the slight with confidence that should be expected of someone like him, but which seemed alien to Harry, who was used to pride going hand in hand with an in-your-face kind of arrogance. Everything about Grindelwald was understated, from the grey cotton he wore to the amiable front he presented.
"I am by no means young, Gellert," Tom replied, brash and clumsy in comparison. "Nowhere near as ancient as you, admittedly, but I could have been my husband's grandfather."
That sounded so wrong. Harry grimaced. Merlin, they had been peers when they married!
"And you are as old as you look?" Grindelwald asked of Harry, now curious.
"No." When Grindelwald's eyebrows rose somewhere behind his scraggly matt of hair, Harry relented and added: "I am, physically, a bit younger than I look."
The warden clattered up the stairs then, narrow-eyed and ready to attempt and kick them out. Since the moment had been broken, Harry was perfectly willing to leave without being bidden to. Tom also recognised the wisdom of un-postponed departure, and beckoned Harry to precede him, casting one last contemptuous look at the now thoroughly defeated Albus Dumbledore.
Harry didn't have much understanding for the theatre. Tom was still angry about being left out from the legal machinery that had sentenced the old man, relieved that this particular fight was over, and apprehensive of the potential usurpers competing for the role of the leader of the Light. He could go around sneering and smirking, but Harry had a peep-hole straight into his heart, and right now he wasn't feeling very reassured.
After years upon years of effort, he had to doubt whether this was a true victory. Was it normal for the win to taste like nightshade?
x
Harry finished answering his correspondence by half past ten, and decided he had deserved a break from the endless paperwork. He did his best to lighten Tom's load as he could, but it didn't seem to be helping – more and more forms were arriving by the day, money was offered and asked for, favours were called upon and received, alliances proposed and accepted. He couldn't tell anymore just how many people were on their side: on some days it seemed like their sole enemy in Britain was Amelia Bones, on others Harry was hard-pressed to think of a sympathetic soul outside of the Nott Manor.
He was getting sick of being caged, and that was nothing compared to how irritated Tom was acting. He had started on his routine of Cruciating anyone who breathed too loudly in his presence, and the Death Eaters only ever came to him when they had to.
Harry couldn't think of kissing Tom without wanting to vomit – so embroiled in the Dark Arts he had become again, simply through relieving his stress.
Harry wanted to relieve some stress, too. Chewing on a chunk of chocolate – he ate too much of that stuff these days – he walked across the grounds. This part, out of sight from the Manor itself, had been converted into a training centre of a kind. Young recruits were taught spells beyond Hogwarts level plus some strategy, senior Death Eaters came to practice. Harry nodded to the male Lestranges and Selwyn who, despite his age, managed some impressive moves.
The young ones bowed as he passed, since he was giving off the aura of an impromptu inspection. Harry could have guessed their houses from their expressions: curious, distrustful, scared, reverent. They were children yet, some barely out of Hogwarts, and Harry had the suspicion that his indifference to whether they would have to go to battle for the New Order made him more than slightly evil.
"Would you like to spar, my Lord?" a Death Eater asked. It took Harry a moment, but eventually he identified the wizard as Eustace Montague.
"Why not?" Harry shrugged. It had been a while since he had had an opportunity to stretch his limbs and give his magic a bit of space.
Eustace hexed the 'free' mark off the arch covered with wild roses, and stepped through. The area – a square with the side of perhaps twenty yards – was separated from others like it by an invisible barrier of wards.
"One on one?" Harry asked, just to make sure. Montagues were one of those traditionally Slytherin families.
"Yes, sir," Montague replied. There was a shift in both his stance and his tone, and the hint of self-preservationist servility disappeared as he readied himself for the fight. "No life-threatening spells, if you agree. Only curses that the caster can counter. The duel ends with inability to continue or a request."
"Agreed," Harry said. Montague had effectively eliminated any verbal tricks – a plea to stop was as good as surrender. Besides, Eustace was one of those whose ambitions were being fulfilled in their continued service, so it was in his own interest that the Dark Lord duo remained uncompromised.
"Begin?" Montague asked.
"Begin!" Harry replied.
The word wasn't yet out if his mouth, and already he had to step out of the way of a blast. He didn't counter-attack, though, confident enough in his Buckler to stand back and take the time to evaluate his opponent's style.
Montague Apparated behind his back and cast another curse. Harry used himself as a grounding point and swung his Buckler around, leaving a brilliant comet-like tail in the air.
Already, he was satisfied with the level of competence Montague exhibited.
"Extorqueo!"
Harry knew the yell was a diversion, because Montague had already displayed his ability to cast nonverbally, so he ducked and, in the middle of the dodge, unnoticed, dropped a shapeless, invisible blob of magic onto the ground. It spilt like liquid and continued expanding.
A curse incompatible with Harry's Buckler created an explosion upon impact, and he Apparated away from the power-charged sparks, Disillusioning himself a bat of an eyelash after he materialised.
His opponent wasn't searching for him; the slithering charm had reached his feet and paralysed him. Harry walked up to him, plucked the wand out of his hand, and then cancelled the magic.
Montague was mature enough not to pout and get insulted that Harry had been playing with him. He accepted his defeat, as well as the ease with which Harry had won, and treated the experience with modesty. "It was an honour, my Lord."
"And a pleasure," Harry replied. It would have been more pleasurable if he had had two or three wizards against him, or perhaps a free for all… "I might drop by again."
Perhaps he would, if his already too full timetable allowed for it. Maybe next time Tom was inspecting Hogwarts and didn't want Harry along for the ride.
x
Tom returned with a whole bloody promenade of people that wanted things. Harry didn't have a clue where he had found them – McGonagall wouldn't have let them all into Hogwarts, for sure.
Harry caught his eye and attempted to offer himself up instead – he had had a relaxing duel in the morning – but Tom shook his head and sent him off to do more paperwork instead. Thus Harry sat between the four walls of the Private Study that were coming to enclose twelve hours of his daily life, trying to figure out why, with Hogwarts being autonomous and Ministry practically untouched, it was them who did the administrative.
It made no sense – unless a bureaucratic war was being waged on them, and this was so much red tape to slow down their rapid advance.
"It is an effective defensive measure, my Lord," Aurelius Avery's voice filtered in, followed by the sounds of footsteps and doors being opened. "Historically, it has been successful many times – the Lady Libitina, for example, as well as the Dark Lord de Bois-Guilbert had both become Ministers, and yet the changes they intended to implement never occurred."
Apparently, Harry had been uncannily spot-on with his suspicion of bureaucracy being their new enemy.
"Nevertheless," Tom replied, stepping into the room, enhanced with cosmetic spells that made him look completely different from how Harry knew he looked, "it is essential that a reliable agent of the Order holds the position."
"With all due respect," Aurelius protested, while he waited until after Tom had sat down, found a seat for himself, and nodded to Harry, "my Lords, I would prefer to be a teacher."
Tom did not react immediately, although the bond conveyed his displeasure. Harry, on the other hand, thought it was splendid. He had little idea what state Hogwarts was in, past that McGonagall was getting grey hair trying to manage everything and had asked in a letter that Harry 'instruct' his follower's children to keep their heads down and not cause any more incidents. Harry had full intention of getting the particulars and putting the fear of justice into some of those kids… with Malfoy, the main troublemaker, going first.
It would have been much more convenient, however, if he had a proxy right there in the castle; it would do away with the hassle of indirect summons and secondary punishments for the Malfoy-like liberal interpretation of direct orders. Aurelius, although a couple of years past his zenith, was a formidable and well-respected Dark wizard.
"Which subjects do you feel you are qualified to teach?" Harry asked, moments before Tom could shoot down the suggestion.
"I could have a Mastery in Dark Arts, if it was legal," Aurelius replied, eyes flicking between Harry to whom he was replying and Tom, who, if one knew his mannerism, seemed on the verge of cursing something. "Consequently, I am accomplished in Defence against them – not quite Master level, but certainly above N.E.W.T. level." Aurelius raked his hand through his recently cut grey hair and, reluctantly, added: "I suppose, with some review, I could teach Ancient Runes."
Tom, with his mind like quicksilver, had already digested the proposition, imagined the possible outcomes, weighed the pros and cons, and let go of his initial anger. Pensively, he stroked his lower lip. "We could add Dark Arts to Hogwarts curriculum."
"Don't make Light children learn Dark Arts, Tom," Harry protested, and hastened to continue before he became the target of Tom's ire: "Make it an elective, perhaps with the option of only doing theoretical work. Of course, that means there should also be Light Arts. Again, with the option of only doing theory."
Tom struggled with accepting Light Arts – similarly to how Dumbledore would have in an inverse situation – but he had Harry to help him strike a compromise between his Dark-utopian Vision and what was going to work.
"You're probably right…" he said in Parseltongue, unable to admit that he was wrong in front of a Death Eater. His charmed-on face was beginning to dissipate around the edges. His eyes were bloodshot, like they had been after he had created his second Horcrux.
"I realise you don't like Light Arts," – and that was putting it mildly – "but half of the population feels the same way about Dark Arts, Tom. We don't want a civil war. The people have to feel reasonably comfortable and safe."
"Panem et circenses," Tom replied. He did not care; the bond went still with his indifference.
"Not quite." Harry shook his head.
Aurelius was doing a good job of pretending not to be intimidated but, as many Dark wizards, he too had an instinctual reaction to hearing Parseltongue spoken.
"We want them sophisticated – well, as much as possible."
"I know," Tom said. "I am just…"Hhe fell silent, searching for the correct word or unwilling to finish the statement. Either was a testament to how emotionally drained he was.
Harry filled in a 'getting used to making compromises again' inside his head, and snapped his fingers. A house elf breezed by, depositing a tray with sweets by Tom's elbow. Tom glared, but he needed the energy, and there was no way Harry was allowing him another coffee or another dose of some potion. If Tom insisted, it would probably end in a brawl, both of them getting hurt, and Harry re-learning to cry.
"Will you be able to work under Minerva, Aurelius?" Harry asked to chase the depressing thoughts away.
"McGonagall?"
"Yes."
Judging from the sour expression on Aurelius' face, he had not asked because he was confused between namesakes, but because he would have preferred to receive a negative response. "She is-"
"The only one around who has experience with Hogwarts administration," Harry said uncompromisingly. "She is level-headed, intelligent, unbiased. Unless she stands against us, there is no earthly reason to dispose of her." And she wasn't going to stand against them. She wasn't going to kneel at their feet and kiss the ground they walked on either, but Harry honestly preferred it so, because the alternative didn't bear thinking.
"I don't want Dumbledore's people in positions of power," Tom spoke up. His index finger traced the rim of the tray, but not a single piece of confection was missing.
"She will take a deputy that will keep an eye on her. Apropos, Aurelius?"
"Very well, my Lords," the old Death Eater replied, inclining his head. "Never in my life have I imagined I'd end up as a deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts…"
"Not unless it is what you wish," Harry reminded him.
"Should I become displeased with the position, I will ask to be relieved of it." Sensing that his presence was no longer required, Aurelius rose and excused himself.
Tom maintained his stringent hold on his pretence of good health – for maybe half a minute. Then he let go of the charms, and the transformation was so abrupt, so shocking, that it gave Harry goosebumps.
"We should concentrate on picking a new Minister and legalising the next year's curriculum," Tom said. Even his voice was different, sick.
Despite the distraction, Harry didn't need to see into Tom's head to know what he was thinking. "No. I am quite comfortable being the first Light Dark Lord. Besides, you have seen me in Slughorn's parties. I'm not someone you want to stick in with a bunch of arselickers and wait for explosion-"
"No one, not even the Death Eaters, would want Voldemort as their Minister," Tom replied, twisting his lips in a parody of smile.
Perhaps not – though Harry was far from convinced of it – but that wasn't a good enough reason for Harry to sacrifice himself and take the mantle. Aside from the function and its obligations taking him far away from Tom… he simply didn't have the sense for politics.
"Could we get away with disestablishing the function?" he mused. Would the army of clerks work just as well if it was decapitated? Certainly Fudge could not have been fit to provide any reasonable instructions?
"Theoretically," Tom said, "but the most stable system requires a triumvirate of power – you and I are one point, Hogwarts is another… we need the Ministry, and the Ministry needs its figurehead."
It was a pity Elijah was dead. He would have been great in that position. Amos might have been almost as good, had he not gone… unstable.
"Andromeda Tonks, if she was amenable?" Harry suggested. The name had come to him out of blue, and he had to concentrate to find some kind of reasoning that he could present. Like in so many other instances, his choice was purely instinctual.
"Why?" Tom asked, predictably.
"She's Light but not Dumbledore's," Harry stated, not entirely sure why it mattered. Tom, who had a much better head for social and political strategising, might have been able to spot something. "She was born a Black, has had the standard Dark pureblood upbringing, but married a muggleborn. She would be able to deal with Light and Dark wizards both, regardless of the purity of their blood. I've talked to her and we've exchanged several letters. She's interested in a revolution, but not in a war. She didn't want to endanger her family by going against Voldemort."
Tom sighed and pushed away the tray of chocolate – untouched. "Let's leave Scrimgeour where he is, and keep her as an option. She would need to go into the Ministry now and make a name for herself first. You could maybe offer her the Black seat on the Wizengamot? We're not doing anything with it anyway."
Harry had completely forgotten that the Blacks had a hereditary seat, and that he had inherited the position. He was perfectly fine with having Andromeda represent him. What he wasn't perfectly alright with was the wait.
"I don't like Scrimgeour." Harry had intended to present it like a serious worry, but in the end he sounded petulant to himself. Scrimgeour could be intimidated, and that was one of the most important qualities in a stooge.
Much to his surprise, Tom inclined his head in concession. "Me neither."
x
Around ten in the evening, Tom tripped into their bed – over his own two feet.
Harry paused in perusing the scroll he had borrowed from the Notts' library – it contained a charm that incinerated its object while all heat was kept localised – and shook his head. He reached out to help Tom disrobe, ready for all recriminations and professions of self-sufficiency.
"Tom," he said, "you are an utter failure at pacing yourself."
"Harry," Tom replied. He was mocking Harry, but at least he had raised his head from the pillows. "That was the least helpful assertion I have heard today, even taking into account that I have engaged in discourse with the Hogwarts Board of Governors."
Harry took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He was pissed off – no more delicate way of putting it – and frustrated almost to tears, but breaking down and screaming (or blubbering) wouldn't have gotten through to Tom. Quite the opposite, Harry was sure Tom would have become angry as well and dismissed Harry's admonishments a priori, and very likely express his sentiments with another Stunning Spell.
"Take this and let me rest," Tom pushed a clasped-together sheaf of paper at him.
Harry set the library scroll aside and glanced over the uppermost page of Tom's gift. Startled, he lifted it and looked at the second, and the third one, too, just to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
"When did you find time for this?" he whispered. Yes, he had asked about how the Mark worked, but it wasn't pressing, certainly not compared to their other engagements. The notion that, instead of using every free moment to make up for his sleep deficit, Tom had written a manual for him, made him irrationally angry.
"You said you wanted it," Tom replied with mild reproach, "so I made it for you."
"Merlin…"
Harry had not realised just how spot on he had been with the allusion that Tom failed at self-management. Tom needed someone to create a schedule for him, and to make him follow it, otherwise he was going to run himself into the ground and die of exhaustion on the brink of his victory.
"When this chaos calms down a bit," Harry said, putting the papers down next to the scroll, "let's move somewhere else, somewhere that will be just ours. Like before." He remembered 1945 and 1946 as the happiest years of his life. It wasn't going to be like that ever again, but that didn't mean they couldn't create their own piece of the world, where they would be content.
"Things are different now," Tom said. It was a clear 'no'.
"Yes, they are," Harry admitted, but he wasn't willing to relinquish the plan. "But we're not… Okay, maybe we are somewhat different, too, but the way I feel about you has not changed, and I want to do everything in my power to make you happy, so, unless you would prefer that I didn't, I'd like to create a home for us. Not for me, Tom. Don't answer according to what you think I want. Tell me what you want."
"Right at this moment, I really don't care."
Harry, stunned, watched Tom pull the covers over himself and roll onto his side. His eyes remained glued to Tom's back – which looked more like a cocoon of sheets – as he tried to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest and just understand. He must have said something wrong, must have been somehow inconsiderate or even selfish… or maybe he had just picked a wrong moment. Maybe Tom was so tired that he couldn't think straight and didn't want to regret his initial decision later. It was truly too far-reaching an action to be planned in the dead of night after a gruelling day.
Harry scoffed at himself. It was amazing how good at self-placation he was becoming. It took skill, and a lot of Slytherin guile, to avoid lying to himself in the process.
The last thing he felt like doing right now was to crawl into bed next to Tom and stare at the ceiling for hours before his mind would exhaust itself and mercifully allow him to steal a bit of sleep. He rose to his feet, pulled Tom's discarded cloak over his nightclothes and exited their suite.
He tried to ignore his surroundings, tried to get lost in the Manor he knew fairly well; he almost succeeded, too, except that he happened upon Theodore Nott the Second in a compromising position with Dexia Japes. Reminded of why he wasn't in a compromising position right now, Harry spun on his heel and went to the wing he knew as well as the back of his hand, but where he was almost certain he wouldn't encounter a soul.
He ended up on the dilapidated balcony that used to oversee the flower gardens, back in the time when there had been flower gardens around the Western Wing. In 1945 there had been remains of them, overgrown by weed. Now there was only the weed, and even that kept low to the ground, as if afraid of growing too tall and being cut down. Harry could vaguely make out the garden fountain with the statue of a faun; it used to be white as alabaster, shining into the night, but rain and wind had coated it with grime and made it fade into background. On a whim, Harry cast a strong Cleaning Charm that traversed the distance and restored the original glow to the structure. He thought about asking the Notts to check the piping and let it spout water again, but then scrapped that idea as childish and whimsical.
In the middle of a revolution, no one cared about a bloody fountain.
He rested his palms on the banister, for a change feeling the cold marble under his fingers. Gloves worn everyday protected him from the outside world, but they also separated him, and he had almost forgotten what it was like to touch anything other than the objects within his living quarters… and Tom. He could never forget what touching Tom felt like, even if they were going through a patch of sexual dearth.
Harry, inadvertently, masochistically, thought back to Tom's and his wedding night. It was the most magically charged experience of his life, and thinking that he would likely never experience anything on that scale again depressed him. He wondered if there was a way to rouse the bond magic again, if not to the same level then at least higher than it usually rose on its own. There must have been shelves of books on wedding bonds, and somewhere in some of them, there must have been instructions on how to manipulate the magic, how it could make the wizards' physical bodies endure more, how it could heighten their sensitivity…
He was being selfish again, he knew. He had promised Tom to be there for him, to stop him when he was making a mistake, and Harry firmly believed that right now Tom was making a mistake in overworking himself, trying to accomplish too much too fast. It occurred to him, out of blue, that it might have been his fault – maybe Tom was feeling somewhat overshadowed after Harry had accidentally accomplished a good half of the New Order's plans within a day… but he had honestly never meant to. It wouldn't have worked if he had meant to do it. It was just a stupid anomaly, or fate, or the doing of some kind of deity with a twisted sense of humour.
There was a shift in the ambient magic, and Harry knew that he wasn't alone anymore. For a split second he deluded himself into thinking that perhaps Tom… but Tom was asleep within the Green Suite two levels beneath Harry's feet, and the person standing beneath the arch that separated the terrace from the inside of the Manor was someone else.
"My Lord Harry…?" a soft voice said.
Harry was glad of who had found him; anyone else would have been too much tonight. This was a wizard whom he felt he could trust, at least. "You know us too well, Antonin, if you recognise me from the back, in darkness, when I'm wearing Tom's cloak," he said plaintively.
"Are you brooding, my Lord?" Antonin inquired, bravely stepping forth, ready to bear the brunt of Harry's displeasure. It was a rare occasion when Harry lost his temper and cursed someone, but it wasn't unheard of, and Antonin presumably knew Harry well enough to realise the danger he was courting by interrupting him when he was in a bad mood.
Still, he was to be lucky today. Harry felt like he was already failing, and didn't care to lengthen his list of mistakes by adding harm done to one of his few friends.
"I suppose I am," he replied instead. When Antonin joined him at the banister, Harry glanced at him and said: "Tell me honestly, my friend, has my concern become a liability?"
The man sighed and shook his head. The lines on his forehead deepened as he stared through the darkness at the statue Harry had made shine again. "All of us are concerned, my Lord," Antonin told him, "but none are so daring as to say it aloud. We depend on you in this matter."
Apparently, the abysmal state of Tom's health hadn't gone unnoticed among the Death Eaters. That in itself was a source of consternation, for if the Marked followers took it into their heads that Tom wasn't strong enough to control them anymore, they might rebel at the worst possible time. Aside from that, Tom's appearance didn't qualify him to represent the New Order in the public anymore. Those duties would have to be handled by Harry, who couldn't imagine he wouldn't bungle them.
"What do you think I should do?" Harry asked, at wits' end.
"Be firm," Antonin replied simply. "Don't let him ignore you. Be cruel, if necessary."
Harry sneered, but he knew that what his friend was telling him made sense. "Be cruel to the man I love…" He nodded confidently. "I can do that."