Disclaimer: Do I give off the impression that I own this series? If so, I'm terribly sorry for misleading you.

Summary: Fair-trade coffee and crazy vampire strength.

Midnight Blues

Part II: Among Thieves

8.) Hieronymus
or,
Fingernails in Dungeons

We're fucked either way.

I come to that conclusion after waking up from an extremely bizarre dream, filled with half-men, half-dogs and demons of all shapes and colors; it was as if I had stepped from the posh luxury of the castle and fell into some sort of Boschian hell.

Ha. Fitting, I guess. I may have defeated the dark wizard to end all dark wizards, but something inside me suspects that when I die, I'll be headed his way, not to eternal peace and riches with mum and dad. No, definitely not. I don't even think I'd be happy there. I can't speak for Ron, but for men like me, there's only this world and the one below.

And it struck me there, getting up from the bed and surveying Ron's form, sprawled out uncomfortably on the armchair and snoring loudly; it all made sense. Everything Tonks was so shocked about, everything Hermione's so worked up about, it kind of clicked into place. I'm not some savior of England. I'm not so quaint as 'Queen and Ministry and Country'. People talk me up like a hero, some avenging angel sent down to right all wrongs, to cut the head off the evil dragon and swoop in to save the damsel. Ridiculous. I'm an amoral rent-a-hitman has-been who dragged his best friend into the same yahoo two-bit lack-of-lifestyle. I am a bad person, and that ain't changing.

And there's only one place for bad people like me. Like I said, this world, and the one underneath it.

So, we're fucked either way.

That conclusion makes our suicidal plan seem a little less brainless. Okay, well it's just as brainless, but I don't feel quite as bad about it: stupid ideas are my forté; where would I be without them? That's what I've always been, Harry the trained chimp, dancing to the tune of everyone else's hackneyed plans, be it Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape... I'm always the hot-headed, stupid gimp without the sensibility to appreciate caution dispatched to clean their messes.

Ah, but you might need a bit of context, am I right?

After our little date in the interior of the volcano, Tracey and I sneaked back into the party by obliviating the unconscious guards and then ennervating them from a distance. We found Ed and Mary still snoozing atop each other, clad only in their knickers and Y-fronts. With a flourish, Tracey deposited her servant's outfit nearby Mary and I did the same for Ed. We took our old clothes, hidden safely in the cupboard and put them back on.

We met Ron at the gambling table, where he had apparently gotten on a lucky streak, beating out the now furious Ruskis. As we approached, one of the sailors placed a pistol on the table and smiled darkly at Ron, who merely shook his head and collected his winnings. The Russians called him several words in their native tongue that weren't entirely flattering; Ron, understanding their language, walked away with burning red ears, but he kept his eyes trained on Tracey and I.

"Time for bed, boy," I said as he came within hearing distance, leaving just enough to that sentence for it to be interpreted another way by the onlookers.

Ron smiled too quickly for my liking. "Sure."

"Are you coming, sister?" I asked, giving Tracey a falsely concerned look and she takes us up on the offer.

The walk back to our respective suites was a quiet one with Ron looking expectant while Tracey looked despondent. There was a lot to do between then and tomorrow and it's all in the planning, you know: either we'll make off like bandits or end up in the crosshairs of the wizarding equivalent of the Bolivian Army. Check it, Sundance.

By the time we entered one of our suites, Tracey's this time, Ron looked as if he was about to burst:

"So?" He asked expectantly.

Tracey and I looked at one another, unsure of what to say. She looked at me, as if to tell me that I should be the one to break the news to Ron. Of course, I didn't want to be the one to explain it all to Ron, so I gave her a glare and stepped aside for the Ward-breaker to elaborate.

She didn't; Tracey instead looked back stubbornly and Ron had to play third party to our silent bickering.

"Well!?" He thundered, causing both Tracey and I to jump in surprise.

"There's a bit of a snag," Tracey muttered, looking away.

"A... snag?" Ron questioned and then turned to me looking for further explanation.

"Boyo's got a blood ward on that vault of his," I said. "Tracey and I did some analyzing on the way back. I could break it, but if we want to keep Hozhen from noticing, we need to replace the ward; that's a difficult enough thing to do without knowing who originally placed the ward, let alone without a blood sample."

"And if we wanted to replace the ward, we'd have to somehow collect Hozhen's blood," Ron finished the thought. "Bloody hell, that's suicide."

"We could also choose not to replace the wards and try to get the hell out of Dodge before Hozhen notices," I supplied as I collapsed onto Tracey's bed tiredly, which carried the scent of her perfume. Tracey took to sitting on the other side of the bed and Ron planted himself cross-legged at the foot of it:

"I don't like that plan, either," said Ron.

"Neither do I," replied Tracey, "but we haven't got any choice, have we? It's either prick Hozhen and get some of his blood or hope we can get out before he notices."

"I can do without the DNA," I said. "It'd still be tough to get out, but it's a whole lot less retarded than getting Hozhen's blood."

"You wanna know what I think?" Ron asked, struck with an idea. "I think we enjoy a weekend at this creepy castle, tell Boris it was a nice party, all the killers and that... but we weren't able to get the lance and we're very sorry. He can keep his galleons and we'll find other jobs. I mean, check this place out, it's connection central!"

"True," I agreed. "but Boris is offering a lot of gold."

"Not enough to die for," retorted the redhead. "We go through with this, and we'll regret it."

He said it like I don't already regret most of the things I do.

"And..." I started mildly, an idea striking chord, "it just so happens that the Chinese government would pay a tidy sum to some person or persons who might help them... reclaim a traitorous old man. With or without his head, if you please."

Ron's expression collapsed like a house of cards. "Harry, no."

"Ron," I allowed my grin to consume my face, "yes."

Tracey, however, backed up Ron. "Are you spastic or something? The man is a Dark Lord, with decades of training. Even if you do manage to kill him and get a cash injection from the Chinese, you think we'll be able to get the spear as well?"

"I thought we decided to nix the spear idea," I replied, looking at Ron, who throws his hands up in exasperation:

"You have a death wish, go for it," he growled. "Don't expect any help from me, though."

"Of course not," I scoffed in jest. "If I wanted real help, I'd floo Hermione."

"Ouch, mate. That stings."

"Truth usually does."

"Well I, for one, am not leaving without that spear," said Tracey, glaring at us. "If we're careful, and you're as good as you say you are at cracking Blood Wards, we could get out of here with no one the wiser until we're long gone. And even then, the only people they'd have to hunt are the Germans, who already dead, mind you."

I shrugged at Ron. "The woman speaks sense," I said.

"Not enough of it for my comfort."

"Well man-the-fuck-up then, Weasley. We're not here for your comfort," Tracey snarled, which somehow I found as pretty as a smile. Jesus, how lame did that sound? "You," Tracey jabs a finger at me. "I expect you to be brushing up on Blood Wards, and Ronald? You can come and meet me in my suite when you finally grow a pair." She throws one last dirty look at Ron before stalking to the door, which she wrenches open and slams shut behind her.

"Real whacko, that one," was Ron's only response to whatever it was that just happened.

"Guess we're doing the spear then, are we?"

"Whatever, you two want to arse this up; fine by me. Just don't come whining to me when Hozhen is ripping off our fingernails in the dungeons, Merlin!"

"Fingernails? I figure it'll be much more pleasant than that. Jesus, we'll have fair-trade coffee and wear t-shirts with Che's face plastered on them and talk about the glorious revolution of the proletariat."

"Mate, what the fuck are you talking about?" Ron asked, looking utterly confused. I realized I may have given one or three too many muggle references for him.

"Nothing," I sneered. "But we're in a Dark Lord's base pretending to be people we're not. Of course it ain't gonna be dangerous, right? Of course it ain't gonna be fucking dangerous, right?"

"Could you stop with that? The sarcasm?" Ron asked. "It isn't healthy, mate."

I leveled a glare at him. What a fucking hypocrite.

Ron grinned, which in turn eventually caused me to do the same. "I'm going to change and have a bo peep," he said, "looks like you're the one on point for this anyway."

"Thanks, arsehole," I feigned offense, sounding indignant.

Ron threw up his hands in defense. "Well, think about it; would I be of any help in cracking a blood ward?"

"No?"

"So do you need me to stay awake?"

"No."

Ron grinned and padded his way to the loo. Just as the door was closing, I heard him bleat: "Good. Glad we cleared that up."

And so I found myself looking over my old notes on ward-breaking, half of it learned from conversations with Bill and the other half learned from a Mayan witchdoctor I had encountered while on a Privateer's contract that took me to the Yucatán Penninsula in Central America several years ago. When I had located the ward, a classic leeching spell that sucks out the life essence of a would-be robber and uses it to strengthen the ward, I began to draw out the ward circle I'd need to break through the Vault's last defense.

Unlike Curse Wards, which involve countercurses and the correct application of them, breaking Blood Wards is a grueling activity involving many, many runes and even more equations: lining up things correctly, severing the tie between ward and warded. It took a crash-course in Ancient Runes and a lot of patience on Hermione's part (she's a saint, really) when I was nineteen. Wards, particularly blood wards, focus on the connection between the Warder and the Warded. Take my mother's blood ward that kept me safe from Voldemort, for instance, the ward was based off something tangible, some real feeling my mother had for me and bonded us. In essence, my mother's love for me was so strong that it bonded itself to me; this connection of "Warder" (my mother) and "Warded" (myself) manifested itself physically, which caused the chain reaction that led to my celebrity and Voldemort's eleven-year Albanian sabbatical.

To break a blood ward, you'd have to corrode the foundations of the connection between the warder and warded by rune-making and a whole bum-load of power. If a blood ward was created out of greed or lust of money, the appropriate way to dissolve the wards would be employ runes centered around charity and magnanimity and find a strong enough outlet to power the rune with, usually involving the wizard himself.

A total pain in the bollocks, it is. Sure, genetics can lead to a strong wizard like myself or Ron, and some people just have natural ability regardless of parentage like Hermione, but experience is the best teacher: Magic is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets and the better grasp of it you have. And just like any other muscle, if you use it too frequently, with reckless abandon, it can wither on top of itself, leaving you drained. Not in a "Magical Core" sense, that moronic theory was disproved in the sixteenth century, but general tiredness due to the mental and physical strain.

Not the ideal situation to be in if you're in a hostile fortress belonging to a Dark Lord.

And with the amount of power I need to channel? I'd be lucky to not keel over on the fucking spot.

I eventually came to two conclusions. The first is that Hozhen is a greedy bastard and that vault carries all the possessions he's lusted for in his life, in which case I have created a particular ward circle using runes of charity and peace ready-to-go. Option two is one I considered after carefully examining my conversations with Hozhen: he genuinely is a good man fighting to right the wrongs of his countrymen, in which case the vault's blood ward is most likely fueled by thoughts of freedom and patriotic zeal.

That will be much, much harder to deal with. Like I said earlier, cracking wards based on love and other such positive feelings (all colloquially classified under 'love') is difficult due to a simple lack of runes describing evil thoughts and desires. This was a conscious effort of wizards prior to the separation of our society from that of muggle society, to keep any dark wizards from corroding the bond between light-oriented Warders and Warded. Most of these runes are hidden and they're bloody freakin' hard to get our hands on.

Here's hoping Hozhen's a bigger cunt than he seems to be, yeah?

Tired out by all the work that I'd have usually left to Hermione in our younger years, I collapse in the seat I'd been working in and fall asleep, leaflets of runic-guesswork strewn about me like a blanket in winter. And that leads me to where I am now, slinking out of the suite and into Tracey's, hoping she'll still be up working on her own half of the conundrum; my guess is proven correct when Tracey opens the door, hair pulled up in an effortlessly chic chignon, quill resting on her ear in the way Luna's wont to do with her wand and ink-smudges on her cheek.

"Librarian look suits you," I drawl and enter the room, which only earns me a glare in response. "How goes the ward breaking?"

"Well enough," Tracey replies with a frown. "I have one more to go. The real question is if you've found a solution to our blood ward problem."

I shrug. "Two possibilities, and I've accounted for both. One's going to be a lot harder to pull off than the other, though. I might need your help."

Tracey's frown deepens, if anything. "Explain."

"Two ways we can go about this," I say, reaching into my pockets and pulling out a shrunken version of my notes. I enlarge them so the thief can get a good look. "One, Hozhen is a scumbag like we expected. Blood Wards are strengthened by emotion, and this blood ward is strengthened by his greed and lust for things of value. So, the counter-runes would promote liberty, fidelity, and justice, The power I channel through the runes have to be based on such feeling; like how you have to think of happy memories to cast a patronus."

"Alright, make sense. Option two?" Questions Tracey.

"Hozhen's as noble as he thinks he is. His wards are built on patriotism, and a sense of protection for the objects inside. We'd corrode the ward with runes symbolizing greed, disloyalty, treachery, lust, the whole kit and caboodle. Since love is inherently more powerful than hate, and patriotism can be considered a form of love, we'd have to channel a whole arseload of power dedicated to those runes."

"So?"

"Are you a bad person, Miss Davis?" I ask, a little smile tugging at the corners of my lips.

She eyes me carefully, as though debating internally. "I wouldn't call myself a good person," she says at last.

"Get meaner, Tracey," I say. "You're gonna need a whole lot of it to get that door open."

"We must stop meeting like this," the Vampiress says, moments after I have turned a corner and crashed headlong into her. She wears a resplendent black gown, not unlike one a fashionista might wear to a funeral. It's sexy, if you're the kind of person into Thanatos and BDSM.

I place a winning smile upon my lips, though I can sense she knows it's insincere. "My apologies Miss Mercier, it seems I rarely look where I'm going." The vampiress merely smiles and struts ahead, through a set of arches leading out of the spire and back onto that stone bridge.

Mercier extends an arm out to me. "Would you mind escorting me to the ballroom?" She asks. And while she may scare the shit out of me, I reckon it'd be terribly rude of me to leave her unescorted.

For a long while, all that can be heard between us are the clack-clacks of her heels and the heavier thumps of my dress shoes. Halfway across the bridge, however, the clacks stop and she gives me a patronizing smile. "Who are you really, Mr. Müller?"

What?

"I'm afraid I don't follow," I reply placidly.

Mercier chuckles and strokes my face as a mother would a child. "I think you do. Because Jürgen Müller and Phillipp Braun died six months ago in France, after killing Judge Monard. Why do I know this?" Her smile becomes a grin, baring pointed fangs and a devilish glint in her crimson eyes.

Abort! Abort! I need to find some way out of this situation, but her grip on me is strong. My forearm feels akin to what a G-Wiz might going up against a garbage compactor. Must be that vampire strength.

"Because Andrea and I were assigned to come in and bring the two in for justice. But just as we tracked them down to Marseilles, we learned that the job had been doffed off onto M.I.7."

M.I.7.? Ministry Secret Service? Magical M.I.6.? Since when do the unspeakable spooks get involved in anything but matters 'in defense of the realm'? Either way, as informed as Mercier seems, I know M.I.7. ain't involved. We got the job from Boris, who's about as legitimate as the Brazilian organ trade.

"And who should we find but one Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, heroes to Britain, emerging from that hotel with a quip and a smile before apparating off?" Mercier questions. Is it too late to push her off the bridge? I'd so like to see her body crumpled on the volcanic floor when we break into the vault later tonight, but I'm afraid she might turn into a bat or something halfway down and just fly right back up.

"So. Who are you, Circus-man? And why are you here? Are you here to kill Hozhen?"

My wand is in my hand in a flash, pointed at her. "Nothing so grand, Miss Mercier." Her grip tightens of my forearm, like a steel vise endeavoring to crush it:

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she says simply, smug in her vampiric super-strength. Luckily, I have my own way to combat that. A touch of the Power and she immediately springs back from my arm like a scalded cat. When she looks at me again, her eyes are no longer smiling; she knows she's dealing with someone... something powerful.

"I just want something from him, that's all," I answer. "Are you going to tell him?"

She turns on her heel and starts walking back to the spire from whence we came. "Follow me."

Argh, for God's sake, I should just ice the bitch and be done with it! But blame my inability to kill a person with their back turned to me, or my weakness to pretty women (and Mercier, despite likely being older than my grandmother and about eight times as dangerous, is exactly that) because somehow, against my better judgement, I find myself following. Wand out and all, but still following.

Once inside the spire, she gives me a serious glance. "To my suite."

"So, what? So you can spring wolfy on me? You're fucking spastic if you think I'm going there."

"Peace, man," she growls, sounding more werewolf than vampire. "I mean you no harm."

"Like when you tried to shatter my arm outside?"

She begins climbing the stairs with nary a backwards look. "I had to be sure."

"Be sure of what?"

"Will you wait a moment!?" She whispers harshly. "You mortals, always in a rush."

"Yes. Death has a way of keeping us quick."

"But it catches you in the end."

I find myself smirking. "To be sure."

Mercier doesn't respond, and simply continues to walk up the spiraling stone staircase. When I'm certain she's not looking, I fish a small golden Roman coin out of my pocket and with a bit of magic, the words "East Borders, en route suite" appear on the coin and disappear, where the message will transfer to an identical coin on Ron's person at all times. "East Borders" is our phrase to signify danger, and when applied to Hermione's coin trick, it's a pretty nifty little way of alerting each other. With any sort of luck, he'll be waiting to intercept us outside.

And lo and behold, for once my miserable fucking life, my luck holds and I visibly sigh in relief when I spot Ron in his identikit disguise pacing about in front of our suite, wearing his combat robes instead of his more acceptable dress ones. His wand is almost immediately trained on Mercier, who merely smiles and walks to her suite, opening the door and letting us follow her inside:

"You can put that away, Mr. Weasley, I don't mean you or Mr. Potter any harm," she says, once we're in the relative safety of her suite. Ron's jaw drops, and I suppress a growl.

"Care to enlighten us as to how you figured out?" I ask, not stowing my wand.

"It's an identikit," a new voice says, and out of the shadows of the room appears Lombardi, running a hand through his tousled brown hair. "No other disguise besides a polyjuice potion, not even a metamorphmagus, could provide such astounding similarity to two dead men."

"And if it is an identikit," Mercier continues, "the impersonator is the man who killed the impersonated."

Ron's face blanches, but I keep my nerves steeled, and let the magic of the identikit fade away, revealing my black hair and beard. "So you found us out. But what's it gonna change?"

"Nothing," Lombardi and I synchronize.

"Then what do you want?" Ron asks as the face of Braun recedes and is replaced by his own.

Mercier narrows her eyes. "Are you here to kill Hozhen?"

"No," I respond. "Money is my only aim, and it doesn't lie with killing Hozhen."

"So, M.I.7. has no interest in 'taking care' of a Dark Lord?" Lombardi questions. "Even one as destructive as he? They trust him to play nice?"

"For the last time, we're not M.I.7.," I defend, looking into the firepit, taking stock of the merry licks of flame. "I don't know what magical spies think about Hozhen and I don't give a flying shite what they think. I don't trust anyone who preaches radical change because it usually falls to me to kill the prick when they do. In this case, it ain't my job to nix the bastard, so I'll just leave it at that and go about my business."

"And what if it were?" Lombardi asks, somewhat appraisingly.

"Why does it matter to you?" Ron answers with a question of his own.

"M.I.7. does pay their men well to bring in known terrorists, especially one as famous as Hozhen," Mercier smiles, baring her canines. "As it happens, so do the Chinese."

"Hah! Bite your tongue," I can't help but laugh and Ron joins in, redoubling my own. Mercier and Lombardi probably think we're insane, or exceptionally stupid, but it's unremittingly hilarious due to our own similar thoughts of Dark-Lordicide last night. Soon, however, we sober and I straighten up to ask: "What do you want from us, and how much are you gonna pay?"

"Well, mercenaries after all," says Lombardi. "You don't hear about that in your Daily Prophet."

"You don't hear about a lot of things in the Prophet; it ain't exactly where you go for sense," replies Ron.

"Never mind that," Mercier interrupts. "We're going to use your 'distraction' as a chance to go after Hozhen whilst he's focusing on you. Now, we could join forces, and perhaps you'll live longer, and make yourself a decent sideline when we go to Shanghai."

I do like the sound of that, but that doesn't mean I should trust a Vampire and her flunky Were on account of a few extra coins. Ron is understandably just as wary of a deal.

These things all come down to trust. Trusting that Team Were-pire doesn't blab about our heist, and trust on their end that we don't do the same to keep the heat off of us. But then I've heard lots of things about the duo, and most of them were good things; I doubt they've suddenly made a turn for the worst. But then again, what do I know? Nine times out of ten my instincts about people are dead wrong because I'm apparently retarded.

"Don't say anything just yet, come and find as at the party when you've discussed this with your third." Mercier smiles, and then makes a shooing gesture. Lombardi then points out the door from which we came.

And just like that, we're ushered out of their suite like lost puppies, left out in the hallway as a cold draft picks up from the shadows of Hozhen's spire.

I'm really beginning to hate this contract.

A/N: Sorry this is so short and took so long. Yeah, I know, I'm a piece of shit. I wanted this to be longer, but I suppose you'll have deal with four chapters detailing Hozhen's arc. The warding stuff is mostly my own because there's a terrific lack of information on it and I really don't consider the Pottermore to be canon enough to search through it. Hopefully some of the humor showed through.

Chapter Notes:

Ron's "Merlin" to Harry's "Jesus": As you might have noticed, Harry says Jesus. A lot. Which he doesn't in canon. I always thought it was weird that muggleborn/raised characters suddenly forget eleven years of programming and say Merlin as a form of curse. Which is retarded. For immersion's sake, all muggleborn/raised characters do not use "Merlin". Not Harry, not Hermione, not Dean or whoever else it may be. It may sound petty, but there it is.

Rowling's Admission: JKR, if that interview is true, you are the world's greatest troll and I love you. But seriously, fuck you for starting the shipping wars again. The only thing that will come out of it are ton of shitty H/Hr fics with more smugness to them than the collective hipster-douchedom of Williamsburg and Wicker Park smashed together. And I say this as an H/Hr supporter. And no, that does not mean MB is going to end up H/Hr.

Mercier and Lombardi: Oh there will be liters of fun squeezed out the Were-pire bounty hunters.

G-Wiz: The worst automobile in history. Full stop.

M.I.7.: Is blatantly lifted from TKoL. They exist in the MB universe as well.

Next chapter: Harry, Ron and Tracey go base-jumping; Hozhen makes a killer speech; and everything goes pear-shaped.

And now, I leave you with the summary to another short idea I'm working on:

"Ronald Weasley didn't do marriage well, and handled divorce even more poorly. On a trip around the Mediterranean to clear his head, Ron stumbles onto family secret that changes the very course of his life: a story of loss, dissatisfaction, middle age, adventure, and accepting yourself for terrible, horrible human being you really are."

Mmhmm.

Yup.

Have a spectacular week. Or month. Or however long it takes my lazy ass to write the next chapter.
Geist.

P.S. To anyone reading that knows knuckz. Go read his new fic "Harry Potter and the Disastrous Date", call him a faggot for me (he'll get it), and then laud him with your praise. Seriously. That man knows comedy.