A/N: We are now in Mexico! Thus starts the Mexico Arc, which turns into the Dungeon Crawl. I find it amusing that my story has different segments. It's become a monster. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 13
"I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change."
Relient K – Who I am Hates Who I've been
For the first time in his entire life, Remus wasn't racked with agony the morning after, didn't feel like someone had ripped him apart and reformed him with bits and pieces missing, left behind by a careless Frankenstein. Well, perhaps not his entire life, but definitely it'd been long enough that he praised the Wolfsbane with repeated mumbles. He still returned to the castle in Scotland for the transformation, locking himself in the dungeon behind lifeless iron and potent wards, obscuring the outside world to cut off the wolf's desire to run and be free. But this time the wolf didn't have any desire. His animal side, his monster, didn't struggle, didn't fight for dominance. He just lay down inside of Remus with casual submission, gave up his body and let Remus run the show. It was astounding.
It was a relief.
And with the absence of struggle—struggle against the wolf and struggle against the demon from the grain—he was visited again.
He hadn't been haunted by any of those ethereal dreams of Sirius for weeks, those vague, shadowed visions. He didn't remember much of it, only that he and Padfoot had run together, racing over hills and through tall grass. Then they had wrestled and Moony subdued Padfoot, as he always did, but then Padfoot licked him, slathering him all over his muzzle, his ears, his throat and Moony allowed it. It was nice to be touched again, if only by phantom memories.
His heart ached. He missed Padfoot.
But the most tangible portion of the dream that stuck with him in the rising light was one word. Mexico. Sirius had told him to go to Mexico. Padfoot did not actually speak; the word just appeared within his thoughts, injected with hypodermic ease.
Talk about a raging subconscious. Remus snorted. Too many days discussing their plans to go to Latin America must have overridden his usual wolfish dreams of chasing rabbits. But if something had to be raging, at least it wasn't his libido. He had no outlet for that, no dream arms to embrace him, only playful licks from dead friends. Sadly, he realised he hadn't dreamed of Tonks in months.
He stood and stretched his spine; a quick report of popping broke the silence of the damp cell. He laughed he felt so good. Even though the Wolfsbane tasted foul, he would drink a gallon of it for this kind of effect.
He dropped the wards and quickly unlocked the ancient door. Shivering, he clothed himself with items he had left outside the cell then Apparated to Hermione's. Now that the full moon had passed, growing thinner as it continued its revolution around the earth, he would be meeting Harry down in Mexico, who'd been down there a few days, and then they were off to Costa Rica to meet a scholar.
Draco stood in the centre of a dimly lit room, the air dank and chilly, smelling of old leather and wet stone. Piled high in bookcases and curio stands, on tables and racks lining the walls, existed perhaps Britain's largest Dark Artefact collection, hidden in the basement of Rain.
He knew each and every item, had studied their function, their history. They were perhaps the greatest legacy Severus had left behind, other than Draco's life and purpose.
These things, these precious, delicate and dangerous works of art haunted him with their intentions. The cursed Dagger of Lord Baden from the thirteenth century that is said to steal the soul out of any being it kills with the ease of a Dementor's kiss. The deadly embrace of the Statue de Ladier, which was designed to come alive and crush home intruders, but it eventually turned on its creator, leaving behind a broken man. Poisoned tea cups, deadly books, feathers, rods, and not to mention the candles, coins and tapestries all used in the Dark Arts. It was a collection his father would have envied, if his father hadn't lost himself in those serpentine eyes.
The power behind the objects saturated the air of the room. It would have infiltrated the stonework, etched itself into the sturdy foundation of Rain if it were not for the containment spells woven into the very mortar. The Ministry didn't know of its existence and the collection was the one thing Draco chanced their wrath over. He would never part with it, this connection to Severus.
But they didn't belong to him, these relics full of darkness and evil. Such ownership was no longer his desire. He would never harness their power, or use them to their fullest extent or probably even at all. He had become a different person once he doffed the yoke of childhood obligations and need for paternal praise. But he would never rid himself of them either. They were Severus'.
While his father and mother taught him propriety and duty, etiquette and his station in the world, Severus provided the only true guidance he ever received on how to be a man. He grew up knowing how to be a Malfoy, but it was Severus who taught him how to be himself. To understand obligation and know when it was appropriate and right to satisfy it and when it was right to do what was best for him. That was the most important lesson he had ever learned.
Now he stood alone in the basement of his club, his home, his gaze touching some of the many items stored away, things that should never see the light of day. He once believed he belonged with these artefacts, hidden away like a shameful cousin who'd run away to marry a street performer, or maybe a Muggle. But now he longed for the light. He deserved to live his life and it was more promising than he'd ever thought possible.
He missed Severus, but knew he was gone, never to be a part of his life again.
When had his beloved solitude turned into loneliness?
Mulling over his losses, Draco realised he wasn't really alone. He did have… would he call them friends? People. He had people, and to his amazement, he wanted to be down there with them, he wanted to be out there talking to scholars and setting up ambushes for competent wizards who would offer him a challenge. Maybe he should have been an Auror, but he had left that path behind long ago for other less savory endeavors. He only knew that Harry and Remus were down in Merida, Mexico, two men he had spent the better part of a month with, and he wanted to be there, too. Follow through with this entire mystery. He wanted to see Hermione get well, actually really wanted it even if she was a Mudblood and most importantly, he wanted to be there with Harry. Merlin knew the man needed someone to watch his back. And so, with anxious determination, he abandoned the basement and gathered up some belongings for a short trip.
He didn't notice the owl fluttering outside of his window as he left for a long distance Floo Station.
"Umm, Remus?"
Remus glanced over at the unsure sound of Harry's words. "What is it?" The air was warm and thick with moisture. Remus wore a woven Panama hat to shield his eyes from the bright sun of the early Latin American afternoon.
"Uhh… Well… Oh, never mind." Harry picked at the straw in his glass of Coke, fraying the end. They had been sitting in the park for about an hour now, waiting for the exchange Ron had been tipped on. None of Ron's Auror team knew of their presence on this strictly intelligence gathering mission.
"Harry, you can't do that to me." Remus wasn't about to let Harry's worries gnaw at his friend's conscience.
Harry cleared his throat and then swallowed. Remus waited patiently, watching the people pass before them, busy with their own lives. Nobody of the description they searched for had passed: medium build, average height, brown haired, Caucasian. The only thing that might separate him from the masses was his skin tone, so Harry had set up an alarm that would alert him if anyone of a magical bent entered the park.
"You know what you said about Malfoy… that Malfoy turned out… well, didn't turn out so bad…" Harry stumbled over his words. Remus smiled at his friend's obvious distress, knowing exactly where this was leading.
"Yep."
"Do you think he's sincere?"
"I wouldn't think that 'sincere' is the word I'd use for Draco Malfoy, sounds far too… pleasant."
"Do you think he's genuinely a good guy?"
Remus couldn't believe Harry had to ask that. Then again, Harry always did take a lot of convincing about certain people. Snape being a prime example. "I know he isn't playing any deception… and again, not sure if 'good' is the word I'd use for Malfoy."
"Why do you think he isn't deceiving us?" Harry asked, his words weighing heavy with intensity.
"I don't smell it on him. I get more of a sense that he… wants acceptance. I don't believe he has many friends and I think he has attached himself to us in some way."
Harry looked down at his shoes, dirty and scuffed from the dusty ground beneath the bench. "Oh, so maybe he's seeking new lackeys to keep his ego inflated?" Harry mock joked.
"No Harry, I didn't say lackey, I said friend."
"Oh," Harry mumbled. Remus waited in the conversation's lull before his friend spoke again. "That's good." Remus smiled.
They sat in silence for another ten minutes, watching a few birds hop amidst the bushes and a tabby scramble after them before Harry stiffened slightly beside him and said in a whisper, "Alarm's off." Remus casually scratched his nose, scanning the crowd.
"Coming around from our right," Harry said quietly and then in a normal volume, "So you think that Draco wants to be our friend?"
Remus looked over to Harry, giving himself a better view to their right but the only person who appeared from around the low trees was anything but average and anything but a white guy.
"Got a glamour on," Remus whispered as he watched the very attractive, young Latino woman walk towards them, long strides in high heals showing off well defined legs. Then louder he said, "Why don't you just ask him out?"
"What!" Harry sputtered. "What do you mean by that?" He looked over at Remus with clear eyes, not letting their conversation hamper his surveillance, but certainly invested in the line the conversation was heading.
Remus missed this kind of work. He and Harry hadn't done undercover surveillance together as often as he was paired with Moody or other Order members, but he acknowledged they had a good rapport together. Must have been the hours of slaving over Hermione's notes that helped the two to understand all of the nonverbal cues as the verbal debate over Draco ensued.
"Harry, pull your head out of the sand. You're obviously interested in him. And you may or may not be blind, but he's obviously interested in you. Ask him out."
"You think he's interested in me?" The completely innocent awe in Harry's voice was almost charming. The woman passed the two wizards on the bench, paying them little attention, her long hair bouncing with each stride.
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Ah. No." Harry spoke definitively. Remus watched Harry's eyes follow the retreating woman.
"Why else do you think he hangs around so much?" Remus asked, then stood and stretched his back.
"Well, maybe he just wants to help out." At Remus' sceptical look, Harry scrambled for another excuse. "There is that vow he made me swear."
"Which you owe him, not the other way around. Why would he hang around because you owed him? All he has to do is call and you'll jump," Remus said with a chuckle to his words.
Harry frowned at that. "I hate that vow. Okay, so it isn't that. Maybe he fancies you."
Remus laughed out loud, looking down at Harry who remained sitting on the bench. "Oh no, my young friend. Definitely you, not me." Remus tapped the side of his nose.
"What, you smell it on him? What do you smell?" Harry finally stood and the two men turned to the left and walked through the park along the dirt path, the woman a good distance in front of them. Harry cast a wandless spell, mumbling low enough that Remus had to strain to hear him, signaling to Ron that they were on the move.
The entire surveillance setup had proved itself over the years, but something had obviously been going wrong here in Mexico. Usually, close undercover agents watched for their target and then back-up waited for the go. The undercover agents were under constant tracking charms so there could never be any confusion as to where they were located. But their actions always seemed to be known by the felon.
Due to potential leaks, Ron wanted to keep their involvement a secret, see if the Dark Artefact peddler was being tipped off by someone on his team or if they had some other means to know they were being watched.
"Well, I doubt I can describe it perfectly, but to put it as plainly as possible, I get an overwhelming scent of desire from that man whenever you're near."
"What? You smell desire off people? You…? He…?" Harry squeaked out the question and fumbled words.
"One of the many things my nose has learned to distinguish throughout the years. I just wish it was this good when I was younger, during the first war. I might have sensed something about Peter." The old animosity still churned within him, but for some reason it seemed less urgent today. It was nothing he could change, just the faded past that no longer offered any threat. That ghost had already done its damage. "And yes. He. Wants. You. Do something about it," Remus said, poking at Harry for emphasis.
Harry's face was a crimson that had nothing to do with the bright sun. Remus marveled at his ability to blush after all of the tragedy Harry experienced in his life. It was good to know his friend still had a heart and some innocence.
The two men walked through the park, following the woman through the stubby trees and shrubs that thirsted for water. Remus wished he had a drink… and not just of the alcoholic kind. He licked his lips and swallowed, his dry throat bobbing.
The woman stopped at a shrine to the Virgin Marry about twenty yards before them. She placed a little box on the edge of the shrine and crossed herself. Then she turned and walked back the way she came, towards the two wizards.
"So… Harry. In the face of confessions… I have something I want to tell to you." Remus felt it was time to let his friend in on his dreams. One dream is fine. Two dreams can be written off as coincidence. But recurring dreams of the same nature telling him to go to Mexico… Well that could be a whole different bag of worms. Harry had experience with visions and Remus was beginning to get an inkling that these were more than his simple subconscious working out the events in his life.
"Yea?" Harry asked. The woman passed them, paying no attention to the two men engaged in conversation. Harry and Remus stopped about five yards from the shrine and continued their talk in the shade of a taller tree.
"I've been having some very disturbing dreams." Remus started, not sure how to tell Harry he had potential visions of his godfather.
"Well Remus, sometimes when you have a lot of built up tension, your body just reacts a certain way while sleeping. It's nothing to be ashamed of; everybody has it happen to them sometimes," Harry said in his most fatherly tone, which wasn't very fatherly in Remus' view.
Remus snorted softly, shaking his head. He needed Harry to understand just how the dreams made him feel. "Actually," he said seriously, "they were about Sirius."
"Ah Remus, I never knew you and Sirius…" Harry half joked with him, but stumbled over his words as soon as he noticed someone approaching the shrine. A short Mexican man walked up to the bubbling basin, crossed himself and took the little box. The exchange was performed before two undercover wizards not on Ron's Auror team. The repercussions were obvious.
Harry tapped his throat three times and whispered, the words transported directly into Ron's ear back at their makeshift headquarters. "Exchange made, follow who?"
Remus turned, his back to the shrine to watch the woman disappear around a curve in the park's path. He wasn't completely paying attention though, his mind on something Harry had said. He and Sirius? But Sirius was his friend, plus he didn't like men that way. But it did cause him to wonder at some of the things Sirius had done while he still lived, some of the things he said, those looks. Did Sirius…? No, now was not the time for that.
"Remus, you follow him, I got her. Just follow, no interference."
"Right," he said and tailed after the man with the little box as Harry went the opposite direction.
The man walked to a dark blue sedan parked three blocks away. Remus noted the license plate number and the direction it was going. He scanned the area and saw too many people for him to cast a Communication Charm to Ron such as the one that Harry used. Remus couldn't do anything without a wand except one spell, accio wand, which he learned with James and Sirius right before the first war took over their lives. Peter never could master that one at all. Neither could most wizards and witches, to be honest. Remus prided himself on that hard-earned skill.
He walked down the main street to a deserted side road and cast the Communication Charm. "Ron, the purchaser entered a dark blue Chevrolet with license YWC8723. Turned left on Calle Sol."
"Great, Remus, meet back at base. And thanks."
Remus glanced around once more for people and Disapparated to Ron's tiny flat.
Back in Ron's rented flat the three men gathered. It consisted of a single room stuffed with a queen sized lumpy mattress, two chairs, a tiny kitchen with one counter, sink, and constantly clicking refrigerator, and a desk that Ron had purchased at a bazaar three blocks away and lugged down the street on his own. The left, rear leg was a few inches shorter due to the sandpaper like affect cobbled streets had on wood. To Harry, it almost seemed homey, if it weren't for the constant scuttle of cockroaches running across the floorboards and rats running through the plaster walls.
"Well, the woman walked to the main mall and disappeared in the masses. I'm sure she dropped her glamour somewhere in the middle of it. I did get a tracker on her though. I can tell you where she, well he, is…" Harry grew silent for a moment, "northwest of here."
Ron hadn't really said anything since Harry arrived. He had a deepening furrow between his eyes and a frown that would frighten the fiercest dragon tamer. He paced the room, his long strides only allowing for five or six steps before he had to turn around and walk the other way. Remus just glanced over at Harry, offering a thin smile.
"You know what this means…" Ron said.
"I'm sorry," Harry offered, though he knew it was weak and did nothing to help their situation. In all honesty, his frustration rivaled Ron's. This was his team. The team he had put together, with Ron's help, and the roster had only shifted slightly since Ron became the head. They were his buddies as well and the idea of being betrayed by them left him feeling helpless and empty.
"Who do you think? Plincher? Underhill? Maybe Cynthia Abbott, she's only been with us for six months." Ron grabbed a book off the table and threw it at the wall. The spine split and pages fluttered softly to the ground. "Who the fuck do you think it is?" Ron yelled.
"Ron, maybe…" Harry tried, but Ron had steam he needed to blow and Harry knew no cajoling on his part would soothe his pissed off friend. Remus sat calmly by his side. Remus always seemed calm these days and right now it only irritated Harry.
"No. No maybe, Harry. There's someone on my team—on our team—who's selling us out. Someone we've worked with for years. Fucking stabbing us in the back!" Ron kept pacing the room, stomping and yelling loudly enough to have the downstairs neighbor bang sharply on the ceiling. Spanish cursing filtered up through the floorboards drowning out Ron's heavy steps and the skittering of vermin. Harry was certain it was cursing, since cursing seemed to have a universal tone to it, easily translated like love and hate.
"Ron," Harry tried again. "What do you want to do now? Do you want to set a trap for every member of the team? Maybe we should take a little break. You can come up to Costa Rica with me for a day while we think about what to do."
Ron threw himself on his mattress, landing with a solid thump. "I don't know. Yea… I guess. I can't look at them right now. I just can't trust any of 'em. Not now, anyway."
"Okay. Let's go eat and then get some sleep. We need to leave early tomorrow morning to meet with Mr. Popicon."
"Sure." Ron sat up and buried his head in his hands, shoulders hunched over.
Harry wished there was something more he could do.
It called him constantly, relentlessly, and he basked in its power. He no longer questioned or denied anything the orb commanded. He was controlled by it, as he should be. As he wanted to be. As he always would be.
And he pulsed with its strength coursing through his being. His own magical core a tiny thing in comparison. He could now indenture those into the ranks of the unknowing contributors without directly using the orb, which now lay safely hidden away. His will alone had power to curse, to quell and dominate. A will that was totally subjugated to the orb's own.
And other things. He now had an arsenal of abilities available to him at the whim of the orb. The orb giveth.
He no longer cared about the little things. Family, friends, eating. Sleeping. He had too much to do. Too many people who still needed to contribute. Too much energy to collect.
And the orb longed and the orb hungered. It longed to be whole and it hungered for more power. It knew who it wanted. He would get that wizard for his precious jewel.
"Minister?"
With effort, the man pulled his conscious to that of the primal world, away from the powerful ball of rainbow shimmers.
"Yes, Agent Riley?"
"The British Isles Wizard Relations Conference is tomorrow in Glasgow. Should I bring it?"
"No," Minister Scrimgeour said. "I can handle it. You need to return to Mexico. Protect him as he searches."
Agent Riley nodded his head and slowly left the room.
The Shining Son. I want The Shining Son. His taste. I will taste him again.
The man slowly slipped into his now usual daze, eyes glazing over as he communed and hungered with his master.