AN: Another chapter that I didn't have to do all that much too.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Great Hall, Scotland, 12/16/1975
Harry was seated at the teacher's table enjoying his breakfast while deep in thought about the events of last night and what he was going to do next.
The mail delivery was due any moment but he didn't anticipate any mention of Malfoy Manor for a few days at least.
The school would be out in a few days and he would have a full house to look forward to over the winter holidays.
The house he and Andromeda were moving into was already picked out but they were just waiting on the warders to finish up. Lily would be staying with them over Christmas and Harry had already planned for that.
What he hadn't planned for was Arcturus taking Melania to Paris for the holidays and leaving Sirius with him and Andromeda. Harry had a feeling that the older Blacks had enjoyed the peace and quiet over the summer without Sirius around and wanted to keep a good thing going.
Harry, Andromeda, and the kids usually had a small Christmas as a family. They all decorated the tree, Andi made holiday cookies, and the kids did their best to get into said cookies and got more excited as the days ticked down to Christmas.
On Christmas morning Harry made everyone a big breakfast and the kids got to open presents before Harry and Andi made a big Christmas dinner together.
This year Andromeda had made plans for a much bigger celebration and was already very excited to start decorating the new house.
Harry knew it would be a bit more stressful this year but he was still looking forward to being home for two whole weeks.
Harry had already promised Andromeda that he wouldn't worry about the war until after the new year.
This was one of the conditions for her allowing him to go after Malfoy Manor last night. After that attack, the heat would be turned up on all fronts anyway so it would be unwise to make any moves until the ministry lowered its guard a bit.
His thoughts were interrupted by the mail being delivered. He was a bit surprised when a Gringotts owl landed in front of him and extended its leg offering Harry a letter.
Harry quickly removed the letter and offered the bird a piece of bacon, the owl took the meat before taking flight while Harry unrolled the letter.
Mr Black,
We have successfully completed the warding of your property in Northumberland, the wards will already recognize you as we have your magical signature on file.
As a token of our thanks for the work you have done for us in the past, we took the liberty of having your floo warded as well, the password is 'Gratis'. As always Gringotts thanks you for your business.
Account Goblin,
Long-Blade
Harry chuckled and rose from his chair, he wanted to get home and share the news with Andi. She would no doubt be anxious to get the house ready for them to move in, and Harry couldn't wait to see her face when he told her.
/C.o.t.R\
Nott Manor, Nottingham, England, 12/16/1975, 11:00
Lord Voldemort was apoplectic with rage, the locket and the ring were both gone!
The locket being gone was a real hit to his ego if he were being honest with himself.
It had taken him months to set up all of those defences in that cave. When he had entered the cave this morning, all of his enchantments were gone and the inferi had been disposed. The cave had looked the way it did when he had first went there back in nineteen thirty-four!
The ring had also been taken from his mother's family home, though the protections around that hovel were minimal.
This morning he had sent Bellatrix to Gringotts so she could check on the status of the cup. Hopefully, that one was still safe.
He had instructed her months ago to place Hifflepuff's cup in the LeStrange vault, so he was sure there was no way the thief could have gotten to it.
The door to his throne room opened and he could smell Bellatrix's fear the second she entered the room. He could immediately tell she brought bad news and cut over the usual ceremony.
"What happened Bellatrix?" Voldemort demanded, his voice ice cold and barely above a whisper.
"The filthy goblins seized my vault! They said that storing a XXXXX sentient dark artifact was a violation of the treaty of Twelve ninety-four, My Lord," Bellatrix said, her own voice almost hysterical and trembling in terror.
"CRUCIO!" Voldemort roared in fury as he directed his wand at his servant's chest.
Bellatrix collapsed to the floor screaming in agony, her body began spasming wildly, causing the poor girl to lose control of her bladder. The dark lord canceled the spell after a minute though Bellatrix remained on the floor drawing in deep rasping lungfuls of air.
Voldemort thought that he may have put a little too much power into the curse in his anger, he really needed to work on that.
"Send a message to Markus. I must have him retrieve something from within the school. Make sure he is here this evening," Voldemort commanded.
"Yes m-my Lord, it will be d-done," Bellatrix said having risen to her knees to give homage to her master, though involuntary tremors still wracked her body making her arms and neck jerk almost comically.
"That will be all, leave me Bellatrix," Voldemort said dismissively.
Bellatrix rose shakily to her feet and bowed before leaving the throne room.
Voldemort screamed in fury to the empty room. He had forgotten the treaty of twelve ninety-four and sent his own horcrux to the goblins!
Basically, the treaty stated that Gringotts would not store any sentient artifacts that could harm their employees, any items discovered in a Gringott's vault would be destroyed and the vault seized.
He had sent the Horcrux there thinking it was one of the safest places in the world. Now he was down to maybe two, he really hoped no one had discovered the diadem, though after the cave it was a real possibility.
Nagini must be kept safe, thankfully she hadn't been able to take her human form In almost a decade, which would make her easier to hide.
Now he just needed to find out if it was possible to split his soul anymore though he highly doubted it was. He had already pushed his soul to the limit when he made his snake a Horcrux last year. The book said that the soul would heal over time so maybe in a decade or two, he could safely make another.
This would take some researching to be sure, in the meantime, he would send his army out to terrorize Britain for the holiday season.
He had a list of families he wished out of the way. So while he was working on his own project, his soldiers could go out and purge some blood traitors.
It was time he made his presence known again, the wizarding World must fear him.
His mark flying over the corpses of his enemies would be the best way to spread that fear.
/C.o.t.R\
Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England, 12/18/1975, 08:00
The Malfoy Manor grounds were a circus this morning. Thirteen were dead and half of them had been pulled under the earth and their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. From the looks of it, they fell victim to some type of creature, though no one could tell what kind of creature that was.
There seemed to have been a fight in the entry hall and six more men lay dead, all of them killed in different ways.
There was only one foreign magical signature that tested positive for casting the curses that killed every man in the manor and Alastor had a suspicion about whose magic that was.
Lord Malfoy was discovered in his study badly bruised and killed with a killing curse. It looked like he was beaten pretty badly before being killed not that Alastor was that concerned.
The discovery was made by a ministry aid who was sent to check on Lord Malfoy after the man hadn't answered post sent to his residence. The young woman made it a hundred feet past the gates before she saw a hand sticking out of the ground and panicked returning to the Ministry in hysterics.
The Aurors were quickly sent out to investigate and the aid was now sedated in the ministry infirmary.
When the Auror team searched the house they also found a trove of dark artifacts. There was a hidden room packed full of thousands of dark and very illegal items under the Malfoy's drawing room.
When the auror teams began searching the manor, Amelia's team had discovered a trapdoor under the Persian rug they took a quick look inside the hidden room. From what Alastor had heard from Bones, many of the items were too dangerous to get close to, much less handle.
Amelia had immediately called for a D.o.M processing team to deal with the items and moved on to searching the rest of the manor.
However, the most unsettling discovery had been when they found over a dozen badly decayed corpses in the dungeons. If Alastor were to guess, he thought that they were most likely muggles.
The bodies showed signs of being tortured if the badly broken limbs were any indication. All of them had been killed by magical means between two and six months ago.
Alastor was thoroughly disgusted especially since a few of the corpses were far too small to be adults. The minister was close friends with this monster so it was likely that this would get swept under the rug.
Harold Minchum was a hardliner and overall an effective minister, but he still took a few kickbacks from the older families. He also regularly entertained Abraxas in his office at the Ministry, if the press found out about this, shit would hit the fan.
Moody had a hunch that this was the Reaper's work, the fact that all the recently dead had a dark mark on their left forearms made it pretty obvious. The Reaper seemed to hate Voldemort and was responsible for more than a hundred dead death eaters sofar
The spooks from the D.o.M would confirm for sure but Moody was a good Auror and trusted his gut on this one.
If this was the Reaper's work and if he ever met the man, Alastor would heartily shake his hand for ridding the world of so many monsters.
Mad-Eye was interrupted in his musings by Captain Bones coming to stand beside him.
"Sir, the grey cloak confirmed it was the Reaper, but we have a bigger problem," Amelia told him in her usual professional tone.
"What's the bigger problem, Auror Captain?" Moody asked her, noticing a beetle was perched on her shoulder, odd for November.
"One of the marked Death Eaters is a current student of Hogwarts, Damien Greengrass the Heir of the Greengrass family," Bones stated.
"Fuck! The press will be all over this. Send word to Dumbledore, maybe he will know how the kid got out of Hogwarts," Moody ordered.
"Yes Sir," Bones answered and left to carry out her orders.
'Well, the Reaper would be on the front page tomorrow. The purebloods would be calling for his head but the public would hail him a hero,' Moody thought wryly.
Still, he would rather be scraping death daters off the ground than having them kill more innocent people.
/C.o.t.R\
Hogwarts Great Hall, Scotland, 12/19/1975, 09:30
Harry was expecting the paper to have bad news today.
Yesterday Dumbledore had called a full staff meeting to explain the circumstances of the death of Damien Greengrass. The staff had been baffled as to how the boy had gotten out of the school.
Harry had told them about the secret passages he had found in the past, he led them to believe he found them while curse-breaking in seventy-three. He told them about the one on the third floor that appeared in a statue of One-eyed Witch, and then he brought up the mirror passageway on the fourth floor (that he knew Greengrass was using the night he died.).
Finally, Harry told them about the passageway behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy.
The staff minus Filch were shocked at this news which took Harry by surprise as he thought at least a few of them would know about the secret passageways.
"Why didn't you tell anyone, Hadrian?" McGonagall had asked looking aghast at this revelation.
"I thought you all knew about them, Minerva," Harry answered dumbly, feeling like she was seconds away from giving him detention.
Once the shock had worn off and the meeting broke up, Dumbledore and Filch (Who admitted to knowing three more passages Harry hadn't mentioned) went to go and permanently seal them off.
Harry's Reminisce was broken by a swarm of silent flying mail owls, dropping off letters, sweets, and unfortunately Daily Prophets.
Harry could tell when the papers started unrolling because the chatter of students excited about going home for the holidays stopped as if a silencing charm had been placed on the hall. Almost immediately, angry chatter could be heard at the Slytherin table.
Harry sighed and paid his own patiently waiting Prophet owl before unfurling the paper.
Thirteen Dead in Malfoy Manor Massacre, The Reaper has Returned!
Twelve Muggles Found Dead in Malfoy Basement, Ministry Tries to Cover it Up!
Greengrass Heir Found Dead at Malfoy Manor, Was supposed to Be at Hogwarts!
The Reaper is he a Hero or a Monster?
Harry sighed internally and read the article under the first headline. In addition to the Greengrass heir, it appeared that he also killed the Rowle heir and of course, finished off the Malfoy line.
The purebloods the Daily Prophet interviewed were beyond furious.
However, the average citizen seemed to be quite glad that the Reaper was getting rid of monsters that dwelled in pureblood society and had seemed above the law for so long.
The next article went into detail about what was found at the crime scene. The aurors had found a large compartment in the Malfoy's drawing room that was packed full of dark artifacts.
The real shocker had been found in the basement dungeons. According to the paper, over a dozen badly decaying muggle corpses had been discovered all showing signs of being tortured and then killed with the killing curse.
The Ministry was trying their best to cover it up but the cat was already out of the bag before they could get a lid on it. Harry could hazard a guess as to who found this scoop and how they got on the scene undetected.
The next article was not very complimentary to Headmaster Dumbledore and wanted to know how a student snuck out of his school right under his nose. They then questioned if any of the students were safe and why the Headmaster couldn't keep track of such a prominent student. Harry thought the whole article was about the Minister trying to share some of his bad press. It was next to impossible to keep an eye on every student even with the house elves, paintings, and ghosts. the Ministry was known to pay for articles to be placed in the paper in his timeline, so he wouldn't be surprised if that was happening here.
The last article retold all the things the public was aware of about what the Reaper had done. There was also a debate as to whether or not the Reaper was doing this as a service to the community, or perhaps he was a budding dark lord that was intent on taking over the Ministry.
If this theory was to be believed, then all of these attacks against known death eaters were the Reaper's way of taking out the competition before he made his move to take over magical Britain.
The latter view was in the minority but it was still there. Harry suspected that this 'theory' was placed in the paper to take some of the focus off of the ministry just like the insinuations that Damiaen Greengrass getting killed was somehow Dumbledore's fault.
Sighing Harry got up from the table, he had been assigned to watch over the students while they boarded the train home today. Professors McGonagall and Slughorn were riding the train to watch the students on the route home.
Thankfully, he was taking Lily and Sirius home directly from Hogsmeade so he wouldn't have to meet them at King's Cross.
'I can't wait to get home,' Harry thought to himself as he crossed the hall, picking up snippets of excited muttering from groups of students huddled together as he passed their tables.
/C.o.t.R\
Gryffindor Table, Great Hall Hogwarts
James Potter was not in a good mood, he had found out last night that his supposed best mate was spending the whole two weeks of vacation with Evans!
Apparently, Black's grandfather was going out of town and leaving Sirius with Andi and Professor Black, who happened to be Evan's new guardian.
James wasn't mad they were staying under the same roof, though he was annoyed that Sirius hadn't mentioned it to him sooner.
James was however green with jealousy and also afraid as he knew exactly how Sirius was with girls. Maybe he could talk Sirius into inviting him over during the holidays just to keep an eye on ole Padfoot.
/C.o.t.R\
Slytherin Table, Great Hall Hogwarts
Markus Mulciber was dreading his return home!
He had been summoned two nights ago to meet with the dark lord. He was given a mission to retrieve an object from Hogwarts.
The dark Lord had instructed him to retrieve a tiara from a room on the seventh floor across from some barmy wizard trying to teach trolls ballet. He was then told to pace three times in front of the wall and ask for the room of hidden things.
The final step was to cast a spell, 'homenum fractum Revelio' and use it to locate the Tiara, then bring said tiara to the dark lord.
Simple right? Not fucking likely!
The first two steps were simple, but when he cast the spell it did nothing whatsoever. He searched the room as best he could for the last two days using the picture his master had given him of the item in question.
He couldn't find it anywhere!
Though admittedly he had barely been able to search a quarter of the room. The room was fucking enormous!
Markus Mulciber was terrified of going home having heard stories of what happened to Rudolphus LeStrange.
'I am so Fucked!' Markus thought to himself as he got up from his seat to head out to the train.
/C.o.t.R\
Headmasters Office, Hogwarts
Albus Dumbledore was having a very bad week!
The fact that the Reaper had killed over a dozen more people had upset him greatly. The fact that one of those people had been a student who should have been in his school, devastated the old man beyond words.
Then he found out two people on his staff had known multiple ways to leave the castle without detection and hadn't informed him!
That revelation had been a true test of his patience, not to mention his temper. Albus had immediately sealed all six secret passages. He had also warded the one Mr Lupin used for his monthly transformation, so only Remus Lupin and Madam Pomfrey could enter at either end.
Albus was trying to stay ahead of this situation because he knew when this morning's Prophet went out, a shit storm of epic proportions was headed his way (which was why he didn't take breakfast in the hall this morning).
Sure enough, immediately following the morning paper was a summons to appear before the board of governors. Albus had already been questioned by the Ministry yesterday morning so he had that behind him at least.
Looking out of his office window, Albus scowled at seeing a rather large flock of owls flying in his direction. Even more worrying was the fact that most of those owls were clutching red letters in their talons.
Sighing out loud, Albus conjured some earmuffs and prepared for a very frustrating morning.
/C.o.t.R\
Black Residence, Northumberland, England, 12/19/1975, 10:30
Harry appeared on the drive leading up to his new house with Sirius and Lily in tow.
The new house was a two-story brick construction, with a slate roof. It was right at the edge of the Kielder forest and was fairly close to his old house in Durham (about seventy-five miles or so).
This house however was a complete wizard property and had wizarding amenities such as a magical stove and a charmed pantry and an icebox. With seven bedrooms, five bathrooms and a much larger floor plan than his old house, he was quite happy with it.
They also owned fifty acres of open field, so the kids could fly their brooms without having to worry about being seen (since they didn't have a neighbor for miles).
"Wow! Harry this is very nice," Lily gushed as soon as she got her bearings and took a look around.
"Thanks, the old place was getting a bit tight and the new baby will be here in May," Harry told her happily.
"What are you doing with the old place?" Sirius asked curiously as he looked toward the house.
"I stripped the barn of enchantments and put it up for sale. I already sold the land I was renting, to the Conollys. Jim was using the field to raise feed for his herd so he had no problem buying the land," Harry answered.
Before anyone could say anything else Nymmie came running down the drive and Harry scooped her up.
"Hey Daddy, Mummy is waiting for you before we decorate the tree!" Nymmie said in a rush.
"And where is your brother?" Harry asked, trying to sound serious but cracking a smile anyway.
"Helping mommy make cookies," The pink-haired girl explained with a grin that was missing a few front teeth.
Harry kissed her on the forehead before setting her back on the ground and turning to look at the teens.
"That means Andi let him lick the spoon after she mixed the cookie dough," Harry explained with a look of amusement.
"Hello, Nymmie how are you?" Sirius asked his little cousin.
"I'm good Daddy said he was going to teach me to fly a broom soon!" the girl exclaimed happily, skipping along beside them as they continued to walk toward the house.
"Isn't she a little too young for that Harry?" Lily asked with a huff, giving him a look of disapproval.
"I am not too young, I'm almost five." Nymmie protested hotly.
"It's a training broom and I'll be with her," Harry said casually as he led the three into the house.
Harry was really looking forward to teaching the kids to fly, that's the main reason he wanted someplace secluded, though it had taken a lot of reassuring on his part before Andromeda would agree to let him teach the kids to fly.
Entering the house, Iggy ran up to him. His son still had smears of cookie dough on his cheeks.
"Dad, can we decorate the tree now please?" his son begged.
Nymphadora soon joined in the begging and then much to his annoyance, so did Sirius.
"Nymmie and Iggy we will wait until your mother is ready," Harry told his kids gently.
"Sirius shut up or I will have Andi run you through hand-to-hand training for the rest of the holidays. When they beg it's cute. When you do it, it annoys me," Harry said flatly.
Nymmie stuck her tongue out at Sirius much to Harry's amusement.
"Nymphadora Black, that is not how young ladies behave," said a stern voice from Harry's right.
"Hello, Lily. Hello Sirius. Harry will show you to your rooms, then you can help us decorate the tree," Andromeda said happily before kissing Harry's cheek.
Harry smiled to himself, he was really loving having a family to spend Christmas with.
Before he came back in time he never had anyone, and now he felt like the luckiest guy in the world.