5. De-gnoming the Garden

"She's been absolutely impossible all week long," Ginny said as she led them through the hall and up the stairs. She directed her conversation mostly at Harry, although she kept sneaking wary glances over her shoulder at Voldemort. "Even more so than usual - it's because of you, obviously. Did you know she had me scrubbing the floor in the attic above Ron's room? I couldn't even do it properly by magic - that's how long it's been since someone's even touched those floorboards..."

They reached Voldemort's assigned room on the third floor and Ginny opened the door. It was a sparse room. From the looks of the walls and the floor, a whole lot of pictures and furniture had been moved out of it in a hurry, leaving the place looking rather empty and unfriendly. The bed was a single one, covered in a dark green quilt that looked suspiciously like it had been charmed and its original colour had been quite different. Harry realised with a sudden jolt of satisfaction that, through being with Tom, he was becoming more sensitive to magic.

His lover glided into the middle of the room, cloak on his arm, taking it all it with an oddly speculative look on his face. "Would adding a sixth chimney be out of the question?" he asked Ginny without taking his gaze away from the room.

"Um…" Ginny looked rather taken aback. She turned to face Tom directly for the first time since the three of them had been left alone together. "I suppose we could ask my father to conjure one for you when he gets home later…"

"I could not possibly put Mr Weasley to the trouble," Tom replied politely, though Harry could feel frustration beginning to edge into their connection. "I am extremely proficient in architectural magic, I assure you, I -" There was a shout from outside, and the red eyes were suddenly riveted to the window, which overlooked the garden. "What are they doing?"

"They're... de-gnoming the garden, of c-course." She seemed to be gradually gaining confidence. "We've got quite a few of them… Dad keeps letting them sneak back in..."

"Gnomes… you…they...?" Tom looked to be fighting a losing battle against his incredulity.

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "You know… knobby, ugly-looking things? They sort of… stumble around and grunt?"

"I am aware of what gnomes are," he continued to stare as Fred threw a gnome over the hedge and into the swampy pond with a triumphant yodle, "I simply cannot fathom why three grown wizards are twirling them above their heads."

"Well they're mostly resistant to magic," Ginny said, giving him a strange look. "Not to mention it's quite fun."

Voldemort turned to stare at her intently, "Perhaps I misunderstand, is the goal not to rid the garden of gnomes?"

If Ginny was at all unnerved by Lord Voldemort scrutinising her, she didn't show it. Harry felt a spike of pride for his friend. "It's obviously a bit of work, but it's more humane than the alternative."

"But surely, even if exterminating them were not to your liking, you could employ any number of wards, charms, or hexes to ensure that the gnomes never enter the garden?"

Ginny snorted. "Good luck finding one that works. They're quite stubborn."

Tom pulled on his cloak, "Then you simply require a stubborn sorcerer," and with a smooth hiss of air, he disapparated, only to reappear in the garden below, causing Ron to stumble and almost fall on his arse in the mud.

Ginny rushed over to the window, scowling. "He really thinks he's going to figure it out! As if Mum hasn't been trying for years!"

"Honestly, Gin," Harry smirked, "the best way to get him to do something is to tell him it's impossible."

Voldemort paced the boundaries of the garden, examining the hedge and the surrounding area. He drew his trunk out of his pocket and returned it to its proper size. His apothecary and ritual tools, he was fairly certain, were in the fifth compartment, as it was his habit to pack according to arithmantic symbolism. He wavered between bowls – and eventually drew out the wooden one; oak to strengthen the protective nature of the ritual. It hovered in the air in front of him.

Gnomes scurried about underfoot, agitated by the commotion, but Voldemort spared them little more than a sneer. Their natural predator, he vaguely recalled from Professor Kettleburn's lessons, was the musteline Jarvey. He opened a jar of Jarvey teeth and placed four carefully in the bowl. Then, he summoned the largest, strongest specimen he could and caught it in his right hand. The foul thing grunted obscenities at him. "Such language," the Dark Lord murmured softly, opening the gnome from neck to navel with a Slicing Hex and letting its blood drip into the bowl, covering the Jarvey teeth in crimson fluid. The thing shrieked and thrashed – and then went limp.

"Might I have a lock of your hair?" he asked one of the twins politely, as the creature burned away to ash in his fingers.

The young man was staring at him, open-mouthed with shock. "Er... about before… I - didn't mean to offend you in any way-"

"What d'you think you're doing-?!" Ronald Weasley cried at Voldemort in outrage. "Those are our gnomes!"

"It shall strengthen your garden's defence against these pests immeasurably. An essential component of the fourth ritual triangle: blood, teeth, and hair. Your hair is the thread that will bind the spell to this garden. Sowing the ground with bloodied Jarvey teeth will only do so much. You sister told me that you had yet to find a spell to keep them out. If you are concerned about the one who had the honour to be of use," he wiped the ashes off on his cloak, "consider the suffering he will save his fellow Gernumbli gardensi." Voldemort paused, staring at their pale, wide-eyed faces, and their horrified thoughts. "Ah, you consider these creatures pets," he sighed, "It seems I have misunderstood."

"You can't just waltz into people's gardens and slice up their gnomes!" the youngest boy said furiously. "That is not bloody on!"

There were two loud, inelegant cracks behind him, and Voldemort felt Harry's presence join him in the garden. He could sense that his Horcrux had been arguing with the girl.

"It could've been worse, honestly," said one of the twins lightly. "He was certainly the heaviest one to swing about, wasn't he?"

"George! He killed it!"

"He was only trying to help," Harry said quickly, appearing at Voldemort's side. He shot his friend a beseeching look and then glanced agitatedly at the Dark Lord: What did I tell you about killing things, Tom -?!

He hardly knew what to do, river of thought abruptly halted by this onslaught of objection, ritual bowl still hovering in front of him. Voldemort plucked it from the air. He abhorred waste. The Jarvey teeth were worthless now. "It would have been an interesting piece of magic, and would merely prevent them from disturbing the garden itself," he said, carefully keeping a defensive tone from his voice, "they would have been quite free to roam the yard and its surrounds." Voldemort tried to think of what Harry would want him to say, "I apologise for killing your gnome without permission. It was thoughtless of me." It was a filthy pest. What a ridiculous amount of fuss for such a vile, lowly creature.

"Give him a break, Ron," said Fred Weasley, scowling at his brother, and then to Voldemort, "The thought is - er - appreciated, but I don't honestly think Mum would be too keen on the idea of the Dark Lord performing blood magic in the garden."

"She certainly wasn't all right with us performing some in the kitchen," the other twin muttered.

Voldemort vanished the components and stacked his bowl neatly with the others. "Such rituals were not generally considered Dark magic until these last few centuries. They are an older form of magic that hails from Britain's druidic past. It is common to use the blood of many creatures in potion-making, yet such brews are not considered malign."

"Try telling that to Mum," George Weasley sighed regretfully. "So many perfectly good ideas... because they might have been slightly illegal."

He shut the lid of his trunk and tapped it with his wand. It dissolved into the air, sent up to the room Mrs Weasley had assigned him. "Unfortunately, this sort of magic is no longer taught in schools, perhaps on account of its very permanence, and thus ridiculous suspicions have arisen around its uses. If that is your concern I assure you I am a Master of Sanguimancy, a title which I obtained with perfect legality by way of the Prague Academy of Arcane Arts."

A venerable institution Voldemort would recommend to any young wizard seeking higher magical education. It was one of the few places that, in his time, had still offered students a double Mastery in Sanguimancy and Necromancy. Of course, that was mostly due to the efforts of dear old Professor Raskolnikov, who had been splendidly lax about how his students obtained the subjects and ingredients necessary for their studies, and whose tenure ended so spectacularly when he killed five Russian Aurors sent to arrest him and fled to America.

"Well, you don't need a Mastery from an academy to de-gnome a garden," the other twin said, grinning. "Perhaps you only got a glimpse of Ron here trying to throw them - he's quite pathetic, really -"

"Hey!"

"- but if you know what you're doing, it really makes for some good sport!"

The Dark Lord sighed inwardly. In order to retain his standing with Harry's young friends, he would clearly be obliged to have a go at this ludicrous activity. Voldemort closed his eyes, feeling for the tiny residue of power in the gnomes. It was slippery, certainly, like a layer of magical grease. Theirs was an earthly puissance, it would not respond well to wandwork. He tilted his head back, extending his tongue, listening, smelling, feeling the little creatures out. "A good sport, you say?" he hissed quietly. "Very well, Lord Voldemort shall try it." Curling his long fingers into claws, he ripped a mass of grunting, jabbering prey from their holes - some base, reptilian part of his brain longing to strike and devour their warm, raw little bodies - and, disgusted, flung them as far away from him as he could.

One of the boys swore softly under his breath. "Blimey," another muttered. The gnomes had been sent far over the garden hedge, a great distance into the field beyond.

"Brilliant," said Harry, beaming, his pride flooding across their shared link, and with it came the fluttering, heady sensation that usually meant Harry was about to kiss him.

"Are you sure you haven't done this before?" one of the twins asked him.

"Did he just do three at a time?"

"How did he even find them in the ground like that?"

Voldemort opened his eyes into light. The thick, grey clouds had lessened and the hood of his cloak had slipped back. He rid his hands of dirt with a quick shake of his wrists, banishing the filth from his skin. The sun was not blinding, but it made his head ache. Squinting, he raised long fingers to shade his scarlet eyes. "I have my ways," he replied softly. Voldemort reached for Harry's mind, gave it a lingering psychic caress, and stepped away from the group. He had no business playing such a game with these children and it was cold out here in the garden. "I believe I shall retire to my room to unpack and leave you all to your amusements." And, with a smooth hiss, he disapparated.

The entire garden seemed to let out a collective breath. Several gnomes peeked out from their holes, but no one paid them any attention; everyone was staring at the empty spot where Tom had just disappeared.

"Scary, isn't he?" Ron said in a low voice.

"Scary?" Fred pulled off his gloves. "If you're a gnome, maybe. I dunno what you did to him, Harry, but he's gone right bloody soft."

"Not sure I would say that -" Harry began, but George interrupted him.

"You've got to be joking! Just when we thought there was nothing else you could do, Harry, you've gone and domesticated You-Know-Who. How did you manage it?"

Ron became very interested in a nearby growth of Gurdyroot.

"Oh, I dunno," Harry said vaguely, "it's sort of a long story…"

"Hot chocolate!" Mrs Weasley's cheerful voice rang out across the yard, and Harry, grateful for the distraction, led the way back to the house. They sat at the picnic table outside the back door, sipping their steaming drinks and breathing deeply of the winter air. A few of the gnomes were trying to hoist themselves back over the hedge and into the garden again, but no one tried to stop them. Everyone was too busy bombarding Harry with questions about his exploits around the globe

"But how did you end up inside the volcano in the first place?" George asked, leaning forward.

"Well, I thought it would be neat to see what was inside," Harry said, a little embarrassed. "So I - er - took my broom and... went to have a look." As far as justifications went, he'd thought it was perfectly reasonable. Naturally, Tom had disagreed. Explosively. "We needed the volcanic rock anyway!" he went on, as though Tom were there too, still arguing with him. "For a potion he was making - I don't see why it was such a big fuss - I left before it erupted -"

"Did you get it?"

"Obviously!"

"Then what was the problem?"

"Well I might've - er - gotten into a bit of a fix with a herd of heliopaths…" At their stunned expressions, he quickly added, "but it wasn't an issue, of course - I had it completely under control - even if Voldemort hadn't turned up I would've been able to handle it on my own -"

Ron snorted, and Fred shook his head, grinning. "You-Know-Who, saving your life. A bit ironic, isn't it?"

"He didn't save anyone! I had it completely under control!"

"At least he's good for something," Ron muttered, and George laughed.

"He's good for plenty of things," Harry snapped, with more irritation than he'd meant.

"I think he's awful," Ginny said coldly, speaking up for the first time since they'd come outside. "I don't know how you can stand it, being around him all the time. I would be miserable."

Everyone was suddenly staring at him. Harry forced himself to meet their gazes, feeling defensive and ashamed. "Well, I'm not."

George stared at him. "This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, right?"

"I know perfectly well who he is!" Harry exclaimed. He forced himself to pause, exhaling angrily. "And I know what he's done - honestly, I reckon I know that better than anyone else! And yeah, it was - it was difficult, at first. But he's changed. He stopped the war. And we - we take care of each other now. He's obviously changed - he's come all the way back to Britain just because I wanted to spend the holiday with the people I consider family! And, you know what, I would appreciate it if you all would start acting like it and trusting me!"

The entire table stared at him in stunned silence. A long, tense moment passed, and then Ron clapped his hand on Harry's back. "Of course we trust you, mate," he said emphatically, glaring at his siblings. "And we're with you, through thick and thin. No matter what."

"And if you say he's not as much of an evil git anymore, we - well, we might not entirely believe you," said Fred, reconsidering, "but you can be sure we'll use you as a hostage if things get uncertain."

"Er…" Harry blinked. "Thanks."

"We're all just glad to have you back, Harry," Ginny said softly, staring at him through warm brown eyes, and Harry at last allowed himself to smile.

"I'm glad to be back. And - look, he's really changed. He has. There isn't any reason to be afraid of him. He'd never do anything to -"

A shock of anger ripped through his scar, and Harry flinched, fingers automatically flying to his forehead. The frothing familiarity of Lord Voldemort's rage began to welter within him, spilling from the Horcrux into his own soul. Green eyes closed and the frightened, spluttering face of Mrs Weasley burned a white and red sun-ghost into the back of his eyelids.

He stood abruptly, heart pounding. He hardly noticed his friends, staring at him in bewilderment and growing apprehension; he only managed half of an apology before he was gone, the cold swallowing him whole with a crack, leaving his words hanging incomplete in the frozen garden air.