Lost Knight
Neris's Prompt: Harry Potter/Skyfall
After the events of seventh year, Harry found he had stopped aging, while his friends grew around him. Ginny moved on, and Ron and Hermione were left.
Hermione started working for the Government, and became M.
When Bond broke into M's apartment after his 'death', he met Harry.
Harry watched Bond go to Shanghai, and stayed hidden when Javier (Tiago Rodriguez/ Raoul Silva appeared.
When Bond kidnapped M, Harry followed.
And so the events of Skyfall gradually changed. ...Or something like that XD
(I couldn't resist a bit of Sherlock Holmes hinting)
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
"She's alive, if you were wondering." A 00 Agent can admit to being surprised when he is, and there is little that surprises him more than the sight of the young man in M's home. He stands in the doorway that had been empty just a moment ago, unarmed, and clearly looking as if he belongs. Just as clearly, James Bond does not.
His black hair makes him look as if he just got out of bed. Yet he stands there, plainly unarmed, with only a smile and silk red pajamas on him. He looks as if he's been expecting Bond, who should by all rights be dead.
"I was, a little, thanks for that. Who are you?" The boy – for boy he is, nods in a simple gesture. He looks hardly old enough to have graduated his schooling this year. For a moment James entertains the notion that the boy is M's son. In which case, he'll owe M an apology for holding a gun on him.
Perhaps it isn't polite to demand answers while pointing a gun at a boy, but James Bond does it, mostly because the boy – M's son? – well, he looks more amused than afraid of him. James Bond doesn't like surprises and he likes less to be laughed at. The boy might not be laughing at him aloud, but his green eyes are.
"Mione's not home, she wouldn't want to miss us meeting like this." The way he says her name (if it is her name), it rolls off his tongue, possessive and protective, it rhymes with 'my own' and 'my only'. It isn't the way a son says his mother's name. Not M's son - and only now is James curious enough that he puts the gun away.
"Is she expecting me?" James doesn't think he's gotten the address of the head of MI6 wrong. So there is an explanation for this. Though if M's taking boys this young home and bedding them – well, that's an explanation that James Bond could do without ever hearing.
"You could say that – I told her you weren't dead, after all – and…well, you can call me Harry." The youth tosses a look over his shoulder that is all flirt, with a bit of dirtiness. If Bond wasn't so confused, he'd be interested. As it is, he doesn't know where the boy – Harry – is leading him, but he goes along with it. There's a light on ahead – the kitchen – and Bond isn't alone with Harry in it.
"Who was it, Harry?" There's a grown woman in M's kitchen, a bit past middle-age her red hair pulled back into a ponytail, and freckled, but there's something like M in her grey eyes. Her robe is black with an unfamiliar family crest upon the breast that makes them look like official – not the informal house ware that robes have become- she stands in those robes with black dress shoes unafraid and proud.
Harry looks nothing like her.
So she can't be his mother, besides which, she's got something like a chopstick tucked behind her ear. Bond wonders if he caught them eating – but this late at night? No, and there isn't anything that smells of food in this kitchen.
"One of your mother's, Rosie - I've no doubt. He's come home to her, surprise, surprise." Rose raises her brows to see James Bond, and rolls her eyes. She isn't the least bit worried about him, and it's off putting. James had meant to surprise M, after all – and he's the one getting surprised into a stupefied shock. That M was a mother, he'd taken in stride, that she was married – and her husband dead – that too he'd known, but this, no and it well proved he had more yet to find out. Sometimes in spying it's a matter of being quiet and letting people's chatter fill in the gaps of the puzzle, and Bond decides to try that.
"Wait till Hugo hears this one! MI6 agents in mothers own home and she's not here... I don't know why you let her go on with being Minister – certainly you could talk her out of all this madness." Rose, if she's expecting Harry to agree at once to do her bidding, is disappointed. That she does seem to expect Harry to take her side makes Bond feel as if they've known each other longer than Harry looks to have lived. The confidence she has in him is like that of a parent or teacher, and he's much too young looking to be.
"It's never worked like that between Mione and me - you know that Rosie. Neither I, nor you, nor your brother can change your mother's mind once she's made it up. Ron might have…but your father's gone." Rose goes quiet, but she keeps an eye on Harry as he goes about the kitchen taking out pans and looking as if he's either going to be making late supper or early breakfast, and when he doesn't meet her eyes she goes to him and wraps him in a hug. Finally she seems to be satisfied that he's okay with what he said – because clearly her dad – Ron? – meant something very dear to Harry.
James Bond feels as if he's stepped into a family shaped messy sort of thing, although how all the pieces fit he can't see yet. It's as curious as it is unsettling. M, he's reminded, has a life outside MI6, when so many can't seem to manage to do the same. It's clear to him she's got people who love her, and care about each other, but she goes on working – and Bond knows the danger in it. Why would she risk so much? She has what looks like an ordinary life.
"I'm Rose Holmes, 00 Agent…007, isn't he Harry?" Rose tilts her head, studying James in a discerning way. It's as if she can see everything about him just by looking. It does bother James – what they know, about him, it can only have come from M. It's dangerous that they know things they shouldn't, things that are supposed to be top secret.
"Yes, 007 - James Bond, supposedly killed in action, but he's only been on a bit of a vacation. Mione won't thank you for that stunt, the paperwork in killing you and burying you and bringing you back to life is going to make her want to murder you for good." Harry teases, and Rose only shakes her head at Harry's humor. James Bond thinks it lacks something too.
"I couldn't have put it better myself if I had tried, thank you Harry." It's twice in one night in M's home that he's been surprised, and James doesn't like it in the least. M smiles at him as if she knows full well he'd meant to get the drop on her and had failed with the tables being turned on him. Harry hands her some tea, kissing her on the cheek in greeting. His bold green eyes glance at James, and 007 knows the gesture was meant for him to see.
"Mother, I do wish you'd step down from all this." Rose waves at James Bond, as if he's the whole problem from beginning to end. M smiles serenely and James knows that this is a conversation mother and daughter have had time and time again. Rose is never going to win it, that's what M's smile says.
"My dear Rose, some things you can not easily walk away from." Rose huffs at hearing her mother's answer, and Harry pats her shoulder kindly. Rose turns to him, and he takes her arm in his and smiles as if he's got a secret. James Bond doesn't doubt it for a moment.
"Come along, Rosie." It's the last time 007 sees Harry for a long while – but it isn't the last time Harry sees James Bond. Oh, no. What Harry does afterwards, Hermione Granger calls stalking, and it isn't really fair to say because she told Harry to follow him, and he inherited more than an Invisibility Cloak from his father.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
M has lived a long life …longer than most would guess at MI6, and Harry has been with her, seen and unseen by those worthy and unworthy operatives and agents, throughout most of it. So he sees Raoul Silva's handy work here, in an empty island city that Severine – Silva's mistress, his seemingly rebellious slave – has brought them to, she's bait and James Bond has done more than bitten.
Harry has moments to make a choice – but, in the end, his loyalty is absolutely to M.
"Q here…" 007's Q trails off, finding that the number he took to be Bond's is actually someone else's.
"Who is this?" His lips twitch at the warning and wariness in the young man's voice. He hates that this might be goodbye. His agelessness does not mean he is immortal. It's only a possibility.
"Trace this, and come quickly - with everything. It's Harry, you fell off Teddy's broom when you were six and have been afraid to fly since, you thought I was disappointed in you so you followed your grandmother, but I've never been disappointed in you Q – now, be a good boy and tell your grandmother that Tiago Rodriguez is out for revenge and she needs to get MI6's head out of the dirt, you hear me?" Harry cradles the phone to his ear. He keeps his voice hushed. He isn't alone on this island, and he knows it – and now all of MI6 knows it too. It's a thought that is almost comforting.
"Uncle…" Q sounds worried, and Harry wonders at it. He thinks that Q has realized just where Harry and James Bond are. He probably has them up on computer screen that is the size of a wall, a map he can see in his mind's eye – a little green dot in a sea of red. The odds are that bad.
"Yes, Q..?" Harry had made sure that Q had a place in MI6, and M had never objected. Q was not so dense as to be obvious to that favor.
"Thank you, for not telling mother. Be careful." Harry's lips twitch although Q can't see, and he turns the phone off. Rose might never forgive him for giving Q – her eldest son with the Holmes name – what he has. Yet it's the right thing to have done, and Q has earned his place in MI6.
Harry isn't a part of MI6, not in any official way but what the supposed death of James Bond had done to M was very real – and Harry wouldn't go to her and tell M this time he had died – and Harry hadn't tried to save him. Harry keeps the Cloak about him, and he follows Bond.
They have him tied to a chair in the middle of a room that isn't simply a room, it is possibly the cleanest room on the island and for good reason – it's the brain room, the nervous system, where all the computers are. It isn't a good sign for James Bond that he's here – it means this is about control, how James had lost it – and Silva has it. Harry sees that, and sees Raoul Silva come out of the elevator that lowers down, as he walks toward where Bond sits tied to the chair, he tells a little story – the story of who Raoul Silva once was. Harry knows he wasn't wrong about who this man had once been to M - and…and to him – it hurts to see him.
"Hello, James. Welcome. Do you like the island? My grandmother had an island. Nothing to boast of. You could walk around it in an hour, but still it was, it was a paradise for us. One summer, we went for a visit and discovered the place had been infested with rats. They'd come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island? Hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait and the rats would come for the coconut and... boing, boing, boing…they would fall into the drum. And after a month, you have trapped all the rats, but what do you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it and they begin to get hungry. And one by one..." Raoul Silva acts as if he's munching on something, be it bones or rats. Harry wonders which Silva would rather do – and whose bones, whose rats.
"They start eating each other until there are only two left. The two survivors. And then what? Do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees, but now they don't eat coconut anymore. Now, they only eat rat. You have changed their nature. The two survivors. This is what she made us." Raoul gestures between them, and Harry can't help but tensing. Yet the Cloak hides him, and if all goes well Harry won't have to face Silva today. Harry doesn't know what he would do, it hurts to see him like this, but it's still good to see Death hasn't laid claim to him – and that gives Harry a cruel sense of hope for Silva.
"I made my own choices." Bond seems content at what he says. Harry wishes it was that simple, that sure of a thing. In the end is never is. Life isn't that black and white. All you can do in the end is good, and hope it is greater to do something than nothing.
"You think you did. That's her genius." Hearing that word, genius, from Silva's lips Harry knows it isn't meant to be a compliment to M. Yet that one word has defined Harry's oldest and dearest friend since their school days. She's his rock, and it's funny – but between them, she's the one that hasn't changed, for all that Harry's the one that hasn't aged a day.
"Station H. Am I right? Hong Kong?" Harry is glad he's not the only one who knows who Silva is, and how dangerous he is to M. James Bond must now suspect it. There is little that being a 00 Agent will stop him from finding out – and everything between Silva and M and Harry, it started at MI6.
"Um-hmm. '86 to '97. Back then, I was her favorite. And you're not nearly the agent I was, I can tell you that." Silva chuckles, and while Bond's face remains impassive, it's a truth that James can't just shake off. Harry sees that, and so does Silva as he digs into it.
"Just look at you, barely held together by your pills and your drink." He chuckles, soft and condescending. That half sound of amusement – meant to be hurtful or not, it makes Harry ache in ways he hasn't since the last time he saw Raoul Silva.
"Don't forget my pathetic love of country." Bond reminds himself – and Silva, because it's something Silva can't take. It makes Bond who he is, that he loves – and Silva, he laughs at it, in the face of Bond's faith that he would die for and sacrifice for until the end is done. It hurts Harry, but Bond shows not a sign of worry.
"You're still clinging to your faith in that old woman. When all she does is lie to you." Silva, with his smile, shows he knows something Harry knows he should not.
"She never lied to me." James sees it to, and it costs him nothing to go along with this – with a conversation Raoul Silva wants to have with James Bond, but Harry can't count that cost against Bond. To find out just how much Raoul Silva does and does not know, it's worth a high price. Everyone, it's said, has a price.
"No?" Silva pauses, with a relish, he wants to prove James wrong, wants to just see him to burn bridges. Raoul Silva is not that simple, and Harry knows it, knows it as well as he knows why he gave Raoul Silva the name he now uses. Raoul is no rat, he once reminded Harry of a wolf, and the name Raoul mean's wolf council – and the last name, Silva, it had meant woods – wild. It suited him too well now, a name that had meant something good to Harry – it had been twisted into something vile.
"No." James says, sounding sure.
"What do you score in your marksmanship evaluation?" Silva asks softly, always so soft and cautious, but he's like a snake that dances beautifully before it strikes.
"Seventy" Silva laughs, as if James told him a good joke.
"Forty. Did she tell you the psychologist cleared you for duty?" Harry's fingers tighten into fists; now he knows - MI6's security has failed utterly. There is something wrong in Q Division, and that's where M's grandson is. Harry's furious. No one should know all about 007's personal file but M. Yet here stands Silva, smiling and soft spoken, friendly as if he cares that James Bond is tied to this chair like it's a mistake.
"Yes" James admits, and it's painful to watch, how Silva shakes his head – barely noticeable, but sure of himself.
"No. No." Silva can't see Harry, but he goes to his desk, and Harry has been around M long enough to recognize the sound of codes – codes that Raoul Silva shouldn't have.
Harry sees it though, staring over Raoul's shoulder. He wishes he dared show himself – but if Silva wants to talk, it's time that Harry will take – if it counts against Raoul, it's time gotten cheap. He tells himself it doesn't matter what Raoul says.
"Medical evaluation; fail. Physical evaluation; fail. Psychological evaluation; alcohol and substance addiction indicated. Oof! Pathological rejection of authority based on unresolved childhood trauma." Raoul Silva reads it all out slowly, and looks to Bond's impassive face before continuing.
"Subject is not approved for field duty and immediate suspension from service advised." Silva stands and Harry isn't watching – he's looking down at the computer, knowing the information on it is true, so far as that goes. Is it simply hacking? If not, how – if MI6 has holes with Silva's rats going through it, and Harry hasn't seen – he'll blame himself for the damage done in the end.
"What is this if not betrayal? She sent you after me, knowing you're not ready, knowing you would likely die." Harry looks to Silva, as he walks toward Bond, and Raoul Silva sits down in front of James, looking at him eye to eye.
"Mommy was very bad." Raoul Silva declares this, as if telling his favorite friend a secret.
Harry's wand is in his hand as Raoul unbuttons James's shirt, Silva peels it back as if unwrapping something frail, and there is the scar where Bond took out a bullet that M allowed to hit him. Ordered it, even as it hurt M's heart to do it- like it hurts Harry to see Raoul, once his wolf – now calling himself a rat that eats rats.
"Ooh. See what she's done to you." Silva keeps his eyes upon Bond, and James is finally tensing up at his touch, suspicious.
"Well, she never tied me to a chair." Raoul meets Bond's dark blue eyes, his own eyes burn something wicked flicking in their depths, power that twists to be playful, but it will hurt. Not that the both of them haven't been hurt worse to get here. What is one more hurt atop that?
"Her loss." Raoul Silva touches James's neck, barely there caressing.
"Are you sure this is about M?" James smiles, slight and mocking – yet nervous. He's in Silva's power, helpless and a prisoner. This could go very badly for him if it goes as Raoul Silva leads. Harry will never let Raoul have Bond like that; no matter how much more time it gives them.
"It's about her... and you, and me. You see, we are the last two rats. We can either eat each other... mmm... or eat everyone else." Bond struggles to remain impassive, unmoved, regaining his coldness at Silva's bold strokes upon the skin of his neck.
"How you're trying to remember your training now." Silva's smile is full of teasing, taunting James.
"What's the regulation to cope with this?" Raoul Silva's hands run upon Bond's thighs, freely. There's not a thing James Bond can do to stop him, to stop this. And James knows it. Nothing he can do – no – but say? It's a chance. Upon it, Harry hopes.
"Well, first time for everything. Yes?" Raoul leers, and that's when Bond smiles, knowing Silva wants him to be nervous, and that's one thing he won't give the other man, that power of firsts.
Silva tilts his head, stilling at the sight of that smile, that flicker of power Bond keeps for himself. It encourages Bond that he's given Raoul pause – so he says it, what he hopes will break this cycle of giving and taking power. They're both hunting for it.
"Hm. What makes you think this is my first time?" James Bond asks, and on his face is full of the painful truth of facts of firsts.
"Oh, Mr Bond." Silva sits back, something like a shadow of sympathy in his eyes. A bond that Harry can not – no – will not allow. His wand is at the base of Silva's neck, where the spine cradles skull, he presses hard into it, warningly. Raoul Silva goes very still at that hurt, it's familiar, Silva sighs, eyes fluttering closed.
Harry lets the Invisibility Cloak fall away from him, as the silver cloth falls about him, until he's out of it, holding it upon one arm, and he looks to Silva's men whose guns are on him at once.
Raoul Silva opens his wolfish eyes, and looks at Harry, drinking in the sight with a smile.
"Ah, Mr. Potter, how very good to see you." Harry smiles at Bond over Silva's head, it's grim. He can't imagine what James Bond thinks of him, a slender youth dressed in faded blue jeans and a black hoodie, a stick in his hand and a gun poking out of his pockets.
"Mommy's favorite, aren't you? And look at you! You haven't aged a day. Have a guess Bond, would you think this is Mommy's schoolyard friend?" Harry shrugs, as if it's nothing. Raoul Silva reaches back and touches his hand, finger tips lightly brushing Harry's grip on his wand, and his smile is faint.
"We share something James, this man – and me, and you too – his son's name is James, and that's what my name is, isn't it Harry? Say it, say my name." He purrs those words, quiet as if they are all three in bed together and Silva has all the power. Harry keeps his hand steady with a effort, he wants to shiver, wants to shake himself out of Silva's grip.
"Let him loose." Harry demands it, not flinching from Silva's touch or words. They are true.
Raoul Silva isn't a wizard, but he knows that Harry is – behind his predatory gaze his thoughts forces themselves in, over and over; do you know who my Severine is? Harry had had a glimpse of her, but Silva forces him to see it – Severine is his, his daughter, stolen from him, bits and pieces of Harry, seed and skin – what makes Harry who he is, is in her. Raoul Silva has his daughter and is going to kill her, if Harry resists.
Harry goes still, seeing how Raoul will do it – kill his daughter, maybe make James do it - mocking and soothing all at once, Silva pats his still hands.
"My dear, of course I will." Silva nods his agreement to his men, who untie James's hands. Raoul has always kept his word, once given. He's always done as he thought he would. Harry sees his daughter dying and the only thing that he can do to keep it from happening, Silva's thoughts hound him – his do nothing. James steps away from them, Silva and Silva's handful of men keeping Harry in sight – he expects Harry to go to his side, but Harry stays at Silva's back. He's caught, and Raoul's hands are soft.
"Harry?" James looks at him, and Raoul Silva leers – he knows what James is wondering. His fingers thread through Harry's own, pushing the wand tip deeper into the tender skin of his neck, making it ache. Silva groans as he once did as if Harry is doing something very dirty. Harry's expression shutters, closing down, and it's a better mask than Bond could hope for.
Only his green eyes are screaming. James can see them – but Silva can't, and something is horribly wrong.
"Isn't he lovely, James? He was mine, my first, when I was younger and M's favorite. I knew M would have him follow you, as he once followed me. Now he's giving himself to me to let you go, isn't that…hmm, kind? Was he yours too, Bond? Say thank you James Bond, and tell Mommy if she let's me keep him – all debts are paid in full. Isn't that right, Harry Potter?" This, 007 realizes with a gut twisting touch of horror was a part of Raoul Silva plan from the start - to have this boy. Silva's fingers pry the stick from Harry's hands, and he brings one of those hands to his lips, pressing kisses those soft looking palms. Harry doesn't protest it.
"Let me show you something." Raoul Silva stands, and keeps Harry's hand in his own, he walks away –and Harry, Harry doesn't look back, doesn't resist, and James is sick at the sight of it. James follows them, pausing only long enough to at a whim pick up that stick that Harry had threatened Silva with - and he sees her, Severine is tied to a statue with blood at the corner of her mouth. She's frightened.
All too soon it becomes clear what Raoul Silva means to do, target practice – and it is either hit Severine's head or the scotch glass- or, or maybe the statue. James Bond sees the grip that Silva has on Harry - and he thinks he knows who the next target will be. James could hit the glass, but he wants to try to prolong this, to save Harry, who is a comrade – not bait for a trap, and James is trapped here, Raoul's maze of a island, where he is master …whatever this is, if it's the reward or the punishment, James will soon find out by not playing – he hits the statue, and Raoul Silva makes the shot that takes her head.
Harry stares at her, unmoving, but not unmoved.
If Harry won't act to save his own skin – the same can't – won't be said of James Bond, he hits the guard behind him- a elbow to the belly that makes him stagger back, James gets a good grip on the gun at his side - takes his gun and shoots the others proving his aim is good as M's word. What's on records isn't always true. James Bond points at Silva, who has held onto Harry throughout, and James just wants him to let Harry go – to get Harry away, because Silva is poison - but Harry doesn't seem to care. James knows what kind of sign that is, and that he has to get Harry face to face with M. There's history between these two that makes Harry hesitate, and that's the most deadly thing Silva could do to him in a situation like this.
"What are you doing to do now? Take me back to her? All on your own?" Raoul Silva's grin is mocking, as he backs away from Bond and toward Severine's slumped body. Harry stares at her, and James thinks that Harry looks as if he knows her and is hurting for it.
"Who says I'm on my own?" Bond can't help his smile as Silva looks upward, and there they are – MI6 in force, three helicopters like hawks hunting that little signal from the radio transmitter Q had given him and Bond had used.
"The latest thing from Q branch, called a radio." It's mocking, and Silva takes from Harry's pockets a cell phone, and throws it to James's feet.
"Ask your Q who she was – who Harry Potter is." Silva kisses the backs of Harry's hands, and his cheeks, and finally slumps to the ground shot with tranquilizers. James goes to Harry's side, touches those cheeks and looks him in the eye. M isn't here, but Harry isn't alone and he needs to know that James Bond was here too.
"Who was Severine?" For the first time it strikes James, how alike the eyes of Harry and Severine were.
"My other sons name is Albus Severus. Severine is…was my daughter, I didn't know what he took." Until it was too late, Harry doesn't have to say. James rests his brow against Harry's own, knowing he is in pain – but not knowing how to help him.
"She asked me to kill him, and I will Harry. He'll pay, and pay dearly." It's a promise, and James Bond keeps his.
"Aren't you going to ask who I am?" Harry asks him, sometime later, his voice barely audible over the blades of the helicopter; James has kept Harry at his side. Silva is in his own 'copter, and James hopes he enjoys it there, surrounded by people who won't let him wake. Silva is a rat to be put in a cage and rot. M will see to it.
"Why? I know who you are, Harry." There isn't anything in this that Q can tell him that James doesn't already know.
"Who's that?" Harry asks, sarcastic and bitter.
"A good man." James Bond's word is final upon it, and there is no argument from Harry, only thoughtful silence – and James can live with that.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
"Harry, damn good to see you." Bill Tanner greets them at M's door, and Harry looks to it – a door of wood and metal, normal but not, something like longing is in his eyes. James Bond stands at his side and it doesn't look as if he'll be leaving it.
"Is she in?" Tanner nods, for it was the first thing he learnt as MI6 Chief of Staff, that whenever he wanted Harry was to be able to walk in M's office. Hardly proper policy, but Tanner had noticed how long Harry had looked the same – he's been working with M for years before Tanner got to his position, and likely long after. It's odd, but sometimes it's best not to ask questions.
"Tanner, I want you with Q Branch, keep an eye on it. M and I have an interest in the people in it." Tanner is perhaps the one person in all of MI6 that knows 007's Q and M are related, and it doesn't surprise Tanner to know that Harry knows. Perhaps he is a friend of M's family, but Tanner opens M's door for Harry and James to go through – and he goes to see to Q Division. Put out of the way, perhaps. He's not ungrateful for it, the way that M's been fretting.
"He wants to see you, Mione." Harry says blandly, once M's eyes are on him.
"I'm sure he does. He will wait on my pleasure. I'm sorry for what he did Harry. The body of…of the girl, it will be buried with all due respect as is proper. We did not know her, but she was one of yours…one of ours." Harry nods at what M says, as if it's only what is owed to him. Somewhere out there in the world Harry has a family, a son named Severus and another named James. Bond wonders where they are, why they aren't here where Harry needs them – why he only has M.
"Be sure, Mione, be very sure that Tiago Rodriguez does not have a son." M rises and puts both her hands upon her dearest friend's shoulders.
"Seeing into the mind of madmen, Harry, my dear, you should have not have risked yourself so. I would not ask it of you, ever." M's words are steady, but James Bond knows it was her who sent Harry after him. To save him, if he needed it – James blames himself partly for needing Harry to act – but mostly he finds he blames M.
She is the Minister of Intelligence – she should have known Raoul Silva was out there, if anyone could have found out – she didn't know. It's her job to know. M knows she's made a mess of it – but she'll not apologize, she'll fix it. It's all she can offer Harry. Harry kisses her brow – and for the first time, James notices there is a scar on Harry's own brow, a jagged and zigzagging line, like lightning.
"Go do your job, M. I can't fix him." M looks to the stick in James's hands, he hasn't let it go since Harry had dropped it. Harry hasn't asked for it back, but James Bond can't shake the feeling that it's very important to him.
"Nor should you have anything more to do with him. I will ensure it. My dear, would you accompany me into a nest of rats? A court of inquiry has formed against me. I know no one else I would rather have beside me in such a maze." Harry touches her hands bringing them gently down from his shoulders and kisses each in turn. Raoul might have been Harry's lover, James sees – but M has a part of him, his heart, love, loyalty, that ties him tightly to her.
Whatever Raoul Silva had done to Harry, M has fixed it, just by being who she is. It's just as tightly as James Bond is tied to her, for love of country; his need to do something to protect and preserve the good that government does, can do – only, Harry has known M longer. In Harry, James can see what his future might be – and it is not all bad to think upon, a life of serving her.
"You need never ask, I would follow you into any battle, be it upon the field or into court." Harry's green eyes gleam, like jewels and it is good to see him come to life like that. These two old friends have given James something to think upon – and as M gives him a look, as if she knows it – and approves of his thinking. She has always wanted her agents to think on the field, to have their own feet to run or walk by, choices that she might predict, but does not take.
James Bond follows her to see a rat, and neither suggests that Harry follow – he's done enough for the both of them today. Yet the day is not over and not yet won.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
M has something to say at her tribunal, and Harry signals it to Mallory, who isn't averse to hearing what she might finally say for herself when so many have spoken against her and her ways, and says so to the ministers. Harry looks to M, and knows that Silva is on his way.
M long ago gave up her wand, for there are those witches and wizards who let their will overcome their minds with magic – and Mione has never been one to loose her reasoning. Harry fears he's more of the willful sort. Yet here in the midst of muggles, he can not turn to magic – and M, she knows it, and stands to speak against her tribunal and does it beautifully.
"Chairman, ministers. Today I've repeatedly heard how irrelevant my department has become. Why do we need agents, the double o section? Isn't it all rather quaint? Well, I suppose I see a different world than you do. And the truth is that what I see frightens me. I'm frightened because our enemies are no longer known to us. They do not exist on the map, they are not nations, they are individuals. Look around you, who do you fear? Can you see a face, a uniform, a flag? No." M looks at Mallory, and he isn't shaken by her look. It's something Harry likes about him.
"Our world is not more transparent now. It's more opaque. It's in the shadows. That's where we must do battle. So, before you declare us irrelevant, ask yourselves. How safe do you feel?" M is a witch, and Harry is a wizard, it is in them to be sensitive to emotion – and here, in this court, where mankind is supposed to be at their best and most civilized, at the heart of reason – there is an undercurrent of fear. None of these people know where to tread and not misstep.
"Just one more thing to say. My late husband was a great lover of poetry. And um...I suppose some of it sunk in, despite my best intentions. And here today I remember this.
I think, from Tennyson." M's eyes flick to Harry, and Harry knows this is what Ron saw and loved in Hermione Granger so long ago – something Ron saw first, and Harry missed. They all loved each other, in their own ways.
"We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven. That which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." All hell breaks loose, the doors that had been shut forced to open – and Roaul Silva, the wild wolf, he is here – but so is Harry, and he won't let Silva have the life Ron's wife, M stares at Silva, for the moment neither moves – but Harry does not hesitate this time.
His spell is wordless, all will and wildness, protect.
Harry takes M to the floor, his weight pressing her down, heavy.
"Harry, Harry – are you hit?" M demands, but Harry hasn't the time to answer her – his magic threads throughout the room like a web, and he senses James Bond enter at Silva's back as shots ring out, Harry shakes his head, shaking away the sound of shooting – there is a hiss as fire extinguishers fill the air, letting loose a fog like smoke. It's an escape, and it's one that Harry will make M take.
"Harry, damn you – answer me." Harry spots a car, and knows it for MI6, safe. He opens the door for her, and M, knowing Harry's habits, allows it, entering without any fear.
"Hurry, get in Harry." It's James Bond, and Harry stills in statement, but M scoots over and he obeys her wordless command.
"007, what the hell are we doing? You kidnapping me?" M demands, her hand holding onto Harry's arm, her grip firm, she looks him over, but the thing about youth is what it hides. Her hand comes away bloody and she pales at the sight of it, eyes flicking to James's in the rearview mirror.
"That would be one way of looking at it." James admits, not seeing Harry's blood on her hands. Harry looks at her, settling into the back seat. It won't be comfortable, but Harry trusts James and that's plain for M to see, if Harry can rest in this circumstance – it speaks highly of James, praise unspoken, but plain as the blood on her hands.
"Too many people are dying because of me." M admits it, and knows it's the last thing Harry will hear her say as he slumps, eyes shutting. She holds tightly to his hand, and hopes he can heal this – his blood is a mix of Phoenix tears and Basilisk venom, and Death would take Harry gently, not make him suffer.
M will go along with James, for Harry's sake. He needs time, and it's time that Bond is buying them.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
"We must stop." M tells James, and there is no arguing with her, such is the finality in her tone - so he does. It's at an old church, not far from Skyfall Lodge, and its here that his past – his parents, are buried. M shakes Harry awake, and he comes aware in bits and pieces.
"Mione? What is it?" James Bond notices for the first time that Harry isn't well, and curses M silently, she didn't say anything this whole time – and Harry clearly isn't himself. James can't being to guess what damage Silva might have done to him, and M isn't about to let him near Harry.
"My dear, I can't risk you being near me. We will not be far from you, you see that house ahead? That is where we will be, but I do not think it will stand long against Silva. I must have you here, nearby; can you do this for me?" M holds Harry's face in her hands, holding onto him as if he's breakable. Harry looks to James, and there's heaviness to his look – but James meets it. He'll earn Harry's trust yet, James has faith in that much.
"What choice do I have?" Harry asks of M – of James, and it's no choice at all.
"There is a tunnel from the house that opens near here. Keep it clear for us, if we have need of escape, we will come here." James Bond tells him, so Harry will know he's not being abandoned – even if M would wish Harry utterly out of the way, James wouldn't do that to him. At his words, M narrows her eyes – but Harry nods thoughtfully.
"No fear Mione, I'll stay where you put me like a good chess piece." Harry's smile is rueful, and a smile flicker over M's lips and James knows there is a story there.
"My bishop…" M presses a kiss to Harry's scar, and opens the car door, leading him out – and James Bond gets out of the car, watching as M takes care of him. He opens the church for them, but does not follow them within; instead he walks back to the car and waits. He can be patient, and it's worth having, anything that is worth waiting for. This view reminds him of that.
It's a view that can take anyone back in time; ages ago it all must have looked very like this; rolling hills and foggy days. Maybe, just maybe, James Bond will get to know them yet, as well as he knows himself – he hopes.
"Let's go." M orders, and James obeys as is becoming habit – he has to wonder who the really kidnapper really is - and who is the kidnapped.
James Bond watches the rear-view mirror, but he doesn't see Harry Potter watching them go.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
Harry hurts, and he knows he ought to get up and move, least he sleep and be useless as M and James want him to be, tucked away laying prostrate on a church pew - but he can't help himself in healing a hurt – he sleeps, and dreams of hurts worse than getting shot.
He dreams of Ginny, and how she'd gone away and taken their children with her, because she couldn't stand anymore to see how the children aged with her – and not him. Better he be alone than ageless beside her. Ron and Hermione had never agreed with that. Harry had been lucky to have them, in the end, he might have saved the world from a Dark Lord – but Ron and Hermione, they had saved him.
Harry struggles awake with an explosion ringing in his ears, for a moment he thinks it's another bad dream until he sees the house on fire, and he reaches within him and knows Hermione is alive – and Q and his brothers – and his children Al, James, and Lily –Rose and Hugo – Teddy and Victoire and her mother Fleur and sister Dominique and brother Louis - Scorpius and Roxanne, married George's daughter and Draco's son – he'd never thought they'd make such a pair as that, her brother Fred, her father and father-in-law both alright – Percy's girls, Molly and Lucy, all are whole and healthy- if not happy, not hurting as he is.
Harry felt for them each, tears or relief blurring his eyes as he watched the house burn, and he hurt but he was alive yet.
He'd felt for them, and they had felt him in turn. Harry broke the connection, brief as it was, and knew them all to be alarmed and worried for him – and Hermione. It would not take them long – wizards and witches, all his blood and bonded to the family by blood of kin or marriage; not long at all to find him.
Harry sees a smile flicker on his face on the refection of the window.
'A family reunion, won't M be surprised?' Harry muses, and takes the wand that James had given M on the car ride here. In his hands, it glows bright, pulses, and wordlessly, wards are born, threads of light twisting out of sight until Harry knows they make the church look bright as daylight.
"Father?" Lily, his Lilu is at his side, looking out at the burning house and the night full of danger. She and James are Auror's through and through. Just like Harry had been, before M went to the muggle side of things for the sake of the magical world – and Harry had followed her.
"She's out there Lilu, go find her?" Lilu meets his green eyes with her brown, and nods, solemn and sure. She knows who he means without it being said. She's gone as his breath comes out, fogging the window - and her brothers are there – Al and James, Al touches his back, gently and Harry feels warmth there, bringing a faster healing than sleep could give him.
"Who's done this to you, Da?" James Potter, vengeance thick in his voice.
"He's out there Jimmy, with your sister – and Hermione, he's hunting her." Harry allows, and James smile is full of satisfaction. Their eyes meet in the window, and Harry lets James see Roaul Silva, as he had let Lilu into the eye of his memory.
"Not for long." It's a promise his oldest gives him, and is gone. Harry let's Al take part of his weight.
"Harry?" It's Teddy, at his other side, taking his wand and sharing his strength as he takes part of Harry's weight as well. His godson flicks a smile over his shoulder and knows Victoire stands at Teddy's side, Dominique and Louis all three are as lovely as they are dangerous, the one thing you never hurt is a Veela's kin, and the blood of a mate is kin. Fleur kisses his cheek, bidding him health.
"Go on than." Harry tells the four of them, and Victoire bows her head in a vow as good as her name. She takes her siblings with her, they go, quick as if they have wings – and perhaps they do. Fleur waits only until Gabrielle is at her side and they follow Fleur's children too swiftly for Harry to follow the sight. It's a pleasing thought, Silva's rats being plucked up by Veela who circle like hawks in the sky.
"Uncle Harry…" Roxanne with Scorpius at her side, he hears her – and Scorpius tsking, because like Al he's a healer – and he knows that Harry had been trying to force his healing quicker by sleeping, and while Al won't scold him – Scorpius is as bold as Draco.
George and Draco and Fred appear in-between what Harry thinks is one blink and another, but he heard more pops of displaced air than could be in a simple single blink, and Harry thinks that Al and Scorpius are working to put him into a true healing sleep, because he's loosing moments.
"Let me take the wards." Teddy begs, and because it's his godson, Harry does it – trusting Teddy to do it right.
Molly with her hair up in a bun, and Lucy with hers in loose curls, they step into sight and Harry couldn't say when they had come. They both look like Percy at his sternest and most worried. They hold what office Hermione had had before she left the magical world, and do it very well.
"Mother!" Rose says, and Harry sees Hugo with Rose's other boys; Q looks up from where he's gotten near Harry, flinching at the sight of his mother and grandmother finally together and in one room as if it's unholy – even if it's happening in a church. Harry can't help laughing a little, even as Scorpius and Al toss each other worried looks over it.
"Ah, you're all here? Very good. I trust everything is in order?" Hermione greets them one and all, George gives her a small knowing smile. Draco only smirks a little. Fleur comes in, her fingers bloody, the blood isn't hers and she looks like she barely notices it being there.
"We got him Da." James announces, proud and at the side of Lilu, Raoul Silva held between the two of them. An old man that Harry hasn't seen before, but who feels as if he belongs, he comes in at their heels.
"Hmm. Now what do we do with him?" Teddy murmurs his face a play of shadow and light as he holds the wards that act as a beacon. All their family isn't here, of course, but with the magic Harry put into those wards – and Teddy keeping them alight – he could call them all. Fleur licks the blood from her fingers, and eyes Raoul as if she's hungry.
"What indeed." James Bond looks to the old man, and to M – and last to Harry. He isn't blind to the family gathering he's walked into and Q among the thick of them as if he belongs. Most of them wear robes, and most have a crest like that of Rose Holmes upon their person. All of them have sticks, and Bond isn't blind to what his eyes tell him, or that he could perhaps too easily be made to forget this. He wonders if he has forgotten moments of this like before.
"His name was upon a hero's monument, I think a condemnation of memory is in order." M says, simply. James Bond thinks that's the least he deserves – he remembers Severine, how she was like Harry, and how she was not. He can't guess to who her mother might have been. If she's still alive, only Raoul Silva would know.
"Mommy…?" Silva protests, startled and wide eyed.
"She's not your mother!" Rose hisses at him and Hugo sneers as he stands at his sister's side, her sons all look murderous.
"As you wish, Mione." Teddy Lupin smiles, for once his grandmother Andromeda had had her name blasted off the Black family tree – it is with relish that he'd seen his godfather Harry had put back her name – and that of Sirius and Phineas upon the black tree. Teddy gives up the Elder Wand to Hermione, the wards flicker; as long as they are kept there will be no one who can harm another by muggle means. It's with a flick of Harry's wand, the Deathstick that M speaks a spell that can't be writ and won't be undone.
"Damnatio memoriae!" Raoul Silva cries out in protest, as a bolt of black hits, like a shadow striking - for no one will ever know his true name – no one but M, and she'll take it to her grave.
"It's done. Girls," Hermione looks to her nieces, Molly and Lucy, who look down upon Silva without mercy, "take him to Bedlam, not Belmarsh." Lucy nods her head as Molly puts her red painted finger nails upon Silva's shoulder and digs them in, ever so slightly and painfully.
"But of course, Aunt." Lucy's smile is anything but kind. They go all three together, between one breath and the next.
"Bedlam?" James Bond asks, because he's sensing that this is the only time he can ask.
"It's attached to Bethlem Royal Hospital, for our kind, founded before the muggles got there." M states, eyeing the wand in her hand thoughtfully.
"Will I forget all this?" James Bond looks to Kincade at his side, and he wonders at the old man, who is not surprised to see wands being waved about – but has gone quiet at the sight of their family crests, he recognizes them, is awed into that silence. It's a revered and honored air, the way the old aristocrats commanded without trying.
"Oh, I don't know…bits and pieces I think, spells are funny, but it's high time I retire from being Minister at MI6." Rose looks as if she's won something. M only looks thoughtfully to Harry, whose eyes are half closed as he struggles in the grip of hurt and healing between Scorpius and Al. They are slowly winning against his will. James meets those green eyes and doesn't doubt he'll remember them – remember him.
"I think I'd rather be Headmaster of Hogwarts, my old alma mater." M's smile is sort of wicked, and Rose's younger sons – not yet old enough to be out of that schooling - share dismayed looks, Hugo stifles a laugh at the sight. Rose looks a little sour at that, undoubtedly she would rather have her mother in her care.
"Harry, do you not think you would make a wonderful Professor? Something like Potions or D.A.? Or, oh, something new, hmm?" M taps her chin with the Elder Wand's tip, a wicked light dancing in her eyes at all the new possibilities. It's good to see, like she's…happy, for the first time in a long time.
"I am sorry, James Bond. It must be this way.Obliviate." James looks into her eyes, and sees only what she wants him to see, and remember of this night.
"I did get one thing right." It's the last true thing he remembers her telling to him.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
"Morning, 007." Bill Tanner greets James, with a small smile, and with that smile Bond knows things will go on without her. The world will keep turning, one day at a time.
"Good morning, Tanner." James Bond agrees, with a smile of his own.
"He'll see you now." Bond nods toward Eve, and walks toward the adjoining office, closing a familiar door.
"How's the arm, sir?" Green eyes meet his, and Harry doesn't answer, he only shrugs stiffly. Gareth Mallory is at M's desk, now his - looking at James Bond as if he doesn't know where to start. There is a lot of paperwork on that desk, more – Bond thinks, than was ever on hers. Harry clears his throat, and Mallory gives him a grateful look.
"So, -O Zero… Lots to be done." James Bond looks to Harry, and remembers her words about the best agents being orphans. He's always wondered who Harry is – and now he has this chance to find out – he won't waste it. It looks like he'll have the time to find out, finally.
"Are you ready to get back to work?" Mallory asks, letting James Bond see a file that Q's eyes haven't seen. It only reads 007, Top Secret upon it but James knows what's in it – clues, bits and pieces of a puzzle that will fit two worlds back together, putting them properly side by side – with his help – that of Harry Potter, the first 00, the only one ever called Zero. Wizard.
"With pleasure, M. With pleasure." James touches that file, his eyes meeting those of Harry, and he smiles, small and intimate.