AN: Hello! It's been a while since the last chapter as none of us could decide what to write. However, we have FINALLY finished. Please review and let us know if you have any ideas for future chapters or pairings in mind or if we can fix any mistakes.

Disclaimer: Anything recognisable belongs to J.K Rowling.

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DavidoDaVinci

Chapter 4: The First Mission

The next day, Harry woke up to the sound of screaming.

He groaned. This could only mean one thing. Voldemort was torturing someone again. Harry didn't like the torturing part of 'gathering information' but his father relished in it.

He leapt out of bed, slipped himself into dark green robes and gave his hair a quick brush before pulling his hood up so his face was hidden and running out of his rooms, towards the noise.

When he got to the meeting room in the west wing of the manor, he opened the doors and barged in, wincing slightly at the sight of a Death Eater he recognised lying on the floor screaming for mercy. It was Antonin Dolohov.

Harry marched towards his father who was sitting in a high-backed chair at the head of the table, ignoring the other Death Eaters' presence. He was glaring down at the figure on the floor with distaste but looked up in surprise when Harry stormed in.

"What's going on, Father? It's impossible to sleep with this noise."

Lord Voldemort managed to adopt a slightly guilty look. But the glint in his crimson eyes gave away that he was still very angry.

"Sorry, Harry. This imbecile has just brought me bad news."

"Maybe people should stop updating you," Harry yawned.

Voldemort frowned. "Maybe…"

"Maybe? Maybe what? You're not seriously conside-"

"No, no. It's just…"

Harry noted that Voldemort had stopped torturing Dolohov.

Noticing where Harry was looking, Voldemort glanced over at the Death Eater on the ground.

"What if… instead of… it was… and then…? Ahhh… yes."

Voldemort smiled, staring off into space. Harry glared half-heartedly at his father.

"You're making no sense." He snapped.

Silence filled the room.

"Okay, what's the bad news then?"

Voldemort turned to Harry, a strange look on his face.

"Well, Dolohov here was sent to kill someone from the ministry."

Harry nodded.

"He failed."

Dolohov whimpered slightly. Both Harry and Voldemort pretended not to notice.

"If I may," Harry began, "Who was this and why do you want them to be killed?"

"His name is Julius Smith. He works in the Department of Mysteries. Muggle born."

Harry nodded again.

"Unfortunately, this muggle born is quite smart."

Harry thought of Hermione at that.

"And…" Voldemort remembered his Death Eaters were there. "You may leave."

They sped out.

"He found out about my horcruxes."

Another pause.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because, Harry, if the crackpot old fool found out about the horcruxes, who's to say he won't find out about you? And your history…"

Harry nodded. "Right."

"And, Harry, Dolohov failed to kill him. It was a foolish move of mine. If Dolohov did, indeed, fail, Smith would know for certain that he was right. So it's going to be more difficult to kill him. And if one of my inner circle could not take him out before…"

"They certainly won't be able to now." Harry finished.

"So I need someone better. Someone with more training. Someone more reliable,"

"Someone," Harry understood now. "Like me."

This time, it was Voldemort who nodded.

...

The hunt was on.

As Harry apparated (Strong dark magic allowed him to) into a muggle street, he looked around at the houses. They were all nearly identical. Harry would not have been able to tell which was the House of Julius Smith, had he not been told he lived at number thirteen.

Harry had never much liked the number thirteen.

The thing was, the wizard idea that the number was jinxed was complete and utter garbage. It was true that the number seven was the most magically strong, and that thirteen was the least. But, besides it being perhaps slightly more difficult to do magic in the thirteenth house than in the twelfth, there was no harm in the number at all. He realised that he might be giving the opposite idea to the man he was about to kill. Of course, number thirteen was not actually where Smith lived. This was just where his father had located him. Harry neither knew nor cared how he had figured it out.

Come to think of it, Harry wondered why he had chosen number thirteen. He supposed he would never find out that either.

As he walked towards the door, Harry found it was locked.

"Alohomora." The quiet whisper cut through the silence of the night.

It didn't work. Harry smiled. If the house was protected, someone magical was hiding inside. Someone being chased. Someone who knew a secret.

The thing about locking a door is that, as any particularly violent muggle will tell you, you can just kick it down. And Harry had had extensive muggle violence lessons.

The door broke open as he kicked it down.

The shattered pieces of wood opened into…

…nothing.

As Harry had expected, the hallway was completely barren. No Mudblood in sight. Harry began the search. He walked into the first room on his left and saw that it was the living room. He looked around. A sofa, an armchair, windows, a rug, even a muggle contraption known as a television… but nothing caught his attention immediately. It was only a moment later that he noticed the pictures on the window sill were moving.

Harry knew from years of experience that the hardest thing for a person to do was be subtle. All he had needed to do was not have the front door be impossible to unlock and to get rid of the pictures. For without those obvious clues, the house may have just passed as the house of a muggle on holiday.

He was definitely in the right place.

...

He knew this was it. He had known it from the time he heard the crash in the hallway. He knew that Lord Voldemort would try again and again to get him until he succeeded. The last time, it had been one of his Death Eaters, Antonin Dolohov, who he knew as the murderer of Fabian and Gideon Prewett. This time, it was a strange boy who couldn't be any older than thirteen, if his height was anything to go by.

Julius Smith was hiding in the dining room. He had transfigured himself into a chair. He had hoped no one would notice one extra at the dining table, but as the cloaked figure walked steadily towards where he was concealed, he was losing confidence.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" The mystery person called out in a sing-song tone. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "I know where you are".

The stranger pointed his wand at the transfigured chair and with a loud BANG, Julius Smith was sprawled on the floor. He looked up in time to see the flash of green light that hit him between the eyes before he dropped to the ground, dead.

The cloaked figure shivered slightly in the darkness of the house before apparating away.

...

As Harry walked away, he smiled to himself.

"Mission was a success," He muttered to nobody.

A few hundred miles away, Lord Voldemort heard, and was pleased.

Later Update from Davido: Hey guys. This chapter has been edited. As I was reading through, I noticed some things that bugged me. Chapter 21 coming soon.

25/5/24

DavidoDaVinci