So… it's been like 10 months… my bad. Hazbin Hotel is my new hyper fixation and it has taken over my life (but I don't trust myself to write fics for it, mostly cause I don't have the spare time or energy to focus on more WIPs at the moment – but that doesn't mean I don't spend all of my free time reading other peoples' fics so I can procrastinate from work & real life).
Anyway, enjoy. Unbeta'd – and I couldn't be bothered to read it through again trying to catch anymore errors, please forgive me.
Chapter 15:
Words: 4536
31 July 1996. Grimmauld Place.
A chorus of "Happy Birthday!"s rang through the room loudly enough to shake the chandelier and rattle the windows. Harry winced but resisted the urge to reach up and cover his ears. He appreciated that his family and friends (minus Tarrant) wanted to celebrate his 16th birthday in style, but if Harry was honest, he'd rather be tucked up in bed.
His head ached, a constant dull ache that potions weren't able to help with; it was like someone constantly knocking, knock, knocking behind his eyes but every time he blinks or rubbed at them to ease that annoying itch the pressure got worse and worse until he had no choice but to lie down in the dark. Migraines, the Healer at St Mungos had told his parents when they brought him in over a month ago – Sirius had found him passed out on the floor of Regulus' old room, and when Harry woke up all he could remember was that his head had hurt and blood had been dripping. The Healer assumed from his nose, and concluded that Harry now suffered from migraines, but Harry wasn't so sure. Did migraines make him exhausted all of the time, or cause nightmares, or make him feel like someone was staring at him from the darkness of his bedroom – hissing, always hissing, but Harry could never understand what they were staying – every time he closed his eyes? Harry was just glad this was happening over the summer holiday so it couldn't affect his OWLs or NEWTS. He had taken twice as long as normal to complete his summer homework, but thankfully his mum and godfather were teachers at Hogwarts and both had been willing to check over the finished work and confirm it was up to his usual standard (though Severus had cussed him out for being a dunderhead and wasting time unnecessarily).
Harry had asked Blaise and Theo if they had any idea of what kind of curses might cause his symptoms, because he couldn't think of anything. He didn't ask Draco – mainly because he was worried it would get back to the Dark Lord through Lucius, and he didn't want Voldemort to worry unnecessarily. He half thought it was Dolohov with another surprise "extra credit" assignment, cursing him surreptitiously and waiting until Harry either figured out the counter-curse or until he was unconscious and rotting away from the inside (again) to heal him. He had continued to have dates with Undersecretary Gaunt, low key, understated events like their date to the Hogs Head and the Three Broomsticks while Harry was at Hogwarts, except this time at little cafes in Diagon Alley. Entirely appropriate when courting an underage partner. But other than that, Harry hadn't seen Voldemort at all. He didn't drop by unannounced at Potter Manor, and when Harry was at Malfoy Manor they hardly spent more than 5 seconds together because the Dark Lord was always busy with his Death Eaters and Harry barely got a "hello" out before he was being shepherded out of the room fast enough to break the sound barrier. Harry had tried to ask Lucius and Severus if something was wrong (because the Death Eaters had not been called even half this much in such a short timeframe since Harry had been old enough to understand what a Dark Lord was). Neither would tell him anything but empty platitudes – don't worry, Harry; it's none of your concern; there's nothing wrong, everything is under control. Harry didn't believe a word of their poor attempts to brush him off, but he did believe that Voldemort didn't need anything else to worry about right now. So he kept his headaches to himself (as much as he could now that the Healer had given a formal, but incorrect, diagnosis) and he never told anyone – not even Elphaba – about the monster who watched him sleep.
Harry accepted the slice of cake that his father handed him, and resolved to put the monster out of his mind. It was his birthday. He was 16, almost an adult. His family were here, celebrating with him – for him – and he wasn't so rude as to ignore them to fixate on a shadowy figment of his imagination. They were just nightmares, Harry told himself firmly, as he shovelled cake into his mouth with all of the manners of Oliver Twist. Just nightmares, he repeated before taking a deep breath and willing himself to forget all about it. He could obsess later. Right now, he was going to focus on eating his weight in cake, and nothing else.
XXX
1 September 1996. Platform 9 and 3/4
Draco went through the barrier first, pushing his trolley ahead of himself with his eagle owl perched on the handle bar in between Draco's hands. The owl had been staring over Harry's shoulder the entirely journey from Malfoy Manor to the station and it was really freaking him out. Harry's parents had gone to St Mungos to collect Tarrant. Healer Wilkes had agreed earlier that morning to release Tarrant from her care and allow him to return to Hogwarts, but because he had missed so much time in the last academic year, Tarrant would need to repeat Fifth Year and take his OWLs in the following May. The Potters thought it might be better to break that to Tarrant in person, and bring him to Hogwarts directly after, in case he decided to (to put it as Theo had when Harry had told his friends at the station platform) lose his fucking shit on the train when his parents weren't present to control him. That meant that Harry had flooed over to Malfoy Manor that morning with his trunk and Elphaba, and Lucius was given the responsibility of bringing both his son and Harry to the train. Theo and Blaise had waited by the barrier wall, looking like little more than teenager hoodlums in expensive dresses (as the numerous Muggles who walked by and scowled at them thought their robes were). Lucius ushered them through the barrier one by one, Draco first, as Harry quickly caught his friends up on the "Tarrant situation", but he held Harry back until last with a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Do you remember what we talked about when you first found out you were the Dark Lord's mate?" Lucius asked in a urgent whisper.
Harry thought back, eyebrows winkling as he scrunched up his face. "You told me he is great and terrible and will do everything in his power to win me over" Harry said after a drawn out moment of silence. "That marriage is a game and we both have to put into the relationship to get anything out of it. That if I convinced him it would make me happy, I could influence him."
"I still believe every word I told you that night, Harry. You're a brilliant and clever boy Harry, you know undoubtedly that something has been keeping Him busy these last few months. I do not think we can hide it behind the tapestry much longer, and when it comes out, I need you to remember what I told you about Him. That what makes him happy would not necessarily make you happy but that he would make different choices if you convinced him to."
Harry swallowed. His throat felt suddenly dry, like he had been drinking sand through a large straw and sucked in more than he could fit in his oesophagus in one go without suffocating. It was like swimming in molasses, everything went soft around the edges, noise was dulled like his ears were blocked with honey, and his eyes burned – he blinked back the sticky tears, swallowed down the sand that lodged in his throat and asked softly, "has he… done something wrong?"
"It is what he has not done that is the problem. You'll see, and when you do, don't forget what we spoke about." Lucius gave him a push towards his trolley, and towards the barrier, and Harry allowed himself to be nudged forward in silence. He slipped through the barrier between Muggle King's Cross and the platform which housed the Hogwarts Express without saying another word, he shrugged off his friends' concerned questions and glances, and sat in silence for 8 hours all the way to Hogwarts. (1)
His thoughts were not so silent however, but despite how fast his mind raced, or his brain tried to process what Lucius had told him or to guess what it might mean, all Harry could hear was hissing. None of it translated into English, in spite of being a Parseltongue, Harry couldn't understand a single hiss – it was just white noise, accompanied by the feeling of eyes staring at him from the dark corners of the train compartment any time Harry closed his eyes for longer than 5 minutes at a time. By the time he arrived at Hogwarts, his head hurt again, eyes burning and itching, jaw aching from grinding his teeth to distract himself from the throbbing at his temples. He decided to skip dinner and head straight to the infirmary and see if he could convince Madame Pomfrey to give him a headache reliver without telling his mum or Severus.
It was this decision that spared him from having to read the evening edition of The Daily Prophet in front of his peers, because looking back on his reaction to the news, Harry did not think he would have been able to keep his jaw from hitting the grounds or from saying something that definitely would have gotten himself and his family in trouble with the Aurors (Undersecretary Gaunt or not, Lord Voldemort was still a wanted criminal). When Harry let himself into the Slytherin common room an hour later (Madame Pomfrey had insisted on calling his mum to the infirmary first, and Lily had been twitchy and anxious, claiming that she was worried about Tarrant being out of her sight so soon after arriving, but Harry thought secretly if it had anything to do with what Lucius had tried to warn him about), every one who had a Death Eater relative no matter how distant turned to face him, watching him, synced up like they had rehearsed it.
"Well, that wasn't at all creepy," Harry joked, weaving his way in between silent spectators until he reached his friends.
The three of them were fidgeting on a couch by the fireplace, Draco cleared his throat and made an attempt to compose himself, but the rosy flush across his cheeks and nose gave him away: Draco always blushed deeply when he lost his temper. Blaise, sitting beside him, discreetly tried to slide the newspaper under his legs while Harry was distracted assessing Theo. Clearly, the person Draco had been arguing with, Theo had his hands clenched by his side and he was standing beside them, towering over the two still seated. He turned sharply when Harry spoke, glancing at him once, then back towards Draco: "he deserves to know, you can't hide it from him," he hissed angrily.
"It's none of your business!" Draco whispered back, trying to appear calm, but Harry knew him well enough to know that he was about to erupt any second.
"Guys, what's goi-?" Harry trailed off as someone's arm flung out in his direction, a scrunched-up copy of The Daily Prophet clenched between long fingers. "Thanks?" Curiously, he reached out for the paper, not even looking up at the person who handed it to him: he was far too engrossed in the front page.
DARK MARK SEEN OVER MUGGLE TOWN
YOU-KNOW-WHO STRIKES AGAIN
Has his silence lulled the Aurors into a false sense of security?
Auror office failed to respond until after 248 Muggles were killed.
Head Auror ignores previous warnings and sought to cover up earlier attack. Undersecretary Gaunt declined to comment on the gross negligence and incompetence of the Auror office.
Is Hogsmeade next?
"Voldemort didn't do this," he whispered, talking mostly to himself.
"We don't question what the Dark Lord does, you know that," Draco whispered back, trying not to be overheard by anyone (the very scant few in Slytherin house) who were not in the know already.
"No," Harry corrected, a little louder than before, "Voldemort didn't do this!"
That was what Lucius had been trying to tell him earlier that day. Voldemort had not done anything wrong because he hadn't done anything. Voldemort had changed, for the better, because of Harry, just like Harry had changed because of his relationship with Voldemort: he might still be a terrible person who cursed children for fun or allowed his followers to do so under the guise of 'education', but he hadn't ordered a Death Eater raid or sanctioned a full scale attack like this since his resurrection over two years ago (or technically since October 1981 when he was disembodied). Voldemort had been run ragged for the last 3 months, constantly too busy to spend time with Harry except for when their courting mandated visits, or dates as Harry preferred to call them – those dates were spent with Voldemort looking increasingly more exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes barely hidden by cosmetic charms, but Harry could see them clear as day when he got close enough to Cadmus to kiss him. Something was wrong and Voldemort was struggling to put out fires. How many more attacks had there been that Undersecretary Gaunt had been able to cover up before the reporters at The Daily Prophet got hold of information? How many more people had been killed needlessly?
A more important question, Harry thought as he continued to stare half horrified and half devastated at the front page, is who killed them if it wasn't Voldemort?
XXX
10 June 1996. Unknown location. flashback
While Sirius hovered nervously at Harry's bedside in St Mungos, blaming himself for Harry's injuries while his parents tried to console him, Lord Voldemort called his followers to him.
They came, much less in number than he had expected, but they came to crawl at his feet nonetheless. Bellatrix was there, praising the Dark Lord's return to true glory, begging him to forgive her for ever believing him to have grown weak, promising her devotion and her wand and swearing to slaughter every single Muggle who dared breathe upon the earth if only he commanded it of her. Her husband, nor her brother-in-law had joined her. When they had felt the Dark Marks burn upon their arms, they had already been before the Dark Lord (the real Dark Lord), and they and Dolohov had looked askance at their left arms and then up at Lord Voldemort, who was seated at the head of the long mahogany table, scowling.
"Evan," he hissed, the anger wafting off of him in waves of dark magic so potent they could taste it in the air, it made their hair sizzle at the ends and their fingertips itch. "Go, and report back," he had ordered, voice barely rising above the sibilant whisper he always spoke in when he was really, truly furious.
"Yes, My Lord."
Evan stood quickly, chair legs scrapping against the ground as he shoved it backwards with his body. He bowed swiftly at the waist for 10 seconds and then disapparated before he had even finished straightening up. He joined Bellatrix on his knees before the… Dark Lord. And it was the Dark Lord, Evan realised as he glanced up and met hooded red eyes set into a pale, fine boned face. The roman nose was the same, the cheekbones were etched in the same sharp lines that denoted fine breeding and a lean diet. He had the same dark brown hair, that curled gently across his forehead – not quite a cow lick, but not a comb over either. The wand was wrong though. Instead of Lord Voldemort's bone white yew wand with the carved snake on the handle, this one was still white, but straight and smooth like it had been sanded down to hide all traces of what colour the wood used to be. There was no motif, no carving, the grooves in the wood worn down from use over the years was missing. But the fingers that held the wand were the same, long, thing, bone white, so white you could see the veins beneath the flesh. He had the same long sharp nails – like a woman had gotten a French manicure and then filed them down into points. His feet were the same, barefoot, neat toe nails, and Evan remembered those feet from the number of times the Dark Lord had bid him kiss them when he failed a mission or messed up a hit. He remembered the cruelty, the Cruciatus, kissing the tops of his feet and licking his toes while the Dark Lord laughed hoarsely and kicked him away. He also remembered that the Dark Lord had not called a meeting like this – in a barren room, where he sat upon a throne and everyone else crawled – since his resurrection.
This man looked like the Dark Lord, but he wasn't Lord Voldemort.
"My Lord," Evan greeted him, forcing himself to sound reverent instead of confused.
When Marvolo deemed everyone had arrived who was going to arrive, he held up a hand and flicked his fingers twice, as if he were casually dismissing someone or waving away an insect. The Death Eaters scrambled to their feet, shuffled backwards out of the way, and made room for Lord Voldemort to stand and walk amongst the first two rows of them. "I, hmm, apologise for my long absence, my friends, but I have returned now. We have much work to do, to fix the frankly deplorable image the media has of our cause. While I am… disappointed in many of you, you turned your backs on me, you forsook me to remain free," his words were velvety, and Evan almost allowed himself to be hypnotised by the snake that coiled around him, magic tendrils reaching out – long dark strands, wrapping around throats and wrists and waists and drawing them closer and closer to their Dark Lord, constricting tighter and tighter until they were helpless to escape. "I am a merciful Lord. I will allow you to, hmm, prove your loyalty towards your Lord, and towards our cause, before I determine whom among you deserve to be punished as the cowards and traitors you portrayed yourselves to be."
"You though," he said, physically reaching out to cup Bellatrix's cheeks, his wand pressing hard enough into her skin that it would bruise, "you did not betray me, did you sweet Bella?"
"No, my Lord, never!"
"And yet," he sighed, as he released her and returned to his throne. He conjured an old edition of the Daily Prophet from thin air and threw it at her. It was a copy announcing that Undersecretary Gaunt was running for Minister of Magic in the upcoming election. "You believed this fraud to be me. Are you so fickle that any dark magic practitioner could replace me in your heart, Bella?"
"NO! No, my Lord, I swear I am loyal only to you! I believed he was you!" She wailed, throwing herself onto the ground and prostrating at his feet again. She spread her arms forward, as far as they would go, and her fingers scrambled at the concrete like she was trying to claw her way closer with every twitch. Marvolo gave her a tight lipped smile, one corner tilted a little higher than the other; Evan thought he was trying not to laugh, pretending to be angry and disappointed, but was really taking great pleasure from the way Bellatrix sobbed and pleaded at his feet, soiling herself in the dirt - a Pureblood begging for attention and praise from a Mudblood, debasing everything they stood for. It was just like when Tom Riddle had been in school, ruling over all others with an iron fist and a common room full of snake statues that would come to life and choke them in their sleep whenever Tom felt the urge to torment them. Evan remembered those days too, but not as well as some of the older Death Eaters for he had been a second year when Tom Riddle had graduated, but he still remembered enough from the scenes in the Common Room to keep his mouth shut and his head down. If Bellatrix wanted to entertain the Dark Lord, it was her nerve endings that would suffer for it, not his.
But Evan listened, and he learnt, and he reported everything that had happened to the real Dark Lord once Marvolo had dismissed them.
Bellatrix had gone back to Malfoy Manor, cackling and giggling, limbs trembling from the after effects of the Cruciatus and refused to tell Narcissa where she had been.
One week later, 37 Muggles were killed when 'cloaked terrorists' collapsed the Millennium Bridge in Bankside. They weren't jihads and they weren't the KKK, but they wore similar looking cloaks with hoods that pulled up over their heads and covered their foreheads. Masks hid the rest, showing only the bottom jaw for some of them, and nothing at all for others whose masks looked different, silver instead of white, denoting superiority within the ranks (though the Muggles did not know this). The Muggles had no idea who was behind the attack, and none of the usual suspects stepped forward to claim responsibility. Two weeks after that, 6 simultaneous explosions in Manchester, Liverpool, and Newcastle killed 413 people, 113 of whom were actually magical folk, living in an enclave near Manchester Piccadilly (similar to Hogsmeade). The same cloaked terrorists were spotted in Manchester and Newcastle, but the police had been powerless to stop them and no one could find evidence of what weapons or devices had been used to cause the explosions. Social media accounts in Liverpool, while still in its infancy, shared a handful of photographs of suspicious looking men loitering around shortly before the explosions happened, but unfortunately they were also masked and cloaked, and so no arrests had been made yet. (2)
Evan Rosier went along to every raid. He raised his wand against Muggles and relished in their screams. The Death Eaters who joined in took advantage of their good fortune – not all of them had been happy that Lord Voldemort wanted to try the political route again, that he was being peaceful and careful; some of them just wanted violence and bloodshed and so those few were happy to believe that this was the real Lord Voldemort and that Cadmus Gaunt was the impostor (rather than Voldemort's pseudonym). Evan stayed loyal, as did many of the others who attended the raids at their real Lord's behest. But that didn't mean that they didn't enjoy themselves – though they made sure to keep those opinions to themselves or amongst themselves. Lord Voldemort had made clear what the punishment would be for anyone who informed his mate that someone was slaughtering muggles in his name or that he had ordered his Death Eaters to participate until he could capture the impostor. Even Lucius and Severus took that threat seriously and sought to conceal the attacks from their own family, including Harry.
Until they couldn't any longer.
Rita Skeeter had somehow managed to find out about the attack in Leeds on 30 August 1996 – Undersecretary Gaunt had tried to get an injunction barring her from reporting, citing the need to avoid a public panic, explaining that there was an undercover operation at risk if the information was disclosed too early, but his attempts only bought him an extra day and a half. The Wizengamot had voted against the application, by one person. The article ran in The Daily Prophet in the evening edition, arriving into homes and Hogwarts just in time to ruin dinner. Lord Voldemort jumped immediately from prevention to damage control, which unfortunately included dealing with Albus Dumbledore before he could villainise him to his mate.
XXX
1 September 1996. Headmaster's Office.
While the Headmaster gathered up the remnants of the Order of the Phoenix immediately after the house elves cleared away the dinner plates, the real Lord Voldemort stepped neatly through the floo. He brushed the soot from his shoulders and greeted Dumbledore stiffly. While they might have spent time negotiating his 'resignation' for lack of a better word (Voldemort refused to refer to himself as 'defeated') that did not mean that all was forgotten nor forgiven. Dumbledore had judged Tom Riddle harshly for many years, and while he might have ultimately been correct to do so, that did not lessen Tom's resentment any.
"What a fine mess this is, wouldn't you agree Tom?"
"My name is Cadmus, as well you know, Headmaster," was the curt response. He greeted Lily and James politely, nodded at Severus, and barely acknowledged the remaining Order members, scanning over each face quickly as he searched for the only person that he cared to explain himself to.
"Harry isn't here," Dumbledore told him, equally as curt now. "Perhaps you could explain why you have reneged on our agreement, hmm, Lord Voldemort?" When Voldemort looked back at Dumbledore he was greeted with the still picture of Death Eaters marching through Leeds (somehow recovered from a Muggle device by Ms Skeeter after the injunction application was dismissed). It took up most of the page, the article starting below it (and the newspaper name and date as a header above it) – it continued onto pages 2 to 4, but in the very bottom corner was a moving picture of his current face. Undersecretary Gaunt had been photographed (not to his knowledge at the time) leaving the Wizengamot chambers, scowl growing into a sneer as he stormed away from his peers.
With a loud sigh, Voldemort seated himself in the chair opposite Dumbledore's own, conveniently left free as they awaited his arrival no doubt. "Would you believe me if I said that wasn't me?"
Before Dumbledore could open his mouth to respond, Lily stepped forward until she was standing beside Voldemort and with no hesitation whatsoever (which made Severus wince) she placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, comfortingly. "I believe him. And so does Harry."
And that seemed to be good enough for Dumbledore, as he swiftly moved away from suspicious glances and tones and straight into ideas on how they might be able to stop the impostor before anymore needless loss of life. Voldemort did not think it would be so simple as Albus made it sound, but so far that meeting had been easier than anticipated, so Voldemort allowed himself to briefly get his hopes up, that this impostor was not in fact what Voldemort feared he was.
Following his resurrection, Voldemort had reabsorbed two of his Horcruxes (not the diary, whose inhabitant was lovestruck and obsessed over their mate, and not the locket which had disappeared from the cave where Voldemort had hidden it). He had not intended to reabsorb anymore than two, but if he had to, he would – it would be preferable to killing a part of himself, after all.
XXX
1 – train journeys from King's Cross to Scotland take an average of between 5 and 8 hours depending on which city in Scotland they go to. I honestly cannot remember how long the journey was in the books, I only remember that it was long, and 8 hours worked perfectly for me.
2 - social media existed in 1996, but it was not widely used like it is now. Instagram was founded and launched in 2010, and MySpace in 2003 for example.