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Chapter 40: The Coming Storm
The Great Hall had been transformed for the graduation ceremony. Rows of armchairs had replaced the five long tables, and an elevated dais across which the graduates would walk had been erected. Spheres of light in shades of red, green, blue, and yellow circled high above the stage, illuminating the area so that the crowd could watch each graduate shake hands with both Emperors before accepting their diploma from the Interim Headmaster, Professor Slughorn.
All of us except for two.
Almost three weeks had passed since Riddle's escape. His name had been forsaken and there was a bounty of ten thousand aurums resting on his head. So far there had been no sign of him, nor any member of his entourage.
Lily…
Harry's heart ached. It was like mourning the capture of Hermione, except that it was worse, because this time he knew full well what captivity could do to people.
"It appears that I must offer my apologies."
Harry startled, so lost in grief and worry he had not heard anyone approach. All of a sudden he was aware of every eye that had not yet left the Great Hall watching him intently.
Feet away stood Gellert Grindelwald, dressed entirely in black; no gilded buckles adorned his knee-high boots, and stranger was to see him standing there without the customary gold cape that had become his trademark.
Harry made to kneel and bow his head, but before he could the Emperor held out his hand.
Although most of the graduates and their spectating families had already dispersed, those who had lingered filled the Great Hall with a breathless awe and astonished tension.
\Harry clasped Grindelwald's extended hand, hoping he was not making a social faux pas. "I don't know what for, Your Radiance."
Grindelwald held his hand in a firm grip while the Emperor's eyes emanated raw intensity. "Recent events have disproven the skepticism I displayed in Paris. Wile I'm sure you understand its nature, I apologise for any ill it caused you."
"N-No ill, Your Radiance," Harry said after recovering from shock, knowing those words were expected of him. "It's been the least of my worries," he added, too faintly for any eavesdroppers to pick up on.
Grindelwald's eyes darkened, the cold blue of clean ice clouding over with a shade of silver-grey. "It was an improper ceremony today. Those holes must be felt by you most of all."
Harry swallowed. "They are, Your Radiance." It was always those two holes — for his entire life it had been those two holes felt every day.
Not this time. Lily could be found and freed from Riddle's spell, and James had only glimpsed the basilisk's reflection in a window. The Potters were already working to procure their son some Mandrake Draught and restore him to full health.
"It is not over." The Emperor's grip tightened until a tingle thrummed through Harry's hand. "Riddle has been unmasked and he will be undone. You have my word."
Although he nodded graciously, Harry leant in and murmured, "I still have to find the other one."
"The traitor's estate is being searched as we speak. If the monstrosity is housed on any inch of it, it will be found. I do not take these offences lightly."
Harry recalled Grindelwald's cold wrath in Paris. "I don't doubt that, Your Radiance."
"Then you will not doubt my earnestness in asking that you remain a part of Riddle's downfall."
Harry did not parse the words at once. "What exactly do you mean?"
"I mean that no man has yet proven so efficient at hampering Tom Riddle as yourself. I would like it if you assisted in his apprehension."
Harry's own grip grew vice-like. "You want me to help you capture him?"
Grindelwald did not so much as blink. "I think it would be for the greater good of all."
Harry had to work through that for some time, standing there amid a sea of watchful eyes and susurrus murmuring. So deep had his grief been, he had not spent much time considering next steps or potential strategies. For the first time since Hermione's capture all those years ago, worry and regret had rooted him in place.
But I can't think that way. What had Dumbledore said?
"Is it not better to stumble down a rock-strewn road and stub your toe or stumble than to stand at its mouth and never take a step?"
It was far better — had he just continued forward in the past, Hermione might not have endured so many months of torment. Maybe she would even have survived.
Harry squeezed Grindelwald's hand and stared hard into the Emperor's cold eyes. "Whatever you need from me, I'm in."
Sweat beaded Narcissa's brow, hunched above the odd cauldron as she stretched subtle webs of magic over the layer of mercury. The enchantment wavered whenever it expanded, creating a faint shimmer inside the cauldron akin to heat haze rippling across hot rock. Each time it happened, more sweat rolled down her cheeks.
A strand of the enchantment shivered and the entire scheme collapsed. Fatigue flashed through Narcissa as if it had been her knees that buckled.
With a wordless snarl she snatched up the cauldron and hurled it hard across the room. It rebounded off the wall and bounced against the floor before skidding into a leg of Narcissa's chair. There it stopped, its shade of bluish-silver stark against her black silk carpet.
Narcissa's lips pressed so firmly into a line that her jaw began to tremble. The cauldron smacked into her palm after a wandless summoning charm. Her hair whipped over her shoulder and streamed along the leftmost edge of her periphery as she stormed out of her study and pounded on the door to Alden's.
"Entrer."
Narcissa shoved her way inside, stalked across the study, and slammed the cauldron down onto the room's lone desk with enough force to scatter a small stack of parchment Alden had been pouring over. The top sheet floated up and unfurled above the desk, exposing a strange seal; two black knights in medieval armour standing within two rings.
By the time the parchment fluttered to the floor, Narcissa had leant down so that she could better snarl at the artificer. "The task is impossible!"
Alden cocked his head in the fashion of a raptor. "I have told you already it is not."
"The tin stifles almost any magic, and the few sparks that catch are just overstimulated by the mercury until they've fizzled out, or are uncontrollable."
"These are simple problems."
Narcissa's nostrils flared. "Simple!?" She leered down at him. "Do you have any idea—"
"Oh, I have an inkling." The bastard smiled up at her. "I have offered you assistance on a number of occasions."
"Do it then!" Narcissa hissed.
Alden raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"
"Do it! Fix it, if you're so wise and clever."
Alden clicked his tongue. "I do not take orders from my apprentice."
"But you—"
"Offered my assistance, yes. It was an earnest gesture that I will honour if suitably petitioned."
"I just—"
"Ordered. Not petitioned. There is a difference, Miss Black."
Narcissa restrained the urge to blush. I won't let him win. If he sought to bring her low, Vieilla would be disappointed. She would show him how little his display meant to her.
No words escaped her lips when Narcissa parted them. She tried to speak; each time, her tongue stayed limp and listless.
"I see now that you understand the difference," the artificer mused. "A request for help requires humility that is absent in most orders."
Narcissa wetted her mouth and swallowed the saliva, then cleared her throat. "Master Vieilla, I would be highly appreciative—"
"No."
A sneer slashed its way across Narcissa's face. "But—"
"You will not cloak yourself in formality. That is not humility. That is not earnest, which is something you must learn." An upraised hand forestalled her outburst as the artificer pressed ahead. "I have asked for you to cease with these rigid courtesies on numerous occasions because formality is insincere when it is not due or wanted."
Narcissa had not been scolded quite like this since she had been a girl. "I'm sorry, Alden." Why did she mean it? "Can you…" She looked from the infernal cauldron to the man sitting serenely behind the desk. "Can you help me solve the puzzle of the cauldron?" She swallowed a second time. "Please."
"Much better." Alden slipped his wand out from his sleeve and waved it, restoring the stack of parchments before scooping up the cauldron. "Come."
Alden led her up onto the second floor, through a locked door and into a large potions laboratory. Narcissa watched him rifle through an old filing cabinet and removed two vials, plus a sheet of parchment. She peered over his shoulder and saw a sprawl of arithmetic equations so complex, she frowned.
Alden looked the Arithmancy over with a single glance, then uncorked the first vial and poured it into the cauldron. A loud hiss rose from its interior alongside a gout of smoke.
The cloud of smoke dispersed. Narcissa gasped. There was no sign of mercury inside the cauldron. Instead the interior was coated in a thin layer of copper.
"How…"
if Alden heard, he showed no signs, already pouring the second vial into a larger cauldron and depositing the smaller one into the substance.
There was a second hiss that once more produced a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, the smaller cauldron's bluish hew was gone. All Narcissa could see when studying the exterior was the telltale grey of pewter.
Alden scooped up the smaller cauldron and examined it. "Crude, yet generally effective — the copper is pure and more reactive than ideal, but the tin in all that pewter should counterbalance that sufficiently."
"How did you do that?" Narcissa asked, hardly louder than a whisper. "The alchemical metals can't be transfigured."
"There is a difference between transfiguration and transmutation," the artificer told her. "The answer to your puzzle was a complex piece of alchemy."
"Alchemy? I'm an enchantress, not an alchemist."
"And this is an artificery, not an enchantry. Artificing requires more than just enchanting. I told you this the first time we spoke. You scoffed at me." That damned, knowing smile. "Do you now understand some of what I can offer you in regards to your instruction?""
It took every ounce of will not to hang her head and grimace. "Yes, Alden." She was Narcissa Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. This would not shame her.
"Good," the artificer said, smiling more genuinely this time. "Then let us begin properly on your instruction."
Gouts of steam gushed out of the train, whose horn screamed shrilly over the shouts of students and their sounds of passage. Owls squawked and shoulders collided in the centre of the crowd. Sunlight baked the hot asphalt and the clouds of steam hung amid the absence of any wind.
To think I once thought this was chaos. Harry had hated the platform during his first few years of school, not only because it signified a return to Privet Drive, but because of how much was going on at all times, because there was too much noise and too many bodies. Combined with the heat and steam, it left the platform feeling stifling.
How little he had known. What would that naive boy have thought had he known battles like that which had taken place in the shadow of Mount Othrys awaited? Would he have continued down the path, or would he have laid down and given up right there?
Soon he had slid through the crowd and stepped up onto the train. Moving through the throng was easier now than it ever had been before. It was less his greater boldness than it was his lack of personal belongings. There was no need for a large trolly when all he owned were a few sets of robes, plus the sacks of gold stowed in his warded cave and the artifacts that were currently in France.
"Harry." Sirius stood and clasped his hand when he entered a compartment near the rear. "It's good to see you."
"You too." Harry had spent most of his time since Riddle's escape shut up in the Room of Requirement and had seldom spoken much to anyone. "How are you lot?"
"We've been better." Remus glanced toward the empty spot to Sirius's left, then back up at Harry. "How are you holding up? I know that you were close with Lily."
"She's not dead." Harry bit his tongue as he took a seat across from Remus. That had come out far harsher than intended. "Sorry. I've just been asked that question too many times. No one seems to believe that she'll make it through this."
"I'm sorry," Remus said. "I didn't mean to imply that."
"I know. I shouldn't have snapped at you. It's just been hard."
"James's parents will have the Mandrake Draught before long," said Sirius. "It's been tough for us too, though."
Pettigrew shuddered. "What was a basilisk doing inside the school?"
"Some say it was Riddle's hidden weapon," Remus said softly. "Some say it was Slytherin's fabled monster."
Sirius threw a grim look at Harry. "Some say you snuck it in and tried using it against our former headmaster."
Harry sighed. "It was Slytherin's monster, and it was Riddle's secret weapon. You know, parselmouth Heir of Slytherin and all that."
"Fucking hell," Sirius spat. "It's mental how much that fuck was doing under everybody's noses."
Harry looked up sharply. "Your cousin — she's married to him, is she…"
"Gone. She disappeared the day he did. Both her and Bellatrix. And Carina."
Carina...
Anger bubbled, fierce enough to turn his stomach. So much had happened, he had almost forgotten about Riddle and Andromeda until hearing the venom in Sirius's voice. And their daughter… "How old is she?"
Sirius was gripping the seat's edge. "She turned five this year."
Harry clenched his teeth until they ached, then slowly uncorked his jaw. "I'm going to get her back; her, Andromeda, and Lily."
"Is that what you're doing now?" Pettigrew asked. "Becoming a venator?"
"Not a venator. That takes years of experience and training that I don't have time for." Harry massaged his right palm, whose flesh had been charred to the bone by the Elder Wand and since repaired. "I'm actually not sure what I'm doing. I just know I'll be involved in the search for Riddle."
Pettigrew was chewing on his lip. "So are the rumours true?"
"You'll have to be more specific." With how the papers churned out story after story alleging all sorts of things about him, Harry thought it felt like the end of any other school year back when he had been the Boy-Who-Lived, and then the Chosen One.
Pettigrew leant forward and pitched his voice low. "Did you really duel him in Paris? Have you really been after him all along?"
Sirius leant forward too, though the glint in his grey eyes was mischevious. "Are you a spy for the Department of Mysteries? Are you a mutant bread to sniff out dark wizards?"
Remus smacked the back of Sirius's head. "You're terrible."
All three Marauders waited despite of Remus's rebuke.
"I did fight Riddle in Paris, and I've known about him for a while," Harry said at last. "I saw what he was doing to some of the students and went digging."
"Dangerous work, that." All humour had fled from Sirius's face.
Harry merely nodded. "Very."
"Were you working with the Order?" Remus asked. "Is that why you're staying on the case?"
"Only near the end. I didn't think they'd believe anything about Riddle if I told them, since I had no proof. Things changed a bit after Paris."
"The students — I take it he was doing to them what he did to my cousin?" Sirius's face was flat and blank in a way that was new to Harry.
"Yes," Harry answered. "Lily and Marlene were two of them."
"How is Marlene?" Remus asked. "That can't have been easy."
"I think she's still processing. She can't seem to believe what Riddle was getting up to and feels awful about it all."
Sirius grimaced. "Poor thing."
"Marlene's not alone," Harry said. "Riddle's been doing this sort of thing for years. I'm just glad I wasn't too late to save her."
"Fuck him." Sirius spat a glob of saliva onto the compartment floor. "I hope they throw the cunt in Azkaban; for Andy, for Carina, for whoever else he's mind fucked, and for all the riots."
"They've gotten bad," Pettigrew murmured, peering out the window. "Really bad."
"Do they have any leads on him?" Remus asked before the mood could darken further. "Is that where you're going when we get to London?"
Harry flattened down a few stray strands of hair. "Nothing yet, and no. I don't really know where I'll go."
"Owl me if you need, you hear?" Sirius's stare was steadily unyielding.
In that instant, the ink black mood that had been upon Harry for three weeks wavered as a wave of warmth crashed in to scatter it. "Thanks, Sirius." It was far too little, yet he could not think what else to say.
"Don't mention it." Sirius reached out and squeezed his arm. "Just give that bastard a good kicking for me, will you?"
Strain crept into Harry's smile as he clasped Sirius's shoulder.
Gellert stalked around the room. Sunlight streamed in through a high window and turned his platinum hair into a hazy blur while the carpet muffled each of his booted footfalls. "You know what this means?"
Albus finished the report and slid it gently to the side. "That security must be increased around the Department of Mysteries?"
Gellert paused his pacing long enough to turn and glare. "Do not play coy, Albus. You know as well as I that the Kalloway boy is our culprit."
"Do I?" Albus stroked his beard. "Is an agent of Tom's not equally as likely?"
"Not given this." Gellert produced a parchment from the pocket of his robes and placed it on the large, oak desk.
"Very well," Albus murmured after completing a quick scan of this new report.
"Very well?" Gellert's question cracked through the room as if it were a coiled whip. "The boy has reclaimed the scythe."
Albus hummed. "So he has."
Fire flashed behind his lover's ice cold eyes. "Do not treat this like some petty game."
"Please, Gellert. I think what's petty is your grudge against Harry."
"Albus, open your eyes!" Gellert did not quite shout, though it was a near thing. "The boy broke into the Department of Mysteries!"
Albus looked slowly up from the report. "Less than twelve hours before breaching Tom's own ward scheme."
"I am aware that it was almost certainly in preparation for his assault against the madman's wards. That does not excuse his crimes."
"And yet we both know there are far larger problems," Albus said softly.
Gellert scowled. "I'm no fool, Albus, and I am not proposing we bring wrath upon the boy and cart him off to Azkaban."
Albus folded both hands in his lap and peered up at Gellert. "Then what are you proposing?"
"That we learn what he saw during the break-in and reclaim the scythe."
"And you think that he would hand it over willingly?"
Gellert came to stand over Albus's chair, gripping the desk's edge with his right hand. "I do not much care for his allowance."
"Calm yourself, Gellert." Albus reached out and caressed his lover's hand. "The report shows that he means us no ill will. I see no need to expend resources that might be needed elsewhere, nor to alienate a valuable resource in his own right."
"We do not need him." Gellert's rebuke was half soft hiss, half rough snarl. "While it would ease our path, we can walk that trail alone. Tom Riddle cannot stand against us, nor can any power on this Earth."
"Did you not just tell me you had no intentions of cart Harry off to Azkaban?" Albus asked, continuing to stroke the back of Gellert's hand.
"Certainly not until I am aware of what he learned."
"I have spoken to him often about ethics and morality." Albus let his fingers trail up his lover's forearm. "Harry is a good boy. We need not fear him."
"I fear no one, yet I am wary of all with knowledge and all who possess power." Gellert stiffened slightly when Albus's fingers moved up his arm, over his shoulder, and along his neck. "Albus…"
"Beware our current threats. Feel wariness for Tom Riddle and his rebellion; feel it for the worst upheaval we have seen in decades, feel it for Les Figures Hiéroglyphiques."
"This again?" Had it not been for the touch along his neck, Gellert would probably have sneered. Instead he dropped into an empty chair. Albus sucked in a sharp breath when a hand crept underneath the table and clasped his inner thigh. "Do not lecture me about priorities and than laud the danger of a shadow. Les Figures Hiéroglyphiques poses us no threat."
Albus's next breath shuddered under Gellert's administration. "You know I have always suspected that our investigations into that threat left much uncovered."
Gellert's chair shifted, and his next breath blew lightly into Albus's right ear. "Just as you know I will always seek to eliminate threats like Harry Kalloway."
"The boy—"
Albus was cut off when Gellert's hand drifted to the left and made him stiffen. "Has your confidence, I'm aware." Gellert's hand stilled. "How about a compromise? I will satisfy myself with keeping an even closer eye on Kalloway, and you will cease your foolish worries about harmless peacekeepers that may no longer even act." Gellert's hand glided back and forth. "Are we agreed?"
Albus felt his stomach sink, and yet focusing on that feeling was impossible. "We are agreed."
"See?" Gellert's hand curled into a gentle fist as he leant forward. Albus matched the movement and a second later they had pressed their mouths together. "See this feeling?" Gellert gasped a minute later. "Why must we worry about peacekeepers when we have this?"
"Yes," Albus murmured, leaning back and exhaling as his eyes fluttered. "You're right, of course. So little matters against something so pure and so good."
"So good," Gellert purred. "So good…"
"When the storms of life are pouring down on you, muster up the courage to dance and bless the things that life has given you."
— Steve Rizzo
END OF PART I
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