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Chapter 22: Morsmordre
Feathers floated down from perches placed atop stone plinths to Harry's left and right, and straw crackled underfoot as he pivoted to avoid a pile of droppings he had almost missed. His attention had been elsewhere as he scanned each plinth but saw no sign of pearly feathers. It was stupid anyway, he thought bitterly. Hedwig had been dead a long time and no snowy owl would replace her.
Harry let the cold wind dig into him. It slashed through the windowless room and kicked up clouds of straw and feathers as he picked his way between the plinths.
A large grey owl caught his eye and he paused beneath its perch. This bird's eyes were wide and alert while many of its brethren slumbered or squinted against the morning sunlight.
A smile curved up onto Harry's lips. It felt like forever since he had seen the sun, but today the sky was cloudless and a crisp blue that reminded him of clean ice. It was so bright outside that he could hardly look at the gleaming banks of snow.
Now if only we could get rid of that, he thought, inspecting the high drifts from the corner of his eye. Years of war had made him hate the snow, but it seemed content to stay this year. Spring was slow in coming and the morning wind bore an icy chill that hinted at another burst of winter.
Harry sighed and shuffled a stack of parchments between his palms for the hundredth time. The nondisclosures Sirius had commissioned for him had arrived yesterday and he had studied every line the best he could, but much of it had no meaning to him. Nothing there felt out of place and there was nothing missing he could think of, but still he hesitated.
Was the contract truly iron-clad? What would happen if he brought Narcissa the founders' trinkets? She must know they belonged to Riddle, with him married to her sister. Could she wriggle out from these conditions? Would she sign them at all? What would he do if she refused?
Let the trinkets rest, I guess. Rotting unused in a warded cave was a kinder fate than belonging to a man like Riddle.
Harry called down the young owl and smiled at the eagerness palpable in each preening move it made. "Don't get out much, do you?" The bird nibbled at his finger and he chuckled as he tied the contract to its leg. "I want this sent to Narcissa Black. Can you do that?"
The owl tossed its head in that arrogant way all proud birds have, then leapt off its perch and beat its wings. Harry watched the grey speck grow smaller and smaller in the vast blue sky, then vanish.
"Oh. Morning, Harry."
Harry showed no sign of surprise, but the greeting startled him. There had not been so much as a sound behind him. "I'd be careful sneaking up on people like that," he said, turning to face Peter Pettigrew. "Some people scare easy and don't pay as much attention as I do."
"Sorry. I wasn't trying to sneak up on you. I just don't bluster around like James and Sirius."
No, a bitter part of Harry whispered, you scamper like the fucking rat you are. "It's all right, you didn't manage to sneak up on me," he lied. "Anyway, what brings you up here?"
"Sending an owl to my mum." Pettigrew removed a neatly folded envelope from the pocket of his robes as if to prove it.
Harry gave a careless shrug. "Well, don't let me stop you." He could be civil, but he would not subject himself to the rat unless he had to.
"Wait." Harry raised an eyebrow. "I didn't mean it like that. I just…" Pettigrew shuffled under the weight of evident unease. "I wondered if we could talk?"
"I suppose." Harry said it as though the request meant less than nothing, but the cogs inside his head were turning. Why had the rat sought him out? "Ready for exams next week?"
Pettigrew's face contorted into a grimace that left him looking like the rat he really was. "I'm more ready for spring break than I am exams."
Harry's smile was thin and brittle. "Just eight more days."
"And a whole week of exams," Pettigrew grumbled underneath his breath.
The proper thing to do would have been to clasp Pettigrew lightly on the shoulder or else pat him on the back, but not even amidst his careful act could Harry bear to touch him. "I'm sure you'll do all right," he said instead. "You can't have hung out with James and Sirius for six years and not picked a few things up along the way."
"I guess." Their discussion paused as Pettigrew summoned down a large barn owl and tied his burden to its leg. Only when the bird shook out its plumage and took wing did the rat turn back to Harry. "What are your plans for spring break?" he asked as the pair of them vacated the owlery. "I know James considered asking you to come stay with him, but his father's business meant he never got the chance."
Urgent intrigue displaced a portion of Harry's disgust. "His father's business?"
Pettigrew swept a furtive glance up and down the corridor, but it was empty save for them. "I'm sure James won't mind me telling you." The rat's hands fidgeted in front of him as he chewed his lip. "His father's meeting with Governess Viallo on the solstice."
Harry's face twitched. That was the perfect target for Riddle. Security would be air-tight given the presence of a second governor, but disrupting the event would appeal to his pride.
Assuming Charlus doesn't just conduct it privately…
"Is this going to be public news?" Harry asked in his best approximation of offhandedness.
Pettigrew checked over his shoulder before replying. "I'm not sure. James said that it started a bit of a row. His mum wanted the whole thing done quietly, but his dad disagreed."
"Hopefully James wasn't too bothered by the row."
Pettigrew shrugged. "His parents argue a lot about stuff like that, but he says they're good about keeping politics to politics and not letting it change much."
"I'll bet they have to be," Harry said as they descended down the marble staircase. "His mother's a Black, right? I can't imagine a Black and a Potter thinking that much alike."
Their footsteps echoed off three steep stairs. "It makes them dangerous."
Harry cocked his head. "What's that?"
"They think differently, so they consider different things. It makes them dangerous."
"You're probably right." Talentless as he might be, the rat was clever. Harry could give him that. "I just hope the security's tight enough to keep them all safe after last time."
"I wouldn't worry," Pettigrew assured him as they entered the Great Hall. "James's dad is a great wizard. I doubt anyone's going to take him down."
If only it was that simple. What had Ollivander said all those years ago during Harry's first trip into Diagon Alley?
"He Who Must Not Be Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great."
Loathe as he was to admit it, there was no denying that grim truth. "I hope they can at least save their manor this time."
Pettigrew's eyes flicked between Harry and the table they were approaching. Harry could not help but wonder why Pettigrew had told him anything if he was so concerned their discussion might be discovered. Why risk the ire of his friends if the possibility of it left him so skittish?
The answer came as easily as breathing, but it stuck in his chest like an unexpected draft of winter air. Pettigrew had always attached himself to the strongest player he could garner favour with, and for now, that was Harry.
The taste of bile filled his mouth and the wand shuddered in its holster, sending a tremor running up its master's forearm. Kingsley had been right — there really was no cure for cowardice.
Harry broke off from Pettigrew and plopped into a spot between Mary and Marlene, with Lily situated straight across the table. "Morning."
Lily's eyes, always narrowed when she spotted him with any of the Marauders, softened some. "Good morning. How did you sleep?"
"Well enough," he answered once done stretching. "What about you lot? Ready for exams next week?"
Marlene bit her lip. "Can you—"
"Help you prep for runes? Sure. Bug me about it tomorrow." It was likely he would need a distraction to take his mind off things given the promises of the night ahead.
She flashed a winning smile, then diverted her attention back onto the overstuffed monstrosity she called a breakfast sandwich.
"I think I'll do all right," Lily said. "Defence is always my toughest subject, but I've been better about giving it attention this year."
Marlene rolled her eyes. "I'm sure I'll do all right," she parroted in a too high mockery of Lily's voice. "Honestly. I don't know why you even bother answering."
Lily pursed her lips, but Mary jumped in before she could reply. She had been doing that for some time now — acting as a necessary buffer between Lily and Marlene. They did not quite quarrel, but unpleasant undertones had been present in many of their interactions as of late.
"Did you see this?" Mary asked once the tension had ebbed. She was holding up a copy of that morning's Daily Prophet.
GOVERNESS VIALLO TO VISIT BRITAIN
"It's the first time she's come since she became governess," Mary went on. "She did a progress back then and visited, but never since."
Marlene jabbed a fork at Mary. "No breaking into government buildings just to shake her hand."
The flick of Mary's hand formed a condescending gesture. "Are you telling me you wouldn't break the law if it got you alone with the headmaster?" she asked in the smug tones of someone who knew their quarry would have no adequate defence.
Marlene sniffed. "I don't have to break laws. Headmaster Riddle and I talk all the time." Her smug glance at Lily sunk the bottom out of Harry's stomach. Was that what it was about? Had Lily been occupying too much of Riddle's time for Marlene's liking?
A sheen of sweat settled into his palms. What would he do if he recognized Lily or Marlene beneath a bone-white mask?
No. Don't think about that. Marlene was unprepared for that sort of combat and Lily did not appear to be in so deep as she was. I still have time.
"Mary has a bit of a girl crush on Governess Viallo," Lily explained.
"A bit?" Marlene asked. "Lils, how many times have we heard how much she did for women and what her elevation meant for the empire?"
Mary was blushing deeper than the roots of her close friend's hair. "Look, women didn't have positions like that before the empire. They didn't—"
Marlene leant past Harry and hushed Mary with a hand over her mouth.
Harry leant as far back as he could and drank in the scene. This was what it would be like once Riddle had been dealt with. This was what he fought for. Reminders of that were important and had come too seldom lately.
The hours dragged past with the grating pace of jagged metal scraping across rough stone. It felt as if three days had blossomed, bloomed, withered, and then bled into the next when morning gave way to afternoon, and then again when afternoon faded into a clear evening.
Harry turned the white mask over in his hands as the clock ticked closer to eleven. Its metal was cool against his skin, but holding it left him conflicted. This circumstance was perfect and provided him a much needed opportunity to progress his way through Riddle's ranks, yet the idea of wearing the white mask made him want to spit onto the floor.
It's the intent that matters, he told himself as another minute came and went. That was something he had believed for years, but if it was true, then why were necessary decisions so difficult sometimes?
Harry concentrated his will on reinforcing his resolve the way he had often had to back when he had been a boy. I need to be hard. War was war.
There was a quiet click as both hands on the dormitory's lone clock aligned atop the number eleven.
Harry drew in a deep breath and dawned the mask. There was no use wasting time and rushing out onto the grounds. Riddle would have worked the portkey into the castle's wards — his careful eye for detail would never have permitted otherwise.
"Morsmordre."
Harry felt, at once, both weightless and as though he was rushing forward as an unseen hook snagged behind his naval and a whirlwind of colours swirled past his eyes.
His feet slammed into hard packed earth that might have been soft in summer. Years of practice kept him upright, and three deep lungfulls enabled him to inspect his surroundings with a clear mind.
No snow blanketed the high hills rolling off into the distance, but beads of frost shimmered silver in the slender shafts of moonlight slanting through gaps in clouds that had not been hanging in the Scottish sky.
Somewhere in England, maybe? The portkey had not taken him far enough to have left the isles, but the lack of snow and mild wind told him they were a long way from the Highlands.
Black-robed shadows wearing bone-white masks closed ranks around him. Harry's fingers flexed with the suppressed reflex to summon his wand and lay waste to all around him.
Silence held a heavy hand over the flat expanse of grass but for the wind's low whistling and the persistent cawing of a crow somewhere overhead as soft blue nimbuses shimmered and solidified into more masked men.
Disappointment washed over him when a man who must have been this group's leader appeared among their ranks. The man bore an aura of command despite the lack of ornament adorning his own mask, but he was shorter than Riddle.
Harry did his best to quell the disappointment as the man passed out skull-shaped pins.
"The activation phrase is the same as the one that brought you here, but the travel will be shorter." Harry had hoped he would recognize the voice, but it was unfamiliar.
"We'll be infiltrating a compound responsible for the construction of muggle weaponry," their leader continued. "This will be done by splitting up into smaller groups, each with their own objectives. The important thing is that any bit of weaponry you do not recognize should be seized. We want it known what has been done, but not soon enough to make the mission difficult." The white mask turned so its wearer could take in each man in turn. "Am I understood?"
It was eerie, seeing all those white masks bob up and down in unison.
"Good. There will be security, but most of you won't have to worry — only the group chosen to disable the defences will need to concern themselves with that. The rest of you will breach the facility once said disabling is done. Any questions?"
When none were voiced, they were divided into four uneven groups. Harry found himself working alongside four others, including the mission's leader.
Looking each man up and down, he saw no women among their number. That was a shame. He had been hoping Bellatrix would be there. Arranging an accident for her would have done everyone a favour.
"We will be handling security and capturing this site's overseer," the leader told their group. "The man will be a muggle just short of six-feet tall and will be dressed in a way that marks him. He is to be taken in good health."
"A muggle?" The questioner's voice stirred up elusive memories, but it was muffled just enough to evade identification.
"The site itself is operated by a rotation of empire officials, but those operations are overseen by a muggle," the leader explained. "It's him we want, but the empire will know when the wards fall and their response will be fast. We'll move quickly."
The leader's focus swivelled onto Harry. "You will draw their attention with Fiendfyre. I'm told that you can cast it well?" Harry gave a single nod but grimaced underneath his mask. "Good. Shelter behind your strongest shield, we'll be dealing with both magical and muggle security." Once everyone in their small group had given him assenting nods, the leader closed his hand around his skull-shaped pin. "Three, two, one."
"Morsmordre."
The colours stopped spinning faster this time and left their troop peering down into a low valley from one of the highest hilltops. The compound occupied most of the flat ground far below and was ringed in both buzzing wards and a high, barbed fence.
"I'll be aiding in the destruction of the wards," the leader said. "Advance only when the wards are down."
A group of seven men armed with artifacts Harry had never seen before began unravelling the wards as he examined what he could of the quiet compound. Shadows, shapeless from so far away, prowled around the site's perimetre. There was no deciphering details from this distance, but he suspected they were guards. None of them had yet raised an alarm, but surely that would be changing any second.
So many men…
How many of them would die tonight? Would any make it out alive?
Harry hardened his heart by recalling the bitter burn when he had realized his own mother's loyalty could not be trusted if it came down to him or Riddle. I need to be hard. War was war, and there was no doubt war was what this was.
Floodlights flared to life bare heartbeats after the alarms began blaring. No longer shapeless shadows, men wearing camouflaged combat gear were congregating near the closest entrance to the high hill the intruders used for vantage.
The constricting quality vanished from the air just as long-range weapons were being readied down in the compound.
Harry closed his eyes and offered a wordless apology for what was about to happen. The things we do in war…
The faces flashed past his eyes like a film that had been on standby. Lupin's, lined but full of love that night inside Shell Cottage. Tonks's, smiling and topped with hair the colour of cotton candy. Fred's, wearing that smug smirk which had been his trademark. Ron's, alight with boyish joy. Hermione's, stricken and tear-stained…
Emerald flames poured forth like a rushing river that had burst its dam. Harry grimaced in pain at the burnt skin of his right hand. The wand had seared hot enough to smoke in the instant before it conjured hellfire.
The flames rolled over the high fence like hot water spilling across soft snow. Shield charms and other protective magic flared along the defensive lines, but the fire pressed on with the careless cruelty of death.
Harry turned on his heel and was suddenly standing amidst the carnage. Smoke stung his eyes and nose as the flames laughed their awful laughter and brave men fell like autumn leaves.
But not all of them. Harry had surprised the central mass of men, but the flanks were regrouping and the defensive lines were being reinforced. The telltale sounds of gunfire echoed off the rolling hills and an accompanying wave of screams crashed in from Harry's right. Above it all, the white-masked man in charge was demanding order in a strong voice pitched to carry far.
Harry set his jaw and swept the Elder Wand in a grand arc as a well-armed unit separated themselves from the tight formation on his left. The Fiendfyre streamed out in a protective ring around him as the approaching unit unleashed with wands and guns alike. Bullets hissed and melted in the blaze and spells fizzled like a child's sparkler.
Harry waited until the entire formation on his left had focused their efforts on him before flaring his hellfire out in their direction. The onslaught cut off all at once. Gritting his teeth and imposing his will upon the flames, he forced them to part just wide enough for him to see that nothing remained of the leftmost flank of men but for ashes strewn over bubbling asphalt.
Smoke billowed up in a great shroud around him when he extinguished his Fiendfyre. Harry threw up his silver shield and waited for the shroud of smoke to thin. His breaths heaved against his will and his throat burned as if he had gulped down hot coals. A sudden flash of that final battle in the shadow of Mount Othrys assailed him. There had been a moment then when he had stood just behind their front line and felt as if he was drowning in an acrid sea of smoke.
Enough smoke had cleared to reveal a gaping hole blasted through the central building's outer wall. A quick glance around showed that the defensive line had broken. Of the mission's leader there was no sign, so Harry clutched his wand and rushed in through the breach.
It was pandemonium inside. Broken bodies littered the floor and the walls were smeared with blood. The scent of sulphur commingling with a copper reek made the air unbearable. Each wail of the alarm rattled inside his skull. Underneath it all was the constant crack of gunfire and a ceaseless screaming shrill enough to stab harshly at his ears.
Harry batted aside three spells and felled two men with a single slash of the Elder Wand. A small bubble of stillness enclosed him once that threat was quelled, but up ahead the fighting was intense.
His foot slipped in a pool of blood and he tripped over the corpse from which it seeped. Harry kept his footing but glimpsed a young face missing half its right cheek in the process.
Something deep inside him writhed. The man could barely have been twenty…
I need to be hard. Harry felt as though his heart was cracking. It's the intent that matters. But if that was true, why did all this hurt so much?
A white-masked man moved up beside him, then gestured ahead. "Come." It was their leader, he realized once the man had spoken.
Harry joined up with a scattering of Death Eaters and brought up their rear. Men died in droves as they attempted to cut off the group's advance, but there was little need for Harry to do much more than defend, and so he let the others kill. War was war, but he would not take lives himself if he did not need to.
The guilt tore at him as they cleared out the compound, sharper now than it had been in years. What's different? Was it that he was helping the enemy? But that doesn't matter. One did what they had to in support of the cause they fought for.
Musings and restraint alike were shattered when they breached the basement. His silver shield was the only thing that saved him and the spray of gunfire was weakening it fast.
Harry snarled underneath his mask and twisted the Elder Wand. Kevlar crunched and bones cracked as skulls skipped across the stone floor and sprays of blood splattered the walls.
Green light flashed — once, twice, thrice — but Harry intercepted each killing curse with a stone slab torn up out of the floor. All three slabs burst into bright green flames that he sent spraying back at his assailants. The fire splashed against a row of shield charms, but then expanded out and snaked around to burn away their targets' throats.
Harry's heartbeat thundered in his ears as another column of defenders stepped up to fill the space he had just cleared. Why do they keep coming? Did they not see what was going on? Must they make him do this? Must they force his hand into killing all of them?
Harry growled and thrust out the Elder Wand. His right arm burned — not just his hand, but his entire arm. It stiffened and spasmed as fire filled his veins.
Blackness closed in and his muscles turned to rubber. The narrow corridor was still and silent when he blinked the blackness away, but the sight of it was as gruesome as any he had ever seen. Shards of bone were strewn so finely across a floor now drenched in blood, they could nearly have passed for flecks of dust. They might have had shredded gore not covered almost every inch of stone and had a single defender still been standing.
Only two others were still alive nearby. Both wore black robes and bone-white masks and both of them were wounded.
"Fuck!" Blood was pooling around a bullet wound in the leader's thigh. "Dolohov, my leg."
Dolohov… His had been the muffled voice up on the hill what felt like half an age ago.
The bastard was bleeding from his shoulder, but it was a superficial wound and he healed the others' leg without a word. All the while the eyeholes in his white mask remained fixed on Harry.
"Go!" the leader hissed at Harry. "Secure the fucking muggle!"
There were many doors and several forks leading off the narrow corridor, but he stayed its course. Each step dragged at his conscience and clawed at his chest. What had he done back there? Had he ever seen such horrors in all his life?
Hermione's tear-stained face swam up behind his eyes, but there was a mad smile on her lips and her teeth were stained with bl—
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Instincts saved him as he tore a nearby door off its hinges with a flick of the wand and hurled it between himself and that burst of bright green light. Harry banished the accompanying flames at his would-be ambusher, then transfigured the stones underneath his feet into a set of jagged jaws that bit through flesh and bone with a resounding crunch.
Focus! Why was that so hard now? It had never been difficult during combat before. The wizard had been disillusioned, but Harry should have sensed him.
Head in the fucking game. There would be time to feel guilty later — for now he shoved down his awful memories and brought to bear James's bright smile and Lily's light laughter. That was what he fought for.
The long, straight hall ended in a door whose guard must have been the disillusioned wizard he had killed. Harry fixed his parents' faces in his mind's eye and blew the plain black door off its hinges with a flick of the Elder Wand.
The lone man inside was dressed in a soot-stained suit and rifling piles of paper into a well-stoked fire. The muggle whipped around with a pistol in his right hand, but a flash of red light felled him.
Harry extinguished the fire almost without thinking. Nothing had survived its flames but for curled ashes and a single sheet of paper still resting on the room's lone desk, all of whose drawers were open and empty.
Harry moved further into the dim room with a frown. Why had the overseer been so eager to burn everything when the time it had required might have cost him his life? It was no wonder why he had been in charge, muggle or not. Most people liked to think they would do the noble thing if presented with a choice, but few of them really did when it might cost them their lives.
Harry retrieved the remaining sheet of paper. What could possibly be worth it? Unable to contain his curiosity, he held the paper closer to his face.
All warmth fled from him as the paper slid through nerveless fingers and drifted back down onto the desk
Fuck…
There was no doubt what he was looking at, yet the empire had steered muggles away from their more destructive weapons. That much was well-known.
I guess Marlene was right — the empire really isn't perfect.
What would the Order of Merlin do, he wondered, if they saw these schematics detailing a propulsion device whose like Harry had only ever seen in his own time?
Had there really been a fire in the room not a minute back? How had it grown so cold so fast?
Nuclear weapons… That was what propulsion devices like the one illustrated were used for.
Fuck…
Did that mean the muggles had already constructed them behind the empire's back? Or was this just preparing for weapons they did not yet have?
Fuck… this is beyond me.
Harry tapped the sheet of paper with the Elder Wand. Gemino. A duplicate shimmered into being and he shoved it in his pocket, then exited the room with the original in hand.
One copy to fall into Riddle's hands and make him even more urgent, and the other… he would find some way of passing it anonymously onto the empire. Too many would die if muggles meddled with those sorts of weapons here. Harry could not even imagine the consequences such a thing would have within this world's conjoined society.
The Dark Mark was visible in the distance when a third portkey released its hold on him. Fewer than half the white-masked men they had started with returned back to the flats functioning as their point of rendezvous.
Soon the men departed and Harry was left alone with Dolohov and the mission's leader. The latter
was leaning on a conjured wooden cane as he produced a jingling bag of aurums from the pocket of his robes. "Your pay," he gritted out. "You'll be contacted again when your services are required."
Harry apparated to a cobbled street lined by low-roofed buildings which had all seen better days. A long while was spent wandering before he found what he was looking for — a lone, bleak building made from plain grey stone occupying a large square plot of land ringed in a chain-link fence which had collapsed in the years since this property had been maintained.
Harry clenched the Elder Wand hard enough to cramp his wrist. All around were the scents of London — asphalt, alcohol, ethnic food, and petrol most prominent among them — but all he could smell was blood.
Fuck him! he thought as he stared up at the abandoned building that had once been Wool's Orphanage. Harry hardly saw it. Its grey stone walls were too much like that long hallway he had drowned in blood and gore…
A single tendril of emerald fire curled out from the Elder Wand and slithered up the building's front most wall. The ache of fatigue filled Harry's limbs with a leaden weight, but he barely noticed as he watched the building buckle, one stone at a time.
There was a great, grinding rumble as it collapsed, and then a chorus of crashes that shook the earth beneath his feet. Screams called out in panicked answer from not far away and soon there was the sound of shoes scraping against smooth stones and shrill sirens in the distance.
Harry aimed the Elder Wand up into the dark night sky with hatred in his heart. "Morsmordre!"
"But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility of total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence."
— Albert Camus
Happy New Year, everyone! I apologize for my brief absence. The holidays somewhat forced my hand, but we are back to weekly uploads going forward.
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