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Chapter 36: The Hard Way

The dark floor and walls reflected the room's mood well. It was hard for Harry to look at its other occupants; stone-faced, storm-eyed Arcturus lounging in his high-backed chair as Zeus might sit on his throne, dark-haired Dorea with the calm, controlling countenance of fate itself. Studying the soaring ravens and the constellations framed against their wings in the large painting was far easier.

Arcturus's subtle shifting shattered the silence. "No matter how many times I read the reports, I can't get a clear picture of what happened through my head."

"Riddle's followers were routed," Dorea explained with clinical precision. "About a dozen fled with him — all others were either killed or captured." The First Lady flung a sidelong glance at Harry. "The fight between him and Riddle was fierce enough to bring down buildings. Not much else is clear. Reports differ wildly when it comes to details. Almost the only thing they seem to agree on is that the fight was between two men wearing masks — one silver, one emerald-green. That's where the Parisians have drawn the fanciful name from."

La Bataille des Masques. It meant the Battle of the Masks and made Harry want to wring the neck of whoever had come up with it. Why did men always have to name their battles, as if there was any glory to be had in creating heaps of corpses?

Dorea turned her head to peer at him more closely. "What I don't understand is how we came to be here, given that most accounts say the battle was swinging in your favour."

"People always dress things up to better fit their side." Seldom had Harry spoken truer words. "It wasn't really in anyone's favour. We did more damage to the city than we did each other. I had broken ribs before things went tits up, and Riddle had already tried fleeing twice. I'd call that a draw."

"So you were matched evenly?" Arcturus asked.

Harry considered that for the thousandth time. "It's hard to say. I won most of the exchanges that didn't end in stalemates, but I had the element of surprise and I doubt he took me half as seriously as I took him."

"So we need to sway things in your favour." Arcturus made it sound so simple.

"I'm not sure how we'll do that." Harry tried not to sound too bitter. Things were only going to be harder now that he had squandered his best chance of bringing Riddle in. When they next met, it would be on even ground at best.

Dorea brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "I think the natural starting point is analyzing what went wrong."

Hot emotion flashed behind Harry's eyes; frustration, shame, self-loathing. Not letting any of it show across his face was a tall task. "I was… distracted."

"Distracted?" Arcturus asked. "What could possibly have distracted you from fighting for your life?"

"Narcissa." Dorea said it so offhandedly, Harry would probably have spluttered had he been sipping at a drink. "She told me Riddle commanded a charge against her and that you cast some sort of spell that surrounded her in stone."

"Spreadhadh talamh," Harry muttered.

"I am… appreciative for the safety of my granddaughter," Arcturus said with more deliberation than Harry had ever heard him speak with, "though I wonder what possessed you to adjust your focus onto protecting her rather than yourself?"

"I've seen too many people die." It was the best Harry could come up with.

"Not good enough," Arcturus growled. I know it's not. That was the worst part. "You have to focus when fighting men like Riddle."

"More so now than ever," Dorea chimed in. "Your lapse will have been noticed. He will try recreating it if you two fight again."

Harry breathed out through his nose before that breath could freeze solid at the thought of more people placed in Riddle's crosshairs. "I'll try."

Arcturus slammed a fist onto the surface of his desk. "You'll do more than try, boy! I made a promise."

Dorea laid a hand on the one Arcturus had used to make a fist before he could retract it. "Peace, Arcturus. What is it you told me on the solstice about best laid plans?"

"No plan is perfect until it accounts entirely for the will of men." The Lord Black closed his eyes. When he opened them, wrath flickered in their irises like lightning through a livid sky. "We will be working on that focus. It's not a weakness you can afford. You'll be a target now."

Harry almost snorted. I've been a target since before I was born... "I don't know how you expect I'll just fix something like focus."

"The mind is like a sword," Arcturus told him. "Its blade grows dull and brittle if left unhoned for long. When sharpened, there's little it can't cut through." So similar to Dumbledore's sentiment from years ago.

"A well-honed mind cuts in ways no sword could ever dream of."

Though there were more explicit implications in Arcturus's version. "You're suggesting occlumency, aren't you?" Harry asked.

"Among other things," the Lord Black affirmed.

"I would have liked to learn it years ago." Merlin knew it would have eased his fears when sitting across from men like Grindelwald or Riddle.

"Then today's your lucky day." Arcturus said it with a face as straight as any arrow.

"It's not that easy," Harry pointed out. "You can only learn so much from books, and—"

"Save your voice, boy. I am the lord Black. Do you think I'm unaware as to how occlumency works?" Harry politely shut his mouth. "You will learn. It will be arranged."

Harry's hands both fiddled in his lap. "I do know some."

"Not enough," Arcturus said. "I'll see you master it."

Harry nodded; no other option felt appropriate. "All right."

"Good. What else?" Everything sounded so plain, the way Arcturus said it, as though killing Riddle could be accomplished with a basic checklist.

Harry tilted his head back and leant the question thought. "I'm not a duellist. I'm better when it comes to large-scale battles." Single combat against skilled opponents had been a rare thing while waging war. Such conflict was seldom so simple.

Arcturus rubbed his chin. "That one's not as simple. I'll consider it."

"Anything else?" Dorea asked.

Harry chewed his next words carefully. "I've come into possession of four powerful artifacts and would be interested in learning what they do. Not that I think they'll be of too much use, but I figure it can't hurt to cover all our bases."

"That can be arranged," Dorea said. "You'll be wanting somewhere in Paris while you stay there, naturally?"

"Paris or the UK. I have them hidden in the highlands, so I'll have to go and get them anyway."

"There is an artificery in Paris called L'Artificier," Dorea told him. "I have heard Narcissa talk about it in the past. The man in charge is said to be a genius."

"And he'll sign a nondisclosure?"

Dorea waved a hand. "That's an industry standard for sensitive commissions. Would you like one drawn up?"

"Please. I can send along the wording."

"Please do. Expect the contract in the next three days."

Had he not been sat beside the First Lady of the United Kingdom, he might have marvelled at the projected turnaround. "All right. That's all I can think of, unless either of you have ever seen someone cast out an invisible wall of force."

Arcturus tapped his fingers on his desk's edge. "Cast out how? As in the spell rippling out in a circle?"

"I'm not sure, since I didn't exactly stick around to observe it closely. That sounds right, though."

"The function's not all that obscure, just an extended cause," Arcturus said. "Though I can't say I've heard of it being used to create a shockwave."

"I just had no good answer when that was thrown at me," Harry admitted. "I tried getting above it, but it still clipped me and I was sent off course. That's how he did in my ribs."

"I'll go digging through the library and ask whether my brother's come across it," Arcturus decided. "Pollux was a national champion duellist in his day."

"All right, then," Harry said. "I think that's everything for now."

Dorea squeezed his shoulder. The gesture caught him so off guard, he almost jumped. "Owl us if there's anything else that can be done to speed this dirty work along."

"And expect an owl when I have things arranged," Arcturus added.

All of that is wonderful, Harry thought while entering the manor's entrance hall so he could disapparate, but none of it's of any use unless I can destroy the horcruxes.

Sirius watched with stiff shoulders and half-slitted eyes as Lily rose onto her tiptoes to press a light kiss against James's lips before gliding up the staircase and disappearing into the girl's dorms.

Remus shifted in his seat. "Are you going to talk to him?"

"Yeah. Someone has to." Sirius did not need a mirror to know his grey eyes were as hard as ingots. "I've left it too long already."

Remus stood and stretched, doing his best to look casual while he snuck a subtle glance at James. The idiot was grinning ear to ear and staring up the staircase. "Good luck. I think I'll leave you to it."

"Me too," squeaked Peter, scurrying onto his feet so he could follow Remus.

"Cowards," Sirius muttered once his friends were gone. Why was he always the one left to clean up James's mess?

The git was still grinning like a loon when Sirius plopped down next to him. "Why the long face?" James asked. "I'm quite chipper, myself."

Sirius bit the inside of his lip to stop from cursing the moron to Beijing and back. "That's sort of the reason."

James laughed. "You're telling me we've been friends all these years, and now you're realizing my happiness makes you miserable?"

Sirius clamped down harder on his lip. "I'm being serious, James."

That stupid grin stretched wider. "You're always—"

"James! I'm not fucking around here."

James actually jumped. "Bloody hell, mate. I see that." A frown had forced that cocky grin into submission. "What's up? Has something happened?"

Sirius was struck by the sudden urge to cackle. Oh, you know, he thought, just you getting played with like a finger puppet. "It's about you and Lily."

"Me and… what?" Puzzlement plastered itself across James's face. "What do you mean? I've wanted this for years. If you try and talk me out of it now that it's really happened—"

"It hasn't. You're just the only one who can't see that."

James blinked. "Did you not see, like, two minutes ago when she was kissing me?"

Sirius breathed out through his nose. "Do you not see how fucking fishy this whole thing looks?"

"Fishy?"

"Kalloway disappears, then that next day Evans just magically falls all over herself for you?"

"It wasn't like that." There was heat in James's face and voice. "She asked me about Kalloway and if I knew where he was. I guess something about my answer must have surprised her, or something. We talked. Really talked."

"Do you remember when I tried dating that Ravenclaw a few years back?" Sirius asked, so patient despite the urge to wring sense into James, he reckoned a trophy was in order.

James fussed with his longest strands of hair. "Older girl, right? The one we said looked more like your big sister back then?"

Sirius suppressed a grimace. "That's the one. You remember how I chased after her for months, then all of a sudden she was just all over me? You remember how that ended?"

"Oh, come off it," James scoffed. "Lils is nothing like that bitch. She didn't just take some dare from a friend. They're all still glaring at me, and McDonald couldn't act if her life depended on it."

Sirius gritted his teeth. "I'm not saying she was dared, just that I think she's full of shit."

James puffed up the best he could whilst lounging in a chintz armchair. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Sirius's temper flared at last, burning through his restraint and bursting out of him. "I'm just not getting through to you, am I?" Fuck, James could be insufferable! "She's using you! There, are you fucking happy now?"

James's face flushed redder than a see-through flask of wine. "You don't know what you're talking about, you—"

"Open your fucking eyes! The whole school sees it! Everyone but you! You're too tied up in your fucking fantasy to step back and see the bigger picture! Just like when you rushed in back on the solstice."

James leapt to his feet. "You take that back!"

"Or what?" Months of frustration boiled over as Sirius bounded up so he could get in James's face. "What the fuck did you think was going to happen back then? You got fucking burned, just like you're going to get burned if you keep letting her have her fucking way with you!"

Fire looked fit to spew from under James's skin. "You-you—"

"Go on, hotshot." Sirius tapped his jaw three times with his forefinger. "Hit me, big man. Prove how much you've grown. Show me how you finally convinced Evans that you're worth her time!"

James's lips curled back to bear his straight, white teeth. "Fuck you, Black!" The Head Boy stormed off and up the stairs.

Sirius watched him go while panting. "GAH!" Snatching up the nearest chair, he took a lumbering step forward and hurled it at the fireplace. The group of younger years sitting near the hearth squeaked and scattered like mice before a barking boarhound.

Sirius sank onto a sofa and buried his head in his hands. What was it Kalloway had said?

"Sometimes you can't make someone understand. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way."

Tires screeched against hot asphalt and a horn blared hard into his ears. Harry's wand was up and ready by the time the car stopped feet away from him. The driver rolled down his window and started screaming in a stream of French. Harry paid him no mind except to shoot his most scathing sneer in the man's direction. The first car he had seen while walking the streets for the past half hour and it had almost hit him. Typical.

A hundred of his uncle's rants resurfaced, though they did not linger at the forefront of his mind long. The sights around him swiftly supplanted them; shuttered windows, cracked cobblestones, upturned rubbish bins with their contents spilled across the sidewalk. Shards of glass shone under the next streetlamp. Beside the shattered window was a doorway, empty save for the pile of splinters strewn over its threshold. The worst part was that this street had not been caught in the central conflict and had escaped in better condition than most others so near the centre of the city. All just for Riddle to escape again.

L'Artificier was a breath of fresh air. Though its stone facade showed signs of age and wear, they were elegant and leant the place a certain ambiance. No cracks marred the walls, no scorches scored the door, no shutters were drawn over the enchanted windows in whose glass rolled an endless spread of gentle waves. It was as classy an establishment as he had expected when Dorea herself had recommended it. Let's just hope its owner speaks half-decent English.

No chime accompanied his entry. A sea of shadows spread before him, or so it appeared. The broad buildings squatting low across the street blocked any moonlight from streaming in through the large front window, and there was no sign of candles, lamps, or torches. Harry was forced to blink against the opaque darkness. Shadows slowly solidified into distinctive shapes. Buried beneath heaps of clutter were enough desks and tables to shame any corridor of Hogwarts classrooms. Somehow the countless surfaces were far too few; portions of the floor were piled high as well.

The faint sound of a hinge came from the room's rear wall. A silhouette strolled through the shadows and into Harry's line of sight. "Bonjour, mon ami. Que puis-je faire pour vous aujourd'hui?"

For fuck sake. Why did everyone in this forsaken city refuse to speak a lick of English? "Uh... je ne… par… uh, pas français? Uh… L'anglais?"

The artificer laughed, a lighter sound than Harry had expected from his broad build. "May I suggest you try brandishing your wand next time you want something you do not have the name for? You're a far more skillful duellist than you are a linguist."

Surprise shot through Harry before recognition took its place. "You're a better linguist than most people in this city seem to be, but I might recommend you do more duelling yourself. You've got a knack for it." This squat man with his steel-grey hair and soft brown eyes was the one who had deftly duelled Bellatrix and came out unscathed.

"I will politely pass on your suggestion, though I appreciate the praise. I have not the heart for fighting."

"I'm sure the option will be there if you reconsider." The old artificer had cast Garbh-Shruthand and snuffed out Riddle's Fiendfyre.

That same man inclined his head with courtly grace. "What can I do for you today?"

Not as old as I thought, Harry decided. When he had first seen him on that grim night, he had fallen for the steel-grey hair and stately speech. "We might want somewhere more private. My commission's a bit sensitive." Harry withdrew the nondisclosure and shuffled it between his palms.

"Ah." The artificer's expression was unreadable. It reminded Harry of how Dumbledore looked when pensive or in deep thought. "You should follow me."

Moving through a subtle door set into the lobby's back wall, they stepped into a straight hallway lined with torches in antique brackets. The corridor was barren except for these and three doors on each side, plus a seventh at its far end that Harry guessed led into a basement.

The artificer led him into the third room on the right. Old bookshelves of cured hardwood covered almost all available wall space. Every shelf was ladened down with lines of books. Many were bound in black leather and were in languages Harry could not read based upon the titles. Along with these was a large collection of neatly fastened scrolls. At first he thought signs of damage marred the majority of them. Then he realized his mistake; what he had assumed were signs of wear were actually fibres standing out against the smooth surfaces of so many scrolls. Did that mean those were written on papyrus?

The artificer slid into a large armchair near one end of a long conference table covered in a cloth of royal blue. "I should warn you before proceeding that I will sign the nondisclosure prior to discussing the commission if you prefer, but that I cannot promise I will accept the work."

Harry took the only other seat, set up directly opposite the first, and handed over the contract. "Fair enough." The Blacks could always draw up a second nondisclosure if this business fell through.

The artificer's eyes raced back and forth. "Restrictive, though not at all unreasonable. You would like this signed in blood, I presume?"

Harry did not speak at once, so surprised the man had read through the entire document with such speed. "Yes, please."

The artificer produced a long, black quill from the pocket of his blue robes and signed his name in a flowing hand.

Alden Vieilla

"All right," Harry said. "I have three artifacts. They're a thousand years old and powerfully enchanted. I want to know what they all do."

"That should be simple enough. Do you have them with you?" Harry took each one out from underneath his cloak and laid them on the table. The diadem's sparkling silver looked almost white against the dark blue cloth, gleaming alongside the gold cup. Then there was Slytherin's serpentine wand, which appeared mundane when lying near its counterparts. Three kitchen knives might have been placed before him for all the surprise Vieilla showed. "Powerfully enchanted, indeed. Well protected too, unless I miss my guess."

Harry shrugged. "I haven't been able to work out what they do, but that kind of magic's not my forte so it's hard to say how much that means.

"I suspect most masters in this city would have their fair share of struggling," Vieilla said.

"But you can diagnose whatever enchantments are on them? You do know what they are, right?" Harry tried not to sound as hopeful as he felt.

"I recognize the artifacts, and I am confident in my ability to uncover their functions."."

Harry released a breath he had not meant to hold captive. "Good. Does that mean you'll accept the commission?"

"I will, yes, though I ask that you allow my apprentice to lend her talents to this work. I will ensure she signs in blood as well. You can witness that signature right now, if you would like?"

Harry mulled it over. "As long as she signs and doesn't slow you down."

"You need not concern yourself with that." Vieilla drew his wand. "Expecto Patronum." Silver mist streamed out of its tip, shifting into a wide, winged shape adorned with horns and ample plumage. An owl. "Just one moment. She will come promptly."

Quiet cloaked the conference room. Harry's hands fussed in his lap. The silence pressed in on him like cold sweat. "Thank you for helping during the riot," he said.

"It was my civil duty." If anyone else had said that, it would probably have sounded arrogant and righteous. The words fit Vieilla like they would few others, the same way some men make gaudy clothes look fashionable. "I wish only that more damage could have been averted.

Harry grimaced. You and me both. "I'm sure you did what you could."

There was a knowing smile on Vieilla's lips. "I did my best, as I always strive to. Although I must confess, if you will allow, to wishing you proceeded more carefully."

Harry's shame swelled alongside a spike of indignation. "It's not easy mitigating damage while fighting for your life."

"You misunderstand me. I mean in your preparations for said fight. The ambush was your orchestration, was it not?" Harry's clamped jaw must have betrayed him, for the artificer pressed ahead. "You ought to have more critically considered the repercussions of that plan." Each word widened the hole in Harry's gut. "Although the Order of Merlin would have you think all that matters is the greater good, contrary to what many believe, their philosophies are not ironclad. More's the pity for us all." Three sharp knocks wrapped against the door before Harry could respond. "Ah, excellent," the artificer said with a slight smile. "Come in, Calypso."

Harry knew but a brief moment of relief now that painful topics had been left behind before he saw her.

Smiling sweetly with her long hair loose and streaming down her silver robes, Narcissa Black stepped over the threshold.

"An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break."

— Laura Schroff

A special thank you to my high-tier patron, Cup, for her generous and unwavering support.

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