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Act IV - Skin In The Game
Chapter 19: Borrowed Time
Percy's office was very much like Percy, neat and business-like. The predominant colours were black, white and grey, and charcoal drawings adorned the white walls. It could have been the office of a muggle lawyer in any part of the world, and stood in stark contrast to the abundance of overwhelming colours down on Diagon Alley. Thanks to excellent silencing charms, the hustle and bustle of the alley couldn't even be heard up here.
"Mr. Potter," said Percy, wearing crisp grey robes with a formal expression on his face. "Welcome."
Harry rolled his eyes. Sirius had set Percy up in a one studio apartment that he and James Potter had purchased right after Hogwarts. Sirius had handed the full rights to the apartment to Harry as a formal gift after accepting him as a son of House Black. After his release from Azkaban and his accepting the service of House Potter, Harry had offered Percy this place as a live-in office.
It did nothing to lessen the Weasley scion's attitude. And while he was no longer antagonistic towards Harry, he had instead shifted to formal tones, keeping their relationship on a strictly professional basis.
"You're right on time, Mr. Potter. They are waiting."
After formally negotiating his apprenticeship deal with Nicholas Flamel, Harry had asked the man to forward a copy of the contract to Percy Weasley. Apolline Delacour had already drafted a betrothal contract between House Potter and House Delacour, and with Harry's permission, forwarded it to the same. With that done, he had spent the rest of the day in Flamel Mansion, talking in depth both about Nicholas's thaumaturgy and his own. He had somehow managed to bear Perenelle's poisonous presence throughout the meeting.
Knowing Percy's legendary work ethic, Harry supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that Percy had already consulted with the best lawyers in Europe, and listed the best five, three of them best known for prenuptial agreements, and the other two, for business contracts. He supposed he should thank Daphne for getting him to experience the Rosier wedding in Spain, or else sitting in a room with five smartly-dressed attorneys β three men and two women β would've made him flustered.
As Percy put it, some of them were there because House Potter could afford to pay them. Others because they wanted to work with The Harry Potter. And the rest didn't want to lose on a merger deal between two such powerful and influential houses that could very well cement better relations between two magical nations. Percy had meticulously led them through an overview of the two contracts in a formal preamble, albeit in clear, simple, succinct terms. And then finally, it was Harry's turn to speak.
He glanced at the five copies of the thick wads of documents that lay on the table, one for each attorney.
"Percy tells me that you're the best lawyers one can hope for. Now all this legalese is beyond my capacity to understand, but it's very important I know what's in it. So I want you to study it, go through every detail, every clause and specification, and the exact terms they are proposing. Any potential loopholes, any expectations, any restraints. Anything relevant, even if it's even just random trivia that could show up a couple of years later. Mind you, these two contracts don't reflect my deal with Nicholas Flamel and House Delacour. These two contracts will lay the foundation for the alliance that will eventually form between the Ancient and Noble Houses of Potter, Black and Greengrass of Wizarding Britain, and House Delacour and House Flamel, notable names of the French wizarding society. I expect you all to give it the attention it deserves, and send Percy your reports in three days. Any questions?"
A man spoke up. "You said it involves House Black and House Greengrass. Does that mean that House Delacour and House Flamel will end up in direct business with them as well?"
Harry thought back to the Materia Phase Transmutation chamber he had seen at the Flamel Mansion. Then he remembered the wardstone that Fleur had crafted for him, in which he had stored a potent amount of 'Summer' and handed to Augusta Longbottom and Healer Dunbar to see if its attribute of 'growth' could conceptually overlap with healing magic to heal that which has been damaged or stopped growing.
"My godfather Lord Sirius Black has made me his heir. And I'm marrying Daphne Greengrass, Lady of House Greengrass. Whether Houses Flamel or Delacour or both eventually deal with Houses Black or Greengrass or not, the former two will likely be affected because of these contracts."
"Will they?" asked a woman. "Can you give us any particulars?"
Harry grinned. "I can't. But you can, after you've studied it at length."
The woman smiled. "In that case, can we have access to the financial reports of Houses Potter, Black and Greengrass? Perhaps we could find better alternatives to boost your Houses' portfolio instead of blindly accepting whatever House Delacour is offering you?"
"We might also need to inquire with a few people," said a man.
"Feel free to do so," said Harry. "So long as you're being discreet."
"By when do you intend to finalise these deals?" asked the first woman.
Harry mused over the question for a moment. "I'd like to have a concrete idea of things before the Wizengamot meets during the Winter Solstice. I'm expecting a lot of curve balls thrown my way after that, so hopefully I can deal with this while things are peaceful and quiet."
It probably said everything about his byzantine luck that the universe decided to take his words as a literal challenge right then and there, as everything around him exploded in a vasto of white.
On raw instinct, Harry had already begun to form a defensive shield around everyone when everything went boom. What followed didn't exactly register as sound, the way a gong did. There was just this terrible violence in the air, a sudden blow of disorienting pressure, as if he had been hit by a truck made of pillow mattresses.
His hearing went down to a familiar, high-pitched tone. There was dust and smoke everywhere, and the only reason he knew that everyone around him was safe was because the Protego was still up, albeit flickering at places. Everything felt iffy, and if not for the Protego, it would be impossible to tell which way was downward. Somewhere in this, his brain finished rebooting and things snapped back into focus.
Someone had just tried to detonate the building he was on all the way back to the Stone age.
"Everyone okay?" He yelled, receiving small grunts as acknowledgement. There wasn't much left of the room except what was covered by the shield, which wasn't much. Hopefully, Reparo would take care of the rest. There were loud impact sounds above them. Whoever it was, they were fighting.
"It β it came from above," coughed Percy. "Someone's above us."
"Everyone out," Harry snarled, his wand clenched tightly in one hand. The sword of Gryffindor materialised in the other.
"That'sβ" Percy began, but one look at Harry's eyes and the words died down Percy's throat. The attorneys too quickly gathered their briefcases, and the documents and left.
"Contact Sirius, or the DMLE, whichever comes first."
And with that, Harry opened the window, and with an ascending charm, shot up towards the terraceβ¦
β¦And nearly fell flat on his face as he registered who were standing in front of him. He was so stunned that he probably would've just fallen off had he remained airborne.
"...What⦠What is that?" He whispered.
The doppelganger wasn't even worth his notice. Someone must have gotten access to his hair and used it to polyjuice into him, possibly in an attempt to frame him. No, instead the more shocking and horrifying bit was the twisted, corrupted energy arising out of Neville in waves. It reminded him a bit ofβ¦ well, himself, when he was in the Anima and waves of Death energy were rising out of his body in the form of dense fumes. Only in Neville's case, it wasn't Death. But it wasn't magic either. It was β
"CRUCIO!"
The jagged streak of sick crimson erupted out of the imposter's wand, and all thoughts vanished from Harry's head. He thrust his wand ahead, the counter spell ready on his lips.
"Mors Dissolutum!"
Unlike Mors Exesa, which manifested as a physical thing, capable of addressing any form of magic over a wide area, Mors Dissolutum was more focussed, more precise, a lot less powerful but a lot more versatile in the right conditions. The grey spell met the advanced form of the cruciatus curse midway, the Death energy neutralising the potent dark magic within, disintegrating the spell completely, as the imposter whirled around and stared at him with disbelieving eyes.
"Hi," said Harry. "Sorry for being late to the party. Don't tell me it's over already?"
The imposter's eyes met his, and widened, registering Gryffindor's famed blade clenched in his left hand, before meeting his eyes again.
"Harry Potter," said the man. "It's unfortunate I couldn't kill you last year when I had the chance."
Harry narrowed his eyes. Only one thing rang in his mind at the man's words.
"You put my name in the Triwizard? You killed Professor Moody?"
"Right in one," said the man, a maniacal grin tearing through his features.
Harry clenched his wand tighter. He knew that Professor Moody had been found dead inside his own trunk, with no trace of the killer. But if this man was behind it, then it meantβ¦.
"So, Tom Riddle is finally out of his cave, is he?" He asked. "I'm surprised your Dark Lord took this long. Cowering like a pathetic loser. But it makes sense, I suppose, what with losing to a one-year old, and then again to an eleven-year-old, and then again to a fourteen-yearβ"
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
This time Harry just flicked his wand, the tiny bubble of Death forming at the tip deflecting the killing curse with ease as it smashed against the floor harmlessly.
The furious look in the man's eyes made Harry smile. After all those sessions having to deal with Snape, he could finally see how words could be used like barbed wires, provoking an opponent into reacting rashly.
A rash opponent was a sloppy one.
"You have gained confidence if nothing else, boy," said the imposter. "It's a pity that you're not mine to kill, especially with the Dark Lord no longer wanting you dead. I'd have loved to put you down like a dog."
He gave Harry a hungry leer, and honestly, seeing his own face behave like that weirded Harry out a bit, but the more he spent time talking to this madman, the more he was worried that strange energy would corrupt Neville. He needed to finish this quickly.
"Don't worry," said Harry. "You'll get your chance right now. Better make use of it before I defeat you and hand you over to the Aurors."
"HARRYYY!" roared Neville, something utterly inhuman in his tone. It was not magically amplified, and yet, there was something huge about it, like the roar of a wave crashing against the beach. "HE TOOK HERMIONE!"
Whatever quip Harry was about to make vanished in the light of that revelation. His eyes hardened, and the cold, rational mindset and astounding clarity of his animagus form took its place.
"Where is Hermione?" He asked.
"The mudblood is where she deserves to be," spat the man. "And if you β"
"Sectumsempra!"
The imposter jerked , only barely managing to get up a shield to stop the vicious dark severing curse, before returning several of his own spells. Harry noted that they were all quick cutting curses, and used an Exesa shield to neuter them from hitting him. He noticed the man falter for a brief moment, only to manage his composure the next instant. Harry cursed to himself, because it wasn't an opening enough for him to press an advantage.
The polyjuice is wearing off, he realised. After all that time spent in training, this was his first fight against a high-level Death-Eater and he'd be damned if he let the bastard escape, much less win. He pressed in, hoping to end the fight, when Faux-Harry thrust his wand in Neville's direction, and yelled β
"BOMBARDA MAXIMA!"
Harry yelled in horror and rushed towards Neville, a deflecting spell ready on his lips, but a wave of twisted corruption erupted out of Neville right that moment, the exploding curse shattering upon impact in a mighty detonation.
"Tch!" The man cursed. "Should've known." He thrust his wand at Harry and began firing what Snape called the top-ten Death-Eater spells β the killing curse, the entrails-expelling curse, the cruciatus, the ribbon-cutter β anything and everything that employed Dark magic and landed heavy damage on the opponent.
Harry would later admit that he was a bit surprised with how comfortable he found it. Between training with Sirius and Snape, and all the harsh regimen he inflicted upon himself, he was easily able to cut loose and counter the man's onslaught. Unlike others, he was perfectly capable of countering the intense dark spells the imposter threw out, matching his assault spell for spell.
"Not the weakling you were last year," the imposter spat, shaking his head like a mad dog, as his true visage appeared. Straw-coloured hair with a freckled face, and easily over six feet tall and lean. But most of all, it was that bitter and cold countenance with just a hint of homicidal madness within those dark eyes that caught Harry's attention. It was a face that promised endless suffering to anyone that defied his Master's will, or who simply crossed his path on the wrong day.
That however, didn't stop Harry from impaling him with a dark hex right above the kidney.
"Where's Hermione?" Harry demanded.
"The mudblood is where she should be," the man said again, his face twisted in pain and fury. "Forget about her. You've got bigger things to worry about."
And with that, he pulled out an ordinary looking hourglass vial and smashed it.
And instantly, a haze of magic seared out of nowhere from his right. Harry whirled, gawking at the now damaged building that was St. Mungo's, feeling the intense wave of magic that had materialised around it. To his senses, it was like someone had suddenly brought a volcano into Diagon Alley. The energy swerved through the air in an arc, branching out in straight lines, intersecting each other and travelling in arcs further in very specific directionsβ¦ familiar directionsβ¦
"NOβ¦." Harry breathed. A titanic runic circle formed around St. Mungos, and shot upwards into the sky, directly hovering over it, glowing, as powerful magic began to spin in its centre into a vortex.
"A little gift from my master," sneered the man. "He calls it Project Prometheus. Think of it as a present for you, Potter. Youβ¦."
He trailed off, as his eyes met Harry's, the look in themβ¦.
It was not the sort of look that a person gave another person that they despised.
It was not the look of a person that was being rushed into making a terrible decision.
It was not a gleeful grin of an unstable murderer either.
Instead, it was the look of a person merely pressed for time. One that knew that he had to make a decision soon, and that there was no point in keeping him alive or fighting him. The sort of look that one gave to an annoying pest that had gotten in his way.
It made him angry, made him want to taunt Potter further.
"You have no idea what game you've been drawn into, Potter. Yes, you can fight me, or even capture me. But if you do, poor Neville's parents and granny will perish. As will everyone else. Or you can stop that if you can. But if you do, I'll escape, and β URKKK!"
The man staggered, and looked down, staring at Gryffindor's blade that lay impaled through his chest.
"If you won't stop it," said Harry coldly. "You are no use to me alive."
He gave Harry a look of intense loathing, and knew he wasn't for long in this world.
"You just orphaned Longbottom, Harry Potter!"
And then he vanished.
A second later, Gryffindor's blade reappeared in Harry's hands, and he knew that the man was dead by now. Goblin silver was enchanted to absorb anything that strengthened it, and between the mix of potent basilisk blood, and even more potent Death energy, just a nick of it was enough to kill anyone.
The imposter was dead and gone⦠wherever that portkey took him. And with that, his problems began, for in his absence, there was no one to stop the runic circle from activating either, assuming the man even could do so.
"hARry," Neville spoke, shaking and spasming under the effect of those fumes. Harry tried to approach him, but something about those fumes made him hesitate. The power that was rolling off him in waves was incredibly high, closer to his own, if not outright surpassing him. A power he had never seen Neville Longbottom use in class over the years. And yet, it was a power he had never felt before, not Dark magic, or even ones rooted in the Abstract. If anything, it felt like raw emotion, one so strong that it was tangible, like purpose given form. An emotion so deep, so powerful that it had become corporeal, and was exerting its own weight upon Reality.
"HaRry, it HUrts! Doβ dO soMETHing."
Harry clenched his fists. What was he to do? Try to help his friend, when the power of Death within him was practically baying for Neville's blood? The fumes arising out of him were reaching out like boneless, blind limbs, as if guided by their own will. Stretching and writhing not to protect, but to feast instead.
They were wrong. Twisted. Deadly, just like the horcrux. A hunger driven to the point of a crippling explosion. A fullness that was almost at the point of rupturing. An overwhelming pressure that would soon stain the world with its corruption if he didn't do something.
It sickened him, made him snarl. He didn't know how one's emotions could form into something this horrible, but the deepest, darkest part of him, the one that answered to something far beyond any mortal authority made him pause and take note.
I have to kill it. I have to β
He paused, and regarded Neville, who seemed to be in less control over himself with every passing second.
Just one curse and it will all be over. He wouldn't even feel a thing.
"MAKE IT STOP!" Neville pleaded, crawling up into a ball in vain in hopes of relieving himself of the agony he was under.
But how? Where was everyone? The Aurors, hit-wizards, Dumbledore? Someone had to have noticed something, right?
Desperation skittered through Harry's nerves. There was nothing he could do, and every second was costing him. The whole mess would be over if he managed to pull Neville out of those fumes, but he doubted he had the skill or the time to do that, not with that runic circle approaching the point of completion.
He wasn't a wardmaster. He couldn't set up a ward that could channel raw power from the earth to trap Neville inside it. Even if he might have been able to create a privacy ward using runes, he wouldn't be able to maintain it from a distance. The moment he left Neville's presence, the ward would simply collapse the moment those fumes erupted again.
Still, he had to do something. He began performing the wand movement for a protego orb to restrain Neville within it β
"Won't work."
That voiceβ¦.
Morty the Snitch zoomed to his side, and Tom Riddle's cold voice whispered again. "Standard magic won't work against an obscurial. Especially one with such power. Why, the sheer possibilities of having a beast like this under one's commandβ¦."
"Not the time to go all megalomaniac here," Harry cursed under his breath.
"Yes, yes, I know," Morty grumbled. "Why have you made all fun your enemy, Potter? What did fun ever do to you?"
"MORTYβ"
"Yes! Yes!" It buzzed. "I was waiting to see if you arrive at the obvious conclusion, you pesky little worm. You failed, obviously. Cast the Protego, empowered with the Diabolis suffix. It's β"
"That will utterly destroy whatever's touching it," Harry half-yelled.
"Exactly. If that windbag knows what's better for it, it won't try to escape out. Now do it, before it spreads out even more."
Harry made up his mind. "Listen Neville, you've got to hold on."
He whipped his wand in a familiar, complex movement, and the tip of his wand was instantly encased in a thick, pale blue light, magnifying in size with every passing fraction of a second. The last time he had used the Diabolis suffix, he had to draw out raw power directly from the Anima, and channel it through his very being. This time, he had a safer, yet far more dependable source to channel it from.
The flames of Summer rose through him, and Harry finished the wand movement.
"PROTEGO DIABOLICA!"
βAnd impaled his wand down to the ground.
Fire rose, golden flames of Summer, spreading out in all directions. Even the dark, fuming tendrils seemed to hesitate from touching it, and Neville wandlessly levitated, wanting to get away from them. With a flick of his wand, Harry converged the flames to encase the Longbottom boy within, trapping him within that orb of golden flame.
"Sloppy," noted Morty with condescension. "But I suppose it's what we can expect from β"
It stopped, as a wave of magic detonated from atop St. Mungo's with a menacing crimson sheen.
The colour of Fire.
Unusual for someone of his stature, Sirius Black was at his desk going through reports forwarded to him from magical law enforcement agencies in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Ever since the werewolf mob under Fenrir Greyback began operating erratically, no doubt commanded by a certain Dark Lord, the political climate as far as magical beings were concerned, was uneasy at best. The vampire courts, the werewolf packs, the giants, the trolls β nearly every single dark creature group registered under the ICW were showing erratic movements throughout the continent. Ever since the Rosier wedding, Sirius Black had found himself being chosen as the official British representative for most international law enforcement cases, his own track record as a hit-wizard, plus his connection with the Boy-Who-Lived making more and more people all over the world preferring to work with him instead of other, more experienced colleagues.
Suddenly, one of the junior hit-wizards rushed into his office. "Sir!" She said in a panic.
"Easy McLaggen," said Sirius. "Calm down, what's the issue?"
"We just got a Floo call from St. Mungo's. There's been a fight β"
"It's a sunday," said Sirius absently, looking down at his wad of papers. "It's normal. There's no need to panic. The Aurors will take care of it."
"Sir!" McLaggen all but screamed. "St. Mungo's been attacked! And the FIR claims that Harry freakin' Potter attacked them!"
Sirius gaped at the young woman in amazement, and then said. "...What?"
Instantly, a deafening klaxon went off.
"Attention! All units to approach St. Mungo's for a potential Level-5 catastrophe."
Sirius jumped off his chair. A Level-5? Had Voldemort himself attacked? He whipped his wand, and instantly, the screen in front of him snapped into focus, showing the outer frontage of the hospital, where a massive runic circle had appeared above it, with tendrils of arcane energy climbing down all the way to the ground, trapping the entire hospital inside a barrier. A few people were rushing out of it, only to hit the barrier and β
SPLAT!
β exploded into gore.
"Well sir," asked McLaggen. "Now do you think we need to panic?"
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