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Harry Potter and the Perversion of Purity

By ACI100

Book 4: The Deadliest of Games

Chapter 8: The Eye of the Storm

August 30, 1994

Dartmoor, Devon, England

1:44 AM

Harry sank into the mattress and focused on the pleasant weight in all four limbs and the feeling of his head against the pillow. Fanning blonde hair teased the corners of his mind's eye, but he forced his mind clear and let all but relaxation drift across a vacant sea.

Shrill whistling disrupted the surrounding silence. Metal clanged and rattled and Harry opened his eyes. Circular walls closed ranks around him and iron bars shook under the onslaught of strong wind. The thick, damp smell of rain and storm was in the air.

"I thought you would come." Harry uncurled his fingers from around the pendant and turned his head to watch the warlord. "What did you think?"

All the elation he had felt throughout the day evaporated. "I always knew there were thousands of us around the world. I saw a bunch of them in your memories, but it's different in person."

"I found it reassuring." Grindelwald did not look at him, choosing instead to stare out between the bars. "Hearing about magicians abroad is not the same as seeing them. It makes you realize how strong we are."

A sour taste assailed Harry's next inhale. "But also how much stronger we could be."

"It can have that effect, yes." Grindelwald dragged his gaze away from the room's lone window and focused on his pupil. "May I ask what inspired those thoughts in you?"

"Just how much effort the ministry went through, all to avoid muggles." Harry had come to expect such questions and so his answer flowed fast and smooth as spring streams rushing over weathered stones. "Sanctions, wards, obliviators popping in and out all day — there was no end."

"Is it not frustrating?" Grindelwald asked, leaning his head against the wall behind him. "Think about the wasted time and effort. Think about how much more we could have achieved had so many of our resources not been wasted hiding from them."

Harry's hands curled into fists. "I hate it."

The first hint of a smile crept onto the warlord's lips. It was not warm like what you feel when loved ones laugh, but hollow and foreboding as looking down to see a shallow wound. "Then change it."

"One day." It was the first time Harry had ever said it aloud. He waited for an onset of emotion or for Grindelwald's reaction, but neither came. "The British minister wants me in his good graces."

"Good," said Grindelwald. "Tell me about him."

"Plenty of people call him an idiot. One of Dumbledore's friends once told me Fudge asked Dumbledore for advice all the time, but that's changed."

"Since Miss Skeeter's book, I presume?"

"That started it, I think," Harry said. "That and Dumbledore not wanting dementors at Hogwarts. It's gotten worse since the Azkaban breakout. Dumbledore won't back down when it comes to spreading word about Voldemort's return, but Fudge is having none of it."

"I cannot help but notice the precision with which you provide answers," Grindelwald said. "So tell me — if plenty of people call this man a fool, what is it you call him?"

"I'm not sure," Harry admitted. "I don't think he's completely useless. There was a mass Azkaban breakout and he's still minister. That has to count for something."

"And what does Fudge's political survival tell you about him?"

Harry cast his mind back over the times when he and Fudge had spoken. "That he's cunning. Not smart in the way most people think of it, but he gets by. He's corrupt, but clever."

Grindelwald waved a skeletal hand. "Politics are inherently corrupt. Anyone telling themselves otherwise is committing needless self-harm."

"He's a good talker," Harry added. "I don't think he does well under pressure — he's had some bad takes in the papers when pressed about the breakout and he got pretty flustered today when a bunch of foreign dignitaries confronted him, but he knows which words will accomplish what he wants."

Grindelwald cocked his head. "Foreign dignitaries?"

"I was in the top box," Harry explained. "When Fudge saw me, he asked if I would sit beside him and kept inserting me into conversations with other ministers and ambassadors whenever he could get away with it. That's how I know he wants to use me."

"Doubtlessly to save his reputation. Cunning as the man might be, he will need support if he is to weather the storm." Grindelwald leant forward. "Which dignitaries did you speak to? Did any of them leave an impression?"

"Stefon Zhikarov," Harry answered, almost without thinking.

"Ah." Grindelwald's face had gone glass-smooth. "A Russian."

"You know him? I didn't think he was that old. His daughter looks about twelve."

"Not him," Grindelwald explained, "but I knew another named Zhikarov. Vadim was his name — the most talented espionage agent I ever knew."

"I'm not surprised," Harry said. "Every expression felt fake. They were perfect, just… I don't know. Maybe it's the natural Legilimency, but I just got the feeling it was all an act. It's like he's more snake than man."

"I have long-suspected Vadim was a Metamorphmagus, but I could never prove it." Grindelwald's lips creased, settling halfway to a frown. "I failed to apprehend him."

Harry flinched, almost as if someone had swung for him. "Do you think Stefon is one, too?"

"Doubtful, but not impossible. Metamorphmagery is exceptionally rare. It is prominent in certain gene pools, though I have never known the trait to manifest in consecutive generations. There are writings in which it happens, but their validity is questionable."

"It's not something I've really considered," Harry admitted. It was well-known the Blacks possessed the gift, but none had shown signs of it in generations.

"I presume Zhikarov was a high-ranking official under Pyotr?" Grindelwald asked.

"An ambassador," Harry confirmed. "Zhikarov said he handles most of Pyotr's public duties, but I'm not sure how much to believe."

"Skepticism is always wise where Russia is concerned. I would avoid Zhikarov. Were any other dignitaries striking?"

"Not really," Harry said after a moment's pause. "The Bulgarian minister was stern and got pretty aggressive with Fudge, but he shut up once Zhikarov told him to. The French minister seemed sound, but it could be an act. Those three were the main ones I talked to. Most of the others just talked with each other or jumped in once or twice."

Grindelwald offered him a smile. "Meeting them at all is good. You will have their attention once the Triwizard Tournament is won. Then you can begin making inroads. One day they may support you. I hope you're more fortunate in that regard than I was."

The words sent Harry reeling. That sort of talk was mental. The merest possibility of it was years away. First he had to get strong enough to secure his own freedom. "There was something else," he said. "I—"

Harry lurched halfway out of bed, slamming his shoulder against the headboard and summoning his wand. All signs of Grindelwald and his tower cell were gone.

"Bloody hell!" Someone staggered away from him.

Harry lit his wand and scowled. "What the bloody hell—"

"Something's happening outside," Draco's spill of words was hurried. "It's serious. Father wants us down in the dining room right now."

Draco's waxy skin and tone got Harry moving. It's the same one he used on my birthday before Voldemort confronted me.

Lucius and Regulus were waiting in the entryway. Diana stood nearby the exit with her wand out and an oversized cloak draped across her shoulders. "What's going on?" Harry asked. Had he really just been asleep? Seldom had he felt so alert.

"A group of drunken fools is stirring trouble," Lucius explained. It was more than that. Draco would not react the way he had otherwise. "I have sent Narcissa home ahead. Theodore and Tiberius will arrive momentarily. You three and Theodore will head for the forest and wait there until this madness is resolved."

"What about you?" Draco asked, straightening his pyjamas with unsteady hands.

"I would be remiss not to put in an appearance alongside the ministry." Lucius said it the way one might lament enduring unpleasant relatives. "It is important Fudge has no doubts concerning my loyalty."

Regulus looked past Draco and met Harry's eye. "If any of them come near you, cast first and ask questions later. Use any magic you have to. Lucius and I will smooth it all over, Do you understand?"

Harry schooled his face and nodded, his wand's handle hot against his palm. Trying not to bemoan how huge a mess his life was, he locked gazes with the Lord Black and tried projecting past his eyes. Each time he reached deeper, psyching fingers batted his attempt away.

Regulus must have noticed what he was doing because the resistence faded. They're Death Eaters, aren't they? Harry asked. Ones who have betrayed the Dark Lord's orders?

Regulus gave a minute shake of his head as Tiberius and Theodore burst inside. "Are we going?" Tiberius asked, wand in hand.

"Yes," Lucius said, drawing his own wand as if it was a sword. "We are."

Harry's stride faltered when they stepped outside. Open grass lay bare where before it had been occupied. Shredded, trampilled, or missing altogether, the tents that had covered those patches lay in tattered ruins. He swept his eyes in a broad arc. Farther from the forest's edge, the carnage was worse. There, bodies were strewn and stampeded over as a roiling crowd competed for escape.

Harry grimaced. Screams rolled across the plain of grass and smoke swam up into a velvet sky. There was an explosion in the distance and a tremor underfoot. Had that been a burst of light over the treeline?

"Merlin." Draco was standing stock still and staring toward where the smoke was coming from. Harry could not see its source, but there was no need. Someone was starting fires and it was no accident.

"Come on," Diana said, grabbing her brother's arm and dragging him toward the tree line.

Theodore walked at his heels as Harry followed. What was going on? If the Death Eaters were innocent of this bedlam, then who had caused it? Harry stood on tiptoes and craned his neck to no avail. There was too much chaos for any sort of clarity.

The screams were coming closer. Another round of explosions sent a shockwave rippling underneath the upward sloping grass. Harry stumbled but maintained his feet. He could sense the malice in the air. It too was closing.

Diana pulled Draco toward the forest's mouth when the quartet crested the low hill, but Harry paused and stared over the crowd. Four bodies floated upside down above the field. All of them were limp and dressed in night clothes, but the rising smoke obscured the finer details from so far away.

Hot knives buried themselves behind his eyes when he murmured an incantation Voldemort had shown him not long ago. Each whisper was clearer than a still lake's surface and every one of them made his eardrums throb. The shouts were farther off but enough to make him stiffen up and clench his teeth. Harry wrestled his mind under control. It did not provide the relief he had been hoping for. Instead of the vacant, drifting sea he had sought out, waves of sound crashed into him on repeat, not unlike the veela's magic earlier that evening.

Focus. Peering over the crowd with his enhanced eyes, he could make out the floating figures, bobbing like life-sized puppets hung from unseen strings. Disdain curled Harry's lips when he identified the muggle land owner who had sneered at Lucius, but then he saw the children.

Harry blinked and was no longer seeing them. Shining snow drank deep from a spreading pool of blood as the shrill screams of a dying child faded. He blinked again and was staring out at a roiling crowd of jeering faces. Fire licked up the hem of his shirt, and the pyre underneath him snapped and crackled.

A third blink restored him to reality. His hand was curled around the searing handle of his wand. From the light of sparks swirling all around its tip, he glimpsed Draco's bloodless face and remembered him slumped against a hedge a month or so ago.

The heat his wand gave off intensified and his hand burned. Why is it always children?

"Harry? What are you doing?"

His legs were shaking — every part of him was shaking. Heat crawled up his arms and settled in his cheeks. His skin itched on the inside and green mist curled out of his wand and snaked around his wrist.

"Harry!' Diana's voice was sharper now and she had left her brother's side. She seized his arm and he could feel blood flow beneath her skin. I'm still using the Super Sensory Charm. Harry cut off the spell. "Come on!"

His eyes remained trained on the four floating muggles. "Go."

Diana's grip tightened on his arm. "Harry! Don't be—"

"I said go." She yelped and staggered back. Blisters rippled across her palm. I didn't mean to do that. He could not find any shred of apology inside himself. "Run — hide in the woods like your father told you."

"What about you?" Draco spluttered. "Father also asked—"

"Your father's word means nothing to me." Harry's voice came out colder than he meant. He took a deep breath. His control was slipping. "Just go."

"Harry—"

"Theodore, you won't convince me—"

"I know. Be careful."

Harry failed at feigning a smile, but he hoped his face had softened. "Always."

Harry walked back through the bustling crowd, tracing his wand through the air and conjuring the same silver mask he had worn during the first Death Eater meeting. Bedlam had clenched its unyielding fist around the crowd. Those unaware tried pushing the same way Harry walked, desperate for a view of what was going on. The others rushed off toward the trees, bowling down anyone obstructing them.

The air grew hot and heavy. His next inhale seared his throat. Breathing was becoming difficult and his chest was tightening.

A gap opened in the crowd and he stepped through, now standing on a small hill overlooking the main conflict. A line of witches and wizards stood with their backs to the trees, facing a larger force consisting of several rows. The attackers wore crude masks and held back nothing.

They're pretending to be Death Eaters. There was no other explanation. Idiots. They would be dead once aurors arrived.

A stray spell slammed against a conjured shield and deflected skyward. It missed the young girl by inches.

Harry's blood boiled. The anger roared up like a rearing snake, spitting and hissing deep down. It had been a long time since he had felt this way.

Not since I killed Sirius Black.

Harry seized that anger and let it brim up like a line of blood welling in a shallow wound. "FULGURA!"

Lightning rippled across the clear. The pale lance stabbed towards the attacking line and slammed against the same shield that had deflected a spell up toward the helpless children. The ground beneath him heaved as an explosion tore through the attackers' line. Gore-spattered earth sprayed in all directions and in its midst gleamed white bone speckled here and there by blood.

Numb shock gripped him. Smoke curled skyward from a blackened crater where the front few rows of attackers had been standing. Many more of them were strewn across the grass, injured, dead, or dying.

The ministry's small force had been sheltered far enough back to avoid the blast. There was a call from somewhere amidst their ranks and they surged forward, pressing their advantage.

The invisible strings severed and the muggles fell. No! Harry thrust up his wand and the childrens' fall slowed just enough for a ministry worker to catch them with a wordless spell.

Harry's mind felt like it was moving through mud. Shit!

Thump, thump.

It was his first time dilating away from Regulus and he dared not hold it long, but he needed time.

Harry pictured Wylla's bleeding corpse and the crowd of muggles jeering up at Grindelwald. Anger drove the numbness back long enough for him to seize control over his scattered thoughts.

Thump, thump.

Harry studied the ministry's small force. No one was close enough to see him, but that could change at any moment. He had to get away.

Thump, thump.

Harry ended his dilation and ducked down, snatching a silvery cloak from the pocket of his robes and throwing it over his head.

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