Author's Note: Well, here it is. The long-awaited, much-requested continuation to Tyrant Rising. I know it's been, uh… A while — *Cough* three years *Cough* — since my last update. It's not that I haven't been writing — I have, and there should be a few new stories coming soon along with continuations to my existing ones — I was just struggling to find inspiration to continue this story and Lethal Injection. I seem to have found it, at least for now, so here we are. I apologise for the very, very, long wait.
As a little, compensation for it being so long, I have actually gone through and edited the previously released sections of this story. In addition to some proofreading corrections, I have also added dates and times to all the section headers, which should make it a lot easier to keep track of time as it passes. I even noticed and fixed a minor continuity error where Harry's initial transformation was happening on the 31st of October 1988, and then his attack on the ministry three days later was also being referenced as having happened on Halloween of 1988. His initial transformation now occurred on the 28th instead.
Also, it has officially been long enough that I can confess I'm disappointed no one got the JOG MANSON reference in the previous chapter — you lot really need to get some culture.
Anyway, with that out of the way, on to the story.
Same Time,
6:00 am, 2nd November 2011,
New York City,
United States
It was about the wife. She knew the second he walked in.
Oh, sure, most people wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at him, but, for her, it was clear as day despite the thick cloud of cigarette smoke filling the room. It was sown into the lining of his handmade Italian suit that probably cost more than she paid in a year to rent this office. It was folded into the understated opulence of his plain blue tie, secured in an elegant knot that must've required a training course to learn. It was whispering beneath the squeak of the slick leather soles of his custom-made loafers on the wood of her floorboards. It was written across the studied neutrality of his distinguished features and braided into his carefully cropped hair.
And, most importantly, he'd walked into her office.
Suppressing her sigh, Althea blew a perfectly formed smoke ring before grinding out her cigarette into the overflowing crystal ashtray on her desk, "Mr Guetta, I presume?" She tried not to sigh at the telltale flash of momentary confusion as the alias failed to register. The ultrarich were so predictable when it came to hiding their dirty little secrets. Like hiring a P.I. to investigate their wife's infidelity.
"Ms Douglas-" he began, taking a deep breath as he prepared for his shocking reveal.
"Detective," she corrected him, ignoring the irritation that creased his features in response.
"Detective Douglas," to his credit, Guetta — or whatever his name really was — corrected himself with only a small amount of irritation colouring his voice, "I'm sure you're wondering why I hired you-"
"Why you want to hire me," She interjected again, leaning back in her chair and tapping a finger on her desk. "I haven't said yes, yet. Besides, I already know why, I'd just like to know who."
"You know — who?" His composure had broken now, the derailment of the script he'd clearly rehearsed in his mind for this meeting too much for him to adapt to. Which was why she'd done it, of course.
"Yes, who." She fixed her most piercing stare on him, the kind she'd given the perps who thought they were untouchable sitting in the interrogation room. "Who are you?"
"I suppose what I've heard is true, you really are an exceptional detective," Althea kept from rolling her eyes with difficulty, it was hardly the most difficult deduction to make that he was using a fake name. "My name is Victor DeSanto."
It was Althea's turn to be surprised, "As in the DeSanto Corporation?" It was one of the biggest energy consortiums that had come out of the Clean Revolution in the late nineties and early noughties. These days, DeSanto plants powered half the Western Hemisphere.
She resisted the urge to grimace: powerful clients were always problematic. People were rarely kind to the bearer of bad news, even when they'd hired them in the first place.
"Only by marriage," DeSanto answered with a slight frown, "my husband, Sergio, runs the company." The slight edge in his tone as he said his husband's name confirmed Althea's fears.
"And you suspect that Sergio is being unfaithful?" Althea injected some brusque professionalism into her tone to conceal her personal feelings on being handed such a time bomb of a case.
"No! I-" DeSanto's face twisted with anger at the question before seeming to collapse inward, what little of his aloof poise he had managed to reconstruct crumbling before the stark inquiry.
"I don't know," he admitted, finally. "All I know is he's been acting…" He trailed off helplessly, searching for a word that would satisfactorily describe the profoundly disquieting nature of his husband's behaviour, "different."
"Different?" The sigh was carefully disguised as a contemplative exhalation, and she dearly regretted extinguishing her cigarette and sacrificing the visual distraction of a cloud of smoke.
"It started about 15 years ago," DeSanto began, and Althea had to struggle not to sit up in her seat in obvious interest at the statement. Fifteen years was a long time to harbour doubts regarding infidelity, and — although it wasn't unheard of when there was a fortune like the DeSanto's on the line — it was enough to pique her interest.
"You've had suspicions for 15 years?" She probed, doing her best to disguise her mounting investment in the man's tale behind the same professionally disinterested veneer she had used to hide her earlier apathy.
"Not exactly," DeSanto bit out, with a hint of bitterness colouring his voice.
Very interesting, so he still feels strongly enough about his husband to be offended if someone questions his commitment to their relationship?
"Sergio was never what you would call an environmental activist, he appreciated nature when we were taking in some natural wonder on holiday, but it was never a factor in his business practices." Now that was surprising, although she hadn't been particularly invested in the news during the Clean Revolution, even Althea knew that Sergio DeSanto had been one of the leading lights of the movement to transition humanity to renewable energy. Surprising or not, however, she couldn't see how Sergio's environmental opinions related to Victor's presence in her office, certainly not as they were almost two decades earlier.
Fortunately, Victor decided to continue his narrative without forcing her to press him for further exposition.
"When he came home from the inaugural World Trade Organization convention his opinion had flipped completely," Victor's eyes were focusing on a point somewhere above her left shoulder, seeing back through the years to the memory of his beloved in a happier time. "I remember him bursting through the door to our penthouse, declaring that, from this moment onward, the DeSanto Corporation would be remembered as a force for the preservation of our planet, not its destruction."
"As interesting as this is," Althea began, inflecting her voice with a carefully calculated mix of brusque professionalism and politeness, "I don't see how this relates to the concerns that brought you to my office today." Or to the sizable sum he had paid just to secure this very private appointment.
By now, DeSanto had settled into his narrative, and he merely waved away her interjection like a trail of smoke.
"It wasn't only his environmental outlook that changed when he returned, he became better." The admission came with something of a grimace, as if the acknowledgement made him guilty of some betrayal of his partner. "Sergio was always very determined in his actions, and once he'd made up his mind it didn't matter what anyone said, he'd never change it. It was inspiring, and one of the reasons I fell in love with him, but it did pose some challenges in domestic life." Althea nodded in understanding, she'd been told much the same about herself.
"But, when he returned from the convention, suddenly, he was willing to entertain other viewpoints, he even let me help him when he was struggling instead of just insisting he could take care of everything by himself." A wistful smile played across Victor's distinguished features, "he was so romantic back then, it was almost like our college days in Caracas." Althea frowned; although the sudden personality change was odd, she wasn't hearing anything that would've prompted Victor to try to enlist her services.
As if in answer to her silent confusion, Victor resumed his narrative, "Things continued that way until a few months ago, suddenly all the good things that had come with his change disappeared. He's become obsessed with some new project, working on it all hours of the day and night, disappearing on business trips to who-knows-where for weeks at a time, and when he IS home he barely eats or sleeps or even looks at me!" The words were coming thick and fast now, borne on a tide of anger, concern, and hurt that drew his voice as taut as a drum, threatening to snap at the slightest provocation.
Realising his indiscretion, Victor looked down for a moment, mastering his emotions before continuing, "He won't even tell me what it is, only that it's going to 'change the world.'" Without the emotion to fuel him, DeSanto sounded tired and defeated, his expensive clothes hanging off his lean frame as if he had somehow shrunk since entering the office.
"Sergio's behaviour is definitely concerning," Althea admitted, finally accepting defeat and tapping another cigarette out of the box on her desk. Taking a moment to light it with a flick of her lighter, she inhaled deeply before allowing a curling cloud of smoke to wreath her features as she caught her would-be client's gaze and held it. "But I fail to see how this connects to the change 15 years ago."
Leaning back in her chair, she took another long drag from her cigarette and idly weighed the box as she placed it back down on the desk — almost empty. She'd been working too hard lately. Hard not to when there was nothing waiting for her when she did clock out.
"The phone calls!" DeSanto cried, shocking her from her distracted musings. She really was working too much if she was drifting off in the middle of an interview, especially one that was actually interesting. "He keeps taking phone calls from someone he met at that conference 15 years ago, I know it's always the same person because he's set up some kind of silent ringtone for them."
Althea nodded, it wasn't unheard of for people to do something of the kind when trying to hide communications from someone. However, it didn't answer the most important question, "How do you know it's someone from the conference that's calling him?"
"Because, whenever he gets a call from them, he starts rubbing his tattoo." Victor answered, as if that explained everything. Rather than questioning further, Althea merely raised a withering eyebrow until DeSanto relented and explained further, "Sergio never really cared for tattoos, but when he came back from the conference he had a big one on his left forearm. All I was ever able to get out of him is that it symbolized his joining a group dedicated to changing the world. To be honest, I always thought he'd just got drunk and had it done on a bet and was simply too embarrassed to admit it, but now I'm worried it might be some kind of cult marking or something."
A grimace wormed its way past Althea's professional veneer, it certainly sounded distressingly cult-like from what she'd heard.
"Can you describe the tattoo?" She reached over and picked up a notepad, snagging a pen to jot down a quick description. With any luck, one of her old contacts from her FBI days would be able to run a trace and identify what group, if any, the mark belonged to.
"It's a snake," Victor said, "a big black snake all twisted up on itself."
3 Hours Later,
1:00 pm, 2nd November 2011
St. Mungo's Hospital,
United Kingdom
It was almost a recreation of the morning's briefing in miniature. Even the room, usually the Chief Mediwitch's personal office, had been transfigured into a much smaller version of the briefing room where she had given the mission details.
The members of the meeting were somewhat higher profile, however.
In addition to her and Dumbledore, there was Granger, Shacklebolt, Moody, the Chief Mediwitch herself, a dour-faced wizard from Department of Mysteries — Bode, Ginny Weasley, and the specialist mind healer who'd been in charge of examining Harry since his awakening.
"Is this everyone?" The chief mediwitch — a grizzled woman in her late sixties, her hair pulled back into a severe bun and a permanent expression of careworn frustration on her face — asked, closing the door to her office and raising her wand in preparation for activating the security charms.
"Yes, thank you, Agatha" Dumbledore confirmed, nodding for her to continue.
Once the walls had shimmered with the activation of the warding enchantments, Dumbledore stood from his chair and made his way to the front of the makeshift briefing room.
"Although I am sure we are all well aware of the reasons we have gathered today, I shall reiterate them for clarity." He drew his long knobbly wand and waved it elegantly, causing a large box on the table at the front of the briefing room to unfold like the petals of a flower, revealing a pensieve within.
"Alastor has already been kind enough to provide us with his memory of the events at Lambstead, and Sirius added in his own recollection of finding young Harry in the wreckage." He raised a hand as if to forestall complaints, despite the fact that no one present had said a word. "I am, of course, aware that many of you have no need to be informed of what happened, and that it was a most trying ordeal. However, I must request that you join those of us who were not privy to the full events in watching it all again. I believe a chance to examine and discuss the events will be invaluable for us all."
Amelia stole a drink from her hip flask, steeling herself. She'd been running a buzz since they returned from Lambstead, it was the only way she'd been able to stop her hands from shaking. She caught Moody giving her a concerned look — at least, as concerned as his grizzled hacked apart face could manage — but she ignored him. He wouldn't press the issue if she just pretended not to notice.
Never much of a people person, her old mentor.
Despite herself and the alcohol running through her, she still felt that increasingly familiar prickle on the back of her neck, as if there were someone watching her.
"You are sure there's no one in here that shouldn't be, aren't you, Mad-eye?" She asked him in an undertone, leaning in so none of the others would catch her question.
Moody's eye spun madly in his head, even rolling up to check the ceiling and all the way back to look through the back of his own head, checking all around them. After a moment, he nodded: no one was with them who shouldn't be.
Granger and Weasley were already waiting by the pensieve with Dumbledore, holding hands in a silent gesture of support for the shorter woman. Bode, Shacklebolt, and the two healers were quick to join them as Moody stomped his own way over, and — with a heavy sigh — she levered herself up and followed him, situating herself across the table from Dumbledore.
"Ready," Amelia said, forestalling Dumbledore's question and getting a chorus of answering nods from the others around the table.
"Very well," Dumbledore ran a finger along the rim of the pensieve, causing it to enlarge enough for all of them to lean in at once. "On the count of three, if you please. One, two, three."
As one, they all leaned in and touched their faces to the swirling silvery liquid in the basin. The familiar vertigo overtook her as she felt herself drawn into the basin falling down and down through a featureless void until suddenly the world rushed up from beneath her, and she was standing outside Lambstead.
"Merlin's beard! What is that!?" Gasped the normally unflappable chief mediwitch, Agatha.
Turning, Amelia saw why.
Where Lambstead should have been there was instead an enormous ragged dome of impenetrable shadow. It looked as if the entire town had been consumed by some Lovecraftian horror and plunged into the depths of eternal night while the rest of the world continued on.
"Fascinating," Granger breathed, taking a few steps closer to the town as the memory Moody began explaining what he was seeing to the members of his squad. "Total magical occlusion. You said this was only visible to your magical eye, Professor Moody?"
Moody growled slightly at the 'professor' title. "I've not been a professor for over a decade, Granger, but, yes."
"It just looked like a normal town to the rest of us," Weasley chimed in, reclaiming her wife's hand and squeezing gently. "Deserted and creepy as hell, but, you know, visible."
"Clearly it's intended to cloak the town from magical surveillance," droned Bode, the first words he'd spoken since his arrival in the mediwitch's office.
"That must be why Lambstead went dark last week," Amelia chimed in for her part. "Although, it wouldn't explain why there weren't any owls in or out, would it?" She glanced at Bode, Granger, and Dumbledore. The specific magical means by which owls found their intended recipients was a little beyond her ken — or, at least, not something she'd ever had the time or inclination to attempt to understand.
"It… Might," Dumbledore allowed, stroking his long beard thoughtfully. "A grimmer — and yet, perhaps, more likely — explanation might be that the owls simply did not survive to leave."
Granger looked particularly upset by the thought, reminding Amelia that she had a bit of a reputation for being an animal lover.
Further discussion of owls was curtailed as the memory Moody sent off a patronus to Dumbledore before leading his squad into the ominous dome of shadow.
When they first entered, there was a brief flicker of darkness, then Moody's brain compensated for the lack of visual information coming from his magical eye and simply began ignoring it. The world became ever so slightly flatter, due to the loss of depth perception from only one eye, but it was perfectly manageable.
They followed the squad as they made quick but careful progress down the street, and Amelia couldn't help but admire the way Moody noticed and managed the growing unease of his troops.
Things went smoothly until after they'd entered the local pub. The tables were knocked aside and there was evidence of discolouration on the floor and walls, great splotchy patches of scorched wood and other — less identifiable — blemishes.
"Spellfire," grunted the memory version of Moody, poking at a scorch mark with the tip of one boot. "Looks like someone put up a fight during whatever happened here."
"One of ours?" Asked Thomas in his soft, considered voice.
"Could be," replied the memory version of Weasley, crouching down and running her fingers across a series of deep furrows in the wooden floorboards next to a section of deeply pitted plank that almost seemed to have been melted. "This looks like it could've been Angelina's work, she has those nasty acid spells she likes using."
Bell, watching the windows made a soft sound in her throat, her fingers tightening to a bloodless white on the stock of her Granger MK 4.
"There's something missing, though," Weasley continued, shooting Bell a sympathetic look.
"Yeah, the people," snorted Wilkes, rolling his eyes at the redhead and crouching to pick up and inspect a bit of shattered glass, revealing a fragment of the label that had been on the bottle. "Waste of a good vintage, that."
"Not the people, idiot," Boot chimed in, flicking a broken splinter of wood at his partner.
"Blood." Moody's memory counterpart grunted, thunking his wooden leg against the floor. "Clearly there was a fight of some kind here, but there's not a drop of blood anywhere. Someone must've got hurt in the course of doing all this damage, so where is the blood?"
"Someone cleaned up, obviously," Tonks added her two cents, scratching her cheek with the tip of her wand and getting a disapproving growl from Moody. She responded by sticking out her tongue. "Piss off, Mad-eye."
"Question is," the metamorph continued, her hair turning a speculative blue. "Why clean up just the blood? They certainly didn't make any effort to clean up anything else."
"Do we have any theories on that yet?" Amelia inquired, looking to her companions in the memory.
Bode's lips thinned even further, which could've meant he was displeased at the lack of any such theory, or that the Unspeakables already had one and he wasn't going to be sharing it. She resisted the urge to tsk audibly in disapproval.
Bloody spooks.
"It's possible any organic residue was… Consumed." Granger spoke up, looking quite a bit less than pleased at the idea. "The sheer number of creatures the team encountered must require a lot of sustenance."
"You're suggesting these things licked the place clean?" The so-far silent mind-healer — Jenkins — asked incredulously, he looked more than a little queasy at the idea, raising one foot as if trying to avoid making contact with the room.
"It's just a memory, Jenkins," snapped Agatha, pushing down on her subordinates shoulder and forcing him to put his foot down or risk toppling over as she unbalanced him. "Stop making a damned fool of yourself."
Jenkins was prevented from answering by the memory of Katie Bell saying, "All of you, shut up, we've got Death Eaters incoming. Looks to be about forty or fifty of them." Bell's expression tightened visibly, and she swore viciously.
"Fuck, look who's leading them," she gestured Moody over with her chin, and Black joined him.
"Well, if it isn't my beloved bitch of a cousin," Black snarled, and Tonks' hair instantly turned dark crimson with fury.
"I'll kill her," she hissed, unslinging her Granger from her shoulder and working the bolt furiously as she stalked over to the window, almost shouldering Bell out of the way.
"Not yet, idiot," Moody growled, slapping the barrel down and ignoring the way Tonks glared at him in response. "Wait until we've had time to fortify, the second you take that shot they'll know we've seen them and be all over us."
Tonks scowled, but slung the weapon back over her shoulder, pulling out her wand instead and beginning to help the others transfigure a series of solid stone barricades around the interior of the inn.
All told, it took less than a minute, then the entire squad were posted back by the various windows, taking aim with their rifles at the various squads of Death Eaters preparing for their own ambush outside.
While they were doing that, Jenkins crossed to the window and studied the Death Eaters outside, eyes gleaming.
"So that's Lestrange, is it?" He asked, seeming far too excited about the prospect. "Fascinating, simply fascinating. I've never seen her in person before — or, well, in memory I suppose the case is here. I've read accounts, of course, but they really don't do her justice."
"You sound like you fancy her," Weasley — the real one, not the memory — accused, her lip curling in clear disgust.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jenkins replied, waving a dismissive hand and not taking his eyes off Bellatrix, even as the memory-Tonks walked into him and shouldered her weapon, taking careful aim at the woman he was studying. "Her psychosis is fascinating, I've actually written a monograph on the subject and the possible influence the dementors might've had in exacerbating it."
"Didn't need any 'exacerbating,'" Moody snorted. "She's always been a piece of work."
Jenkins opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sharp crack of Tonks' Granger MK 4 as she took her shot at Bellatrix.
Just as another Death Eater stepped into her line of fire.
"FUCK!" The metamorph swore, working the bolt with furious haste and taking aim again. "Floppy wanded dementor buggering fuck!" All around them, the deafening cracks of the rest of the squad's rifles filled the inn, and both Agatha and Jenkins winced and clapped their hands over their ears at the deafening racket.
Unfortunately, Tonks was prevented from taking her second shot at Lestrange by the witch herself's counterattack. The dark witch blew the door to smithereens which then themselves exploded violently, forcing Tonks to throw herself behind one of the barricades the aurors had erected. She popped back up almost immediately and began emptying her clip into the Death Eaters pouring through the doorway before slinging it back over her shoulder and drawing her wand in a single smooth motion.
The rest of the fight played out exactly as it had in Moody's report: bullets and spells flying back and forth as the aurors exacted a heavy toll on their Death Eater attackers before beating a hasty retreat out of the inn and down an adjoining alleyway, pursued by the Death Eaters. Granger winced every time a spell came too close to the memory version of her wife, her grip on the redhead's hand drawing tighter and tighter until Weasley leaned in and murmured something, rubbing her back soothingly.
Soon, the aurors were again hurriedly fortifying their position, this time in the central square of Lambstead where she herself — along with Shacklebolt, Dumbledore, and Healer Abbott — had come to rescue them.
And where she'd come face to face with the Swarmlord once more.
She took another drink from her hip flask, all but ignoring the resuming battle as the Death Eaters blasted their way into the square through one of the formerly charming cottages that had lined it. The assurance from Moody's report that Weasley's ill-advised legilimens jaunt into the heads of the creatures — there still wasn't any intel on what exactly to call them as a whole, and the eggheads were apparently still arguing on how they all related — that there was only one of the creatures hadn't done much to help her feel better.
One was already far too many.
Her attention was drawn back to the life or death struggle when Thomas was killed.
"So, this is a hormagaunt?" Granger asked, grimacing as the memory of her former housemate collapsed to the ground dead, but keeping her attention doggedly focused on the creature that had slain him.
"That's what they call themselves, in any case." Weasley confirmed, crouching down with her wife to examine the corpse of the creature after it was struck down by Black's killing curse. "Or… Not what they call themselves, but what they have been called." She grimaced, pressing a hand to her head and shaking it, as if trying to clear it. "It's all still so confused. You can't imagine what it's like inside their heads. I've been there, and I can still barely understand it."
They were interrupted by Boot going down in his own spray of blood, thrashing and screaming as he clawed at the bloody holes in his flesh.
"How is he, by the way?" Amelia asked Agatha, watching the young auror thrashing and bucking on the ground with pained sympathy.
"Dead," the mediwitch replied, her voice curt but not unsympathetic. "Merlin knows Abbott did her best, bless her, but there's a limit to what even magic can fix. Boy practically needed a whole new set of organs by the time she managed to get the parasites out of him. It's a miracle she kept him alive long enough to even get him to the hospital."
She pretended not to notice Weasley and Granger embracing each other in a show of support, Boot had been another old classmate of theirs, just like Thomas. She busied herself instead with examining the termagants that had killed the former Ravenclaw. They looked so similar to the hormagaunts she could almost have thought them the same creatures, if not for those unnatural gun-like arms of theirs.
How did a creature develop something like that?
It was just further proof of Dumbledore's theory that the creatures had been deliberately engineered by a dark sorcerer of some kind. One who wasn't so averse to the adoption and adaption of muggle technology as Voldemort and his ilk.
Next, came the horrifying return of the Swarmlord itself and the terrible battle between it, Dumbledore, and Voldemort. The two mightiest magicals in the world forced to join forces just to hold the beast off long enough for Dumbledore to bait it into a trap.
"You never do cease to amaze me, Albus," Moody grunted, watching the Swarmlord's sword bite into Weasley's trap rune and trigger the massive burst of electricity into the creature's body. "How you managed to even see that in the middle of fighting this thing, let alone bait it into setting it off, I'll never understand."
"Oh, I'm really not so impressive as all that," Dumbledore averred modestly. "It was a happy accident, one of those little gifts the world occasionally gives those of us who stand against the forces of darkness. I had no idea the rune was there, I almost backed into it myself."
The healers laughed weakly, but Amelia couldn't help but feel her heart sink a little deeper into her boots. Dumbledore and Voldemort together, and they'd still only managed to vanquish the beast through sheer blind luck.
Was there nothing that could stop this thing? They'd thrown the first one through the fucking Veil of Death, were they going to have to try to lure this new one down there too? If it was even truly a second of the creatures and not the first one somehow returned from the void.
The memory ended with the creatures' sudden intensifying attack and the shaking of the ground sending the aurors staggering as they frantically attempted to defend the house the Swarmlord disappeared into to prevent the beasts from reaching it. Fog consumed their surroundings before the world shimmered back into existence around them, looking slightly different — Black's memory now.
"We believe the creatures have hollowed out at least some of the ground beneath Lambstead," Bode droned, sounding profoundly uninterested in the proceedings. "The shaking was likely the result of even more massive numbers of them being mobilised; or, perhaps, larger entities on a closer par with the Swarmlord."
"You mean there's more of these monstrosities?" Moody growled, spitting on the ground in disgust and making Amelia wonder how exactly that worked with all of them inside the Pensieve. Had Moody's real body just spat too?
"Evidence seems to suggest," Bode replied listlessly, somehow managing to be so profoundly uninteresting that Amelia found herself struggling to focus on him even while he was relaying vital information. "Reports from our agents within You-Know-Who's forces indicate that they may have encountered an additional species during their withdrawal from Lambstead."
Further discussion of this very unwelcome revelation was curtailed as a hormagaunt made it past the protective cordon of the aurors and bounded into the wreckage, Black following. The world around them shifted into a new — more limited — spectrum of colour as he transformed into his canine animagus form and loped after the creature.
Fortunately, Dumbledore had already ushered them all in the direction Black was heading, so they weren't left behind or forced to sprint after him.
Inside, the hormagaunt bounded over the rubble with horrific grace, moving straight through a patch of unstable reality. It didn't so much as flinch when one of its bladed arms was crushed to pulp in a section of space that flickered much smaller while it was passing through it. It only halted when it came to stand over a familiar pale figure of a man, sprawled out in the wreckage atop a pile of busted broken bricks. There was a large spar of wood and roof tiles fallen across his chest and blood trickling from a wound on the side of his head.
The hormagaunt froze, head cocked like a curious dog, then Sirius arrived; regaining his human form and blasting the creature apart with a single flare of crimson light. Colour returned to normal, letting them all see the stark crimson of Harry's blood against his unhealthily pale skin, made to seem even paler by the striking darkness of his long ragged black hair.
"J-James?" Sirius gasped, leaping forward and dragging the wood off of Harry with frantic strength, seemingly too overcome with emotion to think to use his wand. He brushed Harry's hair back from his brow to inspect the wound, revealing a lightning bolt scar across his forehead.
"Harry!" He sobbed, clutching the unconscious man to his chest and weeping openly. "Harry, you're alive!"
"Why'd it stop?" Granger asked, eyes locked on the spot where the hormagaunt had stood as Sirius gathered Harry's unconscious body up in his arms and staggered out of the ruins of the cottage back to his companions. "These things haven't seemed at all shy about taking human life before, why didn't it simply skewer Harry and continue on its way."
"We are, as of yet, unsure," Dumbledore replied calmly, "it's possible that it was simply coincidence — that one of the creature's compatriots successfully recovered the Swarmlord at the moment this one came across Harry, and what we're seeing here is simply the first instance of the recall order that sent them all scurrying away and allowed us to withdraw."
"Why was he even here?" Shacklebolt asked in his slow deep voice, surprising all of them as the big man had so far been almost silent. "Why would our unnamed opponent have been keeping him in a random cottage like this?"
"Lambstead represents the enemy's only known stronghold in the British Isles," Bode replied, his droning voice sucking all vitality from the conversation. She'd almost have wondered if he had some sort of dementor ancestry if such a thing weren't both impossible and a gross violation of all that was good. "Where else would you expect them to keep so important a prisoner?"
Shacklebolt nodded slowly in assent; and, around them, the memory dissolved into fog once more.
Surprisingly, they were not returned to Agatha's office, the mists of the pensieve swirling around them as Dumbledore cleared his throat to command their attention. He received it, instantly.
"There is one more memory I wish for you all to see — one of mine. It is the true reason I have called all of you here today. Particularly you, Healer Jenkins. I would ask that you all remain quiet until it is finished." The mists reformed into a comfortable wood-walled room, snow falling outside the windows in thick sheets, and a familiar castle visible from one side.
"Is this the Hog's Head?" Weasley asked, crossing to a window and peering outside curiously. "It is! That's Zonko's over there down the street. Looks a bit different though. When is this?" She fell silent under Dumbledore's stern gaze, just as a woman draped in shawls with very large glasses coalesced in a chair opposite a younger looking Dumbledore.
"Well, thank you, Sybill," Dumbledore was saying kindly, "I can see that you're very knowledgeable and passionate about your subject, but I'm afraid I have made the decision not to continue with Divination at Hogwarts."
All of a sudden, the woman straightened, her eyes unfocusing as she seemed to enter a trance. She spoke in a low harsh voice, so unlike the one Amelia had heard in her very few brief meetings with the old fraud.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches!" Trelawney proclaimed, and every ounce of confusion and inattention instantly evaporated from the assembled company. Amelia knew enough about seers to recognise a genuine trance when she saw one; and, if this wasn't one, then Trelawney's acting skills had seriously decayed in the years since.
"Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, and the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal! But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives!" Amelia felt an awful sort of realisation settling in her gut as the words of the prophecy sunk into the very core of her being. She desperately wanted to look at Dumbledore, but she couldn't tear her eyes from Trelawney as she delivered the final line of her prediction, "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies!"
The fog consumed them once more, and they were standing back in the chief mediwitch's office. The familiar unwelcome feeling of being watched settled back over her now that she wasn't distracted by the sights and sounds of the memories inside the pensieve, somehow feeling all the more intense for the momentary respite.
"As you have all no doubt surmised," Dumbledore said heavily, "Harry Potter is the chosen one of this prophecy. I have never put much stock in the things personally, certainly not as much as Voldemort does-"
"Is this why?" Weasley interrupted, shocking Amelia somewhat. There weren't many witches or wizards who would interrupt the Minister like that. "Voldemort heard about this prophecy somehow, and that's why he went after the Potters all those years ago?"
"He heard a portion from the very beginning," Dumbledore confessed. "Fortunately — or perhaps not — he did not hear anything after the first 'born as the seventh month dies.'"
"As I was saying," he continued, "I have not previously put much stock in prophecy, but, as our seemingly interminable war with Voldemort has stretched longer and longer, I have been forced to re-evaluate my position."
"We are losing, ladies and gentlemen," the aged sorcerer said bluntly, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his long crooked nose tiredly. "What I need from you, all of you, is your honest opinions. Is Harry capable of being trusted to fulfil the prophecy? Are we capable of forging him into a weapon to slay the Dark Lord? For, I fear, if we cannot, then it is only a matter of time before Voldemort succeeds in the mission he began so long ago and destroys the only one with the power to defeat him."
All eyes turned to Healer Jenkins.
"M-me?" He almost squeaked. "You're asking me?"
"You are the resident expert on the mind, Clive," Dumbledore reminded him gently.
"Well, yes, but you're asking me to tell you if a severely damaged young man is mentally stable enough to be used as- as- as some sort of tool to defeat You-Know-Who!" Jenkins protested, combing a hand nervously through his straw-coloured hair. "Even if that wasn't a gross violation of my oaths as a healer, I'm not a military man! I've never even seen combat! I'm a healer! An academic more than anything, I couldn't even begin to guess."
"Then tell us what you can about Potter's psychological state, and we will make the judgement," Amelia soothed the agitated specialist.
Jenkins eyed her suspiciously, then looked to Agatha, who gave him an encouraging nod.
"Alright," he relented, sagging slightly, "alright. I'll- I'll tell you what I can."
He began to pace, lifting one fist and pressing his knuckles to his lips as he thought ferociously, "Well, in terms of cognitive function, he's fine. He shows signs of high intelligence: nothing on Ms Granger's level, of course, but he's a smart lad, no question. The only concerning aspect on that front is his speech difficulty, although he seems to have found his own unique method of compensating for that issue."
"His telepathy, you mean?" Granger interjected, getting odd looks from all present except Weasley, who rolled her eyes and explained.
"She means his ability to legilimens even the most accomplished occlumens and to speak directly into their minds — it's a muggle concept." This seemed to be enough to draw Jenkins from his near-crisis, at least momentarily.
"Fascinating!" He cried, clapping his hands together like a delighted child. "Tlepathy, you said? Simply marvellous! I had no idea muggles were capable of such things!"
"Telepathy, and - they're not," Granger explained, deflating Jenkins. "It's a fictional concept, I'm afraid. Although they have been doing some very interesting things with CT and MRI scan-" Weasley cleared her throat, interrupting her wife and causing her to blush prettily. "Ah, sorry, perhaps not the time. Please continue, Healer Jenkins."
"Yes, well," the healer cleared his throat and fidgeted with his badge nervously, "as I was saying, in terms of cognitive capability, there's nothing that should be a significant cause for concern."
"However?" Prompted Shacklebolt, in measured tones.
"Quit beating around the bush and give us the bad news already, boyo," Moody grunted, quite a bit more direct.
"The man is completely socially stunted," Jenkins said, biting the bullet. "I don't know if he's had any significant human interaction in the past decade. It's a miracle he hasn't gone mad, I can only assume he's had some form of companionship — a pet, maybe. He got a nasty concussion from the knock he took to the head, and — although we've treated it — he has no recollection of anything about who he is or where he's been all this time."
"He's perfectly capable as an adult, and he has broad knowledge of at least the muggle world, but he seems largely ignorant of our world and customs, and he has no formal magical education of any kind," Jenkins continued, his anxiety fading as he settled into a comfortable professional mould. "You're asking me if he can be trusted to fight You-Know-Who - would you send a first year student at Hogwarts to face him? Because that's functionally what Mr Potter is: a first year who only just learned our world even existed."
For a long moment, no one spoke.
"Does any of that matter?" Asked Amelia, hating herself for the words but knowing they needed to be said. "You," she turned to Dumbledore, "have told us Harry is our only hope against Voldemort. It doesn't matter if he's ignorant, it doesn't matter if he's stunted. He has the mental capacity to learn and, if the prophecy holds true, he has the power to stand against the Dark Lord. Anything else is immaterial. He has to fight, and we have to make him ready for it."
Dumbledore lowered his head, eyes closing, "You're right, Amelia. May magic forgive us."
"For today, let him rest. In the morning, I want him tested for his potential and a training plan created and begun immediately. Hermione, please take him to see our specimens of the creatures from Lambstead, see if it jars anything from his memory." He ordered, shaking off the weariness clearly threatening to overtake him and becoming the hardened leader they all knew and respected once more.
"I'll see about outfitting him with a MK 4 as well, while we're there," Granger answered, straightening up but stopping short of snapping a salute. "I think I might have a spare Model 2 somewhere too."
"Good," Dumbledore stood and drew his wand. "Now, for secrecy, I'm afraid that, Agatha and Clive, I must remove all your memories of the latter part of this meeting, and that you must all forget the details of the prophecy. We cannot risk Voldemort learning of it."
Amelia nodded, stood, and waited her turn for the wash of green light to steal those awful rasping words from her memory.
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