Chapter 5 - Necromancer
Past
The first breath of dusk spilt across the skyline, draping the city in deepening hues of blue and grey. Harry shifted in the shadows, a part of them, his form blending with the dusk as he watched. The house was elegant, all grand arches and ivy-covered stone, perched on the edge of a cobbled street reeked of old magic.
Sanguini emerged as the sun's light bled away, the amber glow catching in his dark, sleek hair. He moved like silk, his robes flowing with an unhurried grace that turned heads without effort. For days, Harry had watched him slip into wizarding society with the ease of someone who belonged yet stood apart, a curiosity rather than a peer. Tonight was no different. The door closed behind him without a sound, and Sanguini stepped into the world, his every movement calculated, precise, as though he were conducting an unseen symphony.
Harry followed, quiet and invisible.
The evening unfurled in a meticulous pattern Harry had come to expect. Sanguini's first stop was an exclusive wizarding salon tucked away in a corner of Diagon Alley that was all gaslight and golden gleam. Through the warped glass of the salon window, Harry saw him recline in a high-backed chair, a goblet of something dark in hand. He spoke sparingly, the cadence of his voice drawing laughter and murmured agreement. Scholars leaned in close, captivated by his insights, and the air seemed to shimmer around him as if charged by his presence.
Later, Sanguini moved to a bustling pub. The laughter there was louder, the firelight reflecting off tankards and eager faces. He didn't drink this time but leaned on the bar, his attention shifting effortlessly from one group to another. A word here, a glance there. Harry saw the way people drifted toward him, caught in his orbit. Their expressions softened, their movements loosened, and their voices grew eager to please. Sanguini's smile never faltered, a thread of assurance in a room of chaos.
At a private gathering—an ostentatious celebration hosted by a famous potioneer—Sanguini became the star. Wizards and witches clustered around him, their attention fixated as he recounted some story that had them rapt. Harry couldn't hear the words, but he saw the ripple of reactions—gasps, laughter, fascination—as if the vampire had them all under his spell. He moved among them like a wraith in fine robes, a creature apart yet deeply woven into the fabric of their evening.
And all the while, Harry observed. His eyes caught the flicker of hesitation in Sanguini's smile when no one was looking, the way his gaze lingered on throats and wrists before snapping away. Harry noted the careful timing of his departures and the measured ease with which he avoided prolonged closeness. A perfectly placed illusion.
The city fell quiet as the hours stretched toward dawn. Sanguini's final destination was a forgotten mausoleum nestled in the heart of an ancient cemetery. Harry trailed him through the mist and iron gates, his steps soundless against the gravel path. The crypt door groaned faintly as it opened, Sanguini slipping inside with a sigh of satisfaction. Harry waited, the shadows folding over him until he was certain the vampire had settled for the day.
Then, he struck.
The crypt's interior was cool and damp, the air heavy with the scent of stone and decay. Sanguini lay in his coffin, his pale features serene, his body unnaturally still. Harry stepped forward, his fingers brushing against the stone wall as he drew upon the sticky, inky power within him. The air grew colder as his necromantic energy unfurled, tendrils of shadow curling around the room. His creatures emerged from the gloom—skeletal hands clawing their way through the cracks in the stone, a raven with hollow eyes perching on the coffin's edge.
Sanguini's eyes snapped open, vivid crimson against the greys of the crypt. He moved in a blur, standing before Harry in the time it took to blink. His movements were silent, swift, and calculated.
Harry said nothing. His creatures lunged a chaotic mass of claws and teeth and bone. Sanguini didn't flinch. He moved through them with preternatural grace, shattering ribs, tearing apart shadowed constructs, and sending bones clattering to the stone floor. A spectral wolf leapt for his throat, its fangs snapping inches from his skin before he twisted its neck with an audible crack. The raven dove for his face, only for him to catch it mid-air, crushing it in one hand before tossing the lifeless remains aside.
Harry extended his senses, pulling at the threads of death energy in the room. He sent a ripple of power through the crypt, the ground cracking beneath Sanguini's feet. Skeletal arms burst forth, wrapping around the vampire's legs. For a moment, he faltered, and Harry surged forward, a blade of necrotic energy forming in his hand, black and slick like oil under moonlight.
But Sanguini was faster. He sidestepped Harry's attack with a speed that blurred his figure, grabbing Harry's arm mid-swing and twisting it. Pain lanced through Harry's shoulder as he stumbled back, narrowly dodging a follow-up strike that would have crushed his ribs.
The shadows writhed around Harry as he pulled more power from the well within him. A cloud of dark mist rose, obscuring his figure as skeletal birds swarmed from the corners, their beaks sharp as knives. Sanguini hissed, his crimson eyes narrowing as he lashed out, each movement precise and devastating. The mist dispersed with a swipe of his arm, and the birds shattered into nothingness.
Harry staggered to his feet at the far end of the crypt, his breath shallow and ragged. His creatures regrouped, lunging at Sanguini again, but the vampire swatted them away with an almost casual disdain. Harry raised a trembling hand, his voice dropping into a low command.
"Walk into the sun."
Sanguini froze. His body stiffened, his gaze flickering with confusion. Slowly, as if against his will, he began to move. His steps were jerky, reluctant, but he was moving, heading toward the crypt's entrance where the faint light of dawn crept in. Harry's lips curled into a triumphant smile as he watched the vampire shuffle forward.
But just as Sanguini passed him, he stopped. In an instant, his hand snapped out, wrapping around Harry's neck. Harry choked, his feet leaving the ground as Sanguini lifted him effortlessly. The vampire's face was close now, his crimson eyes burning with cold amusement.
"Your powers work on the dead, necromancer," Sanguini said, at last, his voice a low growl. "Not the undead."
The crypt fell silent, save for the faint hum of the rising sun beyond its stone walls.
Present
Dumbledore walked with purpose, though he did not appear to hurry. The corridors of Hogwarts, aglow with morning light, whispered of normalcy — birdsong through high windows, the faint echoes of breakfast clatter from the Great Hall, the smell of fresh parchment and pumpkin toast. But he heard none of it.
The message had arrived moments ago, wordless, in a spell-locked crimson envelope marked with the seal of the Hospital Wing. Urgent. Private.
Cedric Diggory.
As he descended the final flight of stairs, a wave of memories crested unbidden — Cedric smiling as he caught the Snitch in the last match, Cedric bowing politely before Dumbledore at the champion selection, Cedric, upright and noble and golden in the autumn sun. The door to the Hospital Wing opened before he touched it.
Inside, the silence was thick and unnatural.
Madam Pomfrey stood at the end of a long cot, her arms folded tightly across her chest, lips pressed into a line. On the bed lay Cedric — pale, drenched in sweat, his face a portrait of pain and incomprehension. The sheet had been drawn to his waist. His left leg ended in a tightly bandaged stump just above the knee.
Beside him, Amos Diggory sat like a broken pillar, hands limp, red eyes fixed on nothing.
"Albus," Pomfrey said, her voice low. "He's stable, but I must confess… I've never seen anything like it."
Dumbledore moved closer. The air smelled of bitter herbs and dragon's blood salve. Beneath it — the sharp iron scent of trauma.
"What happened?" he asked quietly, his eyes already cataloguing the scene: no signs of magical residue on the bedding, Cedric's wand resting untouched on the bedside table, a faint trace of dark spell energy laced through the air — like ash after lightning.
Pomfrey shook her head. "He was found on the Quidditch pitch, collapsed beside his broom. No sign of a struggle. His wand untouched. The leg was... severed cleanly. Blood wards activated too late to prevent shock. We tried everything, Albus. Skele-Gro. Reversal charms. Regeneration runes. But it's as though... as though the limb never existed at all."
Dumbledore turned to Amos. "May I speak to him?"
Amos nodded mutely, one trembling hand resting on his son's shoulder.
Dumbledore lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, his eyes softening as he looked at Cedric. "My boy. Can you hear me?"
Cedric stirred. His voice was hoarse. "I... yes, Headmaster."
"Do you remember what happened?"
Cedric's brow furrowed, and his voice cracked like dry paper. "I... I went flying. I always do... mornings, clears my head. I remember... the wind. The sun. Then... I woke up here."
No memory. No attacker. No scream, no hex, no pain until the aftermath. A clean strike, magical in nature, but not a curse of pain — a curse of absence.
Dumbledore's mind worked quickly, silently. Not an accident. Not a creature. No warning. Whoever did this wanted precision, wanted silence. Wanted to send a message.
And they had chosen a Triwizard Champion.
His eyes drifted across the bandages again. There were few magics in this world that could cause this kind of damage with no trace — no curse scars, no aura signature, not even a whiff of intent lingering in the ether. It was surgical, impersonal. Practised.
He looked once more at Cedric's face — too young for this, too innocent still — and something cold began to coil at the base of Dumbledore's spine.
A child had done this.
Not a monster.
Not a Death Eater.
A child.
He stood slowly, hands clasped behind his back. "Cedric, rest. We will find the truth."
He met Pomfrey's eyes. "Double the wards on this wing. And bring in St. Mungo's if you must. This is no ordinary injury."
As he stepped out into the hall, the castle's warmth felt somehow too bright, too loud. The air tasted of wrongness.
A dozen possibilities turned over in his mind — none of them satisfying, none of them safe.
And yet...
In the corner of his thoughts, one name itched like a splinter beneath the skin.
Harry Potter.
The fourth champion. The outlier. The boy whose magic twisted the very air when he entered a room. Whose wand had not been checked, whose eyes did not flinch, whose name had appeared unbidden from a cup older than most kingdoms.
Could he have done this? Dumbledore asked himself, not in fear, but in logic. Would he?
He recalled Harry's expression at the choosing — not surprised, not confused.
Merely silent.
Observing.
Like someone waiting to see what the world would do next.
Dumbledore's footsteps echoed down the corridor. He needed answers — fast.
Because if Harry James Potter had done this…
It meant the rules no longer applied.
Not to magic.
Not to monsters.
Not even to Death.
Past
The stone beneath his boots grew slick with shadow.
Harry's toes barely grazed the ground now. The pressure around his throat was not pain but inevitability — a closing curtain, a truth being spoken with hands instead of words. Sanguini's face loomed too close. Marble skin. Eyes like pressed rubies. Beautiful and utterly still.
"You have no power here," the vampire murmured.
Harry didn't blink.
His fingers twitched.
From behind, something rose — not summoned, not shaped, but released.
A wolf of shadows lunged from the crypt wall. Ribs like knives. Eyes hollow. It struck Sanguini with the force of a falling star, its jaws sinking into the vampire's shoulder with a crunch that echoed off stone. The hand at Harry's neck loosened.
Harry dropped.
He hit the floor on one knee, fingers already splayed against damp stone. He whispered a word that had no sound.
The crypt pulsed.
Bones clawed their way up from cracks in the stone, dragging rotted flesh and tangled linen behind them. A dozen undead, half-formed and hungry, swarmed toward the vampire with mindless obedience. Not to kill — but to hold.
Sanguini hissed.
His cloak tore in two places. His hand came away from the wolf's throat dripping with ichor, black like tar. He spun, fluid as smoke, teeth bared — but the creatures fell on him in waves, dragging him down in a heap of claws and moans and stuttering limbs.
Harry rose slowly.
His breath fogged the air. His heart did not race.
He raised a hand, palm outward, fingers spread like a star.
"Stop."
The word struck like a bell in a still church.
Everything froze.
Sanguini mid-lunge. The undead mid-snarl. The candle flames mid-flicker.
The crypt went silent, a held breath, an unnatural pause.
And then — a tremble. Just at the edges of it.
Sanguini's arm jerked once. His leg shifted, like a puppet testing its strings. His face twisted with effort. A bead of sweat, impossibly, formed at his temple.
"You…" he growled. "You command Death."
Harry tilted his head. "Only a sliver."
The binding was breaking. He could feel it — not as a snap, but as a slow melt. Like wax slipping from a candle.
He stepped forward anyway, the cold curling behind his eyes now, quiet and watching.
"I don't want to kill you," Harry said.
Sanguini didn't reply. The strain in his face said enough.
"I like you," Harry added.
That made the vampire bark a short, breathless laugh — but his body didn't move.
"Tell me about Slughorn," Harry said softly. "About the others. The ones you drink with."
Silence.
Then:
"They're not mine anymore."
"Why?"
Sanguini bared his teeth. "Because I don't belong. Not really."
The binding faltered further. The vampire's hand twitched. A shadow-creature dissolved at his feet, its form undone by the weakening of Harry's will. But Sanguini didn't attack.
"I never bit a human," he said, quieter now. "Not since I turned. I steal from blood banks. Muggle ones. Always freezing. Always old. It tastes of plastic and shame."
Harry studied him.
"You could drink from me," he offered, not as a threat, not as a dare. Just a line of thought spoken aloud.
Sanguini's face twisted. "No."
"Because of the Ministry?"
"Because I'm not what they think I am. Because they think I'm a monster, and I don't want to prove them right."
The binding broke.
Fully.
Sanguini staggered forward one step — and then stopped.
He didn't strike. Didn't vanish.
Harry watched him for a long moment. Shadows swirled lazily around his ankles, brushing against his robes like cats.
"Slughorn," Harry repeated.
A pause.
"He used to host parties. For the clever. The charming. The promising." Sanguini's voice was brittle glass. "I was all three. Once."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "He still does?"
Sanguini nodded.
"And he didn't invite you back?"
"No." A beat. "I'm not a novelty anymore. I'm a reminder."
Harry took another step. The crypt shifted behind him, the air thick with power still unsettled.
"Tell me more," he said.
Present
The flame in the oil lamp flickered like a heartbeat held too long.
Dumbledore sat behind his desk, spine ramrod straight, hands resting atop a sheaf of unopened letters. He did not glance at them. They were noise — political, parental, procedural. This moment required silence. Stillness.
Across from him, Harry Potter sat in the half-shadow, one leg crossed over the other, fingers threaded neatly in his lap. His posture was not relaxed, nor tense. Merely placed, like a stone exactly where it was meant to fall.
Dumbledore studied him the way one might study a foreign object brought in from the forest — untouched, humming with unknown energy, perhaps beautiful, perhaps poisonous.
He inhaled slowly.
"I would like," he began, "to understand your perspective."
Harry blinked once. "On Cedric?"
"Yes."
A pause.
"I removed a competitor," Harry said.
The statement floated in the air for a moment too long before Dumbledore could respond. It was not defiant. It was not even cruel. It was simply… fact.
"You attacked another student," Dumbledore said, voice low, measured. "You cast a spell to sever his leg."
"I didn't aim for the leg."
"And that makes it better?"
"No," Harry said thoughtfully. "Just more honest."
Dumbledore's fingers tightened ever so slightly around the edge of the desk. "Please explain to me," he said, each word scraped clean of emotion, "why maiming my Champion was a good idea?"
Harry tilted his head, owl-like.
"He's stronger than me. Taller. Better flyer. More popular. Has a girlfriend. I thought it was statistically likely he'd beat me. This way, he won't."
The words came with the calm of someone reading inventory. Dumbledore resisted the urge to lean forward. Instead, he let his eyes flicker — just briefly — to the flickering lamp behind Harry's shoulder.
Shadow.
Then back.
"Do you understand what you've done?"
Harry didn't answer at once. He seemed to consider the question, as if it had layers Dumbledore had not intended.
"I ensured an advantage."
Dumbledore's throat tightened.
There had been many dreams for Harrys over the years. What would he have been liked as a wide-eyed boy beneath the Sorting Hat? Or the curious child in the corridor with questions about his parents? Perhaps the determined, if distant, student in Defence? But this — this Harry — was something else entirely.
Cold.
Calculating.
Curious, but not emotionally.
Strategic.
"Is that how you see this tournament?" Dumbledore asked, voice soft. "As something to be won at any cost?"
"Yes."
"And the cost?"
"If it had been fatal, I would've regretted it," Harry said, and Dumbledore wanted to believe he meant it. "But the goblet didn't ask if I would play fair. It asked if I would play."
"And you believe this—" Dumbledore gestured faintly, as if waving away the taste of the moment "—falls within the bounds of competition?"
"I believe," Harry said, folding his hands again, "that I didn't come here to lose."
Silence returned, slow and heavy.
Dumbledore looked at him for a long time. Not past him. Not through him. At him — searching the boy's face for any crack, any tremor of shame or regret. But there was none. Harry looked back, unflinching, as though he too were taking inventory — of Dumbledore's disappointment, his hesitation, his discomfort.
A flicker of grief coiled at the base of Dumbledore's ribcage, sharp as a splinter.
"You've left me no choice," he said at last.
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"I will speak to the Goblet. You have admitted to deliberate sabotage. It is, by the rules, a punishable act."
Harry's expression didn't change. "But not disqualifying?"
No protest. No plea. Not even a flinch of indignation. Only agreement. And that frightened Dumbledore more than any outburst might have.
He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly. "You are unlike any student I have ever met."
"I am not your student."
There was no pride in it. No bitterness either. Just observation.
Dumbledore looked once more to the flame on his desk. It burned steadily now, casting its soft glow across the surface of his parchment, warming the frames of books, gilding the silver instruments with faint reflections.
But Harry's chair remained just outside its reach.
And the shadows behind him only deepened.
Past
The door creaked open on a cloud of steam.
Slughorn's cottage was low-beamed and round, the walls bowed outward like a pumpkin left too long in the sun. A dozen clocks ticked at once, all out of rhythm, and the air smelled of burnt sugar and new parchment. Somewhere inside, something bubbled — thick and green — like a potion brewing itself.
Harry stepped over the threshold.
"Not now!" came a bellow from the back room. "Too many distractions as it is — if this over-reduces again I'll never hear the end of it from Damocles!"
Harry walked toward the voice, slow and deliberate.
The sitting room had been transfigured into a makeshift potions lab. Cauldrons sat on every surface, each one puffing out different coloured steam. On the far side, hunched over a thick-bellied bronze pot, was Slughorn — his robes stained, his moustache quivering with concentration.
"I said not—"
Harry reached into his robes and withdrew the letter.
Slughorn turned.
The name on the envelope caught the light first. Then the boy holding it. The scar.
"Oh," Slughorn said, and the syllable curved like a smile. "Oh my word."
He dropped his stirring rod into the cauldron with a plop. A faint wail came from the mixture, but he paid it no mind.
"Dear boy! Dear boy! You should've said who you were — and how d'you know Sanguini? Bit of a recluse these days, isn't he? Not that I blame him, what with how the Ministry treats anyone with a hint of— Well, come in! Come in! Sit, sit, no, not there, that one leaks memory mist."
Harry sat.
The cushions hissed under him, releasing a faint scent of cardamom and mothballs. Slughorn bustled, vanished into the pantry, re-emerged with a tray of candied ginger and little green-glass flutes of something bubbling.
"I always did admire the Potters," he said. "Your mother — oh, Lily was a marvel, a marvel. Brightest witch I ever taught, and I've taught the best. Charms prodigy. Clever with her hands. Charismatic, too. Even Severus— Well, never mind that."
Harry nodded once.
"Family still in Godric's Hollow? Do you visit often? What's your field of interest — potions, perhaps? Or charms like your mother? No, you look like a Defence man. Dueling club, I imagine? You must meet some of the others— I've been hosting little dinners, very exclusive, only the best and brightest—"
Harry raised his hand slightly.
Slughorn paused mid-sentence.
"I'd like to come," Harry said.
"To—?"
"The parties."
"Oh!" Slughorn beamed. "Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes, of course. We must get you in early. Exceptional talent should never go unnoticed, I always say — and with your background, your... mystique. Sanguini said you were special."
Harry blinked.
Slughorn was already moving again, writing something on a scroll, muttering about seating charts and cinnamon mulled elf-wine.
Outside, night pooled like ink against the windows, and the walls pulsed gently with candlelight trapped in green glass. The air shimmered with stories not yet told.
"And speaking of Lily," Slughorn said, easing himself into a squashy chair across from Harry, "did I ever tell you about the time she turned Mulciber into a hedgehog? No? Well—"
He leaned forward, smile wide.
"—it all began in the Potions classroom…"