Smile Back

by DarknessEnthroned

Voldemort has returned. Night after night, Harry dreams of death, of Cedric dying, of Karkaroff, and he dreads what he knows is coming, what Voldemort might do now his strength is restored. But… as we all know, there's a prophecy... And Harry has fallen far enough into fear. It's time for him to rise.

37. Or Flatt'ry Soothe the Dull Cold Ear of

Nothing is mine.

Harry receives his Duke of Edinburgh's Award, or something like that, anyway.

---

Or Flatt'ry Soothe the Dull Cold Ear of Death?

The park was flooded with the smell of cut grass. Little heat-wilted, green heaps of it piled all around the park's enclosing wooden fence where the wind had blown it into the bottom of the posts and stray long fronds clung to the wire mesh nailed to the inside of the fence.

Tonks swung back and forth upon the small seat, pushing herself faster off the toes of her black boots each time she sailed over the spongy dark ground below; she grinned a little more with each metallic squeal that emanated from the rusted join at the bar. 'Baby cuz!' Tonks leapt off mid-swing and overbalanced on landing, staggering forward to plough into the grass at the edge of the park.

Harry laughed as she rolled over onto her back and groaned, staring up at the sky. 'I don't know why you thought that was a good idea.'

'Shut up, you,' she retorted. 'That actually stung a little bit.'

'Oh no,' he cried. 'Not… bruises.'

Tonks sniggered. 'Well played, brat.' She hopped to her feet and patted him on the head. 'But now it's your turn to get bruises.'

Harry released a long pained sigh. 'I know. I get them every morning. And I actually feel weirdly tired today, I slept really well, but yeah, somehow still tired.'

'At least you get fewer bruises now,' she insisted.

'Not really.'

'No.' Tonks cackled. 'It's the same number, it's just harder for me to give them to you.'

'A lot harder you said.'

'Is it, baby cuz?' Her grey eyes glowed with nothing but mischief. 'How much harder?'

A touch of heat rose on Harry's cheeks. 'You should come with a warning.'

'Come on.' She reached out and flicked him on the tip of his nose. 'Show off that shiny new Agwyd of yours, favourite cuz.'

He closed his eyes and let his magic blaze, a single silver star shining before the deep, endless dark beyond, pushing back that patient, hungry black.

'Remember,' Tonks said. 'You're much faster and stronger with Agwyd, so if you see me shift my weight and twitch, you'll have flinched and I'll be all over you before you can react.'

'It's okay.' Harry grinned. 'Child protection services will drag you off me.'

A snicker left her lips. 'Not until it's too late, they won't.' She touched her clenched fist to her heart as she closed her eyes.

Little wisps of bright pink magic curled off her shoulders like steam rising from Whitefern Oast's hot spring, bursting into a fierce, flickering shroud as bright as glowing neon.

'Ready?' Tonks beamed back at him from within it.

'Mostly.'

She sprang forward, a blur of bright pink; her fists hammered against his guard, but Harry turned away from them, deflecting her blows off his raised forearms and stepping with her. He caught her wrist in one hand and wrenched her arm straight, shoving her back with a solid fore-arm in her stomach. Tonks let him push her away, tensing every muscle in her abdomen to let the force go through her and landing light on the balls of her feet.

'Good,' she said. 'You're remembering to not let me just come at you all the time.'

'I realised I get more bruises if I try to stay all defensive,' he confessed. 'Also, I can't resist the urge to try and make sure you get at least one or two bruises.'

'Be careful,' Tonks warned. 'You have good instincts, but—' she flashed him a huge grin '—sometimes it's a trap, isn't it, baby cuz?'

'Yes.' He rolled his eyes. 'Because you're surprisingly devious for someone who can't outsmart a very flat floor or an extremely stationary wooden beam in a pub.'

She cackled, circling him on the balls of her feet as she flexed her fingers, curling them into fists. 'Here I come, Harry.'

He stepped forward to meet her as her weight shifted toward him, catching her right forearm on his and throwing a short, sharp left jab into her side. Tonks twisted away from the blow and his fist hissed through empty air; her foot smacked into the back of his right knee, buckling it and driving him to the ground. She hammered her fist into the base of his spine in a flash of pain.

'If that was a blade, you'd never move anything below the waist again,' Tonks said behind him. 'Daphne would be very disappointed by that. Don't forget that it might be a feint and throw yourself in head first.'

'But you move and then I move,' Harry protested, clambering back to his feet. 'I just do.'

'You need to do what I tell you and counter smarter, then.' She ruffled his hair with one hand as she stepped back past him. 'Or every time I feint, you're going to get some big bruises, baby cuz.'

'You always say that and I still don't know what it means,' he mused. 'How am I meant to somehow know what you're going to do?'

'Practise will help you with that,' Tonks promised. 'If I come forward like that and you stop me with your right arm, you're extended toward my right side, so your whole right side and back is open if I turn that way, and I avoid the blow if I do turn that way. Basically, baby cuz, you give me one single clear avenue to get at you when you do that, and anyone who knows anything about what they're doing will take it. If you'd stopped me with your left arm, I couldn't do that because you're going to put a hole through my stomach if I try and go to your right. I don't have time to go back, because I'd have to reverse all my momentum faster than you can go forward. I can go to my right, but you're not as extended and it's further for me to go to get around you, so you can turn with me.' She grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the position, raising his left arm instead. 'See?' She demonstrated the turn. 'I can evade your counter, but I can't get behind you. So you still have a chance of killing me with this, but much less risk of getting killed.'

'I get it,' Harry said. 'But I don't see that, I just… move.'

'Practise.' Tonks pounded her fist into her palm. 'That's why we're doing this. All this stuff will become second-nature after I've given you enough bruises. We've been at this for a few weeks now and we've still got a few to go because Hogwarts is a fancy school and we get long holidays.' Some of the sharpness in her slate grey eyes softened. 'Remember what I said, Harry; if you were in the actual auror training program, they'd have their jaws on the floor. You've gone from flapping and flailing around like a helpless baby while I pounded you into paste to trying to make sure that when you counterattack, it's not a sneaky ploy that gets you into trouble.'

'It's always a sneaky plot,' he complained. 'You never used to be so sneaky when we did this to begin with.'

'I didn't have to,' Tonks confessed. 'Take it as a compliment, baby cuz. Anyone who tries to pick a fight with you is going to expect none of this. They'll probably be very direct and simple, and any kind of counter is going to catch them out.' Little lines creased all across her forehead. 'I wish I could find a way to teach you how to form a blade, because you're the perfect trap for a couple of very overconfident first-class aurors right now.'

'Can't you just ask Amelia Bones?'

Tonks snorted. 'No, brat. I don't have official permission to teach you, remember? I'm free to teach you all the things I'm allowed to teach anyone, like how not to get beaten up and how to form Agwyd, but I'm not free to teach you things only aurors are now taught how to do.'

'Ask if you can?'

'Bonesy will say no because you're sixteen, not seventeen,' she replied. 'And there are spies all throughout the Ministry, Harry. We don't want Voldemort to find out you can do any of this and come prepared; all our efforts to keep you safe would be wasted if they try and attack you knowing you can do this.' Tonks's weight shifted and she lunged forward, a blur of bright, shimmering, neon-pink magic.

Harry bent aside from her fist, letting it streak past his stomach in a shivering shroud of magic, and flicked her on the nose with a little laugh as she went past.

'Oh, I see how it is, baby cuz.' Tonks smacked her fist into her palm. 'You think because you're fast you can play about, do you?'

He grinned back at her. 'I suppose I could have hit you in the face?'

'Face?' She shook her head, the humour fading from her grey eyes. 'You got the counter right, that time; there was no way for me to get around you. But you should have gone for the throat. I tease, Harry, but this isn't a game. I want you to grab me by the throat—'

'Sounds like you're still teasing to me...'

A snort of laughter burst from Tonks. 'Focus, baby cuz. You have good intuition and you're fast, but you have absolutely no killer instinct. If you catch your opponent overextended like that, you get your right hand around their throat and slam them into the ground so hard you break bones—' there was nothing but sharp steel in those grey eyes '—and before they can react, you put your blade through their eye.'

Harry frowned. 'Why does it have to be the eye? That seems so unnecessary…'

'It's quicker,' she replied. 'You're holding them by the throat and just smacked them into the ground, so your shoulders and weight will likely be over their head; if you try and stab them in the heart, you'll be reaching back under yourself and putting yourself off balance. Your hand is around their neck, so you can't stab them there, and everything else above the neck is messier or tougher to put a blade through than the eye. '

'Still…'

Tonks sighed. 'I guess for now this doesn't matter so much,' she admitted. 'I'm teaching you to hold your own to get away, not fight to win.'

'I don't even have anything to stab anyone with except that piece of wood,' Harry said.

'One day you will,' she promised. 'First-class aurors are too rare to ever be left untrained, even those who have other roles.' Tonks let her bright, flickering pink Agwyd fade. 'But as far as you being safer goes, you're a lot lot safer than you were four weeks ago at the start of your summer.'

'Thanks.' Harry let his magic go, let the darkness beyond the stars swallow them all one by one as the soft ache of fatigue crept upon him; he reached around and poked at the tender spot at the base of his spine. 'This one is going to be annoying.'

'Heal it, then. Or I can, if it's too hard for you?'

He drew his wand from the sheath across his back and rested the tip at the throbbing point between his hips. 'How hard can it be?' Harry pictured the pain, a coiled knot of tangled wire beneath his skin; he unravelled it, pulled each piece free and felt them shift from steel to silk, sinking back.

The throbbing faded.

'I think it worked.'

Tonks blinked. 'It did?'

Harry turned around and tugged up his t-shirt. 'Poke it?'

She pressed the tip of one finger into the base of his spine, but not even the slightest hint of pain came.

'Neat,' he said, dropping his shirt. 'You can take your hand out now; you're not pretty enough to replace Daphne anyway.'

Tonks drew her hand back and swatted him over the head. 'I'm more than hot enough for you,' she said. 'But speaking of hot; it's been warm all afternoon and I've been stuck melting in auror robes in the Ministry Atrium, so do you want to get ice cream? Fortescue's doesn't shut until about half seven in summer, so we've got just over half an hour if we're quick.'

'Do I have to eat the same one as you again?' Harry asked.

'No.' She cackled. 'Not unless you've suddenly developed good taste.'

'I think you mean brain damage,' he retorted.

Tonks wrapped an arm around his shoulders and grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt. 'Hold on tight—' she shot him a mischievous look '—but be warned, baby cuz, grab anything too sensitive, and I'll drop you in a holding cell for a few hours.'

'Nothing about you is sensitive,' Harry accused. 'It's all wildly inappropriate flirting with underage boys and a pain threshold honed by being unable to walk for more than two minutes without falling over somehow.'

'You're not underage in the Muggle world,' she reminded him. 'So it's just wildly inappropriate flirting with boys now.'

'Pretty sure I'm still underage until I'm eighteen. And I'm taking that as a confession of your inability to walk—'

A deafening crack tore across the park and the swings whirled into a blur of colour. Harry smacked into the Fortescue's sign standing just outside the door and doubled over it with a low groan as pain tore through his stomach.

'Oops.' Tonks patted him on the head. 'You still alive down there?'

'Curse you, Nymphadora,' he replied. 'Why can't you just apparate like a normal person?'

'I'm too much of an awesome hottie?'

Harry scraped himself off the sign and healed the lingering little twinges of pain biting through his stomach with a swish of his wand and a grin. 'No, I don't think that's it. I think you might actually be cursed.'

Tonks laughed. 'No. Things are just a bit… fluid for me; you know why.'

'Ah yes. Menopause.'

'Not that, brat.' She brushed chalk off the front of his t-shirt with one hand, making sure to catch him with a light slap across both cheeks in the middle of it. 'Me trying to apparate is like throwing a cup of water at a specific place. The water more or less goes in the right spot, but not perfectly.'

'Child abuser.' Harry nursed his face. 'That almost makes sense, except you can't walk across smooth surfaces.'

She flushed a bit. 'Well, my sense of balance is a bit… er… fluid too. I'm fine when I'm kind of continuously moving and doing things I'm thinking about, like fighting or running; I just flow doing that stuff. It's when I try and suddenly do things that it all goes wrong.'

'Yeah, then you flow face-first right into the nearest pavement,' Harry joked, opening the door.

'I'll show you pavement.'

'Doesn't even make sense, I see pavement all the time. Or is this a curbstomp in a short skirt thing?' He flashed her a mischievous grin as he inspected the rows of flavours behind the counter. 'Because I promise you that if you do that to me, I won't be looking at the pavement.'

'Brat.' Tonks flicked him on the nose with a snigger. 'Pick an ice cream like a good child and stop thinking about my underwear.'

'Miss Tonks.' Mr Fortescue released a long suffering sigh and smoothed out his blue and white robes. 'What abomination do you want today?'

'Hi, Mr F.' She hummed. 'Gooseberry and blackcurrant…'

Mr Fortescue reached for the scoop with baited breath.

'And white chocolate, and rum and raisin,' Tonks added.

Mr Fortescue's shoulders slumped as he pulled out a four scoop cone.

'Horrifying,' Harry remarked. 'And for a moment it was all going so well.'

'You just have awful taste,' she declared. 'Mr F, tell him.'

'I think I am firmly on Mr Potter's side.' Mr Fortescue's light brown eyes flicked between the two of them, lingering on Harry's scar.

'What if I tell you that I'm the one paying?' Tonks asked.

'Even then,' he replied, putting her ice cream together with an air of great resignation.

'Damn,' she said. 'I thought that would work for sure.'

'Mr Potter?' Mr Fortescue placed the ice cream scoop in the sink behind him and fetched a second clean one. 'Something that people would be less inclined to stone you for eating, perhaps?'

'Honestly, a very low bar with her.' Harry chuckled to himself. 'I think cherry, and raspberry and redcurrant.'

'I'm afraid I don't have redcurrant, Mr Potter.' Mr Fortescue's bushy white eyebrows drew together. 'Although I might remedy that; redcurrant is a good flavour and I have made some in the past.'

'Strawberry then,' Harry said.

'Red fruits.' Mr Fortescue nodded as he piled three large scoops of ice cream onto a cone. 'You have far better taste than your… cousin, Mr Potter.'

'Sadly, she actually is my cousin.'

'But not just your cousin, if these little ice cream dates are any measure of it,' Mr Fortescue replied. 'Oh, your secret is safe with me. I see countless couples coming in here in the summer. Many much more scandalous than yourselves.'

Tonks flushed very red. 'We're not dating, Mr F. He's at least three years too young for that. Give me some credit here. I like to wait until they can at least walk before I snatch them from the cradle.'

Harry cackled at her glowing cheeks, full of glee. 'I told you molesting me would come back to haunt you, you… I don't know a word for a much older menopausal woman who dates lots of younger guys, is there one?'

'I'm afraid I don't know either, Mr Potter,' Mr Fortescue replied, handing over both cones.

Tonks growled. 'I should send you home without any ice cream, brat.'

'See the power imbalance in this relationship,' Harry complained. 'If I don't let her have her wicked way with me, she stops buying me sweets.'

'Okay, keep the change, Mr F.' Tonks slid a handful of sickles across the counter and flicked Harry on the ear with her free hand. 'You come with me before anyone else hears your rambling and I end up under some kind of internal investigation for child abuse.'

'Would you actually?'

'No.' She sniggered. 'I might get a long lecture from Bonesy because you're not seventeen yet, but that's it. She needs me far too much to do anything like that. You—' Tonks pinched his cheek and grinned at him '—are all mine, baby cuz.'

'All Daphne's,' Harry corrected. 'You only get me in six years as a fallback option.'

'Wow.' A rather crestfallen expression crept across her face. 'So this is what heartbreak and rejection feels like.'

'Is it fun?' he asked. 'I've never been there.'

'Eat your ice cream before I steal it and mix it in with mine.'

'It couldn't make whatever you've got worse,' Harry retorted. 'Is your sense of taste fluid too?'

'I'll give you fluid,' Tonks threatened.

He laughed. 'No you can't, Nymphadora. You're a girl. See, I told you I know my sex stuff.'

'I've got a little secret to let you in on, favourite baby cuz.' She leant forward, a huge grin spreading across her face and her grey eyes glowing with mischief. 'I don't have to be all a girl if I don't want to be.'

'Oh no.' Harry shook his head. 'I didn't sign up for that. The deal is so off. You've been reading Hermione's secret collection of internet erotica again, haven't you?'

'Too late, we shook.' She cackled. 'Should've read the fine print, baby cuz. Or at least Hermione's secret collection of internet erotica, apparently. I'm actually kind of curious about that now.'

'It's such a good thing I'm going to be with Daphne,' he said. 'She's not messed up in the head.'

'Are you sure?' Tonks asked.

'Yes. She's just a little anti-social and quiet, and possibly mildly evil.'

'Ah, a quiet one.'

'You said that weirdly.' Harry squinted at her. 'What is that meant to mean?'

'I think you're going to find out.' Tonks sniggered into her ice cream. 'Quiet girls like to think, Harry, and I promise you some of that time thinking has taken her to interesting places once or twice.'

'You're just messing with me.' He took a bite of his ice cream. 'Eat your abomination, Nymphadora.'

'You're an abomination.'

'Just because I have a big scar on my face…'

'It's actually the glasses.'

'Sadly, I need those or I can't see.'

'You should charm them so you can see through girls' clothes,' she suggested. 'Or give yourself night vision.'

'I feel like one of those might be a bit not okay. Not that I can do either of them.'

'Yeah, don't actually do that first one.' Tonks snorted. 'I'd probably let you off with a few bruises if it was me, because you are my favourite baby cousin, but your girlfriend might get very upset.'

'About looking at her or you?' Harry asked.

'I meant her, because she's probably got her own idea of just how she'd like you to see her without any clothes on the first time, but quite possibly that too.' She took a few small bites of the different flavours of her ice cream, the pale green gooseberry, the dark red blackcurrant, and the cream white chocolate, nibbling at the cone around her rum and raisin. 'Have you met any of Daphne's family yet?'

'I met Astoria at Hogwarts.'

'But not her parents?'

'I think they're away a lot,' Harry said. 'Also I get the strong impression — because she outright told me — that they wouldn't be very happy about us going out, so she hasn't told them and is keeping it all a secret.'

Tonks's forehead creased into a small frown. 'Well, I haven't seen much of them either. Her dad is a seated member of the Wizengamot, but her family keep to themselves mostly. He's rarely there and spends most of his time travelling with his wife, apparently.'

'I don't even know what he looks like,' Harry confessed. 'The closest I've got to meeting him is Daphne's abstract watercolour painting of her family.'

'Green eyes. Brown hair.' She held up her hand, her thumb and forefinger about two inches apart. 'About that much taller than me, so probably about the same height as you now. You've sprouted a bit over the summer.'

'Like a beautiful spring flower from the snow.' Harry laughed to himself, thinking of the blossoming shadow beneath the full, pale light of the winter full moon and the endless white veil of snow and ice. 'I guess I'll have to meet them eventually, but I thought it should be one of those don't pressure her things you told me about.'

Tonks mulled that over through a few bites of ice cream. 'Probably. At least you're not dating the younger sister; I bet they're very protective of their cursed daughter.'

'Astoria is pretty shy, so maybe.' Harry waved a hand at the long evening shadows out the window. 'How is everything else going? Nobody ever tells me anything. Except Hermione, but she has been singularly focused on my grieving process this summer. She sent me a list of alternative coping mechanisms for grieving men yesterday. One of them was fishing.'

Tonks laughed. 'It means she cares. Although, fair warning, favourite baby cuz, if you seriously start going fishing, I will be forced to introduce you to my dad. He loves fishing.'

'I don't think that's going to happen,' Harry promised. 'But… about all those things that have been going on and nobody has mentioned to me?'

'Lots of political wriggling,' she said. 'The election is in June, but Fudge is going to be gone for good and there's no obvious successor, so all the scheming has already started. I stay out of it; I'm not department head or anything, so I just don't need to be involved.'

'Will Pendragon do anything?'

'As far as Pendragon is concerned, or at least what I've been told, is that he's content to let the Ministry solve the problem of Bellatrix. Part of the deal with the formation of the Ministry was to basically bribe the old families still resisting the status of being retainers into accepting the Ministry's control instead of constantly fighting against Pendragon's.'

'So what? They got paid?'

'Not with gold.' Tonks waved a piece of ice cream cone at him. 'Your family, mine, your girlfriend's, Malfoy's, all of them, were made hereditary seated members of the new Wizengamot and given certain protections. Pendragon essentially said; you can rule yourselves so you stop rebelling every hundred years and we'll stop trying to get rid of you and forcing you into servitude, but in return, you'll follow these guidelines when it comes to certain laws and practices.'

'Who actually are the retainers?'

'Everyone else,' she said. 'Many families were forced to swear loyalty to Pendragon, even though they all mostly still followed the Old Ways at the time. Now, those families are retainers with their own small estates within Pendragon's holdings; they're his servants, agents, the aurors of the Graal-Kynak and anything else he commands them to be. Mum always said that those families still know the Old Ways, they've just abandoned being able to really worship, and have long resigned themselves to serving Pendragon and squabbling with each other for the scraps of power he gives them.'

'Which honestly seems like a good thing. That culty bit is really creepy and probably going to cause a lot of trouble. Although, the more I learn about Pendragon, mostly that Maerdrid guy, the less great they seem.'

'They aren't particularly nice.' Tonks shrugged. 'But they sure aren't going anywhere. Those guideline laws they set for the Ministry, they've helped erode the influence and culture of the Old Ways bit by bit. In another century, there's probably not going to be much left of those who really believe. Especially when Voldemort's gone. You can only have so many false saviours before people stop believing.'

Harry finished his ice cream, deep in thought. 'Daphne hopes for a saviour. For her little sister.'

'Can't blame her. Although I don't actually know what the curse does. Nobody really knows outside of their family. Something to do with the daughters, because they very rarely have them. I think most of them might die very young.' Tonks stole the last piece of his cone and crunched on it. 'We need to clear out, Mr F wants to close up, so I'll drop you home. Tonight's another night I'm off duty, because I had Atrium-watch all day, but I'm knackered so I'm going to go home and just crash into bed.'

'Me too,' Harry agreed. 'I've been tired all day, haven't even done that much.'

'You're like an inch taller than you were last week, it's probably that.'

'Am I?'

'Yes.' She stood up and waited as he dragged himself from the chair. 'See? I was like an inch shorter than you before your birthday and now it's more like two or three.'

'Now you're Nympha-shorter.'

'I should leave you here for that.'

'You'd miss me.'

'Miss the feel of you staring at my legs, you mean.'

'That is what I meant,' Harry retorted. 'You need the attention now you've reached menopause.'

She snorted and flicked him on the tip of his nose. 'Enough menopause jokes from you. Come here.'

Harry fixed her with a suspicious stare. 'This feels like a trap, are you going to drop me in that holding cell?'

'No, I'd have to come and get you later and I want to sleep.' Tonks side-stepped the chair, stumbling over one of the legs, and swept him up into a huge hug, squishing her boobs against his chest. 'Now, hold still.'

'I'm not exactly struggling to escape.'

A loud crack ripped through Fortescue's and Harry found himself yanked off his feet in a blur of colour and hurled hard into cold concrete. Something soft and scented of faint lavender covered his face.

'Ow.' Tonks's voice came from just above his head. 'You okay?'

Harry stared into her cleavage. 'Oh, don't worry about me.'

A snicker tickled his forehead. 'Get your face out of there, you little delinquent.'

'You're on top of me,' he complained. 'You get your boobs out of my face, molester.'

'Er…' Dudley's voice drifted through the underpass. 'Is that you, Harry?'

'Yes.' Harry laughed. 'This is my cousin, Nymphadora. Nymph—' a sharp poke cut him off '—adora, this is Big D.'

'Big D?' She cackled.

'I usually go for Diddiekins.'

Dudley sighed. 'Stop calling me that.'

Tonks bounced to her feet, dragging Harry after her with both hands. 'Right, you, go away.'

'Me?' Dudley asked.

'No, this one.' She ruffled Harry's hair with one hand. 'My favourite baby cuz. But I suppose also you, yes.'

'Bye.' Harry gave her a cheerful wave. 'See you tomorrow.'

'Sweet dreams.' Tonks winked at him and vanished with a deafening pop.

'I bet she just apparated into a load of furniture and is on the floor right now.' He laughed to himself. 'Ah well, come on Diddiekins, let's go. That nap idea honestly sounds excellent.'

Dudley trailed him back to the front door, patting down his pockets. 'I forgot my key.'

'I didn't take one,' Harry admitted.

'We're locked out. Shit.'

Harry laughed and drew his wand from the sheath on his back. 'Not exactly.' He flicked it at the door and with a quiet click it opened a couple of inches. 'Magic's very convenient that way.'

'Won't you get in trouble?'

'No, I've been left unsupervised. A terrible decision, really, I was killing unkillable dementors when I was supervised, so who knows what trouble I'll cause now?'

'I thought you were going to nap?'

'Not right now, Dudley.' Harry sighed. 'Try and keep up.'

'I'm going to get cleaned up.' Dudley kicked off his shoes, tucking them into the gap by the radiator with his foot and trudged upstairs. 'Night, Harry.'

'Sweet dreams, Big D.' Harry strolled upstairs and into his room, pulling the door shut and locking it with a swish of his wand. 'Now…' He gazed down at his bed. 'Hello, bed. I have missed you.' Harry slid his wand back into its sheath and tugged it off, stripping down to his boxers and flopping onto the mattress. 'Yes—' he sank into it, closing his eyes as that gentle soporific embrace drew him down into a soft dark '—sweet sleep.'

But he opened his eyes to a stark stone shore swept clean by the wind and battered by cold, foaming white waves, to a bleak horizon of endless sea and creeping rainclouds.

The crumbling ruins of once soaring towers and looming walls built in grim, grey basalt columns clung to the dwindling isles still sticking from the heaving waters, joined by the dilapidated, deteriorating remnants of a great stone bridge. Fallen fragments poked up from the foaming white waves in the shallows around the shore and shattered pieces sprawled in the pebbles, studded by the pale shells of whelks and limpets, and veiled in tattered, green seaweed.

Above it all, half of one tower remained, rising from sea and ruined stone like a broken blade.

'Bella.' Voldemort's soft command left Harry's lips, near lost in the crash of the waves and howl of the wind. 'Do not speak unless I say to; Tytha y Thawyn ó Trasyn na Tynnta, the People Who Came From Over the Waves, are proud and old; it was from them that our kind first learnt the script of the Veiled World and for an age they ruled over us from here, Ynysoedd y Rouanedas, The Isles of Kings, their secret stronghold.'

'My lord,' Bellatrix murmured somewhere behind him.

The cold, damp stones clicked and crunched under Harry's bare feet as he strode along the shore and onto the worn grey causeway of basalt columns.

A hulking figure crouched where the tide broke over the weathered ruins of the steps up to the crumbling bridge, eye to eye with Harry still, both its hands wrapped about the bare bronze blade of a sword etched with countless lines of worn glyphs in spiralling, swirling knots, broad as Harry's waist and twice as long as he was tall. Hunched over the sea and broken stairs, the giant figure leant all its weight upon the blade stabbed through the foam into the shore beneath; the pommel — worked in the shape of the sun rising over the waves — rose above its head and the white gull feathers tied in its long black hair, trailing a single long red scrap of cloth in the wind.

'You come.' The figure's voice sounded like breaking rock, like gravel being ground beneath the tyres of Uncle Vernon's car. 'Welcome. Be seeing Ynysoedd y Rouanedas ruined.'

The white water crashed against the figure's legs and sword, rushing past and sweeping back in a swirling of bubbling white foam.

'Lord Voldemort has returned,' Voldemort declared, smooth and high. 'As he said he would.'

'You oath kept.' The figure rose, towering near three times as high as a man, and lifted the bronze blade in one huge seven-fingered hand to run the edge of the blade across his palm.

Crimson poured forth, trickling down through the spiral and knots of twisted script upon the gleaming metal sword and dripping into the sea.

'We all Tytha y Thawyn ó Trasyn na Tynnta fight will. Oath kept. I Tethra fight.'

Voldemort's thin smile curved Harry's lips. 'Together, we will bring Winter to our bleeding world, Tethra.'

'You Spring see.' Tethra thrust the blade into the stone and pressed the bleeding hand across his heart, leaving a great scarlet smear. 'We Tytha y Thawyn ó Trasyn na Tynnta Spring are needing. Home in ruins lies. Children few having. Gone soon.'

'Autumn's sacrifices will last only a little longer and few of those still left to fall are among our number.' Voldemort drew his wand and sliced his palm open, letting the blood trickle through his fingers. 'Yr gwyan, y Goanv.'

'Yr gwyan, y Goanv,' Tethra rumbled. 'But they of the Graal-Kynak, strong are. Many of we, they slain.'

Voldemort caressed his long, pale, crooked wand. 'Maerdrid and the Graal-Kynak are fighting in South America for the ICW's high council. Emyr Pendragon will not let a little unrest at home get between him and his ambition to restore the Pendragon family to the high council. A few deaths in Britain are a price he will gladly pay to avoid any embarrassment or penalty for pulling Maerdrid back home before his work in South America is done.'

A broad ragged smile stretched across Tethra's face and his bright green eyes lit up like flames; all his bared teeth filled his mouth like the stalagmites and stalactites of a deep dark cave. 'All things, for we be aligning.' He rested his blood-stained blade upon one huge shoulder. 'You be coming. Feast. See Ynysoedd y Rouanedas ruins.'

Harry imagined Voldemort trying to use a giant knife and fork better suited to someone Tethra's size and laughter bubbled up inside.

'Always laughing,' Voldemort murmured beneath his breath. 'I cannot say whether this connection we share is blessing or curse, Harry, but such is the nature of high magic and Prof y Sidhe. You see much that I do and yet I see nothing of you but your laughter; born, no doubt, from my taking your blood without an equal act of reciprocation.' He lingered for a moment as Tethra strode up the causeway toward the crumbling towers and walls. 'I wonder, beneath that laughter, can you not feel it coming? The last gasp of Autumn? The first touch of Winter's chill?'

'It's summer,' Harry reminded him.

'It is.' A thin cold smile curved his lips as Voldemort's amusement swelled. 'But, Harry, Summer's fate is to wane.'

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AN: Loads more chapters of this and more via the linktree below!

linktr . ee / mjbradley