average human’s Reviews > Avada Kedavra > Status Update

“Thanks,” Tonks said, almost immediately giving away her identity as Harry would have silently nodded.

Fred didn’t notice though, he just quietly counted up everyone. “Where’s Susie-Q?” he asked.

“Detention,” Neville lied easily. “She hexed Ginny in front of Professor McGonagall.”

Fred chuckled and shook his head. “Alright then, eleven lagers?”

Theo cleared his throat and shook his head. “Seven,” he said. “PJ, Sapphire, Hermione, and myself aren’t drinking.”

It was good of Theo to not drink while Hermione couldn’t. Blaise wouldn’t have bothered, but Theo was much more of a sap than he was.

Fred nodded and winked at Trent. “Sorry, maybe next year your big brothers will let you drink.”

Trent scowled and gave Sapphire an exasperated look. “Do you see what I deal with?” he asked her.

Sapphire tilted her head to his and whispered something that had Trent grinning and sitting straighter in his chair.

Young love; so cute, such a waste.

Blaise preferred to live fast, enjoy life while he could. Specifically, to enjoy as many varieties of life as he could. And that would be rather hampered by ‘love’.

Susan used to agree with him on that, sharing a similar view of the world, but then she met Charles Weasley and decided that she liked the challenge he presented her with more.

Blaise had once thought that perhaps he could be persuaded to try out ‘love’, but then the bloke he fancied wound up engaged to a red-headed prankster.

Any idiot could see that Fred was quite devoted to Harry, but Blaise would have cherished his every breath. Of course, Blaise waited too long to make a move, and Harry had fallen fast and fallen hard for Fred’s easygoing personality and his charms. Now Blaise would be a groomsmen in their wedding.

Mad.

Fred returned quickly with the drinks and passed them around. “Everyone cough up some coins for Abeforth, will ya?” he asked cheerfully. “He says he’s gone temporarily blind and deaf while we’re here.”

Blaise turned in his seat and winked at the old bartender, whom he now knew to be Dumbledore’s brother.

It must be misery, being related to Albus Dumbledore. Outshined in your youth by a genius brother, overlooked as an adult by your powerful sibling. But since Blaise was fairly certain that Harry left that morning to go kill Albus Dumbledore, then Abeforth wouldn’t be overshadowed for long.

Blaise should write to his mother though, thank her for only ever bringing one child in to the world.

“I’ve got good news,” Fred told Tonks with a bright smile. “Bill and Fleur moved their wedding! They’re going to get married on New Years Day so we can do it August first!”

“Oh, er... brill?” Tonks said hesitantly, subtly glancing around at the others, as if needing prompts on how Harry would respond.

Fred’s face fell slightly at the lack of enthusiasm. “Do you not want to anymore?” he asked Tonks quietly. “I mean, we can do it whenever you want.”

“Oh he does,” Theo cut in quickly before Tonks could bugger it up more. “We’re going the first day of summer to get dress robes.”

Fred, so easily placated, perked back up immediately. “Brilliant! I’ll bring my brothers too so we can all match.” He gave Tonks such a look of utter adoration that it was nearly comical. Actually, it was comical considering that it was Tonks and not Harry. “Did you pick your best man then, love?”

Tonks said “No” just as Blaise said “Yes”.

Fred looked between the two of them slowly as Tonks took a hasty sip of her drink, probably trying to find a way to correct herself without giving away the game.

“Idiot,” Hermione sighed at Tonks, attempting to cover yet another blunder. “Theo told you that he’d be honored. He was only teasing you when he said he wouldn’t do it.”

“Right,” Tonks nodded. She turned to Fred and lifted a single brow, somehow imitating Harry quite well. “I picked Theo.”

“Not Susan?” Fred asked curiously.

Tonks scoffed, finally getting a little more in character. “Theo’s my brother, isn’t he? Plus,” Tonks puffed her chest out, “I’m his baby’s godfather.”

“True.” Fred smiled and stretched his arm over Tonks’ shoulders, causing her to stiffen slightly.

Which would have been an entirely ‘Harry-like’ reaction six months ago. The ‘pre-Azkaban’ Harry hardly enjoyed physical touch, ‘post-Azkaban’ Harry seemed to soak it up like a desperate sponge.

Blaise and their friends had noticed, though no one spoke of it aloud, and had went out of their way to offer more physical comforts to Harry. It was rare to see Harry walk the corridors without one of them on his arm, or sitting for meals without Susan pressed against his side. And, despite the way that Harry thrashed quite a bit in his sleep, they typically took turns having ‘sleepovers’ with Harry.

Neville and Ron refused, citing ‘awkwardness’, but Blaise simply blamed it on their ceaseless heterosexuality.

Blaise did smirk slightly at Tonks as she obviously forced herself to relax beneath Fred’s arm.

“Have you picked your people?” Ron asked his brother, narrowing his similarly blue eyes at him.

Fred laughed and took a long drink. “George is best man, obviously. Then Charlie, then Lee, then Ginny.”

Fred winked at Blaise as Ron’s ears turned a shade of red. Fred had decided, some time ago, that he and Blaise were apparently quite good friends. And, truthfully, Blaise liked Fred. He imagined that Fred was a difficult person to dislike. There were other times though, that Blaise thought he wouldn’t be too torn up if Fred died.

Harry would need a shoulder to cry on, and Blaise would provide it.

Blaise was yanked from his wildly inappropriate fantasy of Fred dying tragically in the war by Ron’s indignation.

“I’m your brother!” Ron cried. “You don’t even like Ginny!”

“Right,” Fred nodded slowly, “but you’re a Slytherin. And I’m sure Harry’s already filled his side with tons of snakes, haven’t you, Darlin?”

“Theo is best man, and...”

“Then Susan, Blaise, and myself,” Draco said smoothly, saving Tonks once more. “So you’ll need another Slytherin to keep your side from being too Gryffindor.”

“Fine.” Fred sighed dramatically and gave Ron a crooked smile. “Ronniekins, my fifth favorite brother, would you like to be a groomsmen?”

“No,” Ron said simply. “Piss off.”

Tonks laughed at Fred’s look of surprise. “Maybe you should beg,” she suggested wryly.

“Nope. I’ve changed my mind again,” Fred said. “Ginny it is.”

Blaise sipped his drink while Fred picked on Ron for a few minutes before conceding and telling him he could be a groomsmen.

“You’re being quiet,” Fred murmured softly to Tonks as the others chatted amongst themselves for a moment.

Tonks shrugged and pinched her wrist before squinting up at Fred. “Not much to say,” she said shortly.

Fred’s brows furrowed and he slowly reached up to brush the fringe off ‘Harry’s’ forehead. “What’s going on?” he asked again. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

Tonks sent a furtive look up towards the ceiling before sighing heavily and giving Fred a soft and sad smile.

“Fred, can I be honest with you?”

Fred became instantly nervous while the rest of them went utterly silent. Blaise, Ron, and Neville seemed to lean in simultaneously to hear what terrible thing Tonks planned to say.

She took a heavy breath and looked around the empty pub quickly, the flicking eyes a very good imitation of Harry, before looking straight in to Fred’s eyes.

“I’m in love with someone else,” she said.

Blaise hissed out a warning breath- that was too cruel.

Before Fred’s face had the time to fully crumple, Tonks quickly, and quite smoothly, added:

“It’s Professor McGonagall.”

Blaise let out a startled laugh at the same time it sounded as if a bottle shattered behind the bar.

Fred’s look of impending devastation slowly cleared away as he replaced it with an amused smile. “McGonagall, huh?” he grinned. “Alright, well, suppose I’ll just go kill her then.”

Everyone’s heads bounced back and forth between Tonks and Fred as they sparred verbally.

“Also, Flitwick,” Tonks said in a perfectly calm and pleasant voice that Harry hardly used. “He’s quite fit.”

Fred’s smile increased. “You want me to kill my favorite teacher and the three time world dueling champion? Fine.”

Tonks tapped Harry’s bitten nails on the table. “Sprout, too.”

“Done,” Fred said. “I’ll win your love back by murdering all of them, shall I?”

Tonks’ lips seemed to curl up in to a smile unconsciously. “Remus as well.”

Mistake.

Mistake.

Harry was afraid of Lupin. And Harry always called him Lupin.

Fred’s smile stayed in place, but it didn’t match the suddenly hard look in his eyes. “Speaking of Remus,” Fred said, a calculating tone to his words, “he’s wanting to know if we’re still coming tomorrow at two, for our private meeting.”

Aah. Fred was testing Tonks now. Blaise raised a brow at Draco, but Draco merely smirked. He was obviously content to watch Tonks flounder since she couldn’t possibly know about Harry’s disdain and distrust of sessions with Lupin.

And, as expected, Tonks looked towards Hermione and Theo, as if hoping for a cue on how to respond, but they gave her nearly identical looks of polite curiosity.

“Er... yes,” Tonks told Fred, turning back to him. “Two it is.”

Fred grabbed Tonks’ wrist and pinned it much harder to the tabletop than he would have if it had truly been Harry— Blaise hoped.

“Where is Harry, Tonks?” Fred asked Tonks quietly, his voice as warm as an iceberg now.

“With Susan,” Theo told him quickly, since Tonks seemed unwilling to answer.

“Not in detention?“ Fred asked without looking away from Tonks or releasing her hand.

“No, but they’re with Snape,” Hermione said in a rushed whisper. “He’s fine, Fred, really.”

Fred jerked his chin in a nod, releasing a heavy breath as he did. He let go of Tonks’ hand and raised an unimpressed brow at her (a look Blaise was certain he picked up from Harry, who got it from Snape, who was probably born looking unimpressed).

It had probably been a bit cruel, teasing Fred like that, when the last time he lost Harry it was to Azkaban.

And it wasn’t as if all of Harry came back either.

“If you don’t mind changing back,” Fred told Tonks flatly as he took his arm off her shoulders, “I don’t fancy checking out the wrong arse.”

Everyone chuckled, even Tonks, but she also shook her head.

“Can’t,” she told him. She looked around the pub before leaning closer to him and whispering something the others couldn’t hear, no doubt informing him of her status as Harry’s alibi.

Fred pulled away and scooted his chair a small amount from her before taking a sip of his lager and shrugging. “Your funeral when Harry finds out I called you darlin and put my arm on you,” Fred grinned.

“Excellent,” Draco said, sharing a quick look with Ron. “Odds on Harry contesting Tonks to a duel?”

“4 to 1,” Blaise said confidently. “2 to 1 if his secret mission went badly.”

“Odds on Tonks winning?” Sapphire grinned.

Trent rolled his eyes before stretching his arm, very casually, over her shoulders. “Nobody’d take that bet,” he said. “Harry’s a genius. He only loses to Snape.“

“Maybe Snape loses to me,” Tonks said in a sulky way that fit Harry very well.

Luna leaned forward so she could look at Tonks better. “Has he?”

Tonks crossed her arms and scowled. “We haven’t dueled before,” she huffed. “I’m an auror though.”

“Hmm. Ex auror, I think,” Luna hummed. “And Professor Snape was a death eater.”

“Yeah.” Tonks grinned and winked at Luna. “It’s rather inappropriately attractive, isn’t it?”

“Hermione thinks so too,” Theo murmured with a smirk for his girlfriend.

“I do not!” Hermione cried, her blush giving her away.

“You do too,” Ron smirked. “You told us all at the World Cup, remember?”

“I will kill you,” Hermione hissed down the table at him.

Tonks laughed, entirely unconcerned with Hermione’s crush on her boyfriend.

“He is quite handsome,” she grinned.

“Maybe don’t say that when you’re disguised as Harry,” Neville said, scrunching his nose. “Disgusting.”

It was rather disgusting.

Tonks shrugged and the others quickly moved the conversation to much safer topics.

Trent and Sapphire chatted quietly with Ron and Fred about quidditch.

Draco and Luna held some sort of private conversation between the two of them that involved a lot of whispers and giggles.

Theo and Hermione nearly upset Blaise’s stomach as they stared in each other’s eyes, wordlessly communicating their love and happiness.

Neville, shockingly, asked Tonks about the Auror program before finding out he was already disqualified since he dropped potions for a NEWT.

Blaise sipped his drink and wondered what Harry and Susan were up to.



Things were simply more exciting with the two of them around.



“We should probably go,” Tonks eventually said, glancing towards the windows. “Make a great deal of noise walking back, go to dinner, show that Harry has been here all day long.”

“Alright.” Fred got to his feet and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Tonks. “Tell Harry to call me when you see him, got it?”

“Got it,” Tonks winked.

They all made sure to drop a few coins in Abeforth’s tip jar as they went; Blaise left a few extra considering Abeforth’s brother was probably dying that day.

***

Their group made their way towards the castle, everyone in rather high spirits and buoyant at the idea of hearing about Harry and Susan’s mischief soon.

Blaise loved hearing about the trouble they got in to. He didn’t much love being involved in it, but he loved hearing about it.

“What should I order for dinner if You-Know-Who isn’t there?“ Tonks asked Draco.

Draco pondered it for a moment. “Whatever looks the unhealthiest,” he said. “And—”

And whatever Draco thought Harry would eat was cut off as someone suddenly popped in to existence long enough to grab Draco in a bear hold and pop away with him.

“Run,” Tonks said intently as she pulled her wand. “N—”

Tonks was unable to even finish her sentence before someone apparated in quickly enough to grab Hermione’s arms and disapparate.

Crack!

Crack!

“Wha—”

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

“Fuck!” Tonks snarled after Ron was snatched. She grabbed Trent’s arm and shoved him. “Go!”

Trent and Sapphire barely made it ten paces before they too were grabbed quickly by (what Blaise had finally noticed to be) masked death eaters.

Blaise and Theo seemed to gravitate easily to a back to back position with their wands out, but everything became a bit of a blur as multiple people begin popping in and out randomly now, confusing the hell out of the dwindling group.

Blaise held a defensive pose, but dear Theo lost his mind entirely and fired off a stunner just in time for the masked death eater to disappear and it to hit Neville, who was snatched almost immediately.

What in the blazes was happening?!

Tonks had her wand out and was rapidly firing spells, not as quickly or effortlessly as Harry would have, but impressive nonetheless. Unfortunately, it seemed as if Harry had killed off the less intelligent and incapable death eaters, as these were apparating in and out in a random frenzy, causing everyone’s heads to swivel around before being captured by surprise.

Which, of course, is how Blaise felt himself getting snatched by a strong pair of arms that immediately clamped down on his wrist to force his wand to aim uselessly at the ground. Blaise could no more than grunt before the twisting sensation of apparation took him away from the village he had just been in.

Blaise barely had time to feel his feet touch the ground before his wrist was twisted backwards and his wand was forcibly yanked from his hand.

“Get your disgusting hands off me,” Blaise snarled. He reached upward with his open hand and attempted to grab the hair of the man who had him pulled flush against him.

The man laughed a wheezing laugh and easily pinned that arm to Blaise’s side while twisting the other behind his back, pulling it up far enough that Blaise felt the tendons in his shoulder strain.

“I’ll break it,” the man said in his ear. “Keep testing my patience, poppet.”

Blaise quit struggling and instead began to take in the sights and sounds around him.

Neville. Hermione. Trent. Sapphire. Ron. Draco.

Crack!

Luna.

… was Luna a prisoner or did she come willingly? She looked much too calm in the loose embrace of the death eater who held her wand.

Crack!

Theo.

“Get your fucking hands off her!” Theo howled as soon as he saw the masked witch or wizard with Hermione in a tight headlock. Theo renewed his struggles and Blaise did as well, desperate to assist his friends. “Don’t fucking touch her!”

“I’m fine,” Hermione said thickly, her voice choked from the grip the death eater had on her neck. ”We’re fine.”

Merlin and Morgana.

The fucking baby.

Had there ever been a worse time for Theo to knock up his girlfriend?

Blaise looked around the room, taking note of where they were, and stilled his struggles as he realized it was a rather posh sitting room.

Gaudy, for sure though. The golden and silver thrones in the front were so tacky his mother would sob. As were the deep black velvet curtains blocking any natural light from entering the room.

And then…

Holy Mother of Hades.

Timmy himself glided in the room.

Blaise hadn’t really noticed before, as distracted as he had been with not dying, but Timmy was tall. He was graceful in a truly villainous way too. His long black robes trailed around his feet as he moved to the golden throne, not even acknowledging the others in the room.

Once he sat, he deigned himself to look around at the nine suddenly still students. His pale face was entirely neutral, but there was a calculating look of amusement in his deep red eyes.

“Aah, I’m so pleased you could join us,” he said, his voice something between a sibilant hiss and a raspy whisper. “But where is our guest of honor?”

“They’re getting him, My Lord,” the masked (witch, apparently) holding Sapphire said with enough of a bow to give Sapphire the ability to jam an elbow back in to her face.

Blaise smirked and Trent let out a satisfied grunt from where he was nearly being strangled by the death eater holding him.

“Loosen your hold on him,” Timmy hissed at the one holding Trent. His nearly nonexistent lips curled up in to a mocking sneer. “It isn’t as if they’re able to leave.”

Oh, Blaise’s mother was positively going to kill this man with her bare hands, anomaly or not.

Timmy didn’t seem inclined to do anything other than watch them all with benign curiosity- he was clearly content to wait for them to bring him Harry.

And Blaise couldn’t think of a single bloody way to escape.

He could see Hermione’s lips moving, no doubt trying to pull off a bit of wandless magic, and Neville’s feet were twisting and turning, probably trying to apparate away.

It was as if Neville couldn’t feel the magic tingling across the floor, the magic that told Blaise that apparation, for them, would be pointless.

Crack!

Aah. But not for the quartet who brought ‘Harry’ in a mess of limbs and fists and blood.

The four death eaters quickly dropped him and stepped away; and they were lucky it was Tonks and not Harry, because they would be dead otherwise for grabbing him in such a way.

Tonks hit the floor on her hands and knees in the center of the room and her head immediately began swiveling around as she rapidly took in all the surroundings.

“You’re a difficult wizard to speak with,” Timmy said, watching Tonks with a hungry look in his eyes. “Stand, Harry.”

‘Harry’ now, was he? Blaise was fairly certain he had been ‘Potter’ last year.

Tonks’ eyes were ripped from the restrained, and wandless, students to Timmy as one of the death eaters that brought her along took Timmy her wand and laid it at his feet with a deep bow.

Tonks slowly got to her feet, the cogs no doubt whirling in her brain as she tried to find the best tactical advantage in their situation.

But damn if she didn’t look like Harry as she stood up straight and dropped her hands to her side, her fingers twitching endlessly.

“You could have sent a patronus,” she said with Harry-level disdain to her voice.

Timmy didn’t look furious at her cheek, he looked amused.

He probably would have been much angrier if it had come from Tonks instead of ‘Harry’, though.

“Mm, some invites are better in person,” Timmy said carelessly.

“And he can’t cast a bloody patronus,” Neville sneered.

”Crucio.”

Neville was a mad bastard, Blaise would give him that. Took a lot of bravery to mouth off to the Dark Lord, but it took even more to bear his curse nearly silently aside from his harsh breaths.

Timmy watched him thrash and occasionally whimper for a long minute while the others struggled to get to him before lowering his wand and ending the curse.

“As I was saying,” Timmy turned back to Tonks, “some things are simpler to do face-to-face.”

“Yeah?” Tonks thrust her chin out and squinted at Timmy. “Kill me then.”

“Kill you?” Timmy let out a soft, and disgustingly creepy, laugh. “Never, dear Harry, you and I will live forever.”

Blaise strained in the sweaty arms of whoever held him to try and find Draco’s face.

What the hell? Blaise said with his eyes.

Draco’s raised brows responded, No idea.

“Join me,” Timmy told Tonks. “Join me and I will let them live. Refuse me again, and they die.”

Almost at once, the death eaters holding his friends all raised wands and put them to their heads. Oddly enough, the one holding Blaise only shifted his arm enough to put his forearm tightly over Blaise’s windpipe.

Timmy was mildly more intelligent than Blaise had given him credit for.

Timmy wanted the strongest wizard in history on his side, helping him do whatever it was that ‘dark wizards’ do. ‘Refuse me again’ meant Harry wasn’t interested (which was terribly amusing that he quest for revenge overtook his deep thirst for power), so Timmy found a way to trap Harry in to it:

Take almost all the people he cared about and threaten to kill them.

Except, if it were Harry, then Harry would just snap his fingers and kill every death eater in the room before grabbing his friends and popping them all back to his place for that disgusting hot chocolate he loves.

“Okay, yeah.”

Blaise nearly closed his eyes in absolute, inappropriate, amusement at the look of utter shock on Timmy’s reptilian face.

“You will join me?” Timmy asked Tonks.

Tonks looked around at Blaise and his friends, all restrained by death eaters, before turning back to Timmy and nodding with a very Harry-like shrug.

“If it means these guys can all go home, then yeah,” she said. “I’ll join you.”

Luna whimpered and Blaise tried to stretch his foot out to reach her as she was the closest to him. Luna must have realized the same thing he did- Timmy would kill Tonks the moment he released them and realized he’d been tricked.

Blaise thought Tonks must have realized it as well.

Blaise also thought that Tonks was perhaps the bravest witch he had ever met before.

Someone should say that at her funeral.

“Excellent,” Timmy said, a truly disturbing smile curling his lipless mouth upwards.

And then, no matter how brave Tonks was, no matter how hard she worked to imitate Harry- they were absolutely fucked. Because Timmy started hissing in Parsletongue.

Tonks froze and blinked. Then she nodded slowly.

Which had obviously been the wrong response because Timmy tilted his head curiously at her and hissed something else.

“Who are you?” Timmy yelled at Tonks after she didn’t respond again. He pointed his wand at Draco while staring Tonks down. “WHO ARE YOU?”

Draco started screaming as a silent red curse, probably the cruciatus, struck him in Tonks’ silence.

“Nymphadora Tonks!” Tonks screamed, morphing to her own appearance quickly. “I’m Nymphadora Tonks!!”

The curse causing Draco to scream, and the girls to sob, ended quickly as Timmy tuned his wand on Tonks now.

“Where is Harry Potter?” Timmy hissed at her.

“I don’t know,” Tonks said. Blaise saw her fingers twitching much quicker now as she assessed who was closest to her.

Timmy abruptly closed his eyes, giving Tonks an opportunity to step closer to Hermione, the only student she could reasonably reach. It had been rather pointless since she wasn’t Harry and didn’t even have her damn wand. When Timmy opened his eyes back up a few moments later though, he laughed.

Fucking laughed.

What is this nonsense?

“Dear Harry is quite busy right now.” He narrowed his disgusting red eyes at Tonks contemplatively before curling his lips up in a smirk and nodding slowly. “Aah, you are his alibi?”

Tonks drew herself up as tall as she could. “I am.”

“Then she must not be injured,” Timmy said thoughtfully. “A metamorphmagus is a useful follower to have. My Harry is clever indeed.”

Blaise sent a flabbergasted look towards Neville, who looked as confused and surprised as he was.

Was this the same madman who tried to kill Harry last year?

... and the year before that?

... and two before that?

... and the year before that?

... AND ten years before that?!

Now ‘his Harry’ was clever?

“Take them to the dungeon,” Timmy ordered abruptly. “Do not hurt the red head boy, the metamorphmagus, or the small one.”

The death eater holding Theo looked between Trent, Sapphire, and Luna.

“Which small one, My Lord?”

If they all made it out alive, Blaise would laugh about that at some point.

Trent looked apoplectically indignant, Sapphire looked confused, and Luna smiled as if it were already a joke to her.

“The one that looks like Potter,” Timmy snarled. “The small boy is Potter’s godfather’s son, the other is his betrothed.”

Oh yeah. If they all lived then Blaise would laugh about this for years to come.

For the most feared Dark Lord in history, and as much credit as Blaise had been willing to give him for his plan, Timmy was actually a moron.

If Harry had to pick three people to protect, it would be Hermione, Theo, and Trent. Or perhaps Hermione, Luna, and Trent.

Blaise personally wasn’t offended by that- it was Harry’s odd way of always protecting the ones he viewed as weak. Since Blaise wasn’t on that list, then Harry viewed him as moderately competent. Truly it was a compliment to not be in Harry’s top three ‘people to protect’ list.

Either way, Ron would hardly qualify. Especially since it was Fred that Harry was betrothed to.

The death eaters moved quickly though. The four that brought Tonks lunged for her and, after a brief struggle, each of them had a limb. Tonks spat in one of their faces though, driving them to quickly stun her. The others began dragging the suddenly noisy students away.

“Theo!” Hermione yelled as she was drug towards a staircase. Her face was pasty white and she tried to stick a hand out to Theo. “Theo!”

“Shut up or I’ll stun you as well,” the wizard dragging her grunted.

Luna was…

So damn weird.

Her eyes were misty as she kept glancing towards Draco, who was limp in the arms of the death eater dragging him, but she was simply walking alongside the death eater holding her arm tightly.

Either she knew resistance was futile, or she knew everything would work out okay.

Blaise wasn’t confident in either of those assessments.

Blaise made a daring attempt to kick the bloke behind him in the groin. A daring attempt, but ultimately pointless as all he achieved was getting his kneecap and having that arm over his throat tighten more.

“I wanted the blonde boy, but I suppose you’ll do,” he whispered as he drug Blaise along with the others, out of the room and towards an open staircase. “Between us, I almost hope Potter refuses my Lord so I can eat the red-head, do you think he will?”

Blaise scoffed as the man easily lifted him with an arm around his stomach and an arm around his neck to carry him down the stairs.

“Potter will kill you all.” Blaise’s voice was mildly hoarse, a side effect of the pressure on his throat, but still sounded much more steady than his heart rate was. “He will slit your throat with a flick of his wrist.”

He would too.

Blaise had seen it before.

“Not on your behalf,” the man said in a leer as Blaise watched his friends being tossed in various cells—

Did Timmy truly convert a manor dungeon in to a prison? Good Lord, how gauche. The dungeon villa in Italy had been converted in to a wine cellar and housing for the elves.

Perhaps Timmy lost good taste when he did his nose.

The man dropped Blaise, rather unceremoniously, on to a stone floor in the dank and dark cell closest to the stairs. It was only when he took slow measured steps around Blaise, looking him over from top to bottom, that Blaise realized who he was.

“No wonder you don’t have a wand,” Blaise sneered right in his scarred face. “Disgusting little wolf.”

Not all werewolves were disgusting, but this one was. His face was filthy and his pointed teeth were nearly as yellow as his eyes.

The comment about wanting to eat Ron made more sense as well now. Draco had mentioned Ron saving him from a cannibalistic werewolf by stabbing the wolf in the back. Pity Ron didn’t linger to finish the job.

“Disgusting little wolf, am I?” The man suddenly pushed Blaise harshly backwards, causing his head and back to hit the stone wall before lunging forward and grabbing him by the shirt and lifting him to his tip toes. “Maybe you’re jealous, poppet,” he sneered quietly. “Maybe you’ve always wanted to be a wolf as well.”

Was today the full moon?

No… no it had been last week.

The wolf-man couldn’t turn him, only kill him.

Blaise gave the man a look of near boredom, burying his fear beneath his disgust and disdain.

“If you touch a single hair on my head, my mother will kill you,” he sneered. “And if she doesn’t, Harry certainly will.”

Harry might be in love with Fred, but Harry still loved Blaise. They were best friends- practically brothers in Harry’s opinion.

And Harry was a possessive son of a bitch; nobody would ever be allowed to kill one of his friends except for him.

The wolf-man let out a raspy laugh, his acidic breath blowing in Blaise’s face. His disgusting and grubby claws grasped the top of Blaise’s head and he jerked his head backwards, tilting his face from side to side.

“Oh, you’ll do nicely,” he said. He licked his lips slowly. “Mm, maybe if I still have room for dessert afterwards, I’ll go back for the little fairy-like one, what d’you think, lovey?”

Despite his current predicament, Blaise smiled cruelly. “You’re going to die,” he told the wolf-man with only a slight rasp from his suddenly bone dry mouth. “Harry Potter is going to drain every drop of blood from your body and burn your corpse to ash. You’re committing a capitol offense and you don’t even realize it, you mad bastard.”

The wolf-man let out another wheezing laugh and yanked Blaise to his feet by his curls.

Blaise kept up a cool mask as he was drug through the stone basement, passing the cells that he knew his friends were behind.

If the wolf planned on killing him tonight, he damn well didn’t get to see Blaise’s fear. And Blaise wouldn’t leave his friends with even more fear than their sobs and shouts betrayed.

It had been his last thought as the wolf-man tossed him in a small room and locked the door behind him.

“Delicious,” he said. He approached Blaise slowly, likely in an attempt to see fear in Blaise’s eyes. “Am I not scary, lovey?” he whispered, reaching for Blaise’s face.

Blaise waited until he was right in front of him before bringing a knee up to his groin and knocking him over just as Harry once taught them in a DADA meeting. As soon as the man toppled over, Blaise leapt over him and rushed to the door.

The Merlin damned locked door.

Blaise had decided to simply try and choke the life from the wolf-man (a mad and desperate plan) when he heard the man getting back on his feet- and in an instant he had a grip on the top of Blaise’s head and his shoulder.

“Give me a smile, handsome,” the man whispered as Blaise struggled out of his inhuman grip. “No? Alright.”

And then he sunk his teeth in Blaise’s neck and the entire world before him spun in circles and went black.

Chapter End Notes

Up Next:
Macnair Manor

94%

Saturday, April 11

All the triumph over Dumbledore’s death in Susan’s eyes died as Harry hurriedly related Timmy’s message.

She didn’t cry though, she looked terrified, but brave.

Harry appreciated her for that.

“What do we do?” Susan whispered.

“We go get them,” Harry said.

“How?”

Harry actually had no idea.

And, historically, Harry was very bad at planning. Especially when his nerves were all on edge and it felt as if someone had poured a fizzy potion directly in his body, causing all his blood to fizz and tingle.

It would be fuckin brill to just go snag Snape and make him help rescue everyone.

“We need to know for sure who all’s there,” Harry murmured, ignoring his own slightly desperate idea to get Snape. Harry and Susan stepped in to an empty classroom that Harry quickly locked and silenced against intruders.

“Fingers crossed,” Susan said once she saw Harry pulling his mirror out.

Fingers crossed for sure because if Timmy had Fred then Harry might just have Susan kill him then and there so someone could kill Timmy.

…except there were two more damn horcruxes so Timmy was currently unkillable.

Damnit.

“Fred Weasley,” Harry said to the mirrors surface.

It was possibly the longest moment of Harry’s life waiting to see if Fred could answer.

When he did, Harry’s legs almost collapsed beneath him.

“Hey, darlin,” Fred grinned. “Are you done with your super secret mission?”

“What was our hotel room number over the summer?” Harry asked quickly.

Fred screwed his eyes up for a split second as he thought about it. “1004?” he said slowly. “The bookworms were in 1003, Trent in 1002, and Sirius and Remus in 1001.”

Susan was just on edge as Harry was because she jammed her face in front of the mirror as well. “What did I tell you the night of the Slytherin party last year when you brought Lavender?”

Fred grinned again. “‘I don’t like you, but Harry does. Don’t give up on him, you utter swine tit.’”

Harry glanced at Susan and she nodded.

“Who all came to Hogsmeade with you?” Harry demanded while Susan whipped open the Marauders Map. “It’s important, so don’t be wrong.”

“Tonks-”

Fuck.

Snape was probably going to be really upset if she died.

“Ron, Draco, Blaise, Neville, Trent, Sapphire, Luna, Theo, and Hermione.”

Susan shook her head out of Fred’s line of sight.

All of them. They were all missing.

Timmy had all of them.

“Are you at home?" Harry asked Fred.

"Yup."

"Good, stay there,” Harry said firmly. “Don’t fuckin leave unless Snape or Susan tell you to.”

“And make sure it’s us,” Susan told Fred.

“What’s going—”

“Love you,” Harry said before disconnecting the mirror.

“How the fuck do ten students get kidnapped by fucking Timmy and nobody notices?!” Harry snarled quietly after he pocketed the mirror. “This school is such bullshit, isn’t it?”

Susan bit her lip and rolled the map up. “We eat in the dorms all the time,” she said, sounding as pained by their own decisions as Harry suddenly was. “It wouldn’t be weird for us to still be in up in the dorms, or the kitchens, or even in Hogsmeade still.”

Harry closed his eyes and nodded. She was right.

If ten students were going to disappear, Harry’s ten people were the ones that would take the longest to notice.

“What now?” Susan whispered

“Do you trust me?” Harry asked her.

Susan’s faith in him was unwavering. “I do.”

Good. Because he didn’t trust himself. Not with this many lives on the line.



“Where are we going?” Susan asked as they ducked beneath the cloak and ran for the front doors.

“Home,” Harry said. “We need backup.”

“From Fred and Lucius?” Susan raised a brow.

Harry smirked and shook his head. “Don’t be stupid, we’re not bringing him more hostages, Sue. We’re getting the elves.”

Susan didn’t look like she understood, but she would.

If Harry didn’t get her killed in the meantime.

***

“Mavis is not liking this,” Mavis said with a tug of his left ear. “Mavis is not wanting Master Harry to be getting involved with the nasty snake man.”

Harry checked his watch. It had been twenty minutes. He had less than forty to get his friends before Timmy went crazy and started killing them. He honestly did not have time to argue with Mavis.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Susan sighed. She pushed Harry over and glared down at Mavis. “We need your help. Our friends need your help.”

Mavis looked around at Draco’s four elves and they all shared similarly unhappy looks.

“That’s it.” Harry couldn’t keep wasting time. He frowned at Mavis, genuinely unhappy with what he would have to do. “Mavis, I’m so fucking sorry, but I order you to help me and I order you to do what I say, when I say it, and to not find any way to get out of helping me. D’you understand?”

Mavis narrowed his eyes at Harry, silently communicating how pissed he was and how shitty summer was going to be.

“Mavis understands,” Mavis said through clenched teeth. “Mavis will be helping his sneaky Master Harry, since he is ordering him to.”

Susan grabbed Harry’s hand and squeezed it in a reassuring way.

“We’s will be helping too,” one of the female elves (Roo, maybe?) told Harry with wide eyes. “Mistress Malfoy is saying to be doing anything the Mister Harry Potter is telling us.”

Harry nodded as he tried to piece together a plan on the fly. He inhaled slowly, counted to five, and blew the air back out just as slow.

“Alright. Roo-”

Oops. Guess Roo was the other female elf.

“-after we leave, wait five minutes, then you go to Hogwarts and get Professor Snape and tell him to get home immediately.”

“Shouldn’t we send everyone to the hospital wing?” Susan murmured.

Harry shook his head and put his lips right beside her ear. “We killed the Headmaster,” Harry whispered very quietly. “Hogwarts isn’t as safe as this place is.”

Susan nodded and Harry turned back to Roo.

“I also need you to tell him it’s fucking important, not tell him what I’m doing, and he should grab his medicinal potions kit just in case, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Roo nodded eagerly. “Roo will be telling him that and Roo will not be taking no for an answer.”

“Good.” Harry eyed Blippy carefully. “If I tell you to come when Susan calls you and do what she says, will you?”

Blippy nodded solemnly. “Blippy will.”

“Brill.” Harry gave all the elves an appreciative look. “This can’t get fucked up. There are important lives on the line, d’you understand?”

The elves nodded back, even though Mavis still looked unhappy with him.



Harry and Susan reconvened in the broom shed, neither wanting to be accidentally discovered by Fred or the Malfoy’s. Susan pulled out two galleons and quickly explained to Harry how a charm Hermione put on them worked.

“Tap your finger on it, and think about whose name you want to send me,” Susan said. “Mine will heat up and I’ll know you have them.”

They tested it quickly, making sure both could send little one word messages on there, and Harry thought it was brilliant.

“We have to get Hermione first,” Harry said. “I’ll find Trent and Luna, but you have to find Hermione. ‘Mudblood’, he called her.”

“The baby,” Susan gasped. “I’ll find her first, I swear.”

“Kill anyone who tries to stop you,” Harry said.

Susan nodded with a grim expression.

“Wait. What happens to a vault at Gringotts if both owners are dead?” Harry asked Susan before he apparated blindly in to what seemed to be a rather well thought out and elaborate trap.

Susan scrunched her brows at the seemingly random question. “I think it’s auctioned off after a time, but I’m not really sure, why?”

“Then don’t kill a death eater by the name of Lestrange,” Harry said quickly. “It’s important, trust me.”

Snape said the horcrux-cup was in Bellatrix and Rabastan Lestrange’s vault. And Bellatrix was already dead. Harry couldn’t risk that cup being moved.

***

Harry stayed entirely silent after apparating in Macnair Manor’s back garden. He felt the wards on the property trip the moment he arrived, but they couldn’t find him or Susan while they were under the cloak.

They could look though, and it would give Harry and Susan the chance to kill every single person that stood between them and their friends.

The two of them paused in the backyard, keenly listening and looking for any swarms of impending death eaters.

Harry also mentally scoffed as he looked over the two story brick house. ‘Manor’ was a bit of a stretch, but then again, so was pretending to be a pureblood when your father was a muggle.

So clearly if Harry breeds psychopaths then Timmy breeds delusional-paths, or whatever.

Delusional or not, there was no indication of anyone running out to try apprehending them.

“If you see a death eater, kill them if it isn’t the one,” Harry said as quietly as possible to Susan. “I’ll keep you out of prison and I’ll buy you a new wand.”

Susan rolled her eyes while she held up her wand; she’d probably already been planning on killing anyone she could.

Because she had no idea how shitty Azkaban was, but Harry would never let her find out either.

“Point me Hermione Granger,” Susan murmured. She laid her wand flat on her palm and bared her teeth in a silent snarl as it pointed directly to the back door.

“When we split up, you take the cloak,” Harry said as they approached the house. “We aren’t fighting, we’re getting them the fuck out. Timmy won’t kill me, but he will you.”

The two of them paused outside the back door. Harry took his last heavy breath, reminded himself that this was unfortunately real, and squeezed Susan’s hand one last time before dropping it.

“Wait.” Susan grabbed Harry’s wrist as he reached for the doorknob. “Look.”

Harry followed her line of sight and saw a small window at the bottom of the house, probably no bigger than a large textbook, sending a small amount of yellow light across the grass.

“Let’s go in through there,” Susan whispered. “I feel lucky about it.”

Far be it from Harry to stop Felix from finally fucking helping them out on the unluckiest day of Harry’s life.

The two of them went over to the window and Harry grimaced at its size.

“I’ll fit, but…” Harry hesitated as he tried to find a polite way to point out that Susan might struggle.

“But I’ve got a large arse,” Susan said with the smallest hint of a grin. “I’ll fit too. Let’s just go.”

Harry ducked down to reach the window.

Break it.

Harry cringed at the loud tinkling noise of the shattered glass hitting what sounded like a stone floor. Harry took his cloak off and wrapped it around his hand to carefully clear away the jagged pieces still in the frame. He’d made the mistake of not doing that once, when he’d been much younger and stupider, and wound up slipping inside the basement of an abandoned house and cutting the hell out of his back.

Once the glass was all the way cleared, Harry gave Susan the invisibility cloak and then slipped his legs in to the opening.

Here goes nothing.

It was a short drop. Ron, who was about a foot taller than Harry, might not even have had to drop really. Harry landed in what looked to be a pantry of sorts, there were shelves covered in canned goods, giant bags of flour, and other various household goods.

Well… Harry didn’t see any reason for a bunch of death eaters to have so much food.

Harry took one of his dwindling minutes to go around and send all the food to Moon Lodge while Susan struggled to wiggle her way through the window.

He liked the irony of the bigoted death eater’s supplies going to a house full of werewolves.

As soon as Susan finally twisted her way in to the room and she secured the cloak over herself, Harry flicked his dagger to his hand and moved towards the door. He checked his wrist watch one more time before grimacing.

Ten minutes before Timmy joined the fight.

Harry silenced both of their feet before nodding in the direction he was sure Susan stood. He turned the doorknob slowly and inched the door open, wincing slightly at the creak that echoed down the long dark passageway.

Harry had no real idea how basements worked, but he hoped following the passage would eventually lead to some sort of staircase or something. He kept his magic drawn up in his hand, causing the warmth to flood his fingertips and occasionally shoot off tiny tingles across his palms. He also kept his dagger held tight in his right hand as he crept quietly towards the next doorway.

He didn’t feel lucky, exactly, but he did feel a bit of a bubbly calm presence in his mind that made him think maybe he was headed the right direction. He paused when he came to a divide in the corridor; there was a heavy steel door to his left, and a short set of stairs that led to a dark brown wooden door on his right.

”Point me Hermione Granger,” Susan murmured.

Harry waited while he wand was probably spinning in her palm before Susan whispered for him to go left.

Further in the creepy dark basement it was.

The steel door was locked and Harry undid it quickly. The second he opened it though, a horrifying alarm began squealing- it was so loud and obnoxiously high pitched that Harry nearly put his hands over his ears. Instead, he waited until he felt Susan brush beside him and he closed the door and put up the ward that Snape once taught him to keep anyone with a dark mark from crossing the doorway.

It wouldn’t keep Timmy himself out, and any death eaters already within the room couldn’t leave now, but Harry had to hope that the small impulse that led him to do it was luck driven.

“SPLIT UP,” Harry yelled at Susan over the alarm when they immediately reached a T. “Find them!”

Harry went left, Susan went right.

And it only took roughly ten long steps for Harry to realize that he was somehow both incredibly lucky and also terribly unlucky—

Maybe Slughorn misbrewed that potion?

—because Harry found Ron almost immediately on his right hand side.

In a mother fucking cell. Complete with iron bars and everything.

“HARRY!” Ron yelled over the ringing alarm and the now distant shouts coming from above them. Ron didn’t look hurt, just a little dirty and a little messy. He also looked so painful relieved that it was heartening to know someone believed in Harry so wholeheartedly.

But Ron was terrible at shutting the fuck up.

Harry shook his head quickly and held his fingers to his lips. Ron nodded and pointed at a portion of the bars on his cell (Harry would kill every person that put his friends in fucking prison cells right before melting the entire ‘manor’ with his bare hands and rage) that had a carving on them. Harry hesitated for a brief moment before deciding ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’ and grabbed the bars right on top of the carving.

Fucking pain. That was the worst that could happen. Harry’s hands suddenly felt like they were burning, but he held on tight and forced his magic through them as he concentrated on opening the cell, remove the bars, open the cell.

It took about thirty seconds of time Harry didn’t have, he could hear loud yells coming from the entrance he blocked now, but the bars finally sizzled and burst open.

Harry wasted no time in calling for Mavis.

“Straight home,” Harry told him as he popped out the galleon to let Susan know he had Ron.

“No, Harry, let me help you,” Ron said earnestly. “C’mon, I think Blaise might be hurt.”

Harry glanced at Ron’s burnt and empty hands- he’d obviously been disarmed and tried to open the cell the same way Harry had.

“I’ll get them, I swear,” Harry told him. “You go home, you’re no help right now.”

Mavis narrowed his eyes hatefully at Harry before quietly popping away with Ron.

One down—

Oh.

Harry glanced at the coin that was now pulsing with heat in his hand.

Thank God.

Susan found Hermione.

Two down, eight to go.

Harry sent a slightly panicked look behind him toward the doorway as he ran to the next cell—

Who put a prison in their basement?

Was this already here or did Timmy install it?

… And did Harry want one at his house?

Neville was in the next one with his face jammed against the bars, despite the searing heat that had left bright red marks on his cheeks.

“BLAISE!!” Neville screamed. “FIND BLAISE!!”

Harry spun around and took in all the cells that lined the corridor. He ran towards the door at the end of the corridor at random, praying to the God’s he didn’t believe in that he wasn’t just running at random.

Unlock it, Harry commanded his magic as he grabbed a handle.

Felix Felicis apparently decided to finally do something for him, because Harry opened the door and he found Blaise.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Harry whispered. He knelt down on the floor in the puddle of blood surrounding his friend and flipped Blaise on his side.

It was only Harry’s long-standing ability to not let blood affect him that kept him from blowing chunks all over Blaise’s body.

It looked as if someone had torn an entire chunk out of Blaise’s neck, leaving a gaping hole and slash marks that went clear to his eye socket.

And it was a mad thought to have, but Harry knew Blaise would be miserable if he was alive because Blaise loved his face so much.

“Blaise?” Harry carefully ran his hand down the side of Blaise’s neck that wasn’t torn to ribbons. He didn’t know how to check for a pulse, but it didn’t seem like it should be that difficult to find.

Except it was.

“BLAISE ZABINI, WAKE UP RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” Harry desperately yelled. He put his other hand over the chunk of exposed bone and muscle where the blood was sluggishly dripping.

Heal it.

When Harry moved his hand, the skin was knitting itself together, leaving behind silver scars from Blaise’s eye to his shoulder. Silver scars like...

Like Lupin wore.

“Oh, I’m going to fucking kill him,” Harry snarled.

“I told him you would.”

Blaise’s lips barely moved, but Harry heard him.

He heard him.

“Thank God,” Harry breathed. “MAVIS!”

Pop!

“Straight to Snape,” Harry instructed Mavis curtly. “Do not bring Snape back, do not tell him where I am. You go straight to Snape, make sure it is him, then come back the second I call for you.”

“Mavis will be back then,” Mavis squeaked quickly before grabbing Blaise’s wrist and leaving immediately.

Three down, seven more to go.

No…

Harry checked his coin and saw that Susan had freed Tonks as well.

Four down, six to go.

How the hell was Susan opening the cells so fucking quickly?

Harry dipped back out of the room that had Blaise in it and realized he ran past more of his friends, aside from Neville, as he had went. He also realized the alarm had stopped ringing, though the angry shouts hadn’t lessened at all.

Harry was panting slightly as he got back to Neville’s cell as he looked at the coin again and saw that Susan had freed Draco too.

Even with Harry’s splitting headache from blocking out Timmy, there was no reason that Susan should be opening the cells quicker than he was. Yeah Susan had her wicked strong arm, but Harry had wandless magic.

Harry had barely grabbed the bars of Neville’s cell before Neville cleared his throat a little and pointed out how Susan was moving so much quicker than he was.

“Er… Harry?”

“‘M trying to concentrate.”

“Right, right… it’s just that… that Mavis could just pop on my side of the bars here, mate.”

Harry let go of the searing bars and felt his face heat up as hot as the palms of his hands were.

“Mavis.”

Mavis popped up immediately and Harry pointed at Neville.

“Take him home,” Harry said, ignoring Neville’s protests that he wanted to stay and help. How could he? Neville didn’t even have a fuckin wand.

Was that six now? Who was still missing?

Harry jogged away as Mavis and Neville disappeared.

Trent, Theo, Sapphire, and…

“Lue.” Harry pulled up short in front of the cell next to Neville’s and quirked his head to the side. Luna was doing some sort of ballet within the cell while she hummed her own music.

Harry grabbed his coin and forced it to flash with Neville and Luna’s names.

“You wanna go home or are you staying here?” Harry grinned as Luna continued her little leaps and twirls.

“Home, please, if I can’t stay with you,” Luna said. She came to a halt on the other side of Harry and gave him a misty eyed smile. “I thought maybe I’d die here and I didn’t want them to think they broke me beforehand.”

Harry nodded in understanding. “Fuck them,” he said. “But you can’t stay with me, I’m not staying either, I swear. Mavis!”

Pop!

Mavis was muttering a lot of rude insults as Harry merely pointed at Luna and told him to take her home, but that was seven down.

Nope.

Harry looked at the coin in his hand and grinned to see Theo’s name flashing.

Eight down.

Only Trent and Sapphire left.

Harry jogged slowly down the corridor, his head twisting left and right, before conceding that neither kid was on his side and he began running much quicker towards Susan.

They nearly collided as they met in front of the door that the death eaters still couldn’t open, and Timmy didn’t seem to feel the need to storm down yet.

“Who’s left?” Susan tore the cloak off and was panting, bent over at the waist with her hands on her knees.

“Trent and Sapphire,” Harry said. “Anyone hurt on your side?”

“Dray didn’t look so hot,” Susan said. “And Tonks was out cold, but Mione seemed fine.”

Thank God.

Harry would melt the fucking skin off Timmy’s ugly snake face if his godson had been hurt in any way.

“You?” Susan asked.

“Blaise is fucked up bad,” Harry ground out, his jaw clenching as he thought of the damage down to Blaise. “If we see a werewolf, dibs on killing him. ‘M not going to do it so nicely.”

Susan let out a quiet moan as she closed her eyes, no doubt picturing how badly a werewolf could hurt their friend.

“Did you look in all the doors and rooms?” Harry asked as he glanced over Susan’s shoulder. “Why wouldn’t the other two be down here?”

“Dunno. Trade me, check my work and I’ll check yours.”

Harry nodded and raced past Susan, carefully looking up and down her side of the corridor before accepting defeat and moving back to the doorway in the middle.

“Give me a minute,” Harry murmured once Susan came back and shook her head at him.

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated hard, focusing solely on Timmy’s side of their connection; intruding his mind rather than letting Timmy intrude his.

Knock, knock.

Hello, Little Horcrux. Are you busy liberating your followers?

Harry imagined himself smirking and twirling a knife between his fingers, forcing Timmy to see it.

Nah, didn’t take me long, did it?

That’s because you are mine, hence your increased level of cleverness. I’m curious, how are my followers unable to enter their own dungeon?

Super secret spell. But I’m curious, where’s the rest of my friends?

Now it was Timmy’s turn to force an image in Harry’s head, one he had no way of knowing if it was true or not, but he suspected that it was.

These followers? Timmy asked innocently, highlighting the image of Trent and Sapphire bound and gagged on the floor by Timmy’s feet. Sorry, darling Harry, I heard you arrive and thought perhaps it would be prudent to keep a reason for you to come visit me within my line of sight. You can’t leave without your godbrother, can you? Your paramour is home safe though, I presume?

Harry snarled, opening his eyes and punching his thigh in anger.

“Timmy has them?” Susan asked, her voice flat and furious.

“Seems like,” Harry groaned. He rubbed a fist against his eyes, forcing himself to think.

As soon as he opened that door, death eaters would be firing at them.

He had to kill Greyback.

He couldn’t kill Lestrange.

Susan couldn’t get hurt.

And he had to get upstairs, get Trent and Sapphire, and get everyone the hell out.

Apparently Felix Felicis didn’t care at all to help him.

“Cloak on,” Harry told Susan quietly. “Back up. When I open the door, stun or crucio anyone you can. Do not kill, do not use Sectumsempra.”

“And then what?” Susan whispered.

Harry grimaced. “And then we try and get Trent and Sapphire without having any fuckin casualties, yeah?“

Susan whipped the hood of the cloak back on. “Yeah,” she said, her voice steady and supportive. “If we die tonight, I love you Harry James.”

Harry raised both his empty left hand and his dagger in the right.

“I love you Susan,” he said. ”Open the door.”

The door flew open at Harry’s command, the slight yellow mist still filling the doorway, but…

But the dozen masked witches and wizards on the other side of the doorway merely had their wands raised defensively.

Their blank white masks stared at Harry, their shouts eerily silent now.

Harry blinked at them.

… maybe Dumbledore killed Harry and this was a dream?

Harry clenched his left hand in to a fist and let the nails cut in to the blisters on his palm, sending a hot wave of pain down his arm.

Not a dream then.

Harry kept the dagger held high as he tilted his head to the side curiously. “Any of you outstanding citizens named Greyback?” he drawled.

None answered him, but Harry swore he saw someone’s head twitch to the side slightly.

“Don’t suppose you’d get the fuck out of my way, would you?” Harry asked with a sharp smile now. “‘M a bit busy, and don’t feel like killing you all right now, but I can if you’d rather.”

They just… they just stepped aside, silently.

Harry’s friends were his friends, but damn if he wasn’t a bit jealous at how well-trained Timmy’s followers were.

Step One: Get a dungeon prison.

Step Two: Get actual followers.

Step Three: …prosper?

Harry waited until the pathway from his doorway to the doorway with the stairs was cleared before grinning.

Make them all sleep.

The magic practically flew from Harry’s fingertips, so quick and eager to do his bidding. The death eaters began toppling on top of each other, falling asleep quickly and easily.

“Oh.” Susan pulled the hood off the cloak and grinned. “And here I thought maybe we’d die.”

“Nah.” Harry grinned and called for Mavis again.

“Here’s the plan,” Harry said, making it up entirely as he went. “Mavis, get under the cloak with Susan. We’re going to find Timmy. As soon as we find Trent and Sapphire, I want you guys to get to their side and take them home. Then come back for me.”

Mavis and Susan both blinked balefully at Harry.

“You can apparate,” Susan said drily. “How about Mavis takes the kids home and you side-along me?”

“Can’t,” Harry shrugged and kicked at the stone floor that felt like it carried an electric current across it. “Can’t you feel the magic, Sue? I get the feeling it’s anti-apparation. We can come in, but we can’t go that way.”

In fact, Harry spun on the spot to test the theory and only managed to make himself a bit dizzy.

“Master should be going home and Mavis will be getting the other children,” Mavis said.

“Yeaaah, no,” Harry scowled. “Mavis, I swear to God, I’m going to find a way to make it up to you, but I order you to get under that cloak and help Susan get Trent and Sapphire home before coming back for me, no matter what.”

“Mavis is never making your mini tarts again,” Mavis hissed acerbically as he slipped beneath the folds of the cloak with Susan. “Master will be eating normal sized tarts.”

“The horror,” Susan giggled.

It was actually.

Mini tarts just had a better ratio of custard to crust; Mavis was being evil.

“Don’t speak,” Harry said as he turned toward the corridor and squared his shoulders. “Get to Trent and Sapphire, get them home. That’s the mission.”

It seemed like a simple mission, foolproof really.

But Harry forgot that Gryffindor’s were occasionally impulsive and brash and idiotic (aka all the things Snape said they were), as opposed to chivalrous and brave (as Neville and Fred both were).

Harry led the way across the corridor, up the stairs, through the wooden doorway. He let his intuition lead him through the kitchen he stepped in (also normal sized, what a tiny ‘manor’). Harry walked warily and quickly through another doorway with double sided glass doors in to a dining room that definitely had to be magically expanded to hold the long table and chair set beneath a shining silver chandelier.

And, through another set of double sided glass doors, Harry could see Timmy.

Timmy sat in an obnoxiously decorated golden chair, a slightly less obnoxious silver one beside him. And, at his feet, just as he’d said, were Trent and Sapphire. Even from where Harry stood, he could see the ropes on their wrists and the cloth tucked in their mouths.

… to be fair, there were a few occasions where Harry would also like to silence his little chatty godbrother with a scarf. But Timmy sure as hell wasn’t allowed to do so.

Harry smirked, since he could see Timmy’s creepy red eyes trained directly on him, and he casually strolled around the table. He cleared his mind easily before throwing the glass doors open with a dramatic flourish, and stepped right in to the center of the room, leaving Mavis and Susan plenty of room to get around him.

“Harry, what an unexpected surprise,” Timmy said with a smirk. “How was your day?”

Harry was surprised enough by the startling sanity in Timmy’s dry jest that he grinned a little. “Same old, same old, really,” he said. He twirled his knife between his fingers, the same knife that Pettigrew once used to cut Harry open to bring Timmy back to life. “How about yours?”

“I’m truly surrounded by the most mediocrely competent followers,” Timmy said. He glanced towards Trent and Sapphire, both of whose eyes were bugging out of their heads as they stared at Harry. “Perhaps I’ll be more mentally stimulated when we combine followers, Harry.”

“Afraid I don’t have much use for yours,” Harry shrugged, taking a small step away from Trent and Sapphire, leading Timmy’s eyes where he moved. “Bunch of sleepyheads. Oh! Where’s Greyback? I’d like to kill him before I leave.”

“Greyback?” Timmy tilted his head curiously as his eyes bore in to Harry’s. “What would you want with a nasty creature like him?”

“Just told you,” Harry smirked, “murder. Try and keep up, Timmy.”

Timmy’s lips curled in to an angry sneer. ”Lord Voldemort, if it’s all the same to you, Little Horcrux,” he hissed.

”I like Timmy, it rolls off the tongue easier,” Harry taunted him. ”Plus—”

Pop!

Timmy’s head turned towards where Susan, Mavis, Trent, and Sapphire just disappeared before turning back to Harry. There was anger in his eyes, but not as much as Harry expected.

“Clever,” he murmured as he got to his feet. “Nobody’s ever accused you of being unintelligent, have they boy?”

“Nobody who lived to tell the tale,” Harry said with a wide smile.

Harry- One
Timmy- Zero

Timmy also smiled, but damn it was super creepy. “Those muggles didn’t seem to find you very intelligent,” he said. “A wonderful obliviate you put on them, it took a bit of power to break through it.”

“Muggles?” Harry’s taunts died in his throat. “What muggles?”

Timmy gave Harry a confused tilt of his head now. “The disgusting oaf and his horse-faced wife. Did you not receive my gift, darling?”

Harry blinked. “Did you- did you kill the Dursley’s to be nice?”

Timmy’s confusion seemed to increase. “Did you think I did it to hurt you?”

“Yeah.” Harry squinted at him, trying to decide if he’d actually died today and didn’t know it. “You put me in Azkaban?”

“I meant to break you out,” Timmy said smoothly.

“You had Crabbe and Goyle stab Ginny and Finnigan?”

“I don’t know those names,” Timmy said carelessly with a twirl of his wand as he took a step towards Harry. “I merely told them to attack students you didn’t like. I did plan on having them kill the red-headed girl you hate.”

“I don’t-” Harry shook his head. “What the fuck d’you want from me?”

“You,” Timmy said softly, stepping towards Harry. “Join me, Little Horcrux. Together we can reshape the world. I have heard your dreams of becoming Minister, with my help, you can be the youngest minister yet.”

Harry felt a brief pang of fierce joy at the image of himself as minister, then he remembered who he was speaking with and narrowed his eyes in both anger and focus.

“You killed my parents, you killed Barty, you tried to kill Snape, you stole my fuckin friends, AND YOU PUT ME IN AZKABAN!” Harry yelled, his chest heaving with his anger. “And now you want to BE FRIENDS?!”

“Partners,” Timmy said calmly. “You are mine, and I want you back.”

Harry laughed. “Go fuck your—,”

Pop!

Harry and Timmy both looked to the side as Mavis and fucking Sapphire popped in to the room and Sapphire immediately shouted, “Stupefy!” at Timmy.

There was nobody in the world more stupid than Sapphire Herron.

Timmy blocked her stunner with less than a careless flick of his wand and had her petrified on the floor almost as quick.

Son of a bitch.

Harry looked between Sapphire and Timmy quickly as Mavis gave Harry an apologetic frown before popping away.

How did his entire plan fall apart so quickly?

”Join me or she dies,” Timmy hissed with his wand pointed at Sapphire’s frozen body.

”Kill her and you’ll wish death was all I had planned for you,” Harry hissed right back with his hand raised and his mind whirling.

He wasn’t Snape. He couldn’t come up with crazy plans on the fly like Snape did.

”Bow with me to our partnership and I will let her live.”



They seemed to be at a stalemate-

Timmy with his wand pointed at Sapphire.

Harry with his magic drawn up and waiting for his command in his fingertips.

Neither moved. Neither blinked.



Harry couldn’t think how to escape the fucking mess he was in.

He wouldn’t bow- not ever. Not as a jest, not as a feint.

Probably not even to save Sapphire’s life. Sapphire was a nice girl, but she was also brash and impulsive and got him in this fucking situation to start with.

But he couldn’t kill Timmy, not with two horcruxes out in the world and one in his head.

And there was nothing stopping Timmy from killing Sapphire.

Until...

Pop!

“Fuck you!”

BANG!

Pop!

“AVADA KEDAVRA!”

In a matter of seconds—

Harry’s heart shattered and his world ended right before his very eyes.

Chapter End Notes

Up Next: Severus Snape and the hangover he never got the chance to earn.