Chapter Two

The Not-so-Deathly Hallows

"So tell me about these Hallows of Ireland," said Harry as he steered the conversation away from the anointing ritual to the more serious matter at hand.

They entered the underground work area of the Royal Wizard. Various bottled potion ingredients lined the walls, an empty caldron stood on a thin perch over a snuffed fire, and a small shelf with large tombs hung over a worktable. Presumably this was a potions room, however Harry noticed the lack of nauseas smells that normally accompany the typical rooms of the type.

Padma made her way to the far wall without looking at Harry. "The sword you are carrying is Claiomh Solais or the Sword of Light. It was brought from the land of Gorias as a gift to the Kings of Ireland. Supposedly in the presence of pure evil it will glow with a bright light."

"Pure evil?"

Padma turned and nodded. "It's never really been witnessed." She shrugged. "You have to take all of these legends with a grain of salt, Harry. I mean how often will someone actually encounter absolute evil, something or someone so vile as to have absolutely no redeeming qualities and a penchant for causing death of the most heinous …"

"Oh," she paused for a moment forgetting who she was talking to. "Well you're an exception to that rule I suppose," said Padma as she let her hands run down a foot long ash rod that she picked up.

Harry smirked slightly. "That always seems to be the case doesn't it?"

The Indian girl looked to the side and set the ash rod on the work table. "Anyway, the sword, once unsheathed in battle, is also said to be irresistible and have the ability to cut its enemy's in half." A dubious look appeared on her face. "I have no idea what irresistible might mean in terms of a weapon in battle, but it was shown that the sword has been enhanced with magic to be unnaturally sharp."

Harry stepped forward leisurely and leaned against the worktable. "So I've got a really sharp sword that might or might not glow in the dark?"

A slight impression of distain crossed Padma's face. "Did anyone ever tell you that you have an annoying way of making interesting topic sound invariably silly?"

He shrugged with amusement. "Hermione may have mentioned something about that once or twice."

After giving him a glare she returned her attention to the rod she was holding. She picked it up from the table and held it vertically by her side. "Athibar!"

In the span of a second a six foot spear appeared in the rod's place.

"Oh, goodie, it's a … spear," said Harry dryly. "You know I do have a wand, and I am a trained Auror. Occasionally I do battle with dark wizards and dark creatures. I'm also known for using said wand to do this thing called magic that kinda makes these things," he gestured to the sword and the spear, "obsolete."

Padma ignored his sarcasm and hefted the spear. Without aiming she tossed the spear toward the heavy wooden door that closed off the entrance to the room. "Ibur!"

The spear entered the exact center of the door and straight through without meeting any resistance whatsoever leaving behind a roughly three inch gash approximately the width of the red blade that topped the weapon.

"Athibar!"

Once again, in the span of a second, the spear was firmly in Padma's grasp.

Harry cocked his head slightly and gave a respectful show of appreciation. He withdrew his wand and whipped it at the door. "Percucio!"

A yellow beam of light shot from his wand and hit the wooden door making a tight cylindrical hole about a quarter of the way through.

"Huh," he said with minimal enthusiasm.

Padma smirked in return and continued her dialogue. "It is claimed that in the presence of pure evil the spear head will ignite to a burning holy fire." The expression on her face was less than convinced of that portion of the tale. "Again, it is only legend. No witnesses have ever seen such an event occurring."

"Athibar!" she said once more and the spear returned to the foot long ash rod that Harry had seen before.

"You said I was already carrying two of the Hallows?"

Padma nodded. "The pouch at your right hip."

Harry pulled his robe open and saw a small pouch attached to the belt that they had given him. He popped the clasp and retrieved a toy sized cauldron. His eyebrow quirked.

"Place a finger from each of your hands inside and tug it gently outward," instructed Padma.

He did so and watched in pleasant surprise as the cauldron increased in size until he stopped pulling.

"Neat," said Harry as he was genuinely impressed. "I didn't think you could shrink objects, only enlarge them."

"Hammerton's First Law of Charms," Padma said with a modicum of delight.  "You did pay attention in some classes." She nodded. "Actually the cauldron was its original size when you pulled it out. It has an Engorgement Enchantment that is activated by pulling on the inside. If you do the reverse from the outside it will return to its original size."

Before Harry asked she continued. "It will function as a normal cauldron of any size, but one other aspect is that anything produced inside this particular cauldron will never empty until it is vanished."

Harry was slightly taken aback. "Anything?"

She nodded. "Anything."

He pushed the cauldron back to its original size and placed it back into the pouch. "So let's say I have an urge to eat beef stew."

"If you make it in that cauldron then you can have enough to feed an entire army if you wish," Padma replied.

"Polyjuice Potion?"

"Anything," she stressed.

"Cool."

Harry looked at the picture of the Stone of Fal that Padma handed to him. "It's a dick."

Her eyes narrowed in aggravation. "It's stands twenty feet tall, Harry. It is the Stone of Destiny. All the kings of Ireland stood before it to confirm their rightful ascension to the throne."

He almost laughed. "Padma, it's a twenty foot tall, stone dick." Harry shook his head as he handed her the picture. "I'm not going to carry it around with me even if it magically reduces to the size of a normal dick."

He turned around and shook his head.

"Are you normally this vulgar?" asked Padma.

An obnoxious grin appeared on Harry face. "Well over the years my fight with Voldemort has had a - how can I put this - well it's made me a little cynical about certain things." He spread his robes apart enough to shove his hands in his pockets. "I really don't take things on face value anymore. And I can smell a load of crap from a lot farther away as well. So when someone comes up to me and shows me a picture of a twenty foot, stone dick, well I tend to get a little sarcastic and crude."

He took in the stern look Padma was now giving him. "So are we done here? I'd really like to get to the point of the story where you explain what the hell I'm doing under Buckingham Palace getting massaged with warm oil by a chanting naked girl, and then what part toting all of these neat poky things around actually serves."

At the mention of the anointing ritual Padma's body went ridged. Harry watched as she took a deep breath and released it slowly.

"It started last Thursday. There are certain office holders of the Order of the Bath: the Dean, King of Arms, Registrar and Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Genealogist, and Gentleman Usher of the Scarlet Rod. Each time this incident occurred it has always followed a specific pattern, the deaths of those I've mentioned in reverse order."

Harry found a stool under the wooden table they were standing next to and sat down. "How did they die?"

Padma followed his lead and sat across from him. "It differs from person to person but certain facts are similar. It appears the victim is driven insane whereupon he mutilates certain portions of his body." She swallowed reflexively seemingly from revulsion. "Some scratch out their eyes, some their ears, some just claw at their face. But all of them end up with a fist sized hole off center in their chest with their heart removed … or as the case may be, torn out."

The Auror leaned forward and ran his hand across his face in disgust at the cruelty of certain people. "Which was it?"

Padma looked like she was shaking disturbing images from her head. "Which was what?"

Then Harry clarified. "Was the heart removed or was it torn out?" At an uncertain look from the girl he went even further. "If it was removed then there will be signs of surgical precision: neat cuts, the rib cage sawed or cut, etcetera.  Torn out gives the impression that someone punched through, grabbed a hold and ripped…"

Padma held her hands up. "Stop! I get it." Her skin paled noticeably. "They were torn out. It was … horrible."

Harry blinked and stood up in shock. "Padma, did you see it happen?"

She shook her head. "After. I was the one who found him."

He reached across and placed his hand on hers in understanding. "I'm sorry."

A few moments passed. "Can you take me there, where it happened?"

She nodded.

Exiting the fifth level underground Padma escorted Harry along a plush corridor. The marble floor echoed Padma's heels. Harry tuned the noise out and concentrated on the portraits that hung every ten feet or so.

"This floor houses the temporary quarters for the Order officers in times of crisis," she explained as she stopped before the first door.

"Is this it?" asked Harry in a subdued manner.

Padma shook her head. "The end of the hall, last door on the right."

Harry nodded. "Why don't you stay here. I'll check it out."

She slowly breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks Harry."

About halfway down the hall Harry stopped and called back. "Can you lower these lights for a couple of minutes?"

Padma nodded and looked around until she found the controls for the light and lowered them about three-quarters of the way down.

"That's good," confirmed Harry. Withdrawing his wand he incanted, "Leukos Noir!"

A constant conical dark purple light emanated from his wand to the floor. He tracked back and forth and then along the wall up to the last door on the right where he covered the entire door before proceeding.

"Okay, you can turn them back up."

Before he completed the request the lights were returned to full brightness. He guessed that Padma was more than a little on edge. Without making matters worse by acknowledging her nerves he grasped the handle and depressed the latch to swing the door fully open.

"Good god," gasped Harry.

Fully understanding now why Padma was so edgy Harry followed a very large patch of dried blood in the center of the room to the splatters seven to eight feet in front of where he assumed the body was found. Another string of blood adorned the far wall. He envisioned something pulling the heart out of a man's chest. Knowing the killer had to be incredibly strong to accomplish such a feat. One just doesn't pull somebody's heart out. There were bones to get through, arteries, muscles and a score of other things that held the heart in place.

He pictured the killer pulling it out and the force of the extraction slinging blood up the wall.

Leaning in he found the light switch and flipped it off before sweeping his wand in leveled arcs across the room. Frowning slightly he flipped the switch and ended the charm he was using. He started at the door and worked his way around the room counterclockwise. Reaching into his robe he dropped off his wand and retrieved a notepad and a pencil.

The suite consisted of a main room for entertaining only a few guests, probably other Order officers that lived on the floor. Harry couldn't imagine visitors would be brought down there. Stepping over the splatters of blood he entered the study where he found a simple but elegant desk and a few bookshelves containing mostly biographies of past Order members and historic books of what Harry assumed was pertinent information about the office.

A quick check of the desk revealed nothing of note other than a curious fetish for multicolored paperclips.

The bedroom revealed even less and it looked like it hadn't even been lived in for weeks. Obviously the former Usher had never, or at the very least rarely, spent the night in the quarters.

It wasn't until he came back around to the main room that he noticed a small book on the floor. It was bound in weathered leather with a single leather thong hanging loosely. He upended his pencil and flipped the book open.

"Excellent," he whispered.

He closed the book, secured the thong around the clasp in front and pocketed it in his robes. After finishing the walk-around he stopped off center of the room to examine the floor where most of the blood had dried.

Harry was somewhat disappointed with the lack of clues as to what or who did the actual killing. There were no magical echoes that would have been revealed with his initial scan. So this was something else entirely which disturbed him far too much. His only other hope for something decent to go on was the victim's body itself which he was not looking forward to seeing.

The body was being held in the palace's medical facility for the Royal Physician to perform an autopsy. Harry found out from Padma, actually he already knew, that the Royal Physician never performs autopsies. But considering the circumstances surrounding the murder everyone in a position of authority thought it was in the best interest to keep certain details out of the press.

Padma, again, waited outside the doors to the facility while Harry perused the autopsy report. He tried to keep the revulsion off his face as he looked at the body outline sketch and all the markings to the face and chest area. The report said that the facial injuries were most likely self inflicted and the killing injury to the chest was performed with human-sized clawed hands but with one anomaly. There were only three noticeable fingers and a thumb that performed the digging that resulted in forcible extraction of the heart.

Preliminary blood work showed nothing and they wouldn't have any official results for another three days.

Harry took a deep breath and noted the storage door that contained the body. He walked over to the first of three stainless steel meat locker looking doors and tried his best to get that image out of his head. Closing his eyes he blew out the breath and took another as he opened the door and pulled the tray out.

Unlike most television shows or movies that Harry had seen over the last few years, most dead bodies are not covered in pristine white sheets. That usually makes for increased costs for cleaning and delivery. Instead, most bodies are either contained in a general body bag, or simply nude. This victim's body, to Harry's dismay was the latter. The first thing to jump out at him was the victim's Y-shaped chest incision typically performed to examine the internal organs.

Large sutures held the incision closed but the gaping hole where the victim's heart used to be was still open. He noted why the doctor had concluded the hand held three fingers and a thumb. He could clearly see what could be a thumb shaped arc in the lower left quadrant of the wound and then three finger shaped arcs evenly spaced in the other quadrants.

Two ribs were protruding slightly, their jagged edges showed and Harry let out the breath he was holding when he tried to imagine how much raw power the murderer had to perform such a violent action.

His arm moved to his mouth and nose as to unconsciously limit the amount of tainted air he'd be bringing into his lungs. Harry found this action amazingly unsuccessful. Then his eyes found the victim's face.

"Bloody hell," he said as he narrowed his eyes and struggled to keep his breakfast down.  

Numerous scratches which were obviously from victim's own hands, if what he had been told was true concerning the self-mutilation, covered what was left of the face. The left cheek was torn from mouth to ear in a demonic visage of a half-smile and his eyes were torn out, lids and all.

Harry turned away and took a couple of steps to distance himself from the body.

"Fuck this," he spat and turned back to give a very intense examination of the rest of body before shoving the tray back and closing the door.

Padma leaned against the wall outside of the medical facility with her arms crossed as she heard the metal security bar being slammed upon resulting in a pale-faced Harry Potter exiting. She watched as he took a few steps away and exhaled whatever breath he was holding and took in several lungs full before turning to her.

"What are you hiding from me?" he demanded.

Her eyes widened and her head shook in denial. "Nothing, I swear. We have no idea who's doing this," she almost pleaded.

Harry returned her denial with a small head shake of his own. "No, not who. It's a what." He turned, paced a few steps away and then turned back. "A Muggle or a Wizard may be controlling whatever did that, but the killer is not human."

Padma's mouth opened at the news and then shut again just as fast.

He saw what he hoped was the truth in her reaction. Spreading his robe he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Who's next on the list?"

"The Order's Genealogist," she replied.

His eyes narrowed. "What, that Manspark guy?"

She nodded.

"He's a tightass, but nobody deserves to die like that," Harry thought to himself.  "Where's he at now?"

"Upstairs."

Harry nodded. "And what kind of limitations do I have."

Padma's brow furrowed. "None, you have the Queen's full support. Anything you need: personnel, equipment, funding, whatever you need to put a stop to this once and for all is yours." She paused for a moment. "It's one of the reasons you were knighted. You are being made an officer of the Order. Next Saturday is the installation ceremony, and …"

Harry's face lost its color again. "Excuse me?"

"What?"

"I'm being made an officer with a crazed murderer running around killing the very same officers of the Order? Doesn't that sound … oh, I don't know … maybe like something you should have told me before … like when I standing there in front of the fricking Queen?"

Padma deflated in relief. "Harry, you are being made the new Gentleman Usher of the Scarlet Rod. The previous Usher has already been killed. You're safe. It only kills the current officers."

Leaving his left hand in his pocket he withdrew his right and palmed his face. "And if by chance I don't catch whatever is killing everyone I guess in seventy more years, when I'm as old as McGonagall, I can come back here, scratch my eyes out and get my heart tore out of my chest?"

She stepped up and placed her hands on his shoulders. "Harry, it's not a lifetime appointment. You may resign whenever you choose."

Harry continued to look down and moved his hand to Padma's shoulder then to her neck. He raised his head up and looked into her brown Indian eyes. Leaning in he pursed his lips slightly. Padma let go and jumped back in surprise.

"Harry!" she squealed in admonishment.

"So I guess a pre-battle shag is out of the question?" he inquired with a little smirk.

With her hands on her hips and standing defiantly she responded. "I am quite sure, of your quest to bring the murderer to justice; the Queen did not mean you can take advantage of the staff. And even if she did, Harry Potter, don't think you can just gaze at me with those green eyes of yours and think that I'm going to drop to the floor and spread my legs for you." She turned and strode to the lift with her head held high.

He lifted his hand to make a point of order. "That's Sir Harry."

"So why exactly do I have to be an officer?" Harry asked as they exited the lift onto the second floor above ground where they originally started.

Padma led the way through the palace. "The treasures, excluding the Stone of Fal are normally stored in the Henry the Seventh Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. That specific chapel is also the Chapel of the Order.  It is legend that only the leaders of the Order can control the Hallows."

He nodded at a passing at an attractive twenty-something brunette that was smiling at him. "Are there anymore legends that I should know about? Any lingering prophecies, treasonous friends … are you sure I don't have to hunt anything down?"

He was rewarded with an over-the-shoulder scowl which he returned with a bright smile. "Just checking."