Chapter 4
A.N. Some familiar themes, and some really fun stuff. For me anyway.
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Apparating to the park at the end of Wisteria Walk Harry decided to take a stroll back to No. 4 Privet Drive; the day had given him much to think about. A smile touched his face as he remembered Bianca’s pretend innocent eyes – she has spirit. The smile turned wry as he admitted to himself that she had completely played him at the end. Well, hard to take her seriously after seeing her in just knickers. I’ll have to bring that up someday.
The prophecy orb in his pocket bumped against his leg as he walked reminding him of its presence. Most likely the prophecy was the same as his time, but it could be different like other things had ended up being. It would be wise to break the orb and listen to the words but he had promised Bianca he would give her the prophecy when she learned Occlumency. Deciding he’d rather keep his word to her and not betray her trust he put it out of his mind, resolving to hide it for the time being. There were more pressing worries any way.
For one there were the loose ends of Death Eaters still living because he could not find them or thought they might be useful to keep around. With Mortfidèle released from whatever place he had been in Sirius’s mind during his incarceration in Azkaban it was too great a risk that the remaining Death Eaters would unite behind the Hidden Hand. It seemed Misters Crabbe and Goyle would be getting a visit from Neville. I will put Lucius on to finding the others for me.
Soon the question he had been avoiding came to plague him: How do I save Sirius…or do I stop him before he gets to Bianca? Very carefully he switched the world ‘stop’ for ‘kill’ knowing he wasn’t ready to make that choice. Either way he could not allow Mortfidèle to walk free, he had to hunt him and trap him. He knew of only one way to get rid of a horcrux in a living body without killing the host. But there was no guarantee that Sirius would get the same choices as he had when Voldemort had cast Avada Kedavra on him a second time.
But is he even really innocent? I can’t interrogate him without him confessing to Mortfidèle crimes.
Ducking behind one of the neighbor’s houses who had gone south for the summer Harry waited for the polyjuice to wear off. He was just in time to get out of sight before his body began to shrink to its normal size. A bundle waited for him by the back door step from which he took clothes normal enough for an eleven year-old to be wearing. The green cloak Lucius had loaned him went into a bag along with the adult sized clothes.
When he appeared at the head of Privet Drive he was Harry Potter, the local delinquent, once again. It was evening and later in the night he planned to visit the Malfoys. Narcissa needed to be enthralled so she could spy for him in places Lucius couldn’t, and besides, of the Death Eaters she was the least harmful. He began to reconsider Avery Sr.’s usefulness in light of Mortfidèle’s return; he had planned on using him for influence in the dark corners of the Ministry, but perhaps he could send him out to join Mortfidèle.
So it was engrossed in these thoughts when he came to the door of the Dursleys and noticed with a surprise the shouts coming from inside. The door was slightly ajar and Petunia could be heard shrieking in high indignation, there was another woman’s voice too. Alert and wary he entered the house with his hand firmly on the holly wand; the noise was coming from the kitchen.
“Some nerve! For eleven years!”
“Don’t you dare!”
“It’s my house, I will dare as I please, you abomination!”
“Oh shove it Petunia, what have you done with him?”
“Shove it? Shove it? That’s it!” Petunia shrieked so it was hard to tell she was speaking a language. Harry winced covering his ears.
“No, you don’t. You don’t get to be high and mighty,” came clearly the voice of the other woman, no less angry but a lot less hysterical. “I am asking again, why by everything cursed did you look in the bloody cupboard for him? Is that where you keep him?” she demanded.
Uh oh! A concerned witch, best to slip out before she notices-
“You! Where were you? If Vernon was here he’d box your ears for sauntering in here like you own the place at whatever hour pleases you!” Petunia had caught sight of him from the serving window into the Dining room from the kitchen. Sadly the view was clear to the main door where he was thinking of making his escape to lie in wait for the witch outside the house.
Thump of boots announced the mystery witch as she pushed Petunia away from the serving window to look at who she was talking to. Harry saw a blond woman with a page boy hair cut, an expression of fury on her face glare at him. Then suddenly the color from her face fell and the red blotches of anger disappeared as she was stunned.
“My God! You look just like him,” she gasped, and then ran around to get to him.
She rushed toward him and Harry jogged back over his feet out the door. She stopped in confusion and then lunged forward; again Harry leapt back keeping her in sight. She stopped and started for him yet again, but this time Harry had had enough, he raised a hand to stop her.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” he asked taking measure of the witch in front of him.
Her hair was on the golden side of blond which matched her lightly tanned skin. Her very clear brown eyes on a boyish face which was just this side of feminine to be fetchingly cute looked at him nearly stricken. She was also dressed like a femme fatale from some desert exploration movie. Burgundy leather boots went up to a khaki skirt topped off by a low neck safari shirt with a blue scarf tied around and accentuating her neck.
“I’m just trying to say hello,” she said in a way that was meant to calm him but didn’t.
“By running at me?”
“I just wanted to hug you. I haven’t seen you in so long... almost ten years. You’re so grown up and you look just like James.” Her face nearly crumpled in a look of teary happiness.
“Keep your voices down, the neighbors will hear you!” Petunia tried to shout at them in a whisper but was completely ignored.
“Alright, I understand you are happy I look like James, but I stop giving free hugs and gropes to strangers at 3:00pm everyday. Child labor protection laws, you see. So I will have to ask your name, just so that it is legal.”
“Don’t you remember me?” she asked a smile beginning to curve on her as she regained her composure.
“Did I see you nearly a decade ago?”
She rolled her eyes obviously catching on to his sarcasm and opened her mouth to say something, but Petunia beat her to it. “You have no right! You dumped him on me. Go back to your holes and demon rituals and tie dye parties,” she hissed stalking to the witch. The witch in question swung back in exaggerated motion, giving Harry enough time to see the look of horror on Petunia’s face, and drove a hook in her chin. Petunia slumped to the ground and the witch shook her gloved hand.
“Oh that was nice. I’ll hug you for that, no problem.”
The witch took his witty comment for a real invitation and she kneeled in front of him to take him in a crushing embrace. Harry was surprised to find the hug comfortable and put his arms around her smelling in her fruity perfume. Physical contact, such a basic need, and Harry had missed the simple affirmation of being hugged by someone. He had wanted a friend, and for that moment she was enough. Where he would’ve been awkward in his childhood he had life’s experience of being a husband, a father, a teacher, and an uncle of giving and taking comfort from another human being.
Yet, he had incanted Oriri Atrox and his secret power simmered heatedly just at the edge of his will where it could be molded to any intention. If the witch tried to curse him she would be pulverized by a mere thought being too close for the wandless spell to lose its power.
In the meantime it was pleasant to feel a soft curvaceous body holding him. With a mental start he pulled back; being pressed to him as she was she wouldn’t miss that reaction against her stomach.
She sniffed as she let him go and Harry looked around to see the neighbors looking from their doorways in shameless voyeurism. Harry snorted disgustedly and went to pull Petunia in doors. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her; the endless physical work paid off enough so that he had wirier strength than most children his age. He was able to drag her across the lawn a few feet before the witch took her from him and lifted her easily in her arms to the house.
“So, who are you?” he asked feeling fairly confident the witch in her late-twenties wasn’t trouble.
“I am Jamie, your aunt and your godmother.” She looked over her shoulder as she put Petunia on a sofa. However she did miss the subtle change in expression on his face. This could be the aunt Bianca was talking about, but no way to confirm it. He filed away the revelation that she was his godmother to think about later.
I don’t have any aunts besides Aunt Petunia,” he ventured giving the witch room to explain.
“I’m your aunt from your father’s side, James’ sister.” She leaned her shoulder against the wall looking out of place and time in her safari costume. Did I just check out my aunt? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“And you’re the one who left me here?” There was no accusation in his tone.
A look of discomfiture crossed her face before she sighed, taking a chair and leaning forward earnestly. “Yes, but I wanted you with me, and I am here now to see how you’re doing.”
Harry couldn’t help raising an eyebrow in question. The witch had just breezed through the implied question of why she’d left him behind. He saw her notice that he hadn’t been fooled but she also didn’t offer more explanation. She thinks I’m a kind and not older than her by thirteen or fourteen years.
It irked him at first, and as he thought about it he became angrier. How could she sit there without any explanation or remorse?
He felt disgusted that while he was willing to do so much for his family but every adult he had know of his own family had done nothing but let him down. Did blood and kindness not mean anything to either the Potters or Dursleys? My parents must be the exceptions. No wonder everyone praised them, they were saints by comparison.But he couldn’t say any of those things.
“So you’ve seen me, I am fine. Anything else?”
That seemed to break her stride and she began with forced cheer, “Well, how are you doing in school? What do you like to do? Do you have hobbies? Umm, sports or books, that sort of thing. I really want to know you Harry.”
He had grown angry from just being disappointed, but at her cheeriness his fury exploded inside him. He wanted to walk away and not say anything, because that was the adult and smart thing to do. Anything else would come out either petty or give away too much of the fact that he wasn’t a child.
But as soon as he turned his back on her he realized he couldn’t simply walk up to his room; she was a witch and if she followed him she would notice where he was going.
Oh this is going to be unnecessarily dramatic, he thought to himself as he entered the cupboard under the stairs. Lighting the bulb so he could see where the underside of the stairs were he flopped down. The witch predictably pursued him. She crouched so she could look inside the cupboard.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, apparently determined not to put in words the disgust she had of his living arrangements otherwise clear on her face.
That got her in the door, “Make yourself at home.”
She folded herself and sat on the very edge of the bed, Harry obliged by pulling his feet up so she had more room.
“Why did you walk away?” she asked combing her fingers through her golden hair. Harry noticed her nails were cut sensibly short though polished. She works with her hands then.
“I don’t think you really want an answer.”
“Why not? I do want to know what you like to do.” She appealed with her clear brown eyes, too expressive to lie well.
“You left me here, my own godmother; doesn’t make sense you care who I am or what happens to me. So why are you here?”
“We thought you would be happier here.” There was guilt in her face as she rested a hand on his knee to which Harry didn’t react. Why on earth would they think that? At least Bianca’s explanation made some sense.
“So you didn’t know Aunt Petunia hated my mum and dad?”
“We thought she would be kind to her own nephew.”
Harry scoffed at the answer and smiled humorlessly. “She wasn’t kind to her own sister, no reason for her to be kind to me. Funny that you thought so anyway, can’t expect others to be decent when you’re the one leaving a baby at someone’s doorstep.”
“You don’t understand. Those were very hard times, there was danger-” she noticed his raised hand.
“Yes?”
He motioned in an encompassing gesture of the cupboard they were inside and the cot they were sitting on. “I’m eleven. I was maybe two when you left me here. You really think I should be the one trying to understand your problems. Who’s the adult here?” Harry snapped.
“You seem so mature, I just thought…” she trailed off angrily.
“Doubt you thought anything because you might have stopped to think the whole ‘we know Petunia is a raving bitch but maybe magically she will love the spawn of her Satan worshipping sister’ was a screwy idea.”
She whirled on him to berate him but he spoke over her, “Hey, her words not mine. I am sure my mum was awesome. Petunia wouldn’t hate her so much if she wasn’t. I’ve looked into Satan worshiping to follow in her footsteps.”
“She was not a Satanist.” Jamie shook with anger.
Suddenly Harry was tired of being upset with her. To his eyes she was a young girl, probably pushed into responsibilities too early to understand what she was doing. But then again he had very little patience for that excuse given how much he had to face at an innocent age. Even so as a man over forty years of age, having led and fought two terribly personal wars he simply couldn’t bring himself anymore to punish her at that time. She was a disappointment at worst, and as a godparent she had a very hard act to follow. How do you compete with a man who escaped the worst prison on earth and then lived off rats like a dog to be close to his godson? You can’t.
His heart ached for his own family, for the laughter of his children, the closeness he had with Ginny, her sense of constant adventure and loyalty. It was too much that he had not only failed to travel back in time to save them, but that he had to contend with more disappointments in his own blood.
Bianca to whose safety he had already committed himself was going to be an exception, but as much as he had wanted a connection to his father, Jamie wasn’t going to be it. She hadn’t done even what Petunia had: taken him in kicking and screaming.
If she could take care of Bianca then what was the big deal of having another child? They couldn’t seriously have thought living with Petunia would be good for him. Maybe there was something else. She did say ‘we’ thought I would be happier. Who is this ‘we?’
“You said ‘we thought you would be happy here.’ Whose idea was it beside yours?”
Her face that had settled into an almost sullen expression showed her surprise at his question and her eyes revealed that she was thinking hard how to answer.
“I just meant me, it was my idea. Just a slip of the tongue.” She laughed embarrassedly – it was a lie.
Harry closed off any thoughts he had of giving her a break. He stood in the small closet and looked straight at the pretty woman sitting on his cot. But the naked hesitation and appeal in her eyes for him to accept her softened him and he felt pity.
Girls always could twist him if they wanted, it had helped he had Hermione in his early years to scare off the players. After he was with Ginny he had two women to guard him from any damsels in distress who’d take unfair advantage of his heroic streak.
If she only looked a little like James it would be easier for him to accept her. If he tried really hard he could maybe see the resemblance in the cheek bones and the nose, but every feature being smaller on her didn’t help.
He took a chance on her eyes that couldn’t lie. He reached for her face with his small hands, not really able to cup it but held her in his palms so she would look in his eyes that showed his weariness and disappointment then he kissed her brow.
“When you’re ready to tell me the truth about everything, come back, I’ll be waiting for you.”
She had tried to speak to him, appeal to him after that, but he was done and held the door open for her, inviting her to leave. At the doorstep she promised she’d be back and Harry could hear the unsaid message that the next time she would come back with the truth. She had understood him. He watched her walk down the street her boots thumping as she looked like someone headed to a costume party. He shut the door allowing her the privacy she needed to disapparate and not a moment later he heard the crack of magic announcing she’d left.
I really need to kill something.
π
Feeding Petunia the Unctuous Unction while she was still knocked out Harry prepared for the long night ahead of him. He had prepared a basic dinner in minutes, knowing Petunia wouldn’t have enough time for him to lace the food with the potion. Jamie Potter’s visit had forced him to drug his relatives again lest they found a physical attack on Petunia to be the last straw on the camel’s back.
Jamie and James Potter, not too creative were they? Could’ve been worse they could have called Bianca by her middle name, then we’d be Harry and Harley Potter.
He slammed his polyjuice potion turning into Neville the middle aged muggle runner. Changing his clothes in his secreted room he packed all the things he needed before going into battle. A need to release tension and having a couple of Death Eaters lying around who needed killing was a marriage of wants waiting to happen.
He disapparated to Lucius’s Manor; unconcerned by rudely appearing right in the foyer instead of walking up the driveway. He had a moment to make note of the arching ceiling and the polished wood walls illuminated in an understated way by a few candles.
Lucius morphed out of the end of the hallway coming out of some dark corner, he had his wand drawn and pointed at him. Harry snapped his head back so that the hood of the green cloak Lucius had loaned him fell from his head. Lucius returned the wand to his sleeve and gave a short bow.
“Achelous, is everything well? You have arrived rather abruptly.” Lucius came to take his cloak but Harry waved him off.
“Someday you’ll have to teach me how you choose your words so carefully, Lucius. I am sorry for breaking in but I am in a hurry. Mortfidèle has returned and I think he will be gathering the Death Eaters to him. I want to cut off anyone who can help.”
Lucius took the list from him and his face paled even more than its natural complexion. “There are not many left alive on here,” he carefully hid what he was thinking.
“Does that bother you, Lucius?” Harry demanded with a touch of anger.
“I am worried that my name is on there as well along with my wife’s, Acelous.”
Harry shook his head in exasperation. “Lucius, you are alive and in my service aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have nothing to be concerned about. You are on that list because you were once a Death Eater.”
“I still carry the mark, Achelous.” His head was bowed and he spoke respectfully.
“Do you want me to kill you for it?” Harry impatiently snapped.
“No, no. I just wish you to know that my loyalty is not to the master I followed in my younger years.”
“But you still believe in muggle hunting and the dark arts’ superiority?” Harry tested.
“I believe only in your will, all else is immaterial.” Lucius went down on one knee.
A satisfied smile curled Harry’s lips, spoken like a true thrall. “What if I ask you to repent your ways and join Dumbledore?”
“If it is your will then there is wisdom in it, and I shall do as you command. But I would beg your kindness to teach me the ways you would see me follow.”
“Stand, Lucius. For now all I need from you is to follow me.” Harry was pleased there was something that was going his way.
“Yes, Achelous.” Lucius stood at deferential attention. “Is Mortfidèle truly back?”
“He is, and I have to stop him from gaining followers. Do you know where the other Death Eaters are hiding apart from the Averies we captured?”
“I do not know where the werewolf is,” Lucius said with the slightest derision coloring his voice, “Nor Thorfinn. Wormtail is dead, killed by Sirius Black, if the Ministry is to be believed.”
“He is alive somewhere,” Harry corrected, motioning Lucius to continue when he gave him a surprised glance.
“I know of only Crabbe and Goyle, they are not too creative in picking their hideouts and I know all their secrets.” Lucius folded the list in a highly dismissive manner suggesting just what he thought of his two subordinates. “Mortfidèle would hamper himself more than gain able followers if he sought those two and he knows this.”
“A desperate man does desperate things, Lucius. He has encountered me once and has been defeated. A spy I have close to him has told me that Mortfidèle will move against my true self and my family quickly. I don’t want him to have any support, no matter how incompetent.”
“Ah! He does not know that you and Harry Potter are the same. Otherwise he would be wary of another meeting. I trust he was wounded badly if he is still alive?” Lucius’ interest was thinly veiled. Harry felt like he had an extraordinarily cultured cheerleader.
“It is enough to say that he doubts his own invincibility after meeting me.” Harry smiled enjoying the look of triumph on Lucius’ face. “He harmed you in the past did he not?”
His thrall’s face twisted in hate and remembered anger. “He punished my mistakes by torturing Narcissa. He was the one who forced her in the service of the Dark Lord.”
“You care for Narcissa?” Harry just about hid his surprise.
“Very much, Achelous. It was only my care for her and duty to her that helped me remember I was something outside of being the Dark Lord’s servant. I have lived most my adult life in obedience to him. Until your sister defeated him I had not known anything other than servitude, and I thank her for that even if her victory meant the death of my cause.”
Harry found himself strangely moved by Lucius’ words. He knew he should’ve expected the parts of the Death Eater that responded most to his enthralling power to rise but it was still a drastic change. He held Lucius’ shoulder.
“What is your cause now, Lucius?”
“Your will.”
“Then I will give you a promise, Lucius. Your wife will have a much kinder master in me, and I will not let Mortfidèle’s shadow fall on her again.”
“Thank you, Achelous,” for once the Death Eater’s cool demeanor broke to show a man truly relieved and grateful.
“Good, can we go kill Crabbe and Goyle now?”
“Of course, Achelous.”
Harry was amused to find that Lucius’ murderous smile pleased him instead of making him want to curse him to death. I’ve made him into a more sensitive killer, but he is still a killer.
“If it isn’t an inconvenience to our errand tonight, can we be back in an hour? Narcissa has been preparing for tonight’s dinner frantically. I would like her to be able to impress you in the manner she wants without delays,” Lucius requested.
Harry laughed. “You’re as henpecked as Arthur Weasley is, aren’t you?”
Lucius made a mock horrified face as he held the main door open for Harry. “No, Achelous. There are few things that I have been spared the pain of; that is one of them. My wife knows her place.”
With the odd thought of Lucius and Molly as a possible couple Harry disapparated with his thrall.
Π
“You said they weren’t creative, this is pretty damned creative.” Harry cursed shoulder deep in a tropical forest in some part of Africa unknown to him.
Lucius had guided him to an underworld entrance to Knockturn Alley, where he had ‘procured means for our travel.’ The means turned out to be a string of portkeys all keyed to the notes of the solfège. Lucius sang ‘do’ and they were blown to the coast, then he sang ‘re’ and they spun to the continent, so on and so forth till he got to ‘la’ and Harry was ready to kill the man.
‘ti’ brought them to the tropical forest where Lucius was leading blasting plants out of his way. Harry thought to mention that the forests were probably endangered but he was too frustrated, hot, and wet to care. Another drying charm, a cooling charm applied and he was ready to continue. But somehow the old forest had a power of its own that wore down the charms leading to constant recasting.
“Are you certain there aren’t any wards?” he asked again, knowing it was a bad idea to be casting magic when attempting to break into someone’s hideaway.
“Yes, Achelous. Crabbe and Goyle rely on their surprising ability to meld with this environment.”
“Alright, how? As far as I know neither of them are gifted wizards.”
Lucius blasted a particularly stubborn tree out of his way and sent a cutting hex ten feet deep to take care of the undergrowth. Harry peered behind him seeing a trail of destruction.
“The Dark Lord seeing the lack of talent in some of his Death Eaters attempted to make them something he could have use for. Crabbe and Goyle, two of the most likely to lose their wands in a duel were trained as animagi – it was a long and tedious process. If it weren’t for the positive reinforcement of Cruciatus curse I would still be transfiguring them back to their human forms.” Lucius stomped on the tall grass and brushed back the fauna as he climbed up the hill side.
“Crabbe and Goyle are animagi? That’s surprising, what are they?” For the first time since they had landed in the forest Harry thought of something other than the discomfort.
“Yes, both of them chose to be powerful beasts as the Dark Lord ordered them. Their forms perhaps unsurprisingly were revealed to be gorillas, quite massive as well,” Lucius commented in a by-the-by manner not seeing Harry’s disbelief.
“They’re gorillas?”
“Yes. Quite effective too once they lose their wands. Most wizards were overwhelmed by a six foot tall four-hundred pound gorilla rampaging.”
“I can imagine,” Harry said slowly unable to accept the sheer ridiculousness of it all. “And so they’ve turned into gorillas and gone into hiding somewhere. I assume you know where?”
“There is a cave up ahead, they have some supplies there, but mostly they can live off the land in their animagus forms. It is a simple plan but seems to have worked for them in the past.”
Suddenly Harry heard a rumble and crashing ahead of them, Lucius went still as him, having heard the noise too. It was coming toward them from up hill – fast.
“Lucius get back and get a shield ready.”
“Yes, m’lord,” Lucius ran back to him on the trail he had cut through, looking silly in his expensive robes.
Soon they heard grunts accompanied with the rumble of many creatures rushing down the hill. A dark haired face appeared to their right before all around them gorillas of different sizes started showing up, running past them. At their back an extraordinarily large and completely silver gorilla came crashing down, he roared at them once and then followed the fifteen strong group down slope.
“Oh, dear,” Lucius said in the silence left behind the gorillas. “Goyle has gone native.”
Harry didn’t like the sick look on Lucius’ face. “What do you mean ‘gone native?’”
Lucius gave him a heavy and grave look. “Goyle has found Gloria and their children.”
“Lucius, I don’t know what that means. Please explain before I summon lightning to smite you. Who the hell is Gloria?”
“Gloria is…” Lucius swallowed dryly. “Gloria is the she-gorilla Goyle made a family with when he and Crabbe first found this place.”
Harry’s face fell. “He slept with a real gorilla?”
Lucius shrugged apologetically. “They had difficulty maintaining their human side while in their animal forms. Of course I put a stop to it when I found out.”
In those first few moments of disbelief when utter disgust hadn’t set in yet, Harry asked the question that he would regret for his life: “How did you find out?”
“I found them in the hideout. Goyle’s great hairy buttocks bouncing as he thrust like some possessed demon inside another pair of heavy jiggling-,” he paused swallowing dryly again. “Well I could never forget the expression on Gloria’s face: blank and patient, waiting for Goyle to finish.” Lucius shuddered and missed when Harry cursed his lips off.
Π
It was two hours later; Harry and Lucius were sitting on the ground with the rampant growth of the tropical forest towering over them. Lucius was shooting Harry frightened looks while Harry was glaring at nothing in particular.
“Do you know how to track gorillas?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you know of their habits, what they eat, where they eat?”
“No.”
“Did you have a plan on finding Crabbe and Goyle if they weren’t in their cave?”
“No. I expected that they would be there. I never thought Crabbe would be missing and Goyle would have gone native.”
“If you save ‘gone native’ one more time as a euphemism for copulating with a two hundred pound female gorilla I swear I will burn you at the stake right now, right here.”
“I am sorry, Achelous. I have never dared share the horror of that day with anyone before. I couldn’t touch Narcissa for a year after that without seeing Gloria’s face.”
Harry felt vomit in his throat and buried his face in his hands.