Author's Notes: “The Lisa725” continues to share her beta skills; I continue to share my gratitude for them.

Whatever you do, don't review!  Absolutely no reviewing allowed.  I forbid you from reviewing!

Chapter 6 - Immortal with a 50 Percent Chance of Death

The human mind is a remarkable thing, which rings particularly true if you've had yours prodded, possessed, and currently … populated. Yet of all those unlikely things, the characteristic that strikes me most about my mind is how it's been conditioned.

I know.  That's a pretty bold statement coming from someone who is not quite seventeen years old.  Hear me out.

The greater part of the first eleven years of my life was spent in a cupboard under the stairs.  It was a charming arrangement, though a bit cramped had I wanted to share with an imaginary friend.

What I remember the most though is the dark.  At first, I was scared to death of it. Eventually I grew to find comfort in it and to embrace it. I found that there in the dark I was safe from rejection, safe from being hurt again.  In the dark I learned to find myself - and I don't mean in that, “hey, what's this thing in my trousers do,” kind of way.  But at eleven years of age, self-discovery is hardly therapeutic.  It wasn't until I really had to cope with being the Boy Who Lived that I began to understand what those years alone in the dark instilled.  How it conditioned me for what I was to be.

Hermione tells me I have a hero complex.  For a time, I thought she was right, mostly because I wasn't likely to argue with someone whom I'd hardly ever known to be wrong.  But during this last year with Dumbledore, I began to wonder if that was really the case. Now I'm not so certain.  I think it was because of all the years in the dark, all those years alone, all those years of conditioning: My mind simply knows what has to be done, and it does it.  It helps that when you're the Boy Who Lived most of your decisions center around saving your life or those of the others unfortunate enough to know you.  And since I'm forced to continue playing that role, it just could have been that conditioning that got me through.

But here's the giant cosmic rub: I can't fucking die … technicalities aside.

After Dumbledore died, I knew that I had to go it alone till the end.  The situation was clear; my mind knew the situation, and it knew what had to be done.  All those years of conditioning alone in the dark provided exactly what I needed to finish this … alone again.  

But now? Immortal! There's no conditioning for that!  I go it alone to keep my friends safe - they die.  I accept their help - they die.  I do nothing - THEY DIE!

Eleven years in the dark helps you cope with rejection, it helps you cope with ridicule and ostracism, and it perhaps gives you enough to face a Dark Lord by your lonesome.  But what's eleven years alone in the dark compared to a life of unending loss? How do I handle knowing that no matter what decision I make, the people I love will always die?

What's the conditioning for that? How do I go on when the entire world has just become another cupboard underneath the stairs?

xxx

After their talk, Slytherin left Harry to his silent contemplation.  It was only the second time since his return that there'd been an opportunity to consider what was happening to him.  Unfortunately, it was impossible to think past the fact he was tied up and bound to a stool in an unfamiliar place.  He'd tried using his magic against the ropes to no avail.

There was a shuffling across the room that sounded like footsteps.  Silence.  A moment later, the person attached to those feet stepped soundlessly from the shadow blanketing the room past the luminance of the desk lamp next to Harry.  He was a short man, barely a head taller than Harry as he sat on the stool, and unnaturally pale.  The black hair atop his head was so sparse you could see where each follicle met the scalp.  It fell into the thicker mat of hair that grew from his crown, and it all clumped together as it extended past his shoulders.  He wasn't quite fat as much as he was stocky, but his short stature didn't disperse the weight well, giving more of a waddle to his movements than a true walk.  The resulting look was wholly remarkable if only for its improbable awkwardness.  

“Seems like a cracking daisy this one,” the man said, though his eyes looked over Harry's head and into the shadow behind him.  His voice had a nasal wheeze to it that was as unappealing as his outward appearance.

Taken by the fact that the man's voice actually fit with the package, Harry was at a complete loss for words.  Regardless, it didn't seem as if the man was addressing him.

For the first time, Harry was glad to have another person in his head.  

“I…I've got nothing,” Slytherin mumbled in an uneven tone.

Figures.  Harry was mostly disappointed he hadn't seen that coming.

“Too right, rambling on to no one in particular this one is,” The man continued.  “Perhaps not worth the magic, definitely tainted.  Tainted mind, tainted magic they say.”  

Harry watched the man intensely.  He noticed that the fellow didn't maintain eye contact with any particular spot in the room as he spoke, and he certainly wasn't looking back at Harry.  Every so often, he would jerk his head over his shoulder to glance at something.  Harry could only presume it was something the man thought was hiding in the dark.

“Nothing to say now? Before the wizard's carrying on like he's auditioning for the straightjacket,” He said.

“Forget chewing on your elbow, Harry. Short-n-round here is the new standard measure for Barmy,” Slytherin said.

Harry's frustration came to a boil.  All he wanted was a moment to figure out what was happening to him, and as far as he could determine it was this man who had now twice interrupted that process.  

“What in the hell are you babbling about?” Harry lashed out. “And more importantly, why am I tied up?”  

“Much more familiar, perhaps the wizard is not so tainted after all … or maybe just mostly tainted,” The man said, shooting another quick glance over his shoulder.  Seeing nothing, he nodded an affirmation to a question Harry wasn't sure was ever asked.

The man still wasn't looking at him, but it was obvious now that he was talking to him.

“I'm not ruddy tainted you wobbly git,” Harry barked, lowering his head so he could stare up at the man darkly. “But I promise you'll see something much worse than that if you don't free me at once.”  

The man quickly shifted his guise from quirky and unsure to a menacing sneer as he lunged at Harry.  Suddenly, almost faster than Harry could see, the man was upon him, lips pressed against the corner of Harry's mouth.  It forced a gasp out of Harry, the man had moved with a speed and precision that seemed impossible from someone of his stature.  

“Not if first I gut you like a frog and paint this room with your entrails,” he hissed against Harry's mouth.

The contact forced Harry to pull away and turn his head, grimacing as he felt the lingering sensation of the man's lips on his.  He turned his eyes towards the man and saw that his captor was staring madly back at him; a piece of his thin, scraggly hair was caught in the corner of his mouth.  

“Try to maintain contact with his eyes, Harry,” Slytherin ordered hastily.

Harry wanted to do that about as much as he'd wanted that near kiss from the crazy bastard.  But it didn't matter: No sooner had Slytherin instructed him than the man stood up and looked away.  

“What says the wizard? Ready to beg, or has the new breed risen above their cowardly ways?”  

“Now would be a good time to show me that 'being here to help' thing, Slytherin,” Harry said.

“Oh, ho ho! The wizard talks to himself again?” He stepped away from Harry and looked down curiously. His once snarling features had been replaced with the quirky, wide-eyed stare he'd held before.  “Slytherin, he says.  A familiar name for sure.”

“For future reference, it might be in the interest of self-preservation that you choose to converse with me solely from within your head,” Slytherin responded.  

“Is that all you have? A great bloody help you are,” Harry snapped.

“I do what I can”.

“Yes, today's forecast, slightly creepy with a definite chance of dagenham.” The man patted Harry mockingly on his head.  “So what says Slytherin, hmm, young man?  Back to finish the job, reincarnate through a skinny little nothing of a wizard.  How … unimposing - a Slytherin notion if there ever was one.”  

“I think that we shall make this fat man suffer, Harry,” Slytherin sneered.

“Piss on you both!” Harry screamed.  He lunged at the man, pulling as far as his restraints would allow. “Let me go, or I swear it will be the end of you!”  

In a flash, the snarling man was back in Harry's face, his hands wrapped tightly around Harry's neck.  The grip seemed tight enough to Harry that he should be panicking for loss of air, but his body wasn't convulsing for life's breath. Instinctively, Harry wanted to thrash and fight his way loose of the man's grip.  Yet aside from the discomfort, he wasn't suffering any further affect - not from the loss of air and certainly not from fear that he was in mortal danger.  Somehow he knew this wasn't a threat to him, so he settled on staring fiercely into the man's eyes.  

“Good, Harry…yes!  I've got it,”  Slytherin said quickly.  

What Slytherin got didn't matter to Harry.  His rage was in full affect again, and the last of the Potters was eager to cast it upon the man hoping to choke him to death.

The man paused, his eyes stopped burning with determination, and his crooked, manic smile slowly straightened.  His eyes flashed wide, and deftly, the man pulled away from Harry.  He gasped, uncertainty and fear evident on his face.  A small grunt eventually grew to a loud groan as he shifted his shocked stare from Harry to his hands, which were now held open and towards him.  His breath began to show in the air, which caused an entirely knew look of disbelief to grow on his face.  Stumbling away from Harry, he began to search the room frantically.  

Harry felt his fury bubble over, consuming him just as it had when he was fighting the Dementors.  The site of the scraggly man panicking before him returned a sense of righteous satisfaction.  The restraints that bound his wrists and ankles grew brittle as they froze against Harry's skin, snapping easily when Harry tugged against them.

Free at last, Harry stood and began to stalk his prey.  As his captor, the man's scraggly hair and disproportionate frame had given him the threatening look of mad man.  As he cowered before Harry now, stumbling and awkward, these features merely made him appear weak.  

It would make the kill slightly less satisfying, but that was something Harry could look past.

“Let's not be impulsiv,e, Harry,” Slytherin said.  

“You shut up, Slytherin,” Harry replied coldly.

“You must control this unfettered rage, boy,” Slytherin said forcefully.  

The harsh tone didn't have the same power over him that Harry had felt earlier. “Oh, I intend to control my rage all over this bastard's face.  It'll be a picture of restraint when I gut this little shit like a frog and paint the room with his entrails,” Harry hissed.  His response elicited firm eye contact from the man for the first time since Harry had gotten free.  

“If you kill him in an act of rage, it makes you worse than Voldemort”.  

“Terrific for me that your opinion means nothing,” Harry responded.

“Suit yourself; at least Voldemort kills with a purpose.  If this is what you will become, a mindless killer, than I have made a mistake.  You are not worthy of my help, and my legacy is of no matter in a world that would harbor two Dark Lords.”  

Harry stopped.  Slytherin's words hadn't so much reached him on a rational level as they had forced a split in his fury between the man before him and the specter residing in his head.  

“I'm going to kill him because only a moment ago he was trying to do the same to me. Voldemort would kill him just for being different,” Harry snapped.  

“You want to kill because it is easier than trying to control your rage. You kill out of hate - a hate that has nothing to do with this man.  You would make him the target of your wrath simply because he has had the misfortune of bearing witness to it.”

“Voldemort?”  The man whispered before Harry, his facial expression changing to reflect a newfound confusion amongst his pain.  

“Kill him if it is your will, but to do so without learning what he knows and his motivations is just mindless murder.  

“Arrggghhh!” Harry screamed, clinching his fists and forcing his eyes shut.  

The air crackled around him and the room temperature dropped dramatically.  Suddenly, the shadows in the room shifted from floor to ceiling, and a loud tin bang rang out.  Harry turned to face the sound and saw that the desk behind him was now reduced to dust; the light that had once rested upon it now lay half broken atop the pile.  As he took in the disintegrated remnants of the desk, a guttural yell bellowed at his back.  Harry turned just in time to see the man charging him with a sword as long as the man was tall.  

There was no chance at avoiding the attack.  The sword was through him, and he was being forced backwards before he could even think to establish his feet beneath him.   

He reached the wall with a thud that knocked the wind from him and forced a splash of blood to fly from his mouth and onto the face of his attacker.  Harry looked down at the man; the top of his head barely reached Harry's shoulders.  

Letting loose the sword from his grip, the scraggly haired man stood back and saw that the scabbard was firmly planted in the wall just as he had desired.  He looked up at Harry, breathing heavy, visible breaths, “First, the wizard is gutted.”   

Harry coughed and tasted the metallic tinge of blood in his mouth.  His body immediately began the assessment of how grievous his injury was.  It hurt, surprisingly in a similar fashion as the Cruciatus hurt, only now it was focused around a single location.  But the symptoms of his injury never worsened.  No coughing or convulsing and nothing tingled. He didn't cramp or lose the use of any of his parts; and when he looked down to the wound, he saw that it wasn't bleeding out.  He swallowed to clear the taste of blood from his mouth and then forced another cough to intentionally cause his body to react to the wound.  Nothing happened.  

Being told you're all but immortal by a voice in your head has a certain surrealistic quality to it that truly can't be explained; however, even that doesn't do justice to how frighteningly unreal the moment is when you actually live through an example of it.

“You know, if you killed him now without questioning him first I wouldn't think less of you for it,” Slytherin deadpanned.  

Harry didn't know what to say, and apparently neither did the man before him.  The triumphant look fell quickly from his eyes, as he seemed to realize Harry wasn't hurt.  

“What in the hell are you?” he screamed.  

The whimpering, pleading man returned to form in front of Harry and reminded him what his intentions had been prior to the desk to dust trick.  He leaned forward, pulling his body the length of the blade until the hilt of the sword pressed against his stomach.

“Haven't you heard?  I'm The Boy Who Lived - over and over again,” Harry replied.  He pried the sword from the wall.  Then he pulled the sword out of him, paying close attention to the shooting sensations his body sent him as he did so.  Once it was free from his body, he raised the sword over his head and stepped within swinging range of the man.  

The man fell to his knees and his trembling completely stopped as he assumed a prone form beneath Harry.  He lowered his head and took a long breath that floated back over his face in the cold air.  “To new beginnings,” he murmured.

The sudden surrender caused a pause in Harry. “Who are you?” he barked.  

“The name was Filmore Trynsington, though they once called me Wizard Hunter” he replied calmly.  

Both names were unfamiliar to Harry.  “Why do you kneel?  Why give up?” Harry asked. The sword was still raised above his head, though it was no longer cocked for a finishing blow.

Filmore didn't look up to notice. “This is a good death.  No shame in this.  Many have fallen beneath me, defeated, yet groveling for an opportunity that was not there.  This will not end in such a manner.”  

Harry lowered the sword and placed it beneath the man's throat.  He pushed upward against the flesh, forcing the man to a stand.  “Sit down.” Harry motioned to the stool behind him.  He watched the man look past him, at something over his shoulder.  Harry reacted by diverting the pressure of the blade from upward to sideways, forcing his target to circle around him, in the opposite direction from where he was looking, and then to the chair.

Filmore's eyes flashed cold as he was forced into the seat by the blade.  “Do not underestimate submission in defeat as a sign of weakness, wizard.”  

Harry betrayed no reaction to the man's statement. “Why are you here?”

“The guest arrives unwanted and asks his host what is his business. Humph,” Filmore scoffed and then looked pointedly down at the stool and back to Harry. “Because the blade coaxed me so.” He turned his eyes down to the sword still held at his throat.

“Don't test me, little man.” He pushed the blade hard enough to break the skin at the man's neck. “This home is not yours.  Don't lie to me!”

“A home, the wizard says.  No, the home that was is not mine.  Hidden was this pile of debris.  Uncovered its secrets, and after nearly two decades, I claim what is here as my own.”

“He is confused by you, Harry.  His mind is an utter wreck, but he is specifically confounded by the fact that you are able to be here,” Slytherin noted.  “He said 'hidden' and that he 'uncovered secrets,' phrases he would not have added unless he thought you might know something about them.”  

Harry considered this information.  “You say you've been in this place for almost twenty years.  This location was unreachable to anyone who wasn't welcome here in that time. How do you explain this?”  

The man's mouth parted with disbelief, and then he twitched as he looked behind him quickly.  When his eyes returned forward, he again wouldn't look Harry in the eyes.  He smiled.  “So young. How does the wizard know things that are surely before his time?  Does Slytherin speak these things to him?”  

Harry slapped the flat end of the sword beneath the man's chin.  “Look at me when you talk!” he snapped.

Filmore didn't comply.  

Harry brought the sword down further to slap the man beneath his chin harder, but Filmore moved his head and lunged at Harry as the sword flew past his face.  Before Harry could react, he felt a shooting pain at the base of his wrist where the man had struck him soundly.  Filmore then used the palm of his other hand to strike the base of the sword.  With his hand incapacitated by the blow to his wrist, the sword flew upward out of Harry's grip until it stuck into the ceiling above them.  

Harry took two steps away from Filmore and settled into a stance he hoped would prepare him for the follow-up strike. Filmore looked at him and cocked his head to the side.  He let out a small laugh and then returned to the stool.  “Perhaps the wizard's abilities have been overestimated.”

“What the fuck?” Harry screamed, confused.

“The wizard wanted to kill; surrendered I did.  The wizard wanted to talk; spoke did I. The wizard wants to slap me around,” he looked up into Harry's eyes.  “I break your wrist and take away your paddle.”  Filmore looked back down to the floor. “Were the wizard not immune to hurt, I'd have you begging for death,” he mumbled.

Harry opened and closed the fist on the hand that Filmore had struck. There was still a tinge of discomfort, but it certainly wasn't broken.  Harry wasn't sure if he was more impressed by the feat the unimposing man had accomplished in disarming him so effortlessly, or that he was able to notice that Harry's hand wasn't broken even before he did.  

Harry saw his wand on the floor atop the pile of dust that used to be the desk and summoned it to him.  Filmore eyed Harry's actions carefully. He briefly looked to the sword stuck in the ceiling, then back down to the room, all the while never looking to Harry's face.  

For a moment, Harry thought about holding the man at wand point, from a distance to be sure, but then decided against it.  He pocketed his wand and made his way across the room opposite from the man, where he leaned against the far wall.  

There was a short bout of silence between them.  When Harry opened his mouth to speak, he was beaten to it.

“The wizard says those who were not welcomed could not find this place.  The wizard claims the home was unreachable. Perhaps you wizards should communicate a little better amongst yourselves.  Explain the meaning of your words.  It seemed quite clear that the wizard who slaughtered the family that once lived in this house wasn't aware of these rules.”  

Harry's could feel his heart begin to thump in his throat.  Rage beat against his will and begged that he lash out.  The room grew unbearably cold again, and the wall began to freeze behind Harry.  His features contorted into a snarl.

“Perhaps, I should learn not to upset this wizard,” Filmore added quickly.

“You saw Voldemort kill my parents?” Harry growled.

Filmore's eyes shot to Harry in disbelief. “You are the baby who was taken from this burning home?”  

“Answer my question!”

Filmore looked down at his hands. “That is how you are able to find this place. You were here before it disappeared.” He nodded an affirmation to his conclusion before he looked back up at Harry. “Yes, boy, saw the fight I did.”  

“Harry, I'm beginning to understand this Muggle's confusion. I think that your parent's house remained under the Fidelus charm even after their death -perhaps because Pettigrew reverted to his Animagus form immediately after he betrayed them. I'm not sure, but it seems the magic wasn't able to fall. Yet somehow this Muggle worked his way around them.” Slytherin sounded impressed

Harry forced himself to take calming breaths.  The implications of Slytherin's comment didn't seem likely. But it wasn't as if his mind was in any form to argue. “This house would have remained unplottable after my parents' death.” Harry tried to sound confident. “How where you able to find it?”

“You wizards think your magic to be infallible.  In the end, it is a science just like everything else on this earth,” Filmore replied. “Discover its workings, and then work around it.”  

“Interesting.  This Muggle claims to have figured out magic. They have come a long way since my time.  As it seems this little man may be a bit more than you can handle, perhaps you would want to consider using him as a resource.”

Harry chose to ignore the suggestion.  “You still haven't explained to me what you're doing in my parents' home.”  Harry's voice was still tinged with anger.

“This is not a home,” Filmore responded contritely.

“Fine.” Harry sighed.  “What are you doing here?”  

“I live here,” the man said with a small, toothy smile.

An image of pulling the man's frozen throat from his neck flashed through Harry's mind.  He'd suffered too much to be played with by this man; and as far as he could see, there wasn't a good reason not to just dispose of him and be on with what had to be done.

“Will you not at least acknowledge my suggestion?” Slytherin asked in response to Harry's imaginings.

A compromise then. “Filmore, is it?  Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you now,” Harry stated.

“This Voldemort fellow, is he the one they called the Dark Lord?”  

“Yes.”  

“He killed your parents?”  

“Yes.”  

“I spent the first five years of my life in this place killing his servants.”  

“It's hard being right all the time.”  

Harry didn't know what to say.  His first inclination was to not believe the man, but Slytherin wasn't so arrogant that he wouldn't tell Harry if the man was lying.  His mind tried to wrap around all the different possible things this meant.  The notion of it seemed so preposterous that in the end he found that he couldn't assemble a coherent judgment of it all.  

“Why?” Harry asked. It seemed to summarize his confusion succinctly.

“Wizards are horrible creatures,” Filmore scowled.  “They believe themselves to be better than humans. They kill indiscriminately and use human pain for their entertainment.”  Filmore looked into Harry's eyes. “They come in the night and kill parents and their babies. Creatures such as this don't deserve to live.”  

The new information didn't particularly clear things up.  

“Besides, it beats driving the trolley.”  

Harry's expression plainly showed his mounting perplexity. “You're full on barmy, you know that.”  Harry said with no jest.

“Coming from a wizard, that means very little.”  

“Not all wizards are as you describe them,” Harry said with reluctance.  Considering all he'd been through, Harry wasn't too confident that this man's appraisal was very far from sport on.

“No?” Filmore asked. “It must just be the ones who act on their convictions, then.”

Harry couldn't argue that.  “When did you start killing wizards?”  

Filmore's body language seemed to relax, as if he was settling in for what would be a long conversation.  “After the wizard's parents died…no, know them I did not,” he said, interrupting Harry before he could get the question out of his mouth. “Did not know they were wizards until after the fact.  Even more, I blame them for bringing on the hell that followed their death to this town.”

Harry sat on the floor against the wall behind him. He wanted to berate the man for blaming his parents for what Voldemort did; he settled on a sneer as his response.  “Tell me about it,” he commanded.

Filmore took a long look at Harry before he spoke. “Rising tempers with a strong front of bullshit on the horizon.”  

“Wha-” Harry started.

“October of '81, returned from her Royal Majesty's latest negotiation efforts and happy for the respite.  It's a small town and one that I grew up in, so when I got back and the talk was of the mysterious young couple that appeared here and again in town, I wasn't too surprised for it.  Been as long as I can remember, random guests made random appearances in this town, no matter how out of the way she lies.  In fact, my Gran told me Godric's Hollow had always been this way.” Filmore saw a complete look of confusion staring back at him.  “Keeping up are you?” he asked sarcastically.

Harry's mouth was still held open from the question he never got to ask when the man interrupted him. “What … negotiations …”

“Good enough.  Well it'd always been second nature, discovering what didn't fit. Drove my mum nuts round Christmas, I'll have you know.” He smirked.  “Like those that'd come before, I figured this young couple was taking their stay in the old run-down lot at the top of the town.  Course at the time it seemed peculiar to me that this lot hadn't always come to recollection as old or run down.”  Filmore winked at Harry.  “One guess why, wizard.”  

“Is this guy serious?” Harry asked Slytherin.

“Quite so, I'm afraid.  His banter may seem erratic, but I assure you he's quite deliberate in his intentions.  I could have told you that without the Legilimency".”

“Well, you going to have at a guess?”  Filmore commanded.

“Not really,” Harry said.

“Fair enough.” His expression returned dismissive.  “Wasn't the first time experimenting around magic.  Town like this, one has all the opportunity needed if he's keen on looking for it.  Naturally, after your Dark Lord got confused about the intended … unplottable you call it …yes that was it, unplottable, character of this house, the residents of this small town got more than their fair share of exposure to magic.”  

“This does become relevant some time soon, I hope,” Harry said.

“Relevant?” Filmore mumbled. “Bullshit's arrived then.”  

“Have you a point?”

“So it was Halloween when this Dark Lord arrived. He and your dad - as it were - started trading a rainbow flavor of exploding light for all to see.  Seen more than your average amount of fights in my day, a fair expert in the field you might say.  For what it's worth wizard, seemed your dad had the upper hand in that one.  Unfortunately for him, this Dark Lord fellow has got a strong case of the can't-be-hurts, much like yourself.”  

Harry finally closed his mouth and found it to be quite dry.  It was only for that reason he managed to keep it shut during the man's pause.

Filmore looked surprised at Harry's silence.  “Hmm…perhaps the front has passed then.”

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but paused when he saw Filmore preparing to cut him off again.  

“Some kids had chemistry sets.  Found that snooping around magic was much more interesting.  Course, to a child everything has to have a reason; that perspective helped.  To be honest, it was because of magic that I became such a good negotiator for my great country.”

Harry didn't bother interrupting. He knew it would be a lost cause, but he was capable of pulling off the asshole role as much as the next guy.  When Filmore looked up at him again, he quite deliberately mouthed, re-le-vant.  There was satisfaction in the resulting pause it forced in the man.

“More bullshit then, eh?”  Filmore replied. “Very well, so it was as a young lad that magic became familiar.  The first was with your misdirection magic; the key was figuring out how to find it.  It was a bit of good old science that did the trick. You'd be surprised how a battery-powered radio responds when just a wee bit of the magic is around.  It's like finding a whole new frequency of static.”

Filmore twitched and looked over his shoulder once again. He looked back to Harry, and a smug expression fell over his face. “This to say, at 10 years old, all it took was some curiosity, a good dose of attention, and a cheap transistor radio to figure out the presence of your like.  I'm many years more than that now, and until you took on the bad end of that sword and won, I'd figured to have seen a majority of what you might consider standard magic.”  Filmore looked sternly at Harry. “More importantly, I've used more than a little of it myself.”

“You have used magic, for what?”

“The same as any wizard might. Manipulate the elements, use the forces of magic to impose your will on the world around you and those that would attempt to do so on you,” Filmore replied. “After your parents death, this town was haunted by your kind. Garbed in black and masked, they tortured for information and killed my friends and family.  Knowing what they were, it required an understanding of what they were capable of performing to stop them.  I acquired that understanding, and then I stopped them until they stopped coming. Does this surprise you?”

Harry wasn't so much lost at this point as he was unsure as to whether or not he really cared about this man's life story.  He'd told him very little that was relevant to his family or Voldemort.  Even more, he was still unclear as to whether or not it was his intention to kill the man.  The anger had passed by now; without it, the thought of killing someone was a relatively repulsive thought.  Until the day prior, murder hadn't been something he'd ever thought himself capable of.  Of course, he hadn't lost his soul, his family, and his will to live prior to all this either.  

He decided to go with indifference. “Surprise me?” Harry scoffed, “Honestly, I'd put it up there with finding out just what it was that got you accepted into club crazy.  Maybe you played with a more magic than a Muggle mind can handle.  Or perhaps it was when you stopped combing that ridiculous mat of hair around your head.  Who knows?  Most importantly, who cares? I guess you could say I'm just not intrigued enough to be surprised.”  

Filmore's face soured more and more as Harry's speech continued.  He glared daggers at Harry. “Maybe that dark wizard had a fitting reason to want to kill your family so many years ago.  The way you run your mouth.”  

It was the wrong thing to say to Harry, and Slytherin was the first to know it.  

“Harry, perhaps you'd like to issue an ultimatum before you take your wrath?”  

“No, I think I'll just kill him,” Harry replied and raised his wand. He was pleased to see that Filmore understood completely what was about to occur.

“He is of use to you”.

“Only if I use him as target practice to get over my sudden and quite virulent bad mood,” Harry replied.

“Just ask him of what use he is to you”.

Harry cringed but accepted. “What use would you be to me?”  

“I'd be happy to put you out of your misery,” Filmore snapped.

“I'd be happy to go, but neither of us are operating on happy at the moment. Try again.”

“Are you asking me to barter for my life?”  

“I'm not the one wanting the answer,” Harry snipped.

Filmore didn't have to figure what that meant.  “So it's Slytherin who's asking then? Interesting.  The sword perhaps.”  

“I can take the sword after I kill you. Not a lot of leverage there.”

“But you can't use it - at least not as it's meant to be used.” Filmore scoffed. “In fact, you could hardly handle it to carve a roast the way you hold a sword.”  

“There is his use, Harry,” Slytherin said calmly.  

Harry paused to think.  “You cannot be serious”.  

“Very much so.  He's right; you've no remarkable skills in battle, and my current incorporeal situation doesn't lend to teaching you effectively.  You've seen him move; surely you recognize how remarkable he is.  But if that's not enough, consider this.  Mr. Trynsington here seems to have been fighting wizards for quite some time now.  A Muggle fighting and besting wizards.  You could learn how to beat a wizard without magic.  Think on how much more formidable you would be, and then add to it that you can fight with magic.  He is an asset.

“He's an annoying fuck,” Harry snapped.

“He is a tool; and in case you haven't been paying attention, he fought the same enemy you now have to face.  He wasn't killing Dumbledore's pawns; he was killing Death Eaters. Doesn't that put you on the same side?”

Harry clinched his hands into fists as the thought of learning from this lunatic crawled under his skin.  “You're a sodding arse, you know that?”  Harry screamed.

“You can hardly imagine,” Slytherin said.

“And then some,”  Filmore quipped.  

Harry huffed and held up his hand. The sword pulled free of the ceiling and flew to him.  

Filmore watched appraisingly as Harry crossed the room towards him with the blade in hand, but lowered.  “Here to finish the deed then?” he asked.

Harry didn't answer; instead he grabbed the sword by the blade and turned the hilt towards Filmore.  He saw the confused look on Trynsington's face, but it didn't stop the man from taking the sword as quickly as it had been offered.  Harry made a show of turning his back to him before crossing the room and sitting back against the wall.  

“The wizards that you fought are called Death Eaters,” Harry said.  “And the man who leads them is the same one you saw kill my parents in this house.”  

“Remarkable,”  Filmore mocked.  “This is a sword, I am going bald, and you are incompetent.  The common theme … these are all things I know.”  

“They're the same wizards that I'm going to kill,” Harry said, ignoring the remarks.  “In a sense, that would make us sort of like allies.”  There wasn't a great deal of conviction behind the words.  

“Allies don't tend to spend in evening together in the basement of a decrepit house trying to kill each other.”

“You'd be surprised,” Harry said, considering the things that people who called themselves his ally had done in the past.  

“That just means you need to find new friends.”  

“My name is Harry Potter. If you're willing to show me how to use that sword and how you managed to kill wizards without having magic to fight with, I promise you I'll bring every last one of the wizards you fought against to their end.”  

“You're kidding, right? The wizard wants training from the wizard hunter. There is no limit to the insanity surrounding this moment.”  

“…seeing as we both believe each other to be so,” Harry offered.

Filmore stared at Harry and let the silence build between them.  “Why should I train you?”  

Harry took his time as he thought about the answer, letting another silent pause settle in.  Finally, he replied.  “Because you obviously had your reasons for spending this much of your life trying to hunt down Death Eaters.  Because they're no longer going to come here and fight you, and that means that you've no longer got a battle to wage.  Because you say you've never seen magic like mine, and it's an opportunity for you to learn more about defeating our kind.  Because you live in the basement of a burnt down house where no one can see you, and you've nothing else to do.  Because with your help I can defeat them.”  

Harry finished and was fairly confident he'd managed to offer some good reasons.  Even if he was loath to admit it to himself, he was quite intrigued by the notion of learning how to fight like this man.  He was outright disgusted with the thought that Slytherin undoubtedly was aware of his interest.

Filmore hadn't replied, and Harry was getting the feeling that the man was thinking on what new way he was going to try and use that sword to test the limits of Harry's supposed immortality.  Filmore looked intently at him, and it was then Harry found the answer.  He smiled at the short man.  

“Because it beats driving the trolley,” Harry said.

The corners of Filmore's mouth rose slightly; then he turned the point of the sword to the floor and leaned his elbow on the hilt.  He smiled.  “Too right it is.”