Disclaimer: Chances are if you missed the disclaimer in the first chapter, you’re skimming this fic and probably missing more of the story than you think.
(A/N) Originally Chinatown was in the East End of London but moved West due to the prosperity of the Chinese and the popularity of Chinese food and culture. The previous Chinatown in the Limehouse region of London was known more for its opium dens, which were actually legal and its slum housing, which is normally associated with immigration, not the Chinese restaurants and supermarkets in the current Chinatown.
A number of elderly Chinese still live in this area. Japanese, Singaporeans, and Koreans, as well as Chinese live in today's Chinatown. There are many illegal workers in London's Chinatown who get less than minimum wage.
Also it is known that the Triads are operating there, highlighted by a man being shot dead in broad daylight in June 2003 in the "brb bar" on Gerrard Street. Fun shit. And here you thought stuff like that never happened in real life.
The Twilight Zone
Chapter Five
This was not a particular part of London Harry was intimately familiar with.
Gerrard St., as it turned out, was right in the middle of Chinatown.
Gerrard St., London; Soho – Chinatown district:
Mab’s envoy stood in front of a pair of oriental marble lions. She had the small bone structure and delicate pale-gold features typical of East Asian women. Her long dark hair was pulled back from her face by a pair of jade combs and she wore a short white silk dress with a high mandarin collar that showed a generous amount of leg and a pair of slippers that matched.
It was also very evident that she was not of this world, something about her manner screamed inhuman.
Amongst the Chinese food restaurants, the obvious tourists and the windows full of brightly coloured packages of foreign foods, Harry also stood out like a sore thumb. He was starting to attract many strange looks. Or, now that he thought about it, it could be his wakizashi, the shorter blade of his daisho, slung low on his hips over his long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans.
A mild note of irritation lit within him at his own carelessness. Harry was far too used to walking around heavily armed without anyone batting an eyelash – he should have cast a notice-me-not-charm before he even left the house.
He glanced at one of the tourists; she flinched, cowering away out of his sight while her husband pulled her protectively to his side, eyeballing Harry warily. Ignoring the peculiar looks, Harry threaded his way through the obnoxious tour groups to the Winter Queen’s messenger. He nodded to her.
She gazed back impassively at him, dark eyes shuttered and opaque, a black, arching eyebrow raised in question.
He reached up and pretended to scratch at the side of his neck. It didn’t take much more than a single spark of power for the unseen lines of Mab’s marks on his wrists to flare with opaline iridescence.
The messenger’s eyes widened as she caught sight of the marks where his sleeve had fallen back. She bowed to him from the waist.
“Please follow me,” she said, her voice flavoured with something exotic. Turning she led him into the darkened interior of a nearby restaurant and to a narrow hallway. She gestured for him to go on alone.
Harry stepped forward.
The smell of garlic and grease vanished. In its place came the scent of ice and rime. Darkness thickened the air. Cool, glassy black stone covered in frost appeared in the place of the rice paper walls from the restaurant hallway. Harry could not see the ceiling; the walls around just extended up, up into blackness. The floor beneath his feet radiated a bitter cold that Harry could keenly feel through the thick soles of his boots, the sounds of his footsteps muffled in the soft crunch of snow.
There was a door at the end of the corridor; heavy and old, the frost-blackened metal had warped and rusted from the patchwork of thick ice covering its surface. A wire-covered light buzzed faintly beside the door, a deep chill blue gleaming off of the glassy black stone of the hallway from its luminescence.
Harry tugged his sleeve down over his hand and rapped on the door three times. It rang loud and brash, sound radiating out from it and Harry felt uncomfortably like every eye in the place had just turned on him.
There was a strange smell about the corridor that he hadn’t noticed amongst the first onslaught of the cold. It was a syrupy odour, a sweet stench that made Harry want to gag in realization.
Death, the hallway smelled of death.
With a sinking feeling, Harry turned around. The rice paper walls had vanished, replaced with more long, dark corridor; his prints in the thick snow of the hallway looking oddly forlorn and vulnerable where they started in the middle of nowhere. Something moved in the blackness beyond him, a barely audible rustle of fur and frost and it did not have good intentions in mind.
Harry had never enjoyed feeling like prey. The comforting weight of his wand made its way into his hands. 12 ½ inches of yew and thestral hair lacquered in dementor’s blood vibrated eagerly in his grip.
Two sets of glowing slit-pupiled eyes blinked at him from the black of the corridor, moving noticeably closer in time. Then one sank low to the ground and the other disappeared.
"What the hell?" Harry muttered under his breath. Mab's emissary had dumped his ass a freaky winter wonderland dimension - there was no telling what he would encounter here. Just his fucking luck.
A huff of laughter pealed out of the darkness, followed by something the size of a lynx. It flowed out of the blackness, dark grey and feline and striped in jet like a tiger. Tufts of snowy white dotted the tips of its ears and along its eyes in a negative inverse of a cheetah's markings. Great yellow-green eyes gleamed back at Harry with far too much intelligence for a mere beast. "The question be, what are you?" it mewled.
"I'm a man on a mission," Harry replied lightly, not daring to show his discomfort. 'Here kitty, kitty, kitty.'
"A mission from who?" it purred.
'A mission from God,' he thought, not really in the mood to mince words with Fluffy the friendly neighbourhood nightmare. "From Mab," Harry said tersely. "I'm here on a task given to me by Mab."
The thing smiled with all the warmth of a shark and with twice as many teeth. Harry's skin crawled at the sight. "Here?" it said. "But you don't smell like food. You smell like anger and fire and desire. Like darkness and ice and hunger. What are you?"
Harry gritted his teeth and returned the smile. "Last time I checked, I was a guy."
The other pair of eyes in the darkness blinked and leapt at Harry. Snarling, it landed on the wall above him, claws digging deep furrows into the thick ice jutting out over the door, eyes glaring balefully into Harry's. Saliva dripped from its jaws as it growled, a low buzz-saw rumble that was more felt than heard - like an over-tuned bass note from a synthesizer.
Harry crouched and bared his teeth at it without consciously realizing what he was doing. He recognized it now - a maulk, a creature of Deep Winter. It was a vicious beast and an even smarter hunter. Maulks generally weren't picky about what they ate, humans included.
The first maulk sat on its haunches, jowls lolling open into a fanged grin. "You smell like one of us, Darkling. But passage will be denied to you until you answer my question. Thrice have I asked, what are you?"
Harry opened his mouth to tell it the he was a seriously pissed-off wizard, but something invisible with claws and teeth wrapped around his throat and strangled the words before they left his lips.
Instinct had him hitting the ground, rolling to avoid the other creature's claws. Instinct had him unleash a silent gout of red-orange flame from the tip of his wand. And instinct saved his ass again when it caught the maulk in mid-leap, its body crashing to the ground in a crispy heap. It wailed pitifully, fur smoking as it thrashed about in the thick snow.
Harry drew his wakizashi and in one quick, spinning step, relieved the creature of its head. He turned into the momentum of the kata and stilled, blade pointed at the first creature, his body poised for action.
"I don't know," he told the creature roughly, blue-green internal fluids flowing sluggishly down the blood grove of his sword angled overhead. "I don't know what I am."
It was true. He hadn't for a long time. The change was subtle, slow enough that he hadn't realized what was happening until he'd torn the Death Eater's throat out with his bare teeth. Half-way through his sixth year, he'd been captured on one his hunting expeditions. They'd set a trap for a couple of Order members and caught him by mistake. Lucky them. Things had gotten a little rough and when the red haze of fury passed, Harry came back to himself to find that he'd pretty much slaughtered half a dozen Death Eaters with his bare hands.
One had hidden. One had thought he could get away. He hadn't. Harry remembered killing that one. How good it felt. He couldn't pretend to ignore the changes in himself after that. Faster, stronger. Quicker to hurt, quicker to kill.
Harry hadn't lost control since that incident, no matter how much he may have wanted to. He'd shoved that hungry, aberrant side of himself into the furthest recesses of his mind and pretended his damnedest that it wasn't there, wasn't a part of him, wasn't something gluttonous with velvet fur and black scales that rubbed up against his insides and purred when he killed or when he fucked his latest conquest into the mattress.
"Honesty," the first maulk whuffed softly, the words sprinkled with faint laughter. "I appreciate that."
The fey beast didn't seem the least bit bothered that Harry had killed its companion. "Who are you?" Harry asked tiredly.
It picked up a paw and licked it delicately. "I am Daughter of Grimaulkin," it purred, pink tongue disappearing again behind a fanged grin. "Keeper of the North Gate."
"Then greetings to you, Keeper," Harry replied, nodding to the maulk as he wiped the blade off in the snow and sheathed it. "Will you block my way again?"
"No, wee Morrigan," the Keeper mewled. "I shan't."
There was a creaking of rusted hinges behind him. A tall Sidhe girl stood in the doorway. Green of both hair and eye, she wore a grey dress of Grecian design that fell to her ankles in soft folds. She was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way and when she smiled, Harry saw that her teeth were as green as her hair and as sharp as a piranha's.
“My Lady is waiting for you,” she said, her voice sweet and rich. She raised an arm, gesturing towards the doorway. "Please, right this way."
Harry glanced over his shoulder at the maulk. "I apologize for the death of your companion."
The maulk grinned, fangs aplenty. "He was foolish. I am not. He shall make a nice meal for later."
Harry shuddered and waved the girl in front of him to continue.
The girl ducked her head in supplication and led him through the doorway.
Through the door was a small antechamber that opened into a large room the size of the Great Hall. The walls were swathed in rich indigo velvet, pale light gleaming from luminous crystal sculptures; the room vibrated with a chill, subtle resonance. Something beneath his skin shivered with pleasure. Home, it cried. Home!
Beautiful fae, both male and female lounged on elaborate couches, beings that seemed ideal in feature and form. Gods and goddesses almost. But Harry could see the unique oddities that set the winter Sidhe apart from their summer cousins. Some of the fae gathered wore their hair dyed sapphire-blue, and others wore braids of silver, mossy green and violet. Cold light glittered from jewellery set into ears, brows, and even lips. Gems dripped from their skin. Clothing pushed the boundaries of temptation. There was a hypnotic swirl of colour in the air, gathering around each of the fae, a pretty nimbus of cold blues and violets and greens.
The dark energy of his magic hummed around these beings and rose within him like a wave. It swirled under and over his skin, making him wonder if he too, had whirling aura of colour around him.
The faint tinkle of the conversation and laughter of the Winter Court faded as Harry walked in, oblique green eyes turning to him. It made him feel like he was walking a supernatural gauntlet and should he fail, these pretty creatures would rise up in droves, tearing him apart with fingers like knives and tongues like swords. But they were silent. Their gazes were speculative, judging, sometimes appreciative, and occasionally curious and even a few that seemed uneasy of his presence.
Harry followed the Sidhe girl past the gathered fae to what looked like an inner courtyard. Enormous firs reached up into the blackness of the night sky, frost clinging to their branches. The snow beneath their feet glowed with moonlight, though there was no moon that Harry could find. The chill, blue gloom sat heavy here, broken only by a tall, spindly lamppost under which an ornately wrought bench sat half-covered in snow, the crystalline glitter of icicles hanging from its decorative coils.
A banner hung from the lamppost; long and thin, it billowed in the wind revealing a simple snowflake edged in silver on a deep lazuline background. Looking closer, Harry could see a white vine with heavy needle-like thorns choking the flared edges of the snowflake.
"You are one of my Lady's creatures and you haven't even seen her standard before?" the young fae asked amused.
“No,” he replied. “I haven't.”
One of the woven ties broke from the lamppost, banner flying free in the wind, the long, slim tails on the bottom of the pennant licking out at Harry's fingers like a dragon's tongue. Harry reached out and captured the trailing fork before it could get stuck on the silver coils of the bench. It felt like silk. Judging from the ragged ends on the banner it wasn't the first time it had gotten caught.
“Why do you ask?” he inquired as he ran the silk through his fingers. Harry turned to the Sidhe girl.
Her mouth hung open in a small, pink 'O' as she stared at the banner.
It had changed. The indigo deepened into a black so dark it seemed to swallow the light itself. A full yellow-white moon rose where the snowflake had sat, a rearing thestral with silver-white eyes and wings ready for flight lay over it; at its feet were a silver-gilt dagger and wand crossed over a black rose in full bloom. The heart of the rose had a vivid purple tinge that bordered on ultraviolet. Upon closer inspection he realized the thestral wasn't a thestral at all, but some kind of hell beast by the curling black ram's horns on its head and the razor-sharp predator's teeth in its maw.
He recognized the banner. It was the crest of the Sharr Family. More of Mab's tricks. He’d known she was yanking him around from the moment he’d spotted her in the Dursley’s kitchen, Harry just hadn’t known why. Now he did.
Fury shook him. All his life he'd been subject to others' whims; now it seemed he'd become the plaything of something that made nightmares shiver in their boots. Bitterness was a sour note on the back of his tongue.
"What is this?" Silk crumpled in his fingers and he barely recognized his own voice under the thick, gravelled snarl it had become. "What is this?"
Her eyes were wide and frightened. "Your standard, my lord," she breathed, sinking to her knees, grey skirts spread out on the snow like a rain cloud around her. She bowed her head so low it almost touched the ground. "Mercy, my lord," she murmured, soft and reverent. "Please, have mercy."
His hands still shook with anger, but it fought for dominance now with confusion. "What is your name?"
"Fiona, my lord," she replied, head still bowed.
"Fiona, then," Harry said. A muscle in his jaw drew tight and began to tic, the banner wrapped tight around his fist, his fury at Mab's games waiting to escape his control. "Will you lead me to Mab? With haste, if you please."
She rose and curtseyed to him. "Yes, my lord."
"Thank you."
Fiona rushed through the tall firs, seeming to flit lightly over the snow. Through the trees loomed a tall black tower and an enormous set of stairs before a dark arching hallway. The stairs were huge, big enough that Harry felt ant-like in the face of their colossal size and the black ice beneath his feet held shifting hues of amethyst, pale green and ruby.
The hallway was formed from the same black ice as the stairs; figures were carved in rich bas-relief upon its surface. A pair of dragon's eyes stared balefully from between the frostbitten branches of a scraggly tree. Bones, human bones were piled around it and little demonic creatures writhed and snarled within its roots, tiny faces filled with malicious glee. The tree itself held a long, warped visage twisted into a scream. Teeth poked out from the bark and a pair of large feline eyes stared back at Harry; there was too much personality behind those beseeching eyes and he wondered who the carving had been before they were transformed. An echo of a whisper-soft scream ghosted across the edges of his hearing and that was enough to make him turn away with a wince.
The other side of the hallway was thick with stalactites and stalagmites, looking like rows of great blackened teeth. Harry hurried to catch up with Fiona's rapidly disappearing figure.
At the end of the hallway, a pair of vast ivory doors opened into darkness. Fiona stood beside them and bowed to him. "Welcome, my lord, to Arctis Tor."
Harry glanced warily at her as he passed. He hadn't gotten more than twenty feet in when the doors shut with nary a whisper leaving him in total blackness.
"You're really working the old school thing today, O Queen of all that’s dark and spooky," he growled.
He could hear his own breathing like thunder it was so quiet. "At least horror films give me the dignity of suspense music beforehand."
There was no answer.
"Where the fuck are you?" he yelled, his own voice bouncing off of unseen walls and reverberating back to him.
"I should cut your tongue out for such disrespect," said Mab conversationally, her sultry tones echoing out from nowhere at all. "But then again, I do find your mouth so very entertaining."
"Your cheap theatrics are a bit overdone, my lady," Harry replied mockingly. It was a childish thing to say, but he had reached the end of his patience.
Light flooded into the chamber and Harry found himself staring nose to nose with the Winter Queen. "Why fix what isn't broken?" she murmured charmingly, green eyes glittering with amusement.
Harry jerked backwards in surprise and landed on his ass in front of her.
He found himself sitting on a raised dais in which he'd just narrowly missed falling off of; Mab lounged on an elaborately decorated throne made of silver and ice and draped with luxurious white furs. Her crisp business suit was replaced by a set of loose linen trousers in dove grey and a men's white silk button down, sleeves rolled to the elbows, slender wrists unadorned, and her hair fell loose over her shoulders. A pair of long, spear-like diamond earrings glittered in the light, drawing attention to where the shirt's collar fell away from her graceful neck.
She hadn't bothered to button it all the way. It was... distracting.
Mab propped her chin up on her hand, an incongruously girlish gesture and watched him with a small smile on her face.
Harry blinked stupidly. "I keep forgetting how much your kind likes playing tricks on people."
Mab lifted a shoulder carelessly, fey green eyes blinking slowly with amusement, mulberry lips curling into a smug smile. "It was harmless, save to your pride."
"I suppose this is revenge?" Harry replied, climbing to his feet. He was lucky to have missed the stairs - it was a ways down to the empty chamber below.
"Revenge?" She lifted one perfectly arched brow, eyes flickering blue-white for a moment. “Nonsense," she replied. "That was purely for my pleasure." Mab leaned forward, capturing his gaze. "If I didn't like your attitude, I wouldn't have brought you back with it."
Harry suppressed the urge to run out of the room screaming, refusing to let his expression fill with the rapidly escalating unease that was churning in his gut. "Yeah, about that..."
She smiled and this time it held none of her previous cheer. "All in due time."
"All in due time?" he repeated bewilderedly. "You gave me the impression I didn't have much time."
"Did I?" she murmured, looking very unapologetic. "Oh how awful. Could you possibly find it in yourself to forgive me?" Mab reached out and brushed a thumb against a wet spot on his cheek he hadn’t noticed. Her nails were painted an opalescent white and they were exceedingly long and exceedingly sharp. She pulled her hand back and Harry saw a glint of blue-green blood on the side of her finger.
“I see you've met the Keeper," she said, rubbing the bead of blood between her fingers. "I do hope you left her in one piece."
He rubbed the end of his sleeve over his cheek. "I didn't hurt her," he rejoined. "But her companion attacked me and I had to defend myself." He paused and a piece of the puzzle fell into place. "Why do I get the feeling that your emissary set me up?"
“Ming Lai is easily prone to jealousy,” Mab said dismissively. “Her mood changes as swift as the winter sea.”
Harry gritted his teeth on what he wanted to say. His temper was hanging on by the bare shreds of his control and it was only the knowledge that he had about as much chance to lay a finger on Mab as a mouse did to a tiger.
“Why?” he asked her. “Why would she have anything against me?”
Mab lift a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Why would I know what motivates her whims?” She tilted her head at him and there was a glitter in her eye that made Harry think she was laughing at him. “Why don't you ask her yourself?”
It hit him suddenly. Nothing happened here without Mab's knowledge. It wasn't the emissary that set him up. It was Mab.
“Why did you want them to attack me?”
Mab's lips parted in a smile. “It was a test,” she replied. “And you passed it with flying colours.”
Harry bared his teeth at her. “A test of what? My loyalty? My... capability?”
“I wanted to see what you could do.” She gave him an oblique look from under her lashes. “I'm surprised though...”
He didn't like the sound of that, how smug she sounded. “By what?” he said flatly, more tired than angry.
“That for all of your vaunted control, you are always a hairsbreadth away from loosing your temper.”
For a being with absolutely no care for human emotions, she was uncomfortably adept at reading him. Harry's fist tightened convulsively around the banner. “Speaking of tests, I wonder what you could tell me about this.” He forced his fingers to let go of the bedraggled silk and the pennant fluttered down to rest on Mab's lap.
She sat up straight and smoothed the crumpled silk against her thigh, crinkles easing from the banner's folds. “Congratulations on your ascension, Lord Sharr.” Mab looked up and there was the gleam of malice and laughter in her face. “It is, after all, a prestigious position.”
Harry gazed back passively, mind drawing a total blank.
The Faerie Queen picked up the banner and tucked a fold of the silk into the waistline of his jeans, her cool fingers causing him to shudder. He wasn’t sure if it was desire or disgust. Mab watched and smiled. “Why would I lie?”
'You can't,' he thought. 'The Sidhe can't lie.'
“You know more than what you're telling me,” Harry countered. “No more games, no more riddles. What do you want with me?”
“I want a lot of things,” she murmured unhurriedly. “But mostly I desire your loyalty.”
“Last time I checked,” Harry answered warily, pulling the cold silk from his belt and shoving the banner into his jacket pocket. “I didn't have much choice in the matter.”
“Oh but you do, Harry. You can give your allegiance to me freely,” Mab said, green eyes hooded and shining in the light like a cat's. “Or I can take your will from you as I please.”
“I see,” Harry replied, the flesh on the back of his neck wanting to crawl away. The memory of what happened in the Dursley's kitchen was forever seared in his brain. Anger sparked uselessly in him. He was furious at his lack of a choice, and it was impotent fury at best: as if by being angry, he could be proactive. Fat chance of that, he thought, when his world was falling apart faster than he could put the pieces back together again.
“Do you?” she said, white brows rising in question.
The words fell out before he could stop them. “When did I make a deal with you?”
'When would I be stupid enough to make a deal with you?'
Mab smiled. Mab smiled and Harry swallowed back a moan. There were dead things in that smile. There were wailing, hungry things in that smile; there were razor teeth and the sharp wet sounds of bone being broken. “Oh my,” she purred. “Do you mean to tell me that you truly don't remember?”
Fear curled its claws into him. His hands shook and God, he hoped she hadn't noticed. “Yes,” he told her, voice thin and faint.
She laughed, bright and bell-like, her slit-pupiled eyes heavy and smug with satisfaction. “You were desperate.” Mab tilted her head and grinned, mulberry lips stretched wide over sharp, white teeth. “You were confused, didn't understand why, why you were dead, why the world had suddenly up and passed you by, marching full force towards its inevitable destruction.”
He looked away. Somehow, she'd stripped everything from him, left him bare and bleeding.
She crooked her finger and drew him down to her with no more than a flash of green eyes under heavy lashes, the expectant promise of sensual release writ in her body. He knelt before her, close in the V of her thighs. Mab's lush mouth curled into a smirk and she leaned into him, too close, too familiar. Heat pooled low into his belly, want suddenly singing through his veins. He shivered, this time with pleasure and leaned into her touch like a great cat butting his head against her palm. “You were angry,” she murmured into his ear, breath cool and smelling of bitter mint.
She smiled and he could feel the drag of her lips catching on the skin of his neck. “And oh so willing to throw your soul away for the same people who never even cared about you in the first place.”
Desire turned sour and Harry flung himself away, disgusted with his own reaction, her nails drawing red scores in his jaw. “You crazy bitch!”
Mab laughed and slouched carelessly back into the furs of her throne, knees spreading wide and inviting as she licked his blood from her fingers. “Truly, Harry, I've been called much worse for much less.”
The demon thing that looked like a thestral, but wasn't, stared off the silken folds at him, eyes white and feral. “You would turn me into a puppet for your own twisted needs?” Harry growled.
“Never. If I want you to do something, you will be aware, fully cognizant of your actions and hating yourself every step of the way because you did it, not for me,” she added, an arrogant tilt to her chin. “But because you wanted to.” Her lips curled, skin drawing tight over the bones of her face, something fanatical and not quite sane lighting her from within. “You wanted to hurt them. You still do. I'm just giving you the means to an end. Embrace it, Harry. Hate is a beautiful thing.”
Harry lost it. “Stop talking in riddles!” His voice reverberated off of the chambers walls and the noise bouncing back at him didn't sound anywhere near human. It was enough to put a stopper in anything else he might have said.
She spoke, cool and calm after his outburst, disdain dripping from her words. “I want you to do me a favour. And in turn I will tell you what you want to know.”
Shame welled within him at how low he would go to find answers. “What will it cost me?” he replied, wary of Mab’s trickster nature.
“Nothing you haven't already paid.”
A muscle in Harry’s jaw began to tick. “Do I have a choice?” he bit out.
Mab raised an eyebrow, a curiously human gesture. She smiled, slow and sly, all honey and poison. “No. You don't.”
“What is the favour?” said Harry, making it into less of a question and more of a thinly veiled command to answer him this time instead of asking a riddle in return.
Her smile never wavered. “I want you to bring back the Lords of Magic.”
Harry didn’t know where to begin. The Lords of Magic were a fairy tale. A gruesome and bloody fairy tale filled with sex, scandal and a number of other things not appropriate for a bedtime story, but still, a fairy tale. Or, at least he had thought it was, seeing as how he stood before a rather malignant character of myth and obscurity herself.
Though the names had evolved and changed and fallen from use, the stories had not. Legend held that the Lords of Magic were beings of the Old World, remnants of a previous civilization. It was said that they walked among Wizardkind’s ancestors as gods, bestowing gifts of language, art, and knowledge amongst a group of people not long removed from scratching in the dirt with tools of wood and bone, shell and stone. They predated the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Mesopotamian Empires of the fucking cradle of civilization. Hell, if legend was to be believed, they were the only reason why the written word came into being.
The Lords of Magic were divided up into twelve houses, six Light, six Dark, and most of them dead and gone. They had originally scattered themselves over the continents with enough room in between not to rub elbows with each other, small wizarding communities springing up in their wake. Current rumours placed two surviving Families in the Americas, another in Italy, and the last on the island of Cyprus.
“You're fucking joking, right?” Harry said in disbelief, scorn dripping from his words. It would be just like her to dangle his freedom on a string, and then yank it away just as he was beginning to hope.
There was a different note in her smile now, not the cruel amusement of before but something different, something enigmatic and satisfied, like he’d walked straight into a trap of his own making. “They are not as dead as the world would like to believe, only lost and misplaced.”
“You want me to bring back a damn near god-like group of wizards. Forgetting the impossibility of the task for the moment, you’re going to have to give me something better than that to work with,” Harry bit out, words taking on a staccato tempo in his frustration.
“Sit.”
Cold light swirled in his mind. He was on his knees again, boots digging uncomfortably into his ass as he knelt like an eager student at her feet.
“Your father’s family,” she began. Flicker quick, a little sneer crossed her mouth and was gone so fast that Harry though he had imagined it. “ – has long served Summer’s whims. Your mother’s family – ”
Harry interrupted her. “My mother was Muggleborn.”
Her lips curled with distaste. “Your mother was anything but Muggleborn. Your mother was the lost scion of the Sharr Family. And you, Harry, are the Heir.”
“Bullshit!” Harry spat, voice bouncing off the chamber wall.
The smug smile was back. “I tell you no lies. Your father was nothing more than Summer’s puppet. A talented wizard, oh yes, but still, just a wizard. Nothing more, nothing less. Your mother’s family, though, that makes you special.”
The puzzle pieces were coming together. She’d given him all of the clues, little hints as he’d come along and it was all there right under his nose. His mind whirled to put all of the scattered bits of information together.
Mab never would have pulled him out of that hellish future if he didn’t mean anything more than the end of the world. End of one of her playgrounds, sure, but there was more to it than that. The knowledge he had of his father was scant at best and he’d never known that the Potters were vassals of Summer. Hell of a thing for him to find out one day with a fairy knocking on his door and demanding he do her bidding. But Mab wasn’t concerned with his father’s connection to Summer, Mab was interested in his mother, his mother’s side of the family and through that, him as well.
His mind hurt from the implications, from the idea that he was the Heir to something that made Voldemort and his Death Eaters look like children playing at Cops and Robbers.
She’d found him, had probably been watching him for quite some time before making her move, presenting him with such a tempting offer, the idea of going back and fixing his mistakes – such an enticing proposition, especially when he had no other options. Clever, very clever. It was like showing a thirsty man an oasis when he was surrounded by hot sun and burning desert. Only for Harry to find out it was an illusion when he went to drink and found himself pouring sand instead of water down his throat.
She wanted Harry because of his connection to the Lords of Magic. The Families were powerful enough that whoever had them on their side would inevitably tip the balance in their favour. Mab wanted allies. And Harry, bearing his guilt like weights around his neck, had walked pretty as he pleased right into her trap. He’d sold himself to her for a chance to drink at her illusion and then she’d wrapped the shackles of ownership around his wrists without him being any the wiser of it.
Harry couldn’t remember most of what happened before he died, let alone making a deal with the devil. She could tell him that the grass was blue and the sky was green and he would have to take her word for it because he didn’t know better. Couldn’t prove better.
“I am the key.” Harry kept his words neutral and carefully modulated, but he knew his eyes were burning with the knowledge of what she’d done to him. “I am the key to the door you wish to open. But I am only one key; you need five others. You need the other five Dark Families in order to open that door. And you need the six Light Families – and Titania – to balance out what will happen when you open that door.”
The sound of clapping filled the chamber, Mab’s eyes lit by the blue-white glimmer of Winter’s aether, the eerie light glittering on the long diamonds of her earrings. “Well done, Harry.” She smiled and Harry felt the black maw of despair clamping down on him. “Well done.”
It was chaos inside the Ministry, the general public crowding in amongst Ministry employees and heckling reporters. The raucous mob filled the air with loud shouting and the threat of violent hexes, the red-robed forms of Aurors dispersing amongst the crowd to try and restore order. From what Shorner could see of their struggles, they were about as useful as wings on an ostrich.
Shorner shifted Lily Potter’s files under his arm as he stepped into the lift past the teeming crowd. Sirius Black had escaped and a right mess ensued; Shorner didn’t know how the wizarding community had found out so soon. Black had only disappeared from Azkaban just four hours ago.
‘This is beyond insane,’ he thought as he exited the lift. Shorner strode through the maze-like hallways of the Department of Mysteries towards the secluded calm of his office. Things inside the DoM were no different from the rest of the Ministry. Dropping the files on his desk, Shorner collapsed into his chair.
He spent most of the previous night writing up a report on his findings of the Sharr family. Shorner was sure Crevan had put word into his superior’s ear that he had found some disturbing news connected to the Veil.
This was not good. Matter of fact, this whole situation was not good. The man chuckled wryly, rubbing his temples in a futile attempt to ward off the encroaching headache from caffeine withdrawal. The Ministry was going to Hell in a hand basket and Shorner didn’t have the slightest clue where to begin plugging up the leaks. Information of such a sensitive nature as Black’s escape never should have gotten out. Add in how quickly the public knew about his breakout and all signs pointed to someone within the Ministry, someone trusted, deliberately selling out confidential information.
A short knock on Shorner’s door shook him from his thoughts. “What?” he barked out, the request slipping out sharper than he’d intended.
One of the aides poked her head around the door. “Mr. Shorner, the Heads of Mission Operatives and British Wizarding Security would like to see you in the conference room.”
Bugger. And with Black’s escape on top of all of this…
He sighed and gathered up the stack of files haphazardly strewn about. “Thank you, Maggie.”
The petite brunette blushed. “No problem, Mr. Shorner,” she said as she scuttled out the doorway in front of Shorner.
The conference room lay all the way across the DoM from Shorner’s office and he nearly ran there just to arrive relatively on time. Shorner took a moment to catch his breath and straighten his robes while the aide went inside to announce him.
“Mr. Shorner, would you please be so kind as to join us?” came the voice of the Head of Mission Operatives.
Shorner stepped into the dimly lit room and found that all five of the other Heads of the DoM sat inside. He sucked in a nervous breath of air and sat in the seat provided at the far end of the table.
The Head of British Wizarding Security tilted her steel grey head to the side and looked him over. “You seem a bit young for a Headship.”
Shorner gritted his teeth and smiled. “I can assure you of my qualifications and my capability in doing my job, Madam Mallard,” he replied in a not so subtle jibe at her not being able to prevent Black’s breakout.
She bristled visibly and seemed to be on the verge of saying something rather unkind when the Head of Mission Operatives interrupted her.
“Shorner is quite proficient at his job and we are not here to dispute that,” Conner Blackwood said brusquely, seemingly at the end of his patience. “Now, back to pressing matters, we normally get Field Surveillance to debrief us on these things, but you seem to have the most information on hand of us all. Would you care to share your conclusions on the occurrence with the Veil?”
Shorner took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Speaking in front of this powerful a group of people left his knees feeling a little weak. “I do not have tangible evidence with me at the moment, but late yesterday morning between 0800 and 1100 hours the Veil went active and stayed that way for three continuous hours before subsiding back into stasis.”
Shorner didn’t have to be a genius to know that the majority of the scepticism writ on his audience’s faces was more from the Veil’s history of strange fluctuations and the distaste surrounding its past uses than the veracity of the information he’d gathered. “Further research yielded that an unknown magical signature had passed through the Veil into this world during those active hours. After additional scrutiny, we managed to match the signature to a Mr. Harry James Potter.”
“The Harry Potter?” asked Madam Mallard incredulously.
Shorner nodded. “One and the same.”
Murmurs of unrest flittered through the conference room.
He glanced around the room at the eyes pinned on him. The veritable bomb was about to be dropped on the group and Shorner wanted to be far away from the fallout. “While researching Mr. Potter’s family history for a connection that would explain the Veil’s reaction, I stumbled onto some… rather alarming information. Within a single generation, I was able to trace his mother’s line back to the Sharr Family as sole offspring and Heir.”
The din the five Heads created was deafening.
“….I don’t care if all evidence points to the contrary, it’s not possible!” the Head of Counter Intelligence yelled to Gale Brightfall of Field Surveillance. A ringing silence descended over the room.
The Head of Analysis and Tactical Specialists turned and looked at Shorner through heavy, dark eyes. “Are you saying that Harry Potter is a Sharr Lord?”
Shorner nodded. “All evidence points to it, so yes.”
“Do you perceive him to be a threat in the near or immediate future?”
Shorner sighed and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, headache worsening by the second. “The boy will be thirteen two weeks from today and normally I’d say don’t worry about it. Progeny does not necessarily mean ontogeny. But on the other hand, his magical signature held some fairly disquieting information.”
Conner interlocked his fingers in front of his face. “I get apprehensive when you of all people say, “disquieting”. Let’s keep it short and simple, Shorner. I’d like to know if I have to alert the Director of Magical Law Enforcement of any other menaces to society today.”
“Harry Potter’s signature shows all the signs of a consistent, long term use of illegal, advanced dark magic. That kind of practice is typically indicative of a very capable sorcerer of the Dark Arts.” Shorner licked his lips and decided to plunge ahead. “We have also not been able to track him or his wand as of 1830 hours yesterday evening.”
The glimmer of hope disappeared in the Head of Mission Operative’s eyes. “I’ll have someone bring him in as soon as possible. Ladies, gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned.”
A large dark shape sprinted alongside the gravel road. The dog was thin to the point of emaciation and its fur was matted and patchy. But it ran with a desperate need, of something long past simple devotion. The gleam in its eyes was wild, driven and obsessed – too intelligent, too human to be mere canine.
‘I’m coming Harry,” the animagus thought. ‘He won’t hurt you anymore! I’ll kill him, I’ll kill that rat!’