Disclaimer: Of course I own Harry Potter. Right about the time I became Prime Minister of several small countries. Mmm-hm. And if you believe that, I’ll tell you another one…

Chapter Six

Intro to Chaos

Harry sat dazed and numb at his desk at Privet Drive, summer storms washing the grime from his window. There was a package wrapped in white silk sitting before him. Any second now, he’d reach out and undo the ornate knot holding the affair together, but something told him that once he did, he’d never be able to go back.

Someone once told him, “…sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the windshield.” Harry had a sinking suspicion that his life was taking on more of the point of view of the bug than what he was comfortable with.

He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes.

The throbbing in his head had upped the intensity to which Harry was sure that a tiny version of himself was valiantly assaulting the side of his skull with a Kalashnikov in a vain attempt to be let out. He was also sure that small version of himself was the one that did the panicked screaming whenever something pulled a wobbly. It was the part of him that had been gibbering incoherently for the past twenty-four hours. Harry sighed and laid his head against the cool wood of the desk. At this particular moment, he wanted nothing better than to crawl under a rock and sleep for a very long time. If he never woke up, it would be too soon.

The sense of being overwhelmed had drained the energy to protest from him and the long muscles of his legs started to shake in nervous, exhausted tension.

How was he going to achieve this task? How could one person ever try and bring back an ancient circle of magical families – even if that person was supposed to be the Heir one of those ancient magical families. It was absurd, not to mention impossible. Harry was a soldier – a mercenary, at best – not a politician.

Harry let out a soft huff of laughter. “Fuck this shit.” Pulling the knot apart, he carefully pulled the silk from around the package.

It was a book. An old book. A book bound in an odd brackish-green leather with a tarnished silver clasp and worn ivory pages where the gilt edging had worn away. There was no title and when Harry ran his fingers over the buttery-soft leather of the spine, the silver clasp popped open with a decisive click.

The pages were as thin as rice paper and the handwriting changed styles, ink, and even languages several times. He couldn’t read most of it, but what little he did recognize seemed to be a history of the Sharr Family. In the back of the book was a family tree, names and dates written in black and purple ink. A beautifully rendered sketch of the Sharr crest sat in the lower corner with the words “IN VITA EST NEX” written underneath.

“Life is violent,” Harry remarked under his breath. “How fitting.”

He dropped the book onto the desk and leaned back into his chair, idly running his knuckles over his lower lip. There were so many things wrong with his situation he didn’t know where to begin. Harry lifted his wrist and studied the iridescent bindings Mab had placed on his skin. There were identical bracelets of runes running around both wrists; after his little revelation of her plans, Mab had completed the second half of the deal by binding him to the agreement. Should he complete her fantastical task, she would release Harry from her service.

Yeah fucking right. He knew better. Mab would do everything in her power to make sure he never slipped her leash. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

Swearing violently under his breath, he shoved his chair back and stood up, accidentally knocking the forgotten Sharr book off the edge of the desk.

The book landed upright on the ends of its pages and a peculiar sense of déjà vu flittered along the edges of his mind. Harry bent over and picked it up. A crisp, white envelope fluttered from between the pages of the book onto the chair. He frowned and put the book aside. Inside the envelope was a plane ticket to Brazil from Miami. Its date indicated it had been recently bought, that day in fact. Mab’s rich, heavy perfume clung to the ticket.

Harry bared his teeth in a feral slash of a smile. “You are one twisted bitch,” he said to the empty room, knowing in his gut that somewhere, Mab was laughing at him.

He knew what waited for him in Brazil.

Mab’s bait on a fucking string.

La Muerte.

The necromancer.

Unfinished business.

**

London’s Heathrow airport was jam packed full of noisy soaked patrons. Voices rose over him in a roar of sound as he walked through the entrance. Harry shook his rain-wet hair out of his eyes and made his way over to the queue in front of the ticket counter. The elderly lady in front of him slipped on the slick, wet floors and Harry reached out to steady her out of instinct.

She smiled gratefully and patted him on the arm. “Why thank you young man. Most people wouldn’t have bothered.”

“It wasn’t a problem, Madam,” he replied, dipping his head to her in respect and offering his arm for her to lean on. With her poise and pearls and tailored, understated clothing, Harry judged her to have come from serious money.

The wrinkles around her faded blue-green eyes crinkled with good humour. “Such a polite one too. Where are you headed?”

Harry smiled wryly. “Brazil.”

“Oh how interesting!” She remarked, a glint of interest sparking her expression. “Are you a student?”

“Of a sorts,” he said amicably, winking at her. “I never stop learning.”

There was a different smile on her face now and it held a note of sardonic humour that hadn’t previously shown amongst her pleasantries. “I see.”

Harry blinked at her as the line moved up. “See what?”

Her eyes glittered with laughter. “Tell me,” she began pleasantly. “Is it the blondes or the brunettes that draw you there?”

Harry flushed with colour as her implications hit him. “Ah, I understand what you’re getting at now.” He grinned at her. “I’m afraid it’s nothing quite so… adventurous. Just catching up with an old acquaintance. I’m curious to see how the years have treated him. Where are you headed?”

“Greece,” she replied. “I hear it’s not a soggy as England.”

“Right,” Harry drawled, grin creeping up behind the faux-serious expression. “And the half-naked, well-built, well-oiled Greek men have nothing –”

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly, laughter glinting in her eyes. “Bite your tongue.” The wizened old lady stepped up to the counter and quickly negotiated a ticket. She spared a smile for Harry as she disappeared into the crowd.

The queue pushed him forward. ‘Felicia’ read the stewardess’s nametag. She smiled flirtatiously at him when it was his turn and tried flipping her hair over one shoulder, but seemed that the blonde mass was too stiff to do much more than flop half-heartedly back into place.

“Where to?” she chirped.

The left corner of Harry’s mouth quirked upwards. “One ticket for the 2:30 flight to Miami please.”

**

Brazil was soggy too, and for that matter, it was hot as well. Night had descended a while ago bringing with it no respite from the muggy heat, only the sound of thousands of tiny, biting, stinging insects. How anybody could want to live here was beyond Harry.

Harry crouched silently in the dark mud by the jungle compound. One wrong move and he was likely to get his head blown off, be it by muggle or magical methods. La Muerte, the necromancer, was paranoid enough to make the trigger-happy Italian hit wizards look like fairly pleasant people to be around.

Upon his arrival to Miami, Harry had to purchase new clothes and equipment. The wards around the compound were sensitive enough to pick up magic from ten miles away. Harry’s clothes and weapons had been virtually saturated with magic simply by being around him. He was lucky he had come across the anti-tracking magic armband in Knockturn Alley; that was the only thing that kept his magical signature from appearing like a bloody beacon. The magic he used, on the other hand, left a slight residue and there wasn’t much he could do about that.

Last time around, La Muerte had made a name for himself by resurrecting the dead Light fighters and employing them in the use against Harry’s resistance forces. He had also been the mastermind behind several sabotaged operations, including the one Harry was captured in and tortured for several weeks.

La Muerte was one of Voldemort’s first allies. No one actually knew how old he was or even his real name. Speculation said that he was born almost five hundred years ago, the bastard son of a Spanish Noble wizard and a Portuguese servant girl.

Harry finished wiring the explosive in front of him. Strategically disguised packs of C-4 littered the sides of the compound and Harry had also managed to bury several land mines in the surrounding jungle under the cover of darkness. The natives, he had found, were quite eager to be rid of the necromancer and would do just about anything to eradicate La Muerte from existence.

The crystals in the pouch tied to his belt jostled slightly as the small bag bounced against his hip. The noise sounded like the loud grinding of teeth and Harry winced at the sound. Those crystals had been carved with runes that when activated, would pull up anti-apperation wards across the compound forcing the soldiers inside to run through the mine-laden jungle to escape. As it were, the crystals were just pretty rocks until infused with magic.

Harry crawled like a dark ghost through the underbrush, placing a crystal at each corner of the militarised complex. The fifth he kept, as that would be the one to activate the rest.

Harsh voices ahead of him jabbered to each other in Portuguese. Harry sucked in a breath and crawled behind a large gnarled tree with flat, glossy leaves. He crouched low; there was a mine close to his current position and Harry didn’t think that Mab would be very happy if she had to bring him back again via hamburger style.

The voices came nearer, the deeper of the two saying he saw a bush move near Harry. The guard’s footsteps crunched closer to him; he could see the faint moonlight flash off of the dull metal of the AK-47 in the guard’s hands.

Cool, rational, calm descended on the edges of Harry’s mind and his heartbeat slowed.

A jaguar appeared between the thick leaves of a jungle plant. The cat’s eyes gleamed green and the great beast slinked forward noiselessly. The voices of the soldiers behind him ceased and Harry’s overly sensitised hearing caught the sound of panicked breathing.

“Shoot it! Shoot it!” the man breathed in his native tongue. Harry saw his opportunity and darted out from behind the tree at the two soldiers.

Harry twisted the first man’s wrist while simultaneously ramming his left foot into the man’s throat, causing the guard to choke and drop his gun. Pivoting, Harry’s right foot surged forward and smashed into the other guard’s left kidney.  The second man bent over to protect his stomach and Harry pulled a long knife from a shoulder holster, jabbing it upwards under the man’s jaw. The man went limp and Harry withdrew the blade, jerking it on the reverse to pierce the back of the first guard’s skull.

The cold withdrew slightly and Harry stepped back to let the large cat move forward.

The jaguar sniffed cautiously at the fallen bodies and for a second, Harry could have sworn that the beast had looked up and grinned a fanged smile at him.

‘Okay, that rates a good six on the freaky shit-o-meter.’

Harry grabbed the guard’s ID tag that had fallen in the black dirt. There was a military personnel entrance on the side of the building closest to the river. As far as strategy went, the entrance was actually pretty well placed. Anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there and/or displeased the necromancer got a short swift plunge into the river to be eaten by piranhas and whatever else lived in those murky waters.

He probably shouldn’t have been admiring the necromancer’s effort to make it harder for people like Harry to kill him, but then again, Harry couldn’t really remember ever having a full deck of cards to begin with. Must have been that killing curse all those years ago.

The light next to the door beeped and turned green when Harry swiped the card through the small grey box. Inside the compound walls was a wide courtyard of a strange red clay-like substance. There were also four-dozen well-armed soldiers.

The muted laughter inside the compound abruptly cut off as all heads turned to stare at Harry.

He really should have found a better backdoor.

---

Someone was pounding on his door; the thick steel rumbled like thunder. The sound cut through Harry’s dream in a cacophony of noise and bloodied colours.

Twenty-year-old Harry Potter stumbled over to the door, struggling to pull on a pair of jeans as he did so. “What the fuck do you want?” he bellowed into the unfamiliar face.

Ronald Weasley’s pale, clammy mien appeared over the frightened wizard’s shaking shoulders. “Easy there mate. We’ve got a bit of a problem.” Ron’s basso tones swept the last bit of sleep from Harry’s mind to the cold, nightmarish reality around him. Refugees littered the bunker’s corridors; drawn and hollow faces stared back at Harry with something akin to hope in their eyes.

Harry wanted to throw up at the sight.

He swallowed the bile in his throat and glanced back at Ron. The tall redhead was swaying on his feet with what Harry thought to be fatigue. “What happened?”

Ron refused to look Harry in the eye. “I don’t think I should…I mean, Amelia should be the one to…”

Harry growled low in his throat. “Ron, look at me. LOOK AT ME!” He grabbed the collar of Ron’s white t-shirt and pulled him to face Harry directly. “What. Happened.”

His friend’s gold-flecked blue eyes rolled wildly in his head and Harry could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Bloody hell, Ron! Pull yourself together! What happened!?”

A noise like a sob escaped Ron’s chest. “They’re gone,” he whispered breathily. “Mum, Dad, Bill – they’re dead. And the twins… the twins were captured by Death Eaters. I don’t know if they’re still alive.”

Harry vaguely realized he was shaking. “Where?”

“They went to save the Ministry. It’s gone Harry, the Ministry is gone.”

The light was sharp and bright, and it crawled over the inside of his eyelids like a many-legged insect. Harry felt like he’d been run over by a speeding lorry.

“Oye, Gaitito, you’ve come back to us, no?” The sound of sniggering laughter echoed through his ears. Harry pried his one good eye open. The small, dimly lit room was made out of the same red clay of the courtyard and it was crowded. Strange men with distorted features stood in the shadows; only the gleam of metal and the bright whites of their eyes and teeth let Harry know they were there.  La Muerte himself sat on his haunches in front of Harry’s chair, fingers crossed thoughtfully under his chin, elbows resting on his knees. The necromancer’s dark orbs held a strange reddish light, the colour of dried blood.

“I don’t think this is going to work out between us, John” Harry rasped, licking the blood off his lips. “I mean, I’ve just got so much going on in my life right now and you’ve got this whole kink thing going on with the ropes, not to mention the age difference. Maybe if things were different, but I’m sorry.”

The necromancer smiled. On any other person, it might have been comforting. But on the necromancer it was a cool expression. Tigers with full stomachs wore smiles like La Muerte while watching baby deer play. “Colourful boy. You killed twenty-seven of my men. Forgive me if I’m not in the mood to dither with you,” the man said, raising an eyebrow.

“Aw, that’s too bad. You seem like a smashing conversationalist.”

La Muerte looked Harry over. Harry resisted the urge to shudder as the sensation of dead fingers crawled over his skin.

“Who are you?” The necromancer’s voice was calm, unaffected, almost bored in it’s lack of emotional inflection.

“George Zimmer,” Harry drawled, lip curling in a mockery of a grin. “The fashion police are after you.”

“Why are you here?”

“My credit card is maxed out and this is the cheapest place I could go for my vacation.”

Harry met the necromancer’s gaze. A subtle power struggle strained the silence in the small room. Something lay between them, each pushing against it. This was familiar – too familiar.

The memory of Voldemort’s resurrection flashed behind Harry’s eyes almost as vivid as the day it happened. Harry reeled backwards mentally.

Dizziness and something like nausea washed over him. It crawled around in the back of his throat and it yearned to emerge in the form of a scream. The room swirled before his eyes, a nightmarish whirl-a-twirl of too wide, too sharp grins to be human. Black shapes crept around the edges of his vision and a false adrenaline high pushed his stomach up into his throat.

He couldn’t do this. He had failed. He had escaped death last time by the skin of his teeth. It was sheer luck that had allowed him to kill the necromancer. Why did he even bother to try? The wizarding world would destroy itself anyway, a series of catastrophic events one right after another.

It didn’t matter how hard he tried.

It didn’t matter what he did.

It was a sensation that had plagued him since the deaths of most of his friends and now, Harry couldn’t bring himself to care anymore.

It was easy let go of the pain that anchored him to the physical world. It was easier than he thought.

The necromancer smiled.

And the world around him abruptly righted itself.

La Muerte thought Harry was a muggle. The necromancer didn’t know who he was. The plain bronze ring he had purchased in Miami had worked better than he thought. It laid a subtle illusion across Harry’s body, turning his skin a shade of honey and his eyes to a dark brown. The ring even hid the band around his upper arm that prevented magical detection. It was so delicate of an illusion that even La Muerte’s wards could not pick up on the magic it used.

The urge to laugh bubbled in his throat and slid out as a deep chuckle. Even he had forgot who he was. “Nice trick, you nearly had me there. Did they teach you that one in the school for Evil Overlords or is it just something you picked up along the way?”

A murderous flicker of irritation lit in the necromancer’s eyes and Harry’s magic sang within him.

Harry leaned closer to the necromancer. This bastard had been the cause of so much destruction. He had resurrected the mangled bodies of Light fighters, employing them in macabre uses. He was the key in Harry’s imprisonment by Voldemort’s forces. He was the reason why the war had turned. Harry wanted him dead so wholly he could feel it in his bones. He needed him dead. Harry wouldn’t give him the chance to fuck things up again.

Power slithered along his veins. ‘Divide and conquer.’

“I have one word for you,” Harry whispered, inches away from the necromancer’s face. The others in the room didn’t matter; they were just canon fodder, things to be used and discarded. His hands itched to run something hard and sharp through the farce of a man in front of him.

There was a wary note in the necromancer’s manner that had not been there before. “Please, do share,” he said, a false smile of indulgence stretched across his face.

Harry nearly purred. “Boom,” he breathed. The lights in the room flickered off and then there was chaos.