HP:DHM CHAPTER 4 UPDATE!
Chapter 4 of Harry Potter and the Death's Head Mark has been updated
CHAPTER 4
“Potter? Not the new guy? British? The boy?”
“I’ve been testing him. He gave all the right answers, and then some. This kid’s a fighter.”
“He’s still a kid.”
“He’s one of those wizards.”
“How do you know?”
“When he woke up, he was reaching for something at his belt, something that wasn’t there. His wand. He looked lost without it-those wizards rely on their wands even more than we need our guns. And he was a soldier-I can tell. He’s seventeen, he told me. Too young to have much experience on our end, but the wizards train their kids a little earlier than us. He didn’t know enough about our end of the war either. He asked a question about Grindelwald before he realized I wasn’t one of his kind. Then he shut up real quick.”
“Sounds like a wizard, all right. They’re supposed to be real secretive. Hmm. He could be useful.”
“Can I bring him in?”
“Too late. You’re talking about that Potter kid, aren’t you? Well, it’s too late. You hear those whistles last night? And the shooting? He escaped. Last night. Blondie told me-he was there. The weirdest thing too. Word on the grapevine says the SS was right about to transfer him to another prison.”
“Transfer?”
“We’re not supposed to house wizards here. They was gonna send him somewhere special.”
“Colditz, I’ll bet.”
“Colditz?”
“Colditz Castle.”
“I’ve heard of it. Poor kid.”
“Yeah. I think the Krauts there have ways of making wizards powerless. Forever.”
“Shit.”
“There’s nothing we can do, Rob. They’ve got him.”
“Dammit, we’re escape artists. We shouldn’t have moved so slow on this.”
“It couldn’t be helped. We had to know we could trust him.”
“So now they’re hunting him.”
“Kid didn’t seem like much for hiking. They’ll catch him within the week.”
“Why d’ya you think that? He looked fit enough.”
“I’m not talking fit. He just didn’t look like he knew much about the outside world, that’s all. About survival.”
“Wizards are like that. All books and no brains.”
“Makes sense, I guess.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Robert, I know you liked the kid, but-”
“No, listen here. He’s a kid, but he’s fought. You see it in his eyes. He’ll do whatever he has to. He’ll live. He has a mission.”
“A mission?”
“That’s what he acted like, yeah.”
“He was a serious guy.”
“No kidding.”
“He’s gotta move fast.”
“Let’s hope wizards can run.”
“If he’s lucky he’ll find the partisans. They’ll help.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the new prisoners, he was a partisan. British. He mentioned his sergeant being something fierce against wizards.”
“They know about wizards too?”
“Most likely. When the Krauts took Britain-wizards were there. Some sort of elite force. Part of the SS.”
“Funny thing. They was all set on keeping themselves secret, weren’t they? Wizards, I mean.”
“Yeah. Funny. But now they don’t seem to care.”
“God help us.”
“I don’t think everyone knows about them. A lot of fighting men, but I can’t see a reason anyone else would’ve seen one.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“If that kid’s the sort of wizard we’ve got on our side…”
“Yeah. I know.”
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“You did it.”
The darkness was warm and soft and smiling, and Tom Riddle had been dreaming. Dreaming of something he couldn’t quite remember, but it had been a good thing. Wonderful.
And Claudius Avery had ruined it.
“You did it,” Avery said again. His voice was soft, but Lord Voldemort was a very light sleeper. There was no question of his going back to dreams now.
Oh well. It was good that his other roommates, Nott and Greengrass, weren’t in-for Avery’s sake. Those two never shut up.
Tom sat up, resisting the urge to rub his head. He was still in his uniform robes, with an opened book on legilimancy in his lap. The curtains weren’t even drawn shut around his bed. He must have fallen asleep while studying.
But he never fell asleep while studying.
And that Avery was still there. He looked at the boy and belatedly remembered his accusation.
“Did what?” he asked sharply, hoping to startle the boy into silence.
“You transfigured the muggle’s head,” Avery told him, barely flinching under Tom’s glare. “You did that, didn’t you.” It was not a question.
Tom was impressed. He hadn’t expected Avery to catch that.
“Yes,” he replied evenly, hiding his smile. He leaned back, waiting for Avery’s reaction.
“I see,” Avery said slowly, nodding. “That’s why you reminded McGonagall that you had only taken up to fifth-year Transfiguration, so she’d think you were only at that level.”
“And you think I’m not?”
“I’m not oblivious,” Avery retorted. “You were reading N.E.W.T.-level Transfig last year.”
Tom smiled. “In our third year, actually.”
“Why did you do it?” Avery asked. Tom tilted his head and tried to use something he’d learned in the legilimancy book. He wasn’t sure if it was legilimancy or the look on the boy’s face that told him that Claudius Avery was a mixture of curious, horrified, and impressed.
“I wanted to see how they would react,” Tom said vaguely.
“They?”
“Everyone. McGonagall, those Gryffindors with her, Hauptscharführer Weiss.” Tom smiled again. “You.” Tom noted Avery’s expression and adjusted his words. “I did not expect that the muggle would strangle you, though.”
Avery nodded and tried to cover his unease.
“Life is a game of chess,” he said slowly.
Tom nodded. “Exactly.”
“My brother always says that,” Avery continued. A flicker of sadness crossed his face. “He’s in Canada now, working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Canada. Tom silently scoffed. Figures Domitian Avery would find a nice, safe place to wait out the war.
“Building up political connections?” he asked.
“He wants to be in the Ministry,” Avery replied. “Not Minister of Magic-says it’s too stressful-but something close. Probably Wizengamot-he says it’s an easy job with good pay and prestige. Or, it was…” Avery looked lost. “They disbanded the Wizengamot, didn’t they? The Nazis?”
“The Wizengamot adjourned itself,” Tom corrected. “Shortly before the siege of London, the judges presumably portkeyed to Switzerland or some other neutral country. They’re probably in Canada now, with your brother.”
“I don’t like this,” Avery admitted. “It seems a little…”
“Cowardly?” Tom offered. Avery winced at the word choice, but nodded.
“I thought Dom should stay, but our parents would have none of it. But then again, no one thought those German muggles would…invade us like this.”
The two boys were silent: Avery pensive, Tom thoughtful.
“I need your help,” Avery blurted.
Tom fixed the boy with another look. “My help?”
“I…we need to learn about muggles. How they think, how they fight. But I can’t just go to the library-I see those Gryffindors in there all the time, with books on aerophanes and auto-automo…”-He struggled to pronounce it the muggle way, then gave up and gave it a proper Latinate intonation.- “…au-to-mo-bee-lays. They’re too obvious about it. The Nazis are gonna start searching our rooms every day if they keep that up.”
“I agree.”
“And that’s why I need to talk to you,” Avery concluded. “Most of us don’t have any experience with muggles. I’ve read books about King Arthur-I loved them as a kid-but that’s the most I’ve ever studied anything muggle. Goyle worked for a muggleborn barrister one summer, but he doesn’t know anything about how muggles fight. Though he did introduce me to some strange music called ‘sling’…”
“Swing,” Tom corrected. Avery looked at him, expecting him to continue, but Tom did not. He sat back against his pillow and waited.
“Look, Riddle, I know we’ve never gotten on that well…” Avery shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. “…and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Dom’s treatment of you. It was unwarranted-I can tell that now. You’re as loyal to the wizarding world as any of us, and I…” He shifted his weight back again. “…I can tell you hate them. The Nazis. You want to fight them, get them out of Hogwarts. I want to fight them too.” He closed his mouth, and his jaw hardened. Avery looked Tom in the eyes, and held out his hand in a gesture of peace.
Tom smiled. He had a strange little vision in his mind, of the war ending and Domitian coming back from Canada to find Tom Riddle, halfblood outcast of Slytherin House, a publicly recognized war hero (and known to be the heir of Salazar Slytherin himself) and leader of the British wizarding resistance to the defeated muggle invaders, with his old enemy’s own younger brother standing by his side as his loyal and most devoted friend.
Tom took Avery’s hand.
Besides, the Avery name had a decent pull in the wizarding world. Tom would do well to obtain its alliance. The step from alliance to allegiance was not that great a leap.
“We’ll start with guns,” Tom began, without further ado. “Guns are the muggle version of the Killing Curse…”
And as he spoke, he plotted. He had weapons now. With luck, he could have key members of Slytherin House ready within a month. Then he could recruit members of Gryffindor and the other houses. Hufflepuff had some war refugees that would be certain to join his fight against the Nazis. And Ravenclaw had some decent duelists, once you could pry them away from their books.
And once the Nazis were done with, once Hogwarts was restored…
Why, then anything was possible. The kids who’d follow him in the war would be certain to follow him beyond, to greater things.
First Hogwarts and then the world, Tom told himself. He inwardly laughed. It was a rush, thinking like this.
But he’d have to train them first. Teach them the curses he’d been teaching himself for the past four years. And he’d need to learn some new things too. Ever since he’d found the Chamber of Secrets last May, his new project had been legilimancy. He figured he could master it in eight months-four if he put occlumency to the side for a bit.
He’d have to do that. While the books recommended that occlumency be learned before legilimancy, the only reason Tom would need to shield his mind had disappeared.
No, the wizard Dumbledore was no longer at Hogwarts to interfere. That was one thing he could thank the Nazis for.
Time was too important to waste. Tom would have to dispense with occlumency for the moment. He could always go back to it after the Nazis were gone-it wouldn’t do to leave his mind open for any decent legilimens to pickpocket.
Tom schemed with Avery for half the night, but eventually returned to bed. He didn’t take his customary dose of Dreamless Sleep potion. Though he normally couldn’t sleep without it, he wanted to remember what was in these new dreams of his. All he could recall of the other ones was something to do with flying (on broomsticks, no less, which he hated) and a buck-toothed, bushy-haired girl and a rather dense-looking redheaded boy. He couldn’t see why, but he’d enjoyed the dreams and wanted to have them again. To see why he was having them, what they were all about
What they were all about
all about
a l l
a b o u t
He fell asleep.
He wouldn’t remember his dreams when he woke, but in his sleep he laughed and flew and talked, feeling lighter than he ever had before.
And had Avery dared to part the curtains around Riddle’s bed, he would have seen a little smile on the boy’s lips, strange because it was rare and strange also because it was genuine, childlike, and happy.
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Spungen smiled, his teeth glittering in the dim wandlight. Beside him stood two muggle Nazis. One of them was the sergeant from before, the man who’d threatened Avery and taken his transfigured comrade to Madam Pasteur. “What are you doing here?” he repeated.
Alastor heard a skidding sound as Rubeus Hagrid stopped, trembling under the invisibility cloak. Spungen’s gaze switched from Alastor to the patch of seemingly-unoccupied space where Hagrid was.
“Looking for someone,” Alastor answered loudly, hoping Hagrid wouldn’t be stupid enough to take off the cloak. “A second-year. He left Gryffindor Tower to find a pet of his, and we left as soon as we heard he was missing.”
“You should have alerted a patrol,” Spungen replied. “You know that your fireplace can be used to call us whenever you need to. You could have called me, and I would have put all our guards on alert.”
“We didn’t want to get him in trouble,” Septimus blurted. “He’s just a kid.”
“Even children should know better than to disobey rules set down for their own safety,” said Spungen. “This is a time of war, gentlemen, and mistakes aren’t kind in times of war.”
The sergeant snorted.
“Children should get used to this reality as soon as they can,” Spungen continued, ignoring the sergeant.
“We wanted to take care of this ourselves,” Alastor answered. “Septimus here is the seventh-year prefect. It was always the prefects’ responsibility to take care of the younger years and patrol the school at night. We felt that it was our responsibility to continue looking after them.”
He wondered if this would do the trick. His words smacked of all the Nazi rhetoric about “duty” and “comradeship.”
Spungen was silent. “You make an interesting case, men. And it’s funny you should say that.” he added, grinning. “It’s funny because we were just forming an organization of students to do exactly what your prefects used to. They are meant to patrol the halls at night and watch out for their fellows. It will be a great help to the sentries guarding you, I’ll tell you that. We have the same thing in Germany, and call it the Streifendienst.”
“The Strye-fen-deenst,” Alastor repeated.
“Yes,” said Spungen. “Perhaps you heard the Kommandant mention it in his speech last night.”
Alastor mentally rolled his eyes. Herr wannabe-Headmaster said a lot of crap in his post-supper speeches.
But he recognized the reference. In fact, he’d lately seen some students wearing gray armbands over their left sleeves. Not many-just a few Slytherins and Ravenclaws. They hadn’t volunteered to explain their new additions to the dress code, but Alastor was willing to bet that this was the insignia for the new Streifendienst.
Spungen grinned at the two of them. “I think you two would make excellent young officers, in fact.”
“You want us to join this…organization?” asked Septimus. They looked at each other. Alastor hadn’t expected this. He tried to hide his disgust.
He dared not look at Hagrid. He had heard nothing from the boy’s corner, so he figured the second-year was still standing next to them, too scared to move, trying to make himself as small as he could under the threadbare invisibility cloak.
“Certainly,” said Spungen. “Let me tell you something, men. Some men are outright leaders and some lead by following. Some fight against all authority, and others…there are others who neither lead nor follow, neither fight nor do their duty. Those last ones are the ones to watch for, Weasley.” He turned to Alastor. “Moody.”
Constant vigilance.
Alastor wondered what his father would think if he could tell him about this, if he could tell him that he was seriously considering the Nazi’s offer. It would appear to be collaboration, yes, but what if he could spy better in the Streifendienst, watch how things were going?
To be vigilant, as always.
“I can tell you both are leaders. I can also tell you don’t particularly trust us.”
Alastor kept his face neutral.
“And that’s to be expected,” Spungen added, with a rueful smile. “You think we are your enemy because you’ve been taught to. It will be hard for you to learn that we want to protect this school and its students, but I don’t expect you to learn that overnight. So I and Hauptscharführer Weiss here will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower, and I will let you think about my offer. You’ll probably find that the lost boy has wandered in during your absence.”
Damn. Alastor had forgotten about that. He should have asked Spungen about the “lost” kid before Spungen mentioned it himself. He needed to look concerned about it, the way he would if Hagrid were really missing and not standing next to him right now. Dammit. Alastor was not cunning like a Slytherin, and Spungen here seemed a better Slytherin than most of the students in that house.
“We need to find him ourselves,” Alastor protested, trying to make up for his lapse. “We want to be on the search party.”
“And I would expect no less from you,” Spungen replied, but he didn’t seem to buy it. Was he grinning, with a sort of “I-know-what-you’re-doing” gleam in his eye, or was Alastor being as paranoid as his-?
Never mind.
He couldn’t worry now. He’d walk with Spungen, hope Hagrid had enough sense to follow slowly, and sort things out once he got to the common room. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was all he had.
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Spungen led the way, with Moody and Weasley following. The two soldiers brought up the rear, with their guns held high.
Paralyzed with fear, a boy huddled under an invisibility cloak, watching the men move away. With them, the only source of light also went away. The boy had never been afraid of the dark before (you can find the best creatures in dark places!), but now he couldn’t suppress a shiver.
The men marched away, and turned a corner…
…and Rubeus Hagrid was alone.
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MINI-GLOSSARY:
Streifendienst - a part of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), the Nazi youth organization.
http :// www .axishistory. com/ index. php? id 3058 (without spaces) for more info.