14/14: Blackness
Title: Black, in the Smothering Dark
Chapter Title: Blackness 14/14
Words (this chapter): 8,630
Rating (this chapter): NC-17
Story Info/All Chapters: HERE
Author's Notes: This is the last chapter of part one. I'll begin posting part two in about two weeks. Beta’d by maybe_someday8 and amelancholykiss. (Possibly the best betas in the world.)
This chapter has masturbation and het sex in it. If you want to avoid the masturbation, stop reading at the line: “Harry choked while Sirius struggled with a sudden coughing fit.” If you want to avoid the het sex, stop reading at this line: “Harry jerked his eyes open and gaped.” You can start reading again at this line: “Who were you thinking about?” Also, there's house-elf birth, which I would say is one of my squicks, and probably everyone else's, but it isn't graphic.
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Black, in the Smothering Dark
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Chapter Fourteen
Blackness
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No one but Harry noticed it, but as soon as they stepped out of the floo back at River House, Ron slunk off to lurk near the drawing room liquor cabinet until everyone else went to sleep. Hermione and Ginny, who both wanted to be up early in the morning since they were going to be catching the train back to Hogwarts, went off to bed, and Harry and Sirius ruined Ron’s plans.
Sirius was in the mood for a drink himself, and Harry wanted to talk to his grandparents one last time, so they both retreated to the drawing room as well. Fortunately, Ron had had the foresight to stay out of the way while Sirius was there. He’d not noticed the emptying liquor cabinet over the last fortnight; he wasn’t a big drinker either, apparently, which Harry thought was probably a good thing. With their tempers, it could potentially be very bad if either of them got drunk regularly. Harry would have thought the same of Ron, but so far, he only got maudlin.
“Have you been drinking?” Sirius asked curiously once Harry was sprawled across the divan facing the fireplace. Harry looked up at him and rolled his eyes. Sirius didn’t see it; his back was turned the other way.
“No,” Harry answered truthfully. “Well-I had a firewhiskey not long ago.”
“Hmm,” Sirius said. “It’s the brandy that’s missing. Maybe I’ve been drinking more than I thought. No-I bet it was Ginger,” he growled. “She probably doesn’t approve of the cheap brandy.”
“Probably not,” Harry said-which could have been true. But regardless of whether or not the house-elf approved of the brandy was a non-issue: she had not cleared out the liquor cabinet; it had been Ron but Harry wasn’t going to say that unless he was asked a direct question about it.
His father hummed noncommittally and pulled out a firewhiskey, frowning. It was obvious that he would much rather have a brandy.
“Are you going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, boy?” Frank spoke up. He was in his frame now and not off with Arcturus Black on the third floor. The two of them had become fast friends, but they probably spent most of their time conspiring against various ministries. “Tomorrow’s the first, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” Harry answered, smiling. “I’ll be in my seventh year.”
“You’ll keep up with your studies, won’t you, Harry?” Laurel asked quietly. She was always quiet, even when she was reprimanding him. “Lily was always very good with her studies.”
Frank smiled at his wife. “Yes, Lily was always very smart-demolished me in Scrabble every time we played. A shame she doesn’t have a portrait; I’m sure she’d enjoy joining Arcturus and me occasionally.” Laurel frowned at that. Apparently, she did not approve of her daughter, portrait or not, hanging around smoking men.
“What’s Scrabble?” Harry’s father asked from the chair opposite him. He was sipping on a smoking firewhiskey gingerly. Frank went off on a detailed, heavily hand-gestured, explanation of the muggle game and Laurel turned to Harry.
“I’m very proud of you, Harry,” she said fondly. “You look so much like Lily.” She smirked very faintly and added, “It’s a pity that you look like that one as well,” she jerked her head towards Sirius. “But I suppose out of the four of them, he was certainly the best bet.”
Harry sat forward quickly. “You knew the others?” he asked quickly. Neither of the Evanses knew that Lily had ended up marrying James Potter, and neither of them knew that Harry had actually thought himself a Potter until recently. They did not know the full story of what happened on Halloween 1981, but from the bits and pieces of conversation they had picked up from Harry talking to his father in the drawing room, they did know that Voldemort had killed Lily and that Sirius had spent twelve years in Azkaban for it.
When Harry had told them this part, Laurel had only frowned and, to Harry’s astonishment, Frank had grinned. ‘Always knew the girl had too much resourcefulness,’ Frank had declared happily. Harry did not pretend to understand that. Frank had been reluctant to explain further.
They assumed, Laurel had told him, that Harry had thought Sirius was his father all along but had not known him until recently. They assumed that he’d lived with relatives-but not that those relatives had been their older daughter, Petunia, and her family. For some reason, they were both disinclined to speak of Petunia, and every time Harry brought her up, Laurel would frown and Frank would have a prior invitation to have a cigar with Arcturus.
“Of course I knew them,” Laurel said. “She brought them around enough, didn’t she?” Harry shrugged; he had no idea. “Well, she did,” his grandmother said. “That James boy-I never liked him; he spent too much time around Petunia, halving his time between teasing her and flirting with her.”
“What?” Harry croaked. This was the first time either of his grandparents had willingly brought up his Aunt Petunia. Of course, Laurel was frowning mightily as she spoke, but that could have been because of anything. “He did?” Harry asked around a lump in his throat.
Laurel waved a delicate hand across the canvas. “He wasn’t the only one, and he wasn’t serious about it. He wasn’t interested in her-it wasn’t playground pigtail pulling; it was…I don’t know. I just didn’t like him. Something was off about him, and that he spent so much time talking to Petunia…She didn’t have magic any-well, that’s not important,” Laurel scowled. It was the first time Harry had every seen her make such a facial expression. “The other two,” she continued quickly, “The shy one and the werewolf.” She looked to Harry for assistance.
“Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin,” he supplied. He could say Peter’s name without scowling now-Wormtail was where he belonged; after sixteen years, Pettigrew was in Azkaban where he should have been all along. Harry respected him-somewhat-for at least honouring his life debt and doing that.
“Yes,” his grandmother nodded delicately. “They were both very polite, but Pettigrew-the shy one-always seemed a bit shifty to me too, and Lupin wouldn’t have said no to you if you were pissing on him,” she sneered.
Harry gaped.
“I wouldn’t have trusted either of them to take care of Lily properly, but that one,” she nodded at Sirius again, “was a decent mix. He was a troublesome little brat, but always polite to the family. Good upbringing, I would think-not sheltered or mollycoddled too much.”
Harry wasn’t sure if he would agree with that. He looked over at his father, who was leaning forward and listening intently to the rules of Monopoly, and frowned. After seeing Snape’s pensieve, he didn’t think that his father would have been kind to Petunia at all-but then again, he did have a certain empathy for muggles. Maybe he left her alone because he felt sorry for her for being a squib?
“Did my mother ever talk about any of them?” he asked. He wanted to know more about the James Potter situation, but he didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up directly. His father had said that she dated him from fifth through seventh year, even though James had always chased her, but he wanted to know what had happened after Dumbledore sent Sirius on that eight month mission.
She had apparently dated James during that time, and then married him. He knew that the Evanses had been assassinated two years before he was born and a year before Lily married James, but…
“Not as such,” Laurel said, shaking her head. “I always assumed that she was seeing that one, but she never mentioned it. She was always a very private girl-kept almost everything to herself.”
“Oh,” Harry said faintly disappointed. “Well, what about-" he stopped.
“Master Black! Master Black!” Fred came bounding in, panting slightly, and Harry wondered what had frightened him enough to forget that he could just pop in anywhere he wanted. He was on his feet in an instant, wand out, and his father was too.
“What is it?” Harry asked quickly.
Fred looked at him, horrified. “Little Master! Ginger is-Ginger is saying, oh Fred is in so much trouble-Ginger is…”
“Is what?” Sirius asked in alarm.
“Little elf,” Fred panted. “Little elf is coming…now,” he whimpered, and then his huge protuberant eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted. Harry exchanged a glance with his father.
“What do we do?” he asked curiously. His father looked back at him and shrugged.
“I suppose we should go…help?” he suggested.
Harry grimaced sharply and followed Sirius up the stairs to the house-elves’ quarters. They had chosen for themselves the smallest guest room instead of a closest since River House had so much extra room. It was the last one at the end of the hall, and as they walked towards it, their steps slowed unconsciously.
“Do we really have to?” Harry asked. Sirius gave him a helpless look and knocked on the door.
“Ginger will kill you,” came the high-pitched, squealing response, “if you is to be opening that door! Ginger will kill you!”
“Good enough for me,” Harry said, pivoting around to head back downstairs. A hand caught him on his shoulder and pulled him back.
“I don’t think so,” Sirius growled. “If I have to do this, you’re doing it too.” Harry whimpered and followed him in the room. Ginger was lying on the little children’s bed that they had purchased for the house-elves in Eweforic Alley, and her huge eyes were gleaming maliciously in the dark.
“Ginger is going to be killing you, Master Black and Little Master, and then Ginger is going to have to iron her hands,” she growled ferociously. “Ginger is already going to be killing Fred-and Ginger won’t have to punish herself for that.” She panted some more and let out a squeaky scream.
Harry’s father made a gagging motion at nothing in particular, stuck out his tongue in disgust and knelt down next to the bed. Harry followed him warily. “Fred’s very worried,” he offered hesitantly.
Ginger snarled. “If Fred is very worried about Ginger, Fred should be with Ginger now!”
Sirius winced. “Well, you see, it’s like this, Ginger,” he said pleadingly. He paused, as if preparing himself to say something dreadful, and then, “Fred’s fainted.”
Ginger laughed maniacally. “Ginger is not surprised,” she panted.
Sirius gave Harry a ‘what do I do?’ sort of look, and Harry looked back at him incredulously. Sirius was the one who wanted to help; shouldn’t he be the one to make the plans? Ginger screamed again and Harry gagged. He did not want to see this.
“Ginger is to be killing Fred!” Ginger squeaked. “Fred is a bad, bad, wicked elf!” Harry would have agreed with anything she said right then to keep her from killing him, but he said nothing. He didn’t think he could. Fortunately, however, it didn’t take long. Ten minutes later, he and his father were staring at a small, ugly little creature with eyes half as big as its head.
“Fred is a good elf,” Ginger said fondly, looking down at the ugly creature. “Ginger likes him. Ginger will give him a boy elf,” she decided with a nod. Ginger waved her hand over the little house-elf, apparently making it a boy, and then sat back, very smug with herself.
Sirius, who was very pale and looked to be only moments from vomiting, closed his eyes in relief. Harry knew where he was coming from: he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have another Ginger running around. “What are you going to name him?” Sirius asked.
Ginger deliberated for several long minutes. “Ginger will name him Voldy,” she decided. “Ginger liked Mr. Voldymort. Mr. Voldymort had gumption like Ginger.”
Harry choked while Sirius struggled with a sudden coughing fit.
-x-
Harry took a shower as soon as he was back in his rooms. Nothing had gotten on him, but he’d just seen something truly gruesome, and he wanted to get the foul feeling off of him. He was very thankful that he was returning to Hogwarts in the morning.
Afterwards, he lay in his bed, trying to go to sleep, and couldn’t. He was restless for so many reasons, but he just couldn’t get to sleep. After twenty minutes of trying, he sighed, got up, and walked over to his wardrobe. In the very back was a box full of floo disks that he’d received on his birthday.
Smirking, Harry withdrew Queer Quidditch: Boys Who Love Brooms and tossed it into the fireplace. He’d watched several of the disks, but he’d been saving this one: for Harry, he could think of nothing better than boys and Quidditch. There was another Quidditch-themed disk, but it was called Queens of Quidditch: Catching the Snatch, and he didn’t think he would like that one as much. He cast Incendio to light the fire and flopped back on his bed, grinning to himself as the tacky opening theme music started up.
The flames lightly distorted the picture, but it was still good, Harry decided. He ran his fingers through his wet hair as two Quidditch players, sweaty from practice, entered a locker room and started undressing. It was very ‘boarding-schoolish’ he thought with a satisfied smile: the boys kept looking at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking.
Only five minutes in, things were starting to heat up; Harry pulled off his over robes and tossed them on the floor. He was feeling rather hot himself. When one of the Quidditch players bent over in only his pants to unlace his Quidditch cleats, he moaned.
Harry sat up to pull his shirt over his head and ran his hands over his chest. His fingers left tingling little trails of heat over his skin, and he moaned again as the Quidditch player who’d bent over finally pulled off his pants: he had a perfect arse, and there was a definite bulge forming in Harry’s pants.
He pressed his palm into it and let out a breathy moan. With one hand still running up and down his chest, Harry used the other to rub his erection, watching avidly as the other Quidditch player finally noticed the nakedness of the other. The first wandered over to the showers-which, Merlin above, did not have doors or curtains for privacy-and turned on the water.
It ran in tantalizing rivers over his skin and he tipped his head back, exposing his neck to the water. The second Quidditch player’s mouth dropped open, and he walked slowly over to the shower.
Harry flicked the button open on his jeans and unzipped his fly.
“Do you need help?” the second Quidditch player asked lustily. The first turned around sharply, exposing himself, and Harry’s eyes focused in on the boy’s thick cock-full and heavy with arousal. The other Quidditch player did too.
“What do you mean?” the first boy asked breathily. In response, the second slowly reached out and ran his fingers along the thick shaft. The Quidditch player gasped.
Harry pulled his erection out of his pants and squeezed it lightly. He gripped it tightly and pressed his thumb into the slit at the tip, moaning, and flicked his eyes back up to scene playing out in his fireplace.
The second Quidditch player had the first pressed against the shower tiles and was running his tongue thickly against the other’s neck as the first boy whimpered and groaned appreciatively. They scrambled to rip the second boy’s Quidditch robes off, and Harry stroked himself hard.
He was panting by now and his eyes were fastened on the two Quidditch players groping each other in the flames. His body was very hot underneath his fingers and his cock was purple and throbbing in his hand. He was very close to coming. Harry closed his eyes and stroked.
“Harry?”
Harry jerked his eyes open and gaped. Suddenly, there was a small, hot hand on his stomach and it wasn’t his. Ginny stood above him, eyes wide in the flickering light of the floo film and shifting between his face and his hand, which was still wrapped tightly around his erect cock.
He tried to pull his hand off himself and cover himself up, but Ginny’s hand pressed hard into his stomach and held him down.
“Don’t,” she said quietly.
Harry gaped at her and struggled beneath her hand. Slowly, not taking her eyes off of him, she pulled her night shirt over her head and slid onto the bed, kneeling over him. She was naked, and her skin gleamed white and orange as she shifted over him. “Don’t stop,” she said, and pulled his jeans and pants off in one smooth motion.
Harry, though he couldn’t understand why, obeyed her. He was just so close, and it had felt so good-he didn’t want to stop. And then suddenly, Ginny was grabbing his other hand and pulling it towards her. She pressed it against her and Harry felt the slick wetness running down his fingers. He groaned, not knowing why he was allowing this, and pressed his fingers inside her.
Ginny whimpered, but it was drowned out by a gasping scream from one of the Quidditch players. Harry was breathing very heavily, and as Ginny leant down and pressed her lips to his, he smelled flowers, the Burrow, sweat and Ron-Fred-George-Charlie-Bill all over her. She smelled like Quidditch in Ottery St. Catchpole, sunburnt grass and boy-which was just enough for him to ignore the soft press of her breasts against his chest and the uncommon wetness on his fingers.
Her tongue slipped into his mouth, and he closed his eyes-which had been half-lidded in dazed pleasure-and saw every Weasley boy flash before his eyelids, then Smith and Michael Corner, Blaise Zabini and Malfoy.
Harry wrapped one of his arms around her waist, squeezed her arse with the other, and rubbed his cock against her thigh. She moaned into his mouth, and it sounded so low and breathy that he was able to mistake it for anyone but her. Malfoy-with his sickly pale, pointed face and colourless hair-flashed before his closed eyelids again and he didn’t have time to question what was wrong with him for thinking about Malfoy because Ginny-not-Ginny was lifting herself up and sliding back down on his cock.
Harry threw his head back, heard panting grunts from the fireplace, and pictured fucking Malfoy against a slick-wet Quidditch shower wall. Her thighs were firm from Quidditch and they squeezed him tightly as she rode him. Harry put his hands on her hips and pumped into her. She was too wet, but his focus was on the heady sounds from the two fucking Quidditch players and the way anything squeezing his cock like that felt good right then.
Ginny slammed down on him and threw her head back, screaming out something unintelligible. She tightened around his prick and then he was coming inside her, and gasping and thinking of twelve different boys all at once.
They panted together-hot, sweaty and sticky-for several minutes before Ginny rolled off and lay next to him. Harry struggled to reign in his breathing and thanked Merlin that his rooms were so far away from everyone else’s. Then, the guilt started setting in, and the uncertainty, and Harry stilled-trying to figure out the possible repercussions for this.
“Who were you thinking about?” Ginny asked quietly after nearly ten minutes of tense silence.
“What?” Harry stuttered.
Ginny rolled over on her side to face him. “Who were you thinking about?” she asked again. Harry couldn’t be sure, but in the dim light of the fire, he thought she looked a little bit amused. “It certainly wasn’t me.” She glanced pointedly at the fireplace and Harry felt his face heat up all over again: he could now make out the sounds of the floo porn-which had started over and was replaying the opening scene-in the background.
“Do you need help?”
The Quidditch players gasped, and Ginny smirked playfully. “I’m not stupid, Harry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You were watching gay porn when I came in; I watched it for several minutes myself before I let you know I was there. It was rather hot, I must say.”
Harry’s face was burning even hotter now. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He wasn’t embarrassed about the actual porn; he was just chagrined that she-anyone-had caught him wanking. He grabbed his wand off of the bedside table and put out the fire, effectively turning off the porn.
“I wasn’t thinking about you, either,” Ginny admitted carefully. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Harry felt a moment’s rush of indignation. What was wrong with thinking about him? He was an attractive bloke-surely it wouldn’t kill Ginny to think about him while she was fucking him. He narrowed his eyes.
“Oh come off it,” Ginny laughed. “You’re not interested in me either.”
“Not really,” Harry finally admitted, and pushed the indignation away. He had no right to be angry about Ginny thinking of someone else when he wasn’t even thinking of a girl to begin with. He hesitated, and then asked, “Why?” but he wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking ‘why’ about.
Ginny looked away. “Another dream,” she admitted.
“Did one of you die again?” Harry asked hesitantly. He was more confused than ever about what to do about the whole situation. Ginny’s eyes flickered back to him, and then she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
“No,” she said. “The other kind.”
“You were fucking…him,” Harry offered. Ginny nodded. He didn’t want to ask his next question, but he thought he already had the answer to it anyway, and he needed to know: he needed to know how far gone Ginny actually was, or how insane she was, or how infatuated she was, or all of those maybe. “Were you thinking about him?”
Silence stretched out almost tangibly between them. Maybe he had been wrong, Harry thought. Maybe he’d just offended her by even suggesting it. He thought frantically of a way to mend the situation, came up with nothing, and closed his eyes.
When she finally answered-“Yes…”-in an almost inaudible, but noticeably shaking voice, Harry tensed-and fought the urge to gag. “He’s so much older than me,” Ginny said wonderingly.
Harry looked at her, fighting the urge to declare her mad and ship her off to St. Mungo’s. Ginny wasn’t mad-she couldn’t be; he would have known. She would have shown signs of madness before now. So what if she wanted to fuck the Dark Lord? Did that truly make her mad? Or did it only say she had terrible taste in lovers? That thought didn’t comfort him very much, as she had just fucked him only minutes before. Surely Ginny wasn’t mad.
“Do you think,” Ginny continued since Harry didn’t respond, “that he is so much older than me for a reason?” The question was asked casually, but it sparked something in Harry’s mind. There was no way-no way at all.
“What do you mean?” He asked, feigning ignorance-at least for now. He didn’t want to tell Ginny that he spoke with Voldemort regularly unless he absolutely had to-unless she was thinking the same thing he was.
“Well,” she said, gaining confidence and rolling back on her side to face him again. She was still naked, Harry realised, and so was he. He fought the urge to blush or pull the duvet up over his chest. He’d just fucked her-a girl-there was no reason to be shy now.
“Well-what if,” she paused and frowned in consideration. “What if he’s so much older than me because I died before? Wouldn’t that explain why I have dreams of him when he’s thirty or forty years old?”
She had just echoed Harry’s own suspicion, but he needed more information. He still wasn’t ready to reveal his own secret to her. “What do you look like in those dreams?” he asked.
“I don’t know, do I?” Ginny shrugged, unconcerned. “I can’t very well see myself if I am myself, can I? He always says something along the same line though-in every dream.”
“What?” Harry asked.
“Something like-“You’re beautiful, Callie-even your name says it,”-which I suppose is because that name probably means ‘beautiful’ in some language. I’m not really sure.”
Harry had gone very, very still. Only the night before Voldemort had told him that he’d once had a lover named Calixta Yaxley, and…
“And it would explain why he’s mad, I think,” Ginny continued. She hadn’t noticed Harry’s sudden tension at all. “The book said one will go mad if the other is killed. Do you think I’ve been murdered?” she asked him. She was amused by the question, as if she didn’t really believe it herself, but frowned when she noticed the look on Harry’s face.
“What?” she asked curiously.
Harry stared at her. “Have you ever heard of Calixta Yaxley?” he asked casually.
Ginny frowned thoughtfully and then shook her head. “No, why?”
Harry opened his mouth and then shut it again. He wanted to tell her so badly-but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Not yet, at least. “Look her up,” he said instead. “And let me know when you find it.”
Ginny scowled. “I’ll have enough to worry about with NEWT level classes again this year, Harry. I don’t need more useless research thrown on top. That’s Hermione’s bag.”
“Believe me,” Harry said, rolling over and finally pulling the duvet up to his neck. The sweat on his body was starting to dry, and he was getting cold. “You’ll want to do this research.”
He could hear Ginny moving behind him. “What exactly am I looking for?” she asked petulantly.
Harry shrugged, though he wasn’t sure whether or not she’d be able to see it. “You’ll know when you find it,” he said. He could hear Ginny breathing slowly behind him, considering everything he had just said, and he knew the moment that realisation had struck. Her breath hitched slightly and then sped up: Ginny had just made the connection between the names.
“Who were you thinking about?” she asked suddenly. Harry suspected that the other information was just too much for her to handle at the moment. She was trying to focus her attention on something easier.
Harry grinned in the dark. “Lots of people.”
“Like who?” Ginny asked.
“Oh-Zabini, Smith, Malfoy…Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, Ron,” he answered casually.
He heard her gag behind him. “My brothers?” she asked disgustedly.
He snickered. “Better than Voldemort, wouldn’t you say?”
Ginny did not answer for several long minutes, then finally, almost maliciously, she said, “You’d better be glad I cast a contraception charm before I got in your bed or else you might have had to explain to Bill-Charlie-Fred-George-and-Ron why you’d gotten their little sister pregnant.
“They’d never fall for it,” Harry answered easily.
Ginny leaned over him and stared down into his face. “Why not?”
Harry laughed. “Ron doesn’t think I’m stupid enough to go after his kid sister. Plus, he questions my sexuality,” Harry added wryly.
Ginny scowled and sat back. “And even after all this, you aren’t reconsidering?”
“Nope,” Harry said cheerfully. “I don’t know what happened there, but I can assure you that had Queer Quidditch not been playing in the background and had I not been imagining sucking someone else’s cock, I never would have come.”
Ginny huffed in mock-indignation. “Fine then.”
Harry slept.
-x-
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Voldemort purred. He was standing facing the window in the same study that Harry always found him in, but did not turn away. It seemed that he had been able to sense Harry’s presence without even looking.
“I didn’t expect to be here so soon,” Harry answered back. In truth, he hadn’t planned to come back so soon. He really had no idea why he had, unless it had only been because Voldemort was on his mind as he went to sleep.
Voldemort turned around-the same as always: the hood of his black cloak shadowing all of his face save for the gleaming red eyes-and stared at him.
“I have just received the most delightful sensations from you.” Harry blushed, and knew that Voldemort was grinning. He could now make out the faint sheen of sharp white teeth. “You were thinking of me at that time? How delightful.”
Knowing that he needed to practise his Occlumency now if Voldemort could feel it when he fucked, Harry glared back. “I was not,” he said indignantly.
Voldemort did not offer him tea this time. Despite his mockery, he seemed to be preoccupied. Harry watched him silently, unsure of what to say, because in truth he had nothing to say. Not yet at least.
“Have you decided?” Voldemort asked.
Harry looked at him, and decided he wasn’t ready to answer yet. “Why should I?”
He got the sudden feeling that he was pushing his luck: Voldemort did not seem to be in the mood for bantering or conversation right now. Harry was unwelcome this night, and it was becoming steadily more obvious with each passing minute.
“That is your decision, boy,” Voldemort snapped, and Harry barely refrained from flinching. “I am offering you this as a cease fire. We both know the prophecy, though I find it less exciting than I once did: prophecies are notorious for never being fulfilled or being fulfilled in an extremely unusual way. It does not tell me how to defeat you or even if I can, however, and I see no point in continuing with this nonsense. You have proven yourself to me if only because of your constant luck.
“Luck, I should add,” Voldemort sneered, “that can be useful if one is out-numbered or out-manoeuvred.” He leaned forward suddenly, and continued in a snappish hiss, “As I have said, boy, it is your decision. I will not offer this again. You refuse, and the cease-fire ends-your opportunity to help shape the wizarding world…ends-your peaceful life without fear of me…ends.
“And most certainly,” Voldemort added, standing up and sneering down at Harry, “civil conversations end. I will block you from my mind so completely that you will never know that you have ever been there before. I will be immortal and you will die either from attempting to destroy me or from spending your life wishing you had-because I will be unstoppable in my vengeance. You will never defeat me without my help, and you will never defeat me unless I wish to be defeated.
“And I will never wish to be defeated, if I am not certain that someone suitable is standing in my place. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Harry whispered hoarsely. Voldemort snorted disdainfully.
“And your decision?”
Harry took a deep breath-thought about Ginny and how no one had died in the past year-how nice it had felt during sixth year to not have to worry about attacks. “I’ll do it,” he said slowly. He hoped he was making the right decision.
“Fantastic,” Voldemort snarled sarcastically. Harry opened his mouth to give an indignant retort, but Voldemort slashed his arm forcefully and he was abruptly hurled back to his own mind in his own bed.
His dreams were suspiciously absent for the rest of the night.
-x-
The next morning, Harry woke up early to finish packing. His head ached from anxiety over his decision, but he was set. He wasn’t going to change his mind now: he was determined. He could change the world.
And he would.
He tossed his invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map in his trunk on top of his new clothes and snapped it closed. Ginny was already gone, which was good because he didn’t think he could stand to talk to her this morning anyway. It would just be too weird. On that thought, he just remembered to pack away the floo disk from the night before back in his wardrobe. There was no way he was going to take them back to Hogwarts with him.
Fred came then, looking haggard and horrified, to take his trunk down to the floo room just as Harry was heading to the bathroom for a shower.
“Congratulations,” he called to Fred over his shoulder. Fred jumped , startled, and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘Fred does not know why anyone would congratulate Fred on such a day. Fred is certainly not feeling like congratulations are in order.’ Harry chuckled and turned on the water. He’d only showered last night, but he had-he remembered with some cringing-gotten sweaty before he went to sleep.
Sirius was making breakfast when he made it down to the kitchen since Ginger would still be resting up. Harry was the last one down, and he sat between Hermione and the empty chair his father would sit in. “Morning,” he grumbled. Usually, he was very excited to go back to Hogwarts, but not this year.
He’d only known his father for a month, really, and a fortnight of that had been spent studiously ignoring each other. He was glad that he and his father could make up without having to hash everything out all over again, but he also wished he could spend more time with him now that they were talking again. He couldn’t help remembering the battle at the Department of Mysteries-he’d gone so long thinking Sirius dead, and now he was afraid something similar would happen…but this time…what if his father actually did die?
He couldn’t bear to think of it any longer.
“Good morning,” Hermione said brightly. Ron grunted something-looking hung-over and tired. Ginny sent him a leer, which he pretended not to notice.
“Morning, Kiddo!” Sirius chirped. It sounded fake, and Harry’s mood brightened considerably. His father didn’t want him to go either. He was going to miss him. Harry smiled at his father. “Haven’t cooked in years,” he admitted wryly as he brought plates over to the table. “Can’t guarantee it’ll be edible.”
Harry laughed. Ron didn’t seem to care; he dug in right away, but Hermione looked up in curiosity-as usual. “Why are you cooking this morning then? Not that I’m complaining, of course,” she scowled mildly. “I still think house-elves are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.”
Sirius exchanged a glance with Harry. “Ginger had her baby last night,” he said carefully. Hermione’s face lit up and she ignored the food on the table in exchange for new information.
“Really?” she asked excitedly. “Oh-did you see it? I wish I could have seen it; think of how exciting that would be! How many people have actually witnessed the birth of a house-elf? Oh-did you see it?” she asked again.
Harry grimaced. “We saw it,” he said. “Fred passed out, so we went to…help.”
Hermione was bouncing on her chair. “Oh how exciting! Was it a boy or a girl? Fred told me that mother house-elves can choose the sex of the child; is that true? And did she name it? House-elves have such unusual names…do you think they name their own, or do wizards name them?”
“A boy,” Sirius answered. “She named it herself.”
“How exciting!”
“What did she name it?” Ginny asked. Ron was still eating every kind of starch on the table and wincing occasionally when Hermione’s voice became too shrill. His eyes, Harry noticed, were half-lidded to block out the light and he was propping his head on one of his hands as he held his fork in the other.
Harry looked at his father again. “Voldy,” he said slowly. Ginny snorted and Hermione frowned. At that moment, Harry was very glad Ron had a hang-over: he did not want to see him flinch in anticipation of the word ‘Voldemort’, thus giving away the reference to either Hermione or Ginny.
“How odd,” Hermione said. She went back to eating, and Harry smirked to himself. Sometimes, Hermione was so clever that she missed the obvious things. Harry took a bite of his breakfast, and looked up just in time to see Ginny giving him a knowing look. He turned away quickly.
“Your mother called this morning,” Sirius said to Ginny and Ron. Ron didn’t look up from his plate-as if he hadn’t heard Harry’s father speaking at all-and Sirius frowned before directing all his attention at Ginny. “She wanted to remind me that today was the first of September and to make certain that I remembered to get you to the station,” he finished wryly.
Ginny snorted. “She was probably afraid that Ron would have convinced you that it wasn’t until next week.” She looked over at Ron, expecting a sarcastic comment, and frowned too when he didn’t reply. “Ron,” she called. Ron grunted and shovelled some toast and eggs in his mouth. “Ron!”
Ron winced and looked up at her. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he looked drawn. “What?” he hissed.
“You okay mate?” Harry asked quietly. He knew exactly what was wrong with Ron, but he wasn’t about to say anything about it.
Ron rubbed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Bit tired.”
Harry nodded, noticed that Hermione had her head bent over the Standard Book of Spells Grade Seven, and relaxed. She hadn’t noticed that Ron was more than a bit tired. They finished breakfast while Sirius went up to check on Ginger, and Ginny went back to finish packing. Hermione scampered off to the library as Sirius had given her permission to borrow a few books until Christmas holidays, and Harry turned back to Ron, who was slumped over his plate, head in his hands.
“Want help packing, mate?” he asked quietly. Ron looked up at him gratefully. “Come on,” Harry said, and hoisted his redheaded friend up from the table. “Let’s stop by my room first.”
Harry had a vial of hang-over potion in his room, left over from his birthday. His father had given it to him prior to leaving for their outing that night, but Harry hadn’t used it. Neither of them had drunk enough to get drunk to begin with. He handed it to Ron.
“For your head,” he explained when Ron looked at it curiously. Ron sent him a grateful look and tipped it back into his mouth, grimacing at the taste.
“How’d you know?” he asked. He was massaging his temples now, but it seemed to be working: his shoulders were much less tense.
“M’not stupid,” Harry snapped. “I’ve seen you.”
Ron gave him a sheepish grin. “Thanks mate,” he said, and then he wandered over to the door, calling over his shoulder, “I’m much better now. I think I can pack by myself.”
Harry watched him leave, knowing that Ron’s head probably still hurt at least a bit, and that he didn’t want Harry helping him because he would most likely be packing up several bottles of firewhiskey in addition to his books and robes. Harry sighed, and went to see if his father had survived his visit with Ginger.
-x-
Ron was looking a bit better by the time they were ready to leave for King’s Cross Station, which was really good form of him, Harry thought, because he had not been looking forward to the awkward questions he would get from his father if Ron were still ‘a bit tired’ by then. He did rub his eyes occasionally though.
“We’re portkeying,” Sirius said to the students as he hurried in to the antechamber looking harried. He’d just come from bringing Ginger a bowl of soup-she must have given him a tongue-lashing while he was there. “Straight to platform nine and three-quarters. Bypassing the barrier entirely this year.” He pulled an old beer can of his pocket and held it out to them. “Dumbledore sent it this morning.”
Harry snorted. “Right nice of him,” he offered. Sirius gave him a grin.
“Everyone ready then? Hermione, you got your books? Your cat?” She nodded. “Ginny-you got that puff-thing?” Ginny sneered playfully and held Arnold up for Sirius’ viewing. “Excellent-Ron, Harry, got everything? Hedwig gone on ahead?”
Harry nodded and Ron hummed in what could have been either agreement or disagreement. Sirius gave Ron an odd look and held the beer can out, shrugging to himself. They all put one hand on their trunks, while Sirius touched Hermione’s because she was struggling to keep Crookshanks still, and then touched a finger to the can. Harry felt the nauseating pull behind his navel, and then they were gone.
It was still fifteen ‘til eleven, but the platform was bustling with activity. Children were hanging out the windows, saying goodbye to their families, dragging trunks, and trying to control their animals. Harry, more than ever, did not want to go back. What was Sirius going to do without him? It was going to be fifth year all over for his father: Sirius would be all alone all year, but at least this time he would be able to leave whenever he pleased. Harry hoped he didn’t get too bored.
Ginny, Hermione and Ron had already waved and run off to load up their trunks. Harry turned to his father and hugged him tightly. “I’ll miss you,” he said.
Sirius ruffled his hair, though he had to lift his hand up much higher to do it now. “You too, Kiddo. Be good.”
Harry stepped back. “What are you going to do while I’m at school?”
Sirius shrugged suspiciously. “Been reading a bit about investing. I might do a bit of that.”
Harry laughed. “Well, don’t rush into anything,” he said wryly.
Sirius laughed. “Go on then; you’re about to get left behind.” Harry smiled, gave his father one last hug, and hurried off after the others. He found Ron and Hermione packing their trunks in one of the compartments, but Ginny had obviously gone off to find her friends.
“We’ve got to go to the prefect meeting,” Hermione said in a breathless huff as she finally stowed her trunk. “As Head Girl, I’ve got to go meet with the Head Boy and set up duties for the year.” Ron nodded in agreement, and then they were gone.
-x-
Hermione came back to the compartment half an hour later, but Ron or Ginny were not with her. “Don’t you have rounds to do?” Harry asked her. He had been looking out the window and watching the scenery pass by in detached boredom. They had at least five hours left before they arrived at Hogwarts.
“No-I’m Head Girl, I don’t have to do rounds on the train, but I’m going to anyway. I think it will be good for morale, but I wanted to show you something first,” she said, sitting down.
“So who’s Head Boy then?” Harry asked as she rummaged around on the overhead rack, looking for something.
She gave him a sneer over her shoulder. “Theodore Nott, if you can believe it.” Harry could, he supposed. Nott had never much participated in anything at all; the only times Harry ever saw him were in classes or the library.
She pulled her travel bag from the overhead compartment and brought out a book. “It’s the journal you lent me,” she explained to Harry’s confused look. She flipped through the pages-being very careful even in her speed-and stopped on the very last one.
“I finished it just last night,” she explained, and then, as a an afterthought, she cast a locking and silencing spell on the compartment door. “Harry-this is so exciting. You never finished it, did you?”
Harry shook his head and Hermione bounced in her seat. When Harry didn’t ask anything further, she couldn’t take it any longer and moved over to sit next to him, propping the book on both of their laps. “Oh Harry,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “This is a piece of history right here. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but Harry-Harry this is one of a kind.”
“Okay,” Harry said carefully. He wished she would just get to the point.
Hermione made a frustrated, whimpering sound in the back of her throat and tapped the page. “Read it, Harry!”
Harry did.
“Fuck,” he breathed once he was finished. He looked up at Hermione, who was beaming and bouncing in the seat next to him. “Is this real? Are you certain it’s real?”
Hermione nodded frantically. “Yes! I checked it this morning with every forgery spell I knew. It’s real: it was really written when they dates say it was, the handwriting has not been altered, and I did a scan on the skin that binds it. It’s real.”
Harry grimaced. “No wonder they never heard from him again,” he said.
Hermione squealed. “Harry, this is amazing! And it was in your library all this time-do you know how much this is worth? It’s priceless!”
“You can keep it,” he interrupted.
Hermione blanched. “Oh Harry, I couldn’t. The National Museum of Magical Artefacts would be much better, but Harry, I think you should keep it.”
Harry scoffed. “I would never sell this. I meant that I’m sure you’d want to research it more. And you’ll take good care of it until we can return it to the library.”
She squealed again and tucked it back into her bag, layering dozens of cushioning and protective spells around it as she did so. She bounced up, kissed Harry lightly on the cheek, and beamed.
“Oh thank you! I’ll take excellent care of it, but for now, I have rounds to do.” She gave him a happy little wave and slipped out of the compartment. Harry sighed, realised that he still had five hours to sit alone on the train, and leaned his head back against the seat. He could use a nap right now.
The compartment door burst open just as Harry was nodding off to sleep, and Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle walked in. Harry looked up disinterestedly-after witnessing what he had only two nights ago, he couldn’t bring himself to work up any anger over the sight of Malfoy. Malfoy was just ignorant, and Harry didn’t think it was worth wasting his anger over ignorance. He wished that he hadn’t seen-or been part of-Malfoy’s failed initiation at all: it took some of the magic away from having a rival.
“Malfoy,” Harry greeted blandly. “Crabbe, Goyle,” he nodded at them.
The three Slytherins looked at him suspiciously. He’d never bothered to even pretend to be polite before. Malfoy, unsurprisingly-though Harry did have his suspicions-was the first to recover. “I read in the paper that we’re some sort of cousins now,” Malfoy drawled. Harry rolled his eyes.
“If you feel the need to acknowledge it, yes,” Harry said flatly.
Malfoy sat down across from him while his two goons guarded the door. He leaned forward, a malicious smile on his face and stared at Harry. “To be honest with you, Potty, I don’t. If anyone other than you were here, I wouldn’t have.”
Harry, again, refused to be baited. He stared at Malfoy with a bland smile, and could tell it was starting to get to the Slytherin.
“I don’t blame you,” Harry said.
Malfoy sneered. “Just because your mudblood mother turned out to not be muggle-born after all doesn’t mean she wasn’t a mudblood anyway, and doesn’t mean you’re worthy of being a pure-blood.”
“I quite agree,” Harry nodded magnanimously. Malfoy growled, and changed directions.
“The Dark Lord’s been back for three years now and he’s been quiet for over half of that,” he said in a nasty whisper. “He’s planning something, you know-your mudblood friend’s not long for this world. Are you afraid, Potty?”
Harry snorted, and remembered the Death Eater meeting two nights prior. Of course Voldemort was planning something. Of course he was-the ironic thing about it, however, was that Harry knew more of it than Malfoy did. He forgot about Crabbe and Goyle guarding the door: Harry’s world had narrowed down to only him and Malfoy. He stared into Malfoy’s cold, grey eyes, took in his too-sharp face and too-pointed chin and nose, and smiled.
“Are you?” he whisper-breathed back, leaning forward so that his and Malfoy’s faces were mere inches from each other. Malfoy faltered for only seconds before the sneer was back on his face. He stared defiantly at Harry. “Does it worry you that you don’t know what the Dark Lord is up to?”
Malfoy’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Harry ignored it. “Does it frighten you that you have no idea what’s going on? Does it really frighten you enough that you have to come to me for your information?”
Malfoy snarled. “I know what’s going on, Potty,” he said. Harry had to give him credit for not looking even a bit flustered anymore-Harry knew he’d gotten to Malfoy, even if it was just momentarily. “But the question is,” he paused, most likely for dramatic effect, “Are…you…afraid?”
Harry moved his mouth right next to Malfoy’s ear and breathed heavily, delighting in the way Malfoy tensed only slightly. “No, Cousin,” he hissed, “I am not afraid.”
-x-
Excerpt from the Journal of a Necromancer, 787th page.
30 October, 850
Salazar,
I am fully aware that I informed you that you will be returned to me tomorrow. I am also fully aware that you know how this will be accomplished. I am not fully certain if I have indeed completed my calculations correctly.
Arithmancy is such a fickle school and such a new one at that. It is not yet as refined and concise as I might have hoped it be, and we still know so little of the stars and planets and sun to make absolutely infallible conclusions. But I babble. You have no interest in this.
Let me say only this, then, Beloved: The spell, I am sure of. The ritual, I am sure of. The timing, I am sure of. The runes, I am sure of. Your skin, I am sure of. The numbers…I am wary of.
I feel so certain at times, and then others I spend fretting and fretting and fretting. One mistake-one mistake, my Darling, and the entire process could be reversed-could kill me right then. But I know one thing, Beloved, and that is no matter what the outcome, we will be united-whether it be in this world or another.
I am not afraid.
Always,
Rowena
Fin.
Continue to the Sequel at A03: The Hush of War
Comments = ♥
Chapter Title: Blackness 14/14
Words (this chapter): 8,630
Rating (this chapter): NC-17
Story Info/All Chapters: HERE
Author's Notes: This is the last chapter of part one. I'll begin posting part two in about two weeks. Beta’d by maybe_someday8 and amelancholykiss. (Possibly the best betas in the world.)
This chapter has masturbation and het sex in it. If you want to avoid the masturbation, stop reading at the line: “Harry choked while Sirius struggled with a sudden coughing fit.” If you want to avoid the het sex, stop reading at this line: “Harry jerked his eyes open and gaped.” You can start reading again at this line: “Who were you thinking about?” Also, there's house-elf birth, which I would say is one of my squicks, and probably everyone else's, but it isn't graphic.
-x-
Black, in the Smothering Dark
-x-
Chapter Fourteen
Blackness
-x-
No one but Harry noticed it, but as soon as they stepped out of the floo back at River House, Ron slunk off to lurk near the drawing room liquor cabinet until everyone else went to sleep. Hermione and Ginny, who both wanted to be up early in the morning since they were going to be catching the train back to Hogwarts, went off to bed, and Harry and Sirius ruined Ron’s plans.
Sirius was in the mood for a drink himself, and Harry wanted to talk to his grandparents one last time, so they both retreated to the drawing room as well. Fortunately, Ron had had the foresight to stay out of the way while Sirius was there. He’d not noticed the emptying liquor cabinet over the last fortnight; he wasn’t a big drinker either, apparently, which Harry thought was probably a good thing. With their tempers, it could potentially be very bad if either of them got drunk regularly. Harry would have thought the same of Ron, but so far, he only got maudlin.
“Have you been drinking?” Sirius asked curiously once Harry was sprawled across the divan facing the fireplace. Harry looked up at him and rolled his eyes. Sirius didn’t see it; his back was turned the other way.
“No,” Harry answered truthfully. “Well-I had a firewhiskey not long ago.”
“Hmm,” Sirius said. “It’s the brandy that’s missing. Maybe I’ve been drinking more than I thought. No-I bet it was Ginger,” he growled. “She probably doesn’t approve of the cheap brandy.”
“Probably not,” Harry said-which could have been true. But regardless of whether or not the house-elf approved of the brandy was a non-issue: she had not cleared out the liquor cabinet; it had been Ron but Harry wasn’t going to say that unless he was asked a direct question about it.
His father hummed noncommittally and pulled out a firewhiskey, frowning. It was obvious that he would much rather have a brandy.
“Are you going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, boy?” Frank spoke up. He was in his frame now and not off with Arcturus Black on the third floor. The two of them had become fast friends, but they probably spent most of their time conspiring against various ministries. “Tomorrow’s the first, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” Harry answered, smiling. “I’ll be in my seventh year.”
“You’ll keep up with your studies, won’t you, Harry?” Laurel asked quietly. She was always quiet, even when she was reprimanding him. “Lily was always very good with her studies.”
Frank smiled at his wife. “Yes, Lily was always very smart-demolished me in Scrabble every time we played. A shame she doesn’t have a portrait; I’m sure she’d enjoy joining Arcturus and me occasionally.” Laurel frowned at that. Apparently, she did not approve of her daughter, portrait or not, hanging around smoking men.
“What’s Scrabble?” Harry’s father asked from the chair opposite him. He was sipping on a smoking firewhiskey gingerly. Frank went off on a detailed, heavily hand-gestured, explanation of the muggle game and Laurel turned to Harry.
“I’m very proud of you, Harry,” she said fondly. “You look so much like Lily.” She smirked very faintly and added, “It’s a pity that you look like that one as well,” she jerked her head towards Sirius. “But I suppose out of the four of them, he was certainly the best bet.”
Harry sat forward quickly. “You knew the others?” he asked quickly. Neither of the Evanses knew that Lily had ended up marrying James Potter, and neither of them knew that Harry had actually thought himself a Potter until recently. They did not know the full story of what happened on Halloween 1981, but from the bits and pieces of conversation they had picked up from Harry talking to his father in the drawing room, they did know that Voldemort had killed Lily and that Sirius had spent twelve years in Azkaban for it.
When Harry had told them this part, Laurel had only frowned and, to Harry’s astonishment, Frank had grinned. ‘Always knew the girl had too much resourcefulness,’ Frank had declared happily. Harry did not pretend to understand that. Frank had been reluctant to explain further.
They assumed, Laurel had told him, that Harry had thought Sirius was his father all along but had not known him until recently. They assumed that he’d lived with relatives-but not that those relatives had been their older daughter, Petunia, and her family. For some reason, they were both disinclined to speak of Petunia, and every time Harry brought her up, Laurel would frown and Frank would have a prior invitation to have a cigar with Arcturus.
“Of course I knew them,” Laurel said. “She brought them around enough, didn’t she?” Harry shrugged; he had no idea. “Well, she did,” his grandmother said. “That James boy-I never liked him; he spent too much time around Petunia, halving his time between teasing her and flirting with her.”
“What?” Harry croaked. This was the first time either of his grandparents had willingly brought up his Aunt Petunia. Of course, Laurel was frowning mightily as she spoke, but that could have been because of anything. “He did?” Harry asked around a lump in his throat.
Laurel waved a delicate hand across the canvas. “He wasn’t the only one, and he wasn’t serious about it. He wasn’t interested in her-it wasn’t playground pigtail pulling; it was…I don’t know. I just didn’t like him. Something was off about him, and that he spent so much time talking to Petunia…She didn’t have magic any-well, that’s not important,” Laurel scowled. It was the first time Harry had every seen her make such a facial expression. “The other two,” she continued quickly, “The shy one and the werewolf.” She looked to Harry for assistance.
“Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin,” he supplied. He could say Peter’s name without scowling now-Wormtail was where he belonged; after sixteen years, Pettigrew was in Azkaban where he should have been all along. Harry respected him-somewhat-for at least honouring his life debt and doing that.
“Yes,” his grandmother nodded delicately. “They were both very polite, but Pettigrew-the shy one-always seemed a bit shifty to me too, and Lupin wouldn’t have said no to you if you were pissing on him,” she sneered.
Harry gaped.
“I wouldn’t have trusted either of them to take care of Lily properly, but that one,” she nodded at Sirius again, “was a decent mix. He was a troublesome little brat, but always polite to the family. Good upbringing, I would think-not sheltered or mollycoddled too much.”
Harry wasn’t sure if he would agree with that. He looked over at his father, who was leaning forward and listening intently to the rules of Monopoly, and frowned. After seeing Snape’s pensieve, he didn’t think that his father would have been kind to Petunia at all-but then again, he did have a certain empathy for muggles. Maybe he left her alone because he felt sorry for her for being a squib?
“Did my mother ever talk about any of them?” he asked. He wanted to know more about the James Potter situation, but he didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up directly. His father had said that she dated him from fifth through seventh year, even though James had always chased her, but he wanted to know what had happened after Dumbledore sent Sirius on that eight month mission.
She had apparently dated James during that time, and then married him. He knew that the Evanses had been assassinated two years before he was born and a year before Lily married James, but…
“Not as such,” Laurel said, shaking her head. “I always assumed that she was seeing that one, but she never mentioned it. She was always a very private girl-kept almost everything to herself.”
“Oh,” Harry said faintly disappointed. “Well, what about-" he stopped.
“Master Black! Master Black!” Fred came bounding in, panting slightly, and Harry wondered what had frightened him enough to forget that he could just pop in anywhere he wanted. He was on his feet in an instant, wand out, and his father was too.
“What is it?” Harry asked quickly.
Fred looked at him, horrified. “Little Master! Ginger is-Ginger is saying, oh Fred is in so much trouble-Ginger is…”
“Is what?” Sirius asked in alarm.
“Little elf,” Fred panted. “Little elf is coming…now,” he whimpered, and then his huge protuberant eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted. Harry exchanged a glance with his father.
“What do we do?” he asked curiously. His father looked back at him and shrugged.
“I suppose we should go…help?” he suggested.
Harry grimaced sharply and followed Sirius up the stairs to the house-elves’ quarters. They had chosen for themselves the smallest guest room instead of a closest since River House had so much extra room. It was the last one at the end of the hall, and as they walked towards it, their steps slowed unconsciously.
“Do we really have to?” Harry asked. Sirius gave him a helpless look and knocked on the door.
“Ginger will kill you,” came the high-pitched, squealing response, “if you is to be opening that door! Ginger will kill you!”
“Good enough for me,” Harry said, pivoting around to head back downstairs. A hand caught him on his shoulder and pulled him back.
“I don’t think so,” Sirius growled. “If I have to do this, you’re doing it too.” Harry whimpered and followed him in the room. Ginger was lying on the little children’s bed that they had purchased for the house-elves in Eweforic Alley, and her huge eyes were gleaming maliciously in the dark.
“Ginger is going to be killing you, Master Black and Little Master, and then Ginger is going to have to iron her hands,” she growled ferociously. “Ginger is already going to be killing Fred-and Ginger won’t have to punish herself for that.” She panted some more and let out a squeaky scream.
Harry’s father made a gagging motion at nothing in particular, stuck out his tongue in disgust and knelt down next to the bed. Harry followed him warily. “Fred’s very worried,” he offered hesitantly.
Ginger snarled. “If Fred is very worried about Ginger, Fred should be with Ginger now!”
Sirius winced. “Well, you see, it’s like this, Ginger,” he said pleadingly. He paused, as if preparing himself to say something dreadful, and then, “Fred’s fainted.”
Ginger laughed maniacally. “Ginger is not surprised,” she panted.
Sirius gave Harry a ‘what do I do?’ sort of look, and Harry looked back at him incredulously. Sirius was the one who wanted to help; shouldn’t he be the one to make the plans? Ginger screamed again and Harry gagged. He did not want to see this.
“Ginger is to be killing Fred!” Ginger squeaked. “Fred is a bad, bad, wicked elf!” Harry would have agreed with anything she said right then to keep her from killing him, but he said nothing. He didn’t think he could. Fortunately, however, it didn’t take long. Ten minutes later, he and his father were staring at a small, ugly little creature with eyes half as big as its head.
“Fred is a good elf,” Ginger said fondly, looking down at the ugly creature. “Ginger likes him. Ginger will give him a boy elf,” she decided with a nod. Ginger waved her hand over the little house-elf, apparently making it a boy, and then sat back, very smug with herself.
Sirius, who was very pale and looked to be only moments from vomiting, closed his eyes in relief. Harry knew where he was coming from: he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have another Ginger running around. “What are you going to name him?” Sirius asked.
Ginger deliberated for several long minutes. “Ginger will name him Voldy,” she decided. “Ginger liked Mr. Voldymort. Mr. Voldymort had gumption like Ginger.”
Harry choked while Sirius struggled with a sudden coughing fit.
-x-
Harry took a shower as soon as he was back in his rooms. Nothing had gotten on him, but he’d just seen something truly gruesome, and he wanted to get the foul feeling off of him. He was very thankful that he was returning to Hogwarts in the morning.
Afterwards, he lay in his bed, trying to go to sleep, and couldn’t. He was restless for so many reasons, but he just couldn’t get to sleep. After twenty minutes of trying, he sighed, got up, and walked over to his wardrobe. In the very back was a box full of floo disks that he’d received on his birthday.
Smirking, Harry withdrew Queer Quidditch: Boys Who Love Brooms and tossed it into the fireplace. He’d watched several of the disks, but he’d been saving this one: for Harry, he could think of nothing better than boys and Quidditch. There was another Quidditch-themed disk, but it was called Queens of Quidditch: Catching the Snatch, and he didn’t think he would like that one as much. He cast Incendio to light the fire and flopped back on his bed, grinning to himself as the tacky opening theme music started up.
The flames lightly distorted the picture, but it was still good, Harry decided. He ran his fingers through his wet hair as two Quidditch players, sweaty from practice, entered a locker room and started undressing. It was very ‘boarding-schoolish’ he thought with a satisfied smile: the boys kept looking at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking.
Only five minutes in, things were starting to heat up; Harry pulled off his over robes and tossed them on the floor. He was feeling rather hot himself. When one of the Quidditch players bent over in only his pants to unlace his Quidditch cleats, he moaned.
Harry sat up to pull his shirt over his head and ran his hands over his chest. His fingers left tingling little trails of heat over his skin, and he moaned again as the Quidditch player who’d bent over finally pulled off his pants: he had a perfect arse, and there was a definite bulge forming in Harry’s pants.
He pressed his palm into it and let out a breathy moan. With one hand still running up and down his chest, Harry used the other to rub his erection, watching avidly as the other Quidditch player finally noticed the nakedness of the other. The first wandered over to the showers-which, Merlin above, did not have doors or curtains for privacy-and turned on the water.
It ran in tantalizing rivers over his skin and he tipped his head back, exposing his neck to the water. The second Quidditch player’s mouth dropped open, and he walked slowly over to the shower.
Harry flicked the button open on his jeans and unzipped his fly.
“Do you need help?” the second Quidditch player asked lustily. The first turned around sharply, exposing himself, and Harry’s eyes focused in on the boy’s thick cock-full and heavy with arousal. The other Quidditch player did too.
“What do you mean?” the first boy asked breathily. In response, the second slowly reached out and ran his fingers along the thick shaft. The Quidditch player gasped.
Harry pulled his erection out of his pants and squeezed it lightly. He gripped it tightly and pressed his thumb into the slit at the tip, moaning, and flicked his eyes back up to scene playing out in his fireplace.
The second Quidditch player had the first pressed against the shower tiles and was running his tongue thickly against the other’s neck as the first boy whimpered and groaned appreciatively. They scrambled to rip the second boy’s Quidditch robes off, and Harry stroked himself hard.
He was panting by now and his eyes were fastened on the two Quidditch players groping each other in the flames. His body was very hot underneath his fingers and his cock was purple and throbbing in his hand. He was very close to coming. Harry closed his eyes and stroked.
“Harry?”
Harry jerked his eyes open and gaped. Suddenly, there was a small, hot hand on his stomach and it wasn’t his. Ginny stood above him, eyes wide in the flickering light of the floo film and shifting between his face and his hand, which was still wrapped tightly around his erect cock.
He tried to pull his hand off himself and cover himself up, but Ginny’s hand pressed hard into his stomach and held him down.
“Don’t,” she said quietly.
Harry gaped at her and struggled beneath her hand. Slowly, not taking her eyes off of him, she pulled her night shirt over her head and slid onto the bed, kneeling over him. She was naked, and her skin gleamed white and orange as she shifted over him. “Don’t stop,” she said, and pulled his jeans and pants off in one smooth motion.
Harry, though he couldn’t understand why, obeyed her. He was just so close, and it had felt so good-he didn’t want to stop. And then suddenly, Ginny was grabbing his other hand and pulling it towards her. She pressed it against her and Harry felt the slick wetness running down his fingers. He groaned, not knowing why he was allowing this, and pressed his fingers inside her.
Ginny whimpered, but it was drowned out by a gasping scream from one of the Quidditch players. Harry was breathing very heavily, and as Ginny leant down and pressed her lips to his, he smelled flowers, the Burrow, sweat and Ron-Fred-George-Charlie-Bill all over her. She smelled like Quidditch in Ottery St. Catchpole, sunburnt grass and boy-which was just enough for him to ignore the soft press of her breasts against his chest and the uncommon wetness on his fingers.
Her tongue slipped into his mouth, and he closed his eyes-which had been half-lidded in dazed pleasure-and saw every Weasley boy flash before his eyelids, then Smith and Michael Corner, Blaise Zabini and Malfoy.
Harry wrapped one of his arms around her waist, squeezed her arse with the other, and rubbed his cock against her thigh. She moaned into his mouth, and it sounded so low and breathy that he was able to mistake it for anyone but her. Malfoy-with his sickly pale, pointed face and colourless hair-flashed before his closed eyelids again and he didn’t have time to question what was wrong with him for thinking about Malfoy because Ginny-not-Ginny was lifting herself up and sliding back down on his cock.
Harry threw his head back, heard panting grunts from the fireplace, and pictured fucking Malfoy against a slick-wet Quidditch shower wall. Her thighs were firm from Quidditch and they squeezed him tightly as she rode him. Harry put his hands on her hips and pumped into her. She was too wet, but his focus was on the heady sounds from the two fucking Quidditch players and the way anything squeezing his cock like that felt good right then.
Ginny slammed down on him and threw her head back, screaming out something unintelligible. She tightened around his prick and then he was coming inside her, and gasping and thinking of twelve different boys all at once.
They panted together-hot, sweaty and sticky-for several minutes before Ginny rolled off and lay next to him. Harry struggled to reign in his breathing and thanked Merlin that his rooms were so far away from everyone else’s. Then, the guilt started setting in, and the uncertainty, and Harry stilled-trying to figure out the possible repercussions for this.
“Who were you thinking about?” Ginny asked quietly after nearly ten minutes of tense silence.
“What?” Harry stuttered.
Ginny rolled over on her side to face him. “Who were you thinking about?” she asked again. Harry couldn’t be sure, but in the dim light of the fire, he thought she looked a little bit amused. “It certainly wasn’t me.” She glanced pointedly at the fireplace and Harry felt his face heat up all over again: he could now make out the sounds of the floo porn-which had started over and was replaying the opening scene-in the background.
“Do you need help?”
The Quidditch players gasped, and Ginny smirked playfully. “I’m not stupid, Harry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You were watching gay porn when I came in; I watched it for several minutes myself before I let you know I was there. It was rather hot, I must say.”
Harry’s face was burning even hotter now. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He wasn’t embarrassed about the actual porn; he was just chagrined that she-anyone-had caught him wanking. He grabbed his wand off of the bedside table and put out the fire, effectively turning off the porn.
“I wasn’t thinking about you, either,” Ginny admitted carefully. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Harry felt a moment’s rush of indignation. What was wrong with thinking about him? He was an attractive bloke-surely it wouldn’t kill Ginny to think about him while she was fucking him. He narrowed his eyes.
“Oh come off it,” Ginny laughed. “You’re not interested in me either.”
“Not really,” Harry finally admitted, and pushed the indignation away. He had no right to be angry about Ginny thinking of someone else when he wasn’t even thinking of a girl to begin with. He hesitated, and then asked, “Why?” but he wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking ‘why’ about.
Ginny looked away. “Another dream,” she admitted.
“Did one of you die again?” Harry asked hesitantly. He was more confused than ever about what to do about the whole situation. Ginny’s eyes flickered back to him, and then she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
“No,” she said. “The other kind.”
“You were fucking…him,” Harry offered. Ginny nodded. He didn’t want to ask his next question, but he thought he already had the answer to it anyway, and he needed to know: he needed to know how far gone Ginny actually was, or how insane she was, or how infatuated she was, or all of those maybe. “Were you thinking about him?”
Silence stretched out almost tangibly between them. Maybe he had been wrong, Harry thought. Maybe he’d just offended her by even suggesting it. He thought frantically of a way to mend the situation, came up with nothing, and closed his eyes.
When she finally answered-“Yes…”-in an almost inaudible, but noticeably shaking voice, Harry tensed-and fought the urge to gag. “He’s so much older than me,” Ginny said wonderingly.
Harry looked at her, fighting the urge to declare her mad and ship her off to St. Mungo’s. Ginny wasn’t mad-she couldn’t be; he would have known. She would have shown signs of madness before now. So what if she wanted to fuck the Dark Lord? Did that truly make her mad? Or did it only say she had terrible taste in lovers? That thought didn’t comfort him very much, as she had just fucked him only minutes before. Surely Ginny wasn’t mad.
“Do you think,” Ginny continued since Harry didn’t respond, “that he is so much older than me for a reason?” The question was asked casually, but it sparked something in Harry’s mind. There was no way-no way at all.
“What do you mean?” He asked, feigning ignorance-at least for now. He didn’t want to tell Ginny that he spoke with Voldemort regularly unless he absolutely had to-unless she was thinking the same thing he was.
“Well,” she said, gaining confidence and rolling back on her side to face him again. She was still naked, Harry realised, and so was he. He fought the urge to blush or pull the duvet up over his chest. He’d just fucked her-a girl-there was no reason to be shy now.
“Well-what if,” she paused and frowned in consideration. “What if he’s so much older than me because I died before? Wouldn’t that explain why I have dreams of him when he’s thirty or forty years old?”
She had just echoed Harry’s own suspicion, but he needed more information. He still wasn’t ready to reveal his own secret to her. “What do you look like in those dreams?” he asked.
“I don’t know, do I?” Ginny shrugged, unconcerned. “I can’t very well see myself if I am myself, can I? He always says something along the same line though-in every dream.”
“What?” Harry asked.
“Something like-“You’re beautiful, Callie-even your name says it,”-which I suppose is because that name probably means ‘beautiful’ in some language. I’m not really sure.”
Harry had gone very, very still. Only the night before Voldemort had told him that he’d once had a lover named Calixta Yaxley, and…
“And it would explain why he’s mad, I think,” Ginny continued. She hadn’t noticed Harry’s sudden tension at all. “The book said one will go mad if the other is killed. Do you think I’ve been murdered?” she asked him. She was amused by the question, as if she didn’t really believe it herself, but frowned when she noticed the look on Harry’s face.
“What?” she asked curiously.
Harry stared at her. “Have you ever heard of Calixta Yaxley?” he asked casually.
Ginny frowned thoughtfully and then shook her head. “No, why?”
Harry opened his mouth and then shut it again. He wanted to tell her so badly-but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Not yet, at least. “Look her up,” he said instead. “And let me know when you find it.”
Ginny scowled. “I’ll have enough to worry about with NEWT level classes again this year, Harry. I don’t need more useless research thrown on top. That’s Hermione’s bag.”
“Believe me,” Harry said, rolling over and finally pulling the duvet up to his neck. The sweat on his body was starting to dry, and he was getting cold. “You’ll want to do this research.”
He could hear Ginny moving behind him. “What exactly am I looking for?” she asked petulantly.
Harry shrugged, though he wasn’t sure whether or not she’d be able to see it. “You’ll know when you find it,” he said. He could hear Ginny breathing slowly behind him, considering everything he had just said, and he knew the moment that realisation had struck. Her breath hitched slightly and then sped up: Ginny had just made the connection between the names.
“Who were you thinking about?” she asked suddenly. Harry suspected that the other information was just too much for her to handle at the moment. She was trying to focus her attention on something easier.
Harry grinned in the dark. “Lots of people.”
“Like who?” Ginny asked.
“Oh-Zabini, Smith, Malfoy…Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, Ron,” he answered casually.
He heard her gag behind him. “My brothers?” she asked disgustedly.
He snickered. “Better than Voldemort, wouldn’t you say?”
Ginny did not answer for several long minutes, then finally, almost maliciously, she said, “You’d better be glad I cast a contraception charm before I got in your bed or else you might have had to explain to Bill-Charlie-Fred-George-and-Ron why you’d gotten their little sister pregnant.
“They’d never fall for it,” Harry answered easily.
Ginny leaned over him and stared down into his face. “Why not?”
Harry laughed. “Ron doesn’t think I’m stupid enough to go after his kid sister. Plus, he questions my sexuality,” Harry added wryly.
Ginny scowled and sat back. “And even after all this, you aren’t reconsidering?”
“Nope,” Harry said cheerfully. “I don’t know what happened there, but I can assure you that had Queer Quidditch not been playing in the background and had I not been imagining sucking someone else’s cock, I never would have come.”
Ginny huffed in mock-indignation. “Fine then.”
Harry slept.
-x-
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Voldemort purred. He was standing facing the window in the same study that Harry always found him in, but did not turn away. It seemed that he had been able to sense Harry’s presence without even looking.
“I didn’t expect to be here so soon,” Harry answered back. In truth, he hadn’t planned to come back so soon. He really had no idea why he had, unless it had only been because Voldemort was on his mind as he went to sleep.
Voldemort turned around-the same as always: the hood of his black cloak shadowing all of his face save for the gleaming red eyes-and stared at him.
“I have just received the most delightful sensations from you.” Harry blushed, and knew that Voldemort was grinning. He could now make out the faint sheen of sharp white teeth. “You were thinking of me at that time? How delightful.”
Knowing that he needed to practise his Occlumency now if Voldemort could feel it when he fucked, Harry glared back. “I was not,” he said indignantly.
Voldemort did not offer him tea this time. Despite his mockery, he seemed to be preoccupied. Harry watched him silently, unsure of what to say, because in truth he had nothing to say. Not yet at least.
“Have you decided?” Voldemort asked.
Harry looked at him, and decided he wasn’t ready to answer yet. “Why should I?”
He got the sudden feeling that he was pushing his luck: Voldemort did not seem to be in the mood for bantering or conversation right now. Harry was unwelcome this night, and it was becoming steadily more obvious with each passing minute.
“That is your decision, boy,” Voldemort snapped, and Harry barely refrained from flinching. “I am offering you this as a cease fire. We both know the prophecy, though I find it less exciting than I once did: prophecies are notorious for never being fulfilled or being fulfilled in an extremely unusual way. It does not tell me how to defeat you or even if I can, however, and I see no point in continuing with this nonsense. You have proven yourself to me if only because of your constant luck.
“Luck, I should add,” Voldemort sneered, “that can be useful if one is out-numbered or out-manoeuvred.” He leaned forward suddenly, and continued in a snappish hiss, “As I have said, boy, it is your decision. I will not offer this again. You refuse, and the cease-fire ends-your opportunity to help shape the wizarding world…ends-your peaceful life without fear of me…ends.
“And most certainly,” Voldemort added, standing up and sneering down at Harry, “civil conversations end. I will block you from my mind so completely that you will never know that you have ever been there before. I will be immortal and you will die either from attempting to destroy me or from spending your life wishing you had-because I will be unstoppable in my vengeance. You will never defeat me without my help, and you will never defeat me unless I wish to be defeated.
“And I will never wish to be defeated, if I am not certain that someone suitable is standing in my place. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Harry whispered hoarsely. Voldemort snorted disdainfully.
“And your decision?”
Harry took a deep breath-thought about Ginny and how no one had died in the past year-how nice it had felt during sixth year to not have to worry about attacks. “I’ll do it,” he said slowly. He hoped he was making the right decision.
“Fantastic,” Voldemort snarled sarcastically. Harry opened his mouth to give an indignant retort, but Voldemort slashed his arm forcefully and he was abruptly hurled back to his own mind in his own bed.
His dreams were suspiciously absent for the rest of the night.
-x-
The next morning, Harry woke up early to finish packing. His head ached from anxiety over his decision, but he was set. He wasn’t going to change his mind now: he was determined. He could change the world.
And he would.
He tossed his invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map in his trunk on top of his new clothes and snapped it closed. Ginny was already gone, which was good because he didn’t think he could stand to talk to her this morning anyway. It would just be too weird. On that thought, he just remembered to pack away the floo disk from the night before back in his wardrobe. There was no way he was going to take them back to Hogwarts with him.
Fred came then, looking haggard and horrified, to take his trunk down to the floo room just as Harry was heading to the bathroom for a shower.
“Congratulations,” he called to Fred over his shoulder. Fred jumped , startled, and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘Fred does not know why anyone would congratulate Fred on such a day. Fred is certainly not feeling like congratulations are in order.’ Harry chuckled and turned on the water. He’d only showered last night, but he had-he remembered with some cringing-gotten sweaty before he went to sleep.
Sirius was making breakfast when he made it down to the kitchen since Ginger would still be resting up. Harry was the last one down, and he sat between Hermione and the empty chair his father would sit in. “Morning,” he grumbled. Usually, he was very excited to go back to Hogwarts, but not this year.
He’d only known his father for a month, really, and a fortnight of that had been spent studiously ignoring each other. He was glad that he and his father could make up without having to hash everything out all over again, but he also wished he could spend more time with him now that they were talking again. He couldn’t help remembering the battle at the Department of Mysteries-he’d gone so long thinking Sirius dead, and now he was afraid something similar would happen…but this time…what if his father actually did die?
He couldn’t bear to think of it any longer.
“Good morning,” Hermione said brightly. Ron grunted something-looking hung-over and tired. Ginny sent him a leer, which he pretended not to notice.
“Morning, Kiddo!” Sirius chirped. It sounded fake, and Harry’s mood brightened considerably. His father didn’t want him to go either. He was going to miss him. Harry smiled at his father. “Haven’t cooked in years,” he admitted wryly as he brought plates over to the table. “Can’t guarantee it’ll be edible.”
Harry laughed. Ron didn’t seem to care; he dug in right away, but Hermione looked up in curiosity-as usual. “Why are you cooking this morning then? Not that I’m complaining, of course,” she scowled mildly. “I still think house-elves are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.”
Sirius exchanged a glance with Harry. “Ginger had her baby last night,” he said carefully. Hermione’s face lit up and she ignored the food on the table in exchange for new information.
“Really?” she asked excitedly. “Oh-did you see it? I wish I could have seen it; think of how exciting that would be! How many people have actually witnessed the birth of a house-elf? Oh-did you see it?” she asked again.
Harry grimaced. “We saw it,” he said. “Fred passed out, so we went to…help.”
Hermione was bouncing on her chair. “Oh how exciting! Was it a boy or a girl? Fred told me that mother house-elves can choose the sex of the child; is that true? And did she name it? House-elves have such unusual names…do you think they name their own, or do wizards name them?”
“A boy,” Sirius answered. “She named it herself.”
“How exciting!”
“What did she name it?” Ginny asked. Ron was still eating every kind of starch on the table and wincing occasionally when Hermione’s voice became too shrill. His eyes, Harry noticed, were half-lidded to block out the light and he was propping his head on one of his hands as he held his fork in the other.
Harry looked at his father again. “Voldy,” he said slowly. Ginny snorted and Hermione frowned. At that moment, Harry was very glad Ron had a hang-over: he did not want to see him flinch in anticipation of the word ‘Voldemort’, thus giving away the reference to either Hermione or Ginny.
“How odd,” Hermione said. She went back to eating, and Harry smirked to himself. Sometimes, Hermione was so clever that she missed the obvious things. Harry took a bite of his breakfast, and looked up just in time to see Ginny giving him a knowing look. He turned away quickly.
“Your mother called this morning,” Sirius said to Ginny and Ron. Ron didn’t look up from his plate-as if he hadn’t heard Harry’s father speaking at all-and Sirius frowned before directing all his attention at Ginny. “She wanted to remind me that today was the first of September and to make certain that I remembered to get you to the station,” he finished wryly.
Ginny snorted. “She was probably afraid that Ron would have convinced you that it wasn’t until next week.” She looked over at Ron, expecting a sarcastic comment, and frowned too when he didn’t reply. “Ron,” she called. Ron grunted and shovelled some toast and eggs in his mouth. “Ron!”
Ron winced and looked up at her. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he looked drawn. “What?” he hissed.
“You okay mate?” Harry asked quietly. He knew exactly what was wrong with Ron, but he wasn’t about to say anything about it.
Ron rubbed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Bit tired.”
Harry nodded, noticed that Hermione had her head bent over the Standard Book of Spells Grade Seven, and relaxed. She hadn’t noticed that Ron was more than a bit tired. They finished breakfast while Sirius went up to check on Ginger, and Ginny went back to finish packing. Hermione scampered off to the library as Sirius had given her permission to borrow a few books until Christmas holidays, and Harry turned back to Ron, who was slumped over his plate, head in his hands.
“Want help packing, mate?” he asked quietly. Ron looked up at him gratefully. “Come on,” Harry said, and hoisted his redheaded friend up from the table. “Let’s stop by my room first.”
Harry had a vial of hang-over potion in his room, left over from his birthday. His father had given it to him prior to leaving for their outing that night, but Harry hadn’t used it. Neither of them had drunk enough to get drunk to begin with. He handed it to Ron.
“For your head,” he explained when Ron looked at it curiously. Ron sent him a grateful look and tipped it back into his mouth, grimacing at the taste.
“How’d you know?” he asked. He was massaging his temples now, but it seemed to be working: his shoulders were much less tense.
“M’not stupid,” Harry snapped. “I’ve seen you.”
Ron gave him a sheepish grin. “Thanks mate,” he said, and then he wandered over to the door, calling over his shoulder, “I’m much better now. I think I can pack by myself.”
Harry watched him leave, knowing that Ron’s head probably still hurt at least a bit, and that he didn’t want Harry helping him because he would most likely be packing up several bottles of firewhiskey in addition to his books and robes. Harry sighed, and went to see if his father had survived his visit with Ginger.
-x-
Ron was looking a bit better by the time they were ready to leave for King’s Cross Station, which was really good form of him, Harry thought, because he had not been looking forward to the awkward questions he would get from his father if Ron were still ‘a bit tired’ by then. He did rub his eyes occasionally though.
“We’re portkeying,” Sirius said to the students as he hurried in to the antechamber looking harried. He’d just come from bringing Ginger a bowl of soup-she must have given him a tongue-lashing while he was there. “Straight to platform nine and three-quarters. Bypassing the barrier entirely this year.” He pulled an old beer can of his pocket and held it out to them. “Dumbledore sent it this morning.”
Harry snorted. “Right nice of him,” he offered. Sirius gave him a grin.
“Everyone ready then? Hermione, you got your books? Your cat?” She nodded. “Ginny-you got that puff-thing?” Ginny sneered playfully and held Arnold up for Sirius’ viewing. “Excellent-Ron, Harry, got everything? Hedwig gone on ahead?”
Harry nodded and Ron hummed in what could have been either agreement or disagreement. Sirius gave Ron an odd look and held the beer can out, shrugging to himself. They all put one hand on their trunks, while Sirius touched Hermione’s because she was struggling to keep Crookshanks still, and then touched a finger to the can. Harry felt the nauseating pull behind his navel, and then they were gone.
It was still fifteen ‘til eleven, but the platform was bustling with activity. Children were hanging out the windows, saying goodbye to their families, dragging trunks, and trying to control their animals. Harry, more than ever, did not want to go back. What was Sirius going to do without him? It was going to be fifth year all over for his father: Sirius would be all alone all year, but at least this time he would be able to leave whenever he pleased. Harry hoped he didn’t get too bored.
Ginny, Hermione and Ron had already waved and run off to load up their trunks. Harry turned to his father and hugged him tightly. “I’ll miss you,” he said.
Sirius ruffled his hair, though he had to lift his hand up much higher to do it now. “You too, Kiddo. Be good.”
Harry stepped back. “What are you going to do while I’m at school?”
Sirius shrugged suspiciously. “Been reading a bit about investing. I might do a bit of that.”
Harry laughed. “Well, don’t rush into anything,” he said wryly.
Sirius laughed. “Go on then; you’re about to get left behind.” Harry smiled, gave his father one last hug, and hurried off after the others. He found Ron and Hermione packing their trunks in one of the compartments, but Ginny had obviously gone off to find her friends.
“We’ve got to go to the prefect meeting,” Hermione said in a breathless huff as she finally stowed her trunk. “As Head Girl, I’ve got to go meet with the Head Boy and set up duties for the year.” Ron nodded in agreement, and then they were gone.
-x-
Hermione came back to the compartment half an hour later, but Ron or Ginny were not with her. “Don’t you have rounds to do?” Harry asked her. He had been looking out the window and watching the scenery pass by in detached boredom. They had at least five hours left before they arrived at Hogwarts.
“No-I’m Head Girl, I don’t have to do rounds on the train, but I’m going to anyway. I think it will be good for morale, but I wanted to show you something first,” she said, sitting down.
“So who’s Head Boy then?” Harry asked as she rummaged around on the overhead rack, looking for something.
She gave him a sneer over her shoulder. “Theodore Nott, if you can believe it.” Harry could, he supposed. Nott had never much participated in anything at all; the only times Harry ever saw him were in classes or the library.
She pulled her travel bag from the overhead compartment and brought out a book. “It’s the journal you lent me,” she explained to Harry’s confused look. She flipped through the pages-being very careful even in her speed-and stopped on the very last one.
“I finished it just last night,” she explained, and then, as a an afterthought, she cast a locking and silencing spell on the compartment door. “Harry-this is so exciting. You never finished it, did you?”
Harry shook his head and Hermione bounced in her seat. When Harry didn’t ask anything further, she couldn’t take it any longer and moved over to sit next to him, propping the book on both of their laps. “Oh Harry,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “This is a piece of history right here. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but Harry-Harry this is one of a kind.”
“Okay,” Harry said carefully. He wished she would just get to the point.
Hermione made a frustrated, whimpering sound in the back of her throat and tapped the page. “Read it, Harry!”
Harry did.
“Fuck,” he breathed once he was finished. He looked up at Hermione, who was beaming and bouncing in the seat next to him. “Is this real? Are you certain it’s real?”
Hermione nodded frantically. “Yes! I checked it this morning with every forgery spell I knew. It’s real: it was really written when they dates say it was, the handwriting has not been altered, and I did a scan on the skin that binds it. It’s real.”
Harry grimaced. “No wonder they never heard from him again,” he said.
Hermione squealed. “Harry, this is amazing! And it was in your library all this time-do you know how much this is worth? It’s priceless!”
“You can keep it,” he interrupted.
Hermione blanched. “Oh Harry, I couldn’t. The National Museum of Magical Artefacts would be much better, but Harry, I think you should keep it.”
Harry scoffed. “I would never sell this. I meant that I’m sure you’d want to research it more. And you’ll take good care of it until we can return it to the library.”
She squealed again and tucked it back into her bag, layering dozens of cushioning and protective spells around it as she did so. She bounced up, kissed Harry lightly on the cheek, and beamed.
“Oh thank you! I’ll take excellent care of it, but for now, I have rounds to do.” She gave him a happy little wave and slipped out of the compartment. Harry sighed, realised that he still had five hours to sit alone on the train, and leaned his head back against the seat. He could use a nap right now.
The compartment door burst open just as Harry was nodding off to sleep, and Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle walked in. Harry looked up disinterestedly-after witnessing what he had only two nights ago, he couldn’t bring himself to work up any anger over the sight of Malfoy. Malfoy was just ignorant, and Harry didn’t think it was worth wasting his anger over ignorance. He wished that he hadn’t seen-or been part of-Malfoy’s failed initiation at all: it took some of the magic away from having a rival.
“Malfoy,” Harry greeted blandly. “Crabbe, Goyle,” he nodded at them.
The three Slytherins looked at him suspiciously. He’d never bothered to even pretend to be polite before. Malfoy, unsurprisingly-though Harry did have his suspicions-was the first to recover. “I read in the paper that we’re some sort of cousins now,” Malfoy drawled. Harry rolled his eyes.
“If you feel the need to acknowledge it, yes,” Harry said flatly.
Malfoy sat down across from him while his two goons guarded the door. He leaned forward, a malicious smile on his face and stared at Harry. “To be honest with you, Potty, I don’t. If anyone other than you were here, I wouldn’t have.”
Harry, again, refused to be baited. He stared at Malfoy with a bland smile, and could tell it was starting to get to the Slytherin.
“I don’t blame you,” Harry said.
Malfoy sneered. “Just because your mudblood mother turned out to not be muggle-born after all doesn’t mean she wasn’t a mudblood anyway, and doesn’t mean you’re worthy of being a pure-blood.”
“I quite agree,” Harry nodded magnanimously. Malfoy growled, and changed directions.
“The Dark Lord’s been back for three years now and he’s been quiet for over half of that,” he said in a nasty whisper. “He’s planning something, you know-your mudblood friend’s not long for this world. Are you afraid, Potty?”
Harry snorted, and remembered the Death Eater meeting two nights prior. Of course Voldemort was planning something. Of course he was-the ironic thing about it, however, was that Harry knew more of it than Malfoy did. He forgot about Crabbe and Goyle guarding the door: Harry’s world had narrowed down to only him and Malfoy. He stared into Malfoy’s cold, grey eyes, took in his too-sharp face and too-pointed chin and nose, and smiled.
“Are you?” he whisper-breathed back, leaning forward so that his and Malfoy’s faces were mere inches from each other. Malfoy faltered for only seconds before the sneer was back on his face. He stared defiantly at Harry. “Does it worry you that you don’t know what the Dark Lord is up to?”
Malfoy’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Harry ignored it. “Does it frighten you that you have no idea what’s going on? Does it really frighten you enough that you have to come to me for your information?”
Malfoy snarled. “I know what’s going on, Potty,” he said. Harry had to give him credit for not looking even a bit flustered anymore-Harry knew he’d gotten to Malfoy, even if it was just momentarily. “But the question is,” he paused, most likely for dramatic effect, “Are…you…afraid?”
Harry moved his mouth right next to Malfoy’s ear and breathed heavily, delighting in the way Malfoy tensed only slightly. “No, Cousin,” he hissed, “I am not afraid.”
-x-
Excerpt from the Journal of a Necromancer, 787th page.
30 October, 850
Salazar,
I am fully aware that I informed you that you will be returned to me tomorrow. I am also fully aware that you know how this will be accomplished. I am not fully certain if I have indeed completed my calculations correctly.
Arithmancy is such a fickle school and such a new one at that. It is not yet as refined and concise as I might have hoped it be, and we still know so little of the stars and planets and sun to make absolutely infallible conclusions. But I babble. You have no interest in this.
Let me say only this, then, Beloved: The spell, I am sure of. The ritual, I am sure of. The timing, I am sure of. The runes, I am sure of. Your skin, I am sure of. The numbers…I am wary of.
I feel so certain at times, and then others I spend fretting and fretting and fretting. One mistake-one mistake, my Darling, and the entire process could be reversed-could kill me right then. But I know one thing, Beloved, and that is no matter what the outcome, we will be united-whether it be in this world or another.
I am not afraid.
Always,
Rowena
Fin.
Continue to the Sequel at A03: The Hush of War
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