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Entry tags:
Liminality: Chapter 2 [HP]
Title: Liminality
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Tomarry, brief!Harry/Ginny, Harry & Ginny, Ginny & Tom, Harry & Hermione & Ron, Hermione/Ron, Severus Snape & Harry
Rating: M
Chapter Word Count: 5,895
Chapter Count: 2 / 6 | Chapter 1
Summary: AU: EWE; MoD!Harry. Harry Potter, saviour of magical Britain, has proved himself to be great at dying and coming back again. He’s just not as good at the bits in between coming back and dying again.
Notes: The idea is that as Harry becomes more and more focussed on the here-and-now, the writing is supposed to become less dense and more upbeat. With any luck, I was at least somewhat successful at this.
---
“Professor,” says Harry as he ladles the potion carefully into tiny vials. “In your professional opinion, would you say that Voldemort was evil?”
Snape stares at him. The humour of seeing his long, angular face look so gobsmacked isn’t lessened by the fact that he’s a shade, but Harry does his best to focus on the ladling and not burst out laughing.
“Are you well, Potter?”
“Fine, thanks for asking. Just, you know, feeling a little philosophical. Nothing to do with real life or anything.”
“Potter. What have you done?”
“It seems a little rude that you’re just leaping to the assumption that it was me,” says Harry pointedly. “I’ll have you know that I had very little to do with what may or may not have happened.”
Snape stares up at the stone ceiling beseechingly. When no escape proves forthcoming, he returns his scowl to Harry.
“Aurors discovered a whole collection of books on necromancy, and Voldemort just seemed like the sort of bloke a necromancer would target. So I tried to Call him—”
“Potter.”
“What? Nothing wrong with a little conversation. Anyway, he didn’t come, and then when I called his mum—”
“His mum,” says Snape disbelievingly.
“Yeah, she said he wasn’t there. You know, in the land beyond the Veil, or what have you.”
Snape presses his fingers to his temples.
“But because of the horcruxes all being destroyed, I wonder if he’ll come back with a full soul this time. So he might be a little less crazy than when I met him. So that’s why I’m asking. When he was more… himself? Was he evil? I know he was a total shit in school and murdered people and got Hagrid expelled, but irredeemably evil?”
Snape sighs. “What is evil? What does it mean to be irredeemable? He was always, in my experience, cruel, for the deeds you mention and many others. I do not know what, if anything, could convince him to be otherwise. But the blind, mass destruction that he is best known for was a more recent development, I believe. One that began sometime near my graduation from Hogwarts.”
“So, assuming he does come back sane and fully souled, he’ll probably be the sort of person I should keep my eye on as an auror, but he probably won’t require a full-scale war?”
Snape’s lips twist into a grimace. “Probably,” he agrees. He hesitates, then adds, grudgingly, “Stay safe, Potter.”
Harry smiles at him. “Thank you.”
When Snape is gone, Harry scourifies the storeroom-come-potions-lab as thoroughly as possible. It’s unlikely that anyone will come in here for months, if ever, but Harry wants to ensure that no trace of him and his activities remains. He carefully stores the cauldron and his ingredients into a tidy potion kit, then shrinks it all and slips it into his pocket along with the stoppered vials.
With one last glance around the storeroom, he slips out into the hall as inconspicuously as possible and experimentally takes his trip down to his office at a trot. No one bothers him beyond a smile and a wave, all assuming he’s in a rush to save the world. It’s brilliant.
In his office, he spends a quiet hour completing paperwork and covertly handling his personal mail—Ginny agrees to dinner tonight, Luna shares a Quibbler special issue with their friends, Ron reminds their friends that they’re due another pub night, Hermione reminds their friends that they’re not to exchange private missives at work—before his peace is broken.
“Potter!” says Burnes, appearing by his open office door. “Good, you’re here early.”
“‘Morning, Burnes,” says Harry, not looking up from the Quibbler. “What can I do for you?”
“We’ve gone through those Dark artifacts we found yesterday, and you’ll never guess what we think our Dark wizard was planning to do with them.”
Harry bites back the automatic ‘or witch.’ “A resurrection rite?” he asks.
Burnes’s jaw drops open. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
Harry tries not to roll his eyes too obviously. “It was a pile of books on necromancy, Burnes. One of the books was actually titled Raising the Dead. Not much of a leap of logic, is it?”
Burnes looks at him, awed and amazed, and Harry feels instinctively embarrassed on behalf of the entire investigative team.
Harry prompts, “But I imagine you have more details on the specific rite our MUTANT was attempting?”
Harry vaguely remembers overhearing the Dursleys watching programmes on the telly where the inspectors would refer to their unknown criminals as ‘unsubs.’ The magical world, as always, comes instead with one of its absurdly long acronyms: Mysterious Undesirable Targets and Noxious Truants, or MUTANT. Harry once tried to make an X-Men joke, but even Hermione had stared at him blankly, so he let it go regretfully.
Burnes says, “Yes, well, we’ve got it narrowed to fifty possibilities,” and Harry tries not to wince.
“Excellent,” he says weakly, and Burnes glows with pride.
There’s a moment of silence before Harry asks, “Did you want me to do something?”
“Yes, right! Could you come and see? We’re not sure where to take the investigation next.”
Harry closes the Quibbler and gestures for Burnes to lead the way.
Harry is a senior auror at 23, and he shouldn’t be, but Burnes and his cohort of junior aurors are only 18. They should still be in training, and it shows.
“Here’s the list of possible rites that we’ve compiled,” says Burnes when they arrive at the Storeroom 5, which they’ve taken over for the investigation. He passes Harry a roll of parchment covered in a messy scrawl that Harry has to squint to read. “And over here is our catalogue of all the rites listed in the books, and over here is our list of all the ingredients and artifacts we found at the flat, including the archive numbers we assigned them. And then here on these shelves are the books and ingredients and artifacts themselves.”
Harry sees Barnes’s arms waving around out of the corner of his eye as Burnes gestures around the room, but he continues reading through the list of rites, frowning.
“This one,” says Harry, tapping the parchment. He ignores the junior aurors as they crowd around him to look. “The Rite of Anubis. Doesn’t that need a pyramid and a mummy?”
Peters hurries over to the centre table to refer to yet another list. “Er, yes,” she says after a moment.
Harry glances around the room, but none of the aurors seem to see a problem with this. “Was there any sign of a pyramid or a mummy in the flat? Any sign of access to one? Even any sign of any interest in Egypt?”
Burnes hesitates. “...No?” he answers uncertainly.
Harry stares at him. “...Right,” he says. “So we can probably cross that one off the list, don’t you think?”
“But, Potter,” says Everett. “There’s no evidence that it wasn’t that rite, is there?”
Harry closes his eyes. It’s too early in the day for this bad of a headache. “Right you are, Everett,” says Harry. “Why don’t you keep this list as a reference of possible rites our MUTANT was planning, and now start on a new list ranking these rites in terms of feasibility and likelihood.” He sees Burnes’s mouth open and cuts off that train of questioning before it can begin. “By ‘likelihood,’ I mean how easy it would be for a magical being living in England and in possession of the artifacts we confiscated to complete the rite. For example, any rite that can be completed using only the confiscated materials should go at the top of this new list. Does that make sense?”
At the general hum of agreement, Harry congratulates the junior aurors on their hard work and escapes back to his office.
Kingsley, Harry scribbles onto an office memo. Can I quit, please?
A response comes fluttering back to Harry before he’s even managed to find where he’d left off in the Quibbler.
No, the reply reads in Kingsley’s bold, clear writing. Not until the youngest senior auror is 40.
That’ll take ages! Harry writes back, scowling.
Yes. We’ll discuss this again in 17 years, Potter.
Harry frowns. Bermann is 28, Falvry is 30, and Mallory is 39. Unless…
Harry grabs his memo pad again. Are you counting me? That’s not fair!
Kingsley doesn’t reply, so he probably agrees and doesn’t care.
To be fair, Bermann, Falvry, and Mallory are only slightly more helpful than the junior aurors they oversee. Sometimes, Harry wonders if the whole reason the DMLE has gone so long without a formal head is Kingsley’s fear of being forced to hand the job over to Mallory on the basis of seniority. Even though Harry is by far the youngest of the senior aurors, the other three defer to him with almost embarrassing regularity.
Harry lets his head hit the desk with a thump. Ron, Patil, Greengrass, and Nott are all full aurors in line for promotion to senior. As long as they pass the exam (a breeze) and meet the requirements for the performance review (what’s taking them so long to hit the required caseload, anyway?), soon he should have someone else on hand to help him babysit.
As it is, full-time training and oversight duty was only fun up until he realised exactly how much oversight the junior aurors actually need, never mind the trainees. He’s been putting off his performance evaluations in the hopes that the juniors will provide him with something positive to write down other than the damningly faint praise of “diligent worker.”
Harry looks up at a knock on his open door. Jakobs has stuck her head in. “Potter? I just ran into Everett, and he wanted to ask you if a rite requiring an 81-member coven counts as ‘feasible.’”
Harry closes his eyes. “What did you tell him?” he asks, trying to keep his voice as non-judgemental as possible.
Jakobs grins at him. “I said, ‘Not unless the rite involves a Witch Weekly sponsored book signing.’ Only, then he nodded all thoughtfully and wrote that down. I’m not sure that team is getting enough sunlight.”
Harry rubs his eyes, nearly knocking off his glasses in the process. “What’re you working on, again?”
“I’m the first line of defense against loud noises and suspiciously malingering school children,” says Jakobs grandiosely. “Protection that elderly witches and their cats can truly rely on. I think I’ve gained an entire stone in teacakes.”
Harry snorts and digs through his desk until he finds the form he’s looking for. “Not anymore. Now you’re heading the Dark Muggle Flat investigation. Take the team out for lunch on a patio or something.”
“Will do, boss,” says Jakobs. “Though they might not need any. When I ran into Everett, he was on his way back up from the main lobby picking up a bagged lunch. His sister had just come all the way to the ministry to hand-deliver it to him. I think she said ‘hi’ to the whole team.” Her tone isn’t nearly as mocking as her words might imply, but Harry gives her a stern frown anyway. She salutes, grinning as she takes her copy of the assignment and heads out the door.
Harry exhales slowly and looks down at his desk sorrowfully. Now he wants teacakes.
---
Harry levitates the final washed and dried plate back into the cabinet and turns to Ginny with a smile. “See? We can do the after-dating friend thing. Dinner wasn’t too awkward, was it?”
It’s only one week after the pub celebration, and a week and a half after their last dinner together. Harry can’t remember the last time he and Ginny saw one another so frequently.
Ginny laughs at him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. There isn’t much light in the kitchen, and in the dark, her hair seems to flow like dripping blood.
“Quiet, candlelit dinners with just the two of us will be a lot more awkward once we’ve come clean about the breakup. Imagine how irritating it will be to explain that we’re not getting back together again.”
Her smile is inviting—inviting him to share the joke, inviting him to laugh with her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms casually. “I think they’ll get the message pretty clearly when you introduce them to your new boyfriend. Tom, is it?”
He’s almost certain, but not quite. When her eyes widen comically, he mentally pats himself on the back.
“How did you hear about that? I haven’t told anyone about him!”
Harry wags his eyebrows at her. “I have my ways,” he says, trying to seem just this side of Abused My Power as an Auror to Stalk You. The wizarding world has strange priorities, and stalking comes off better than speaking to the dead, unfortunately. Though it seems increasingly likely that Ginny’s priorities are differently aligned.
Ginny frowns at him teasingly. “Way to go, Mr Creepy,” she says, smiling. “Yes, I do have a new friend. Tom—Thomas Mort. He’s just back in England. His family moved away to the Continent to escape the war.”
Thomas Mort? Seriously? Couldn’t they do better than that?
“And when do we get to meet this Mr Mort?” asks Harry. He’s slightly surprised at how much he’s enjoying himself in this role of big brother, even given the twin pink elephants of necromancy and Dark Lords casting their shadows.
“Oh, he’s still settling in,” says Ginny, not meeting Harry’s eyes. “And really, Harry, we’re not at all like that, so introducing him to the clan would be absurd.” She grins suddenly and looks down at him. “He’s terribly handsome, so the fam would be making assumptions whether they knew about you and me or not.”
Harry feels himself flush, and he’s not entirely certain why. Ginny smirks at him, and he clears his throat. “Is he? Well, you should at least introduce him to us, then. I’d like to meet him, be he my replacement or my new friend.”
“Oh, trust me, Harry,” says Ginny, her smile strange. “It never crossed my mind to keep you two away from one another.”
Harry looks away, swallowing. “Lovely,” he says in a strained voice. He doesn’t realise he’s made a decision until he hears himself say, “Listen, Ginny—”
She stands there looking at him, beautiful and familiar down to the last freckle.
He can trust her. He knows he can trust her.
“I don’t want to tell you how to spend your free time,” he says. “But the Auror Department’s a bit of a madhouse right now. Yesterday, some muggle flat was discovered to be hiding a treasure trove of Dark Arts nonsense. From what I could see it was rather soft; if that new recategorisation bill passes in the Wizengamot, it might not even be illegal. But no one knows who it belongs to, where it came from, or why it was there. So you and your new friend might want to be careful out there.”
Ginny is frozen and pale. She nods her head very slowly. “They have no leads at all?” she asks delicately.
Harry meets her gaze. “None,” he promises.
“How alarming,” she says. “I’ll let Tom know to be careful.”
“Brilliant,” says Harry tonelessly.
They’re silent as Harry leads Ginny to the door and wraps her cloak around her. He opens the door for her, and then he can’t bear it any longer.
“Ginny,” he says, voice pleading. “‘Mort’? Really? Really?”
She leaves Grimmauld Place laughing.
---
“I just feel,” says Harry, waving around his cheese knife, “that I’ve already, you know, paid my dues and served my sentence. Do I really need to stand up and do it all over again? Am I morally obligated to?”
Lily smiles at him reassuringly, but her eyes are worried as she flickers her gaze over to James.
Remus raises his eyebrows. “I suppose that depends on how invested you are in the final outcome.”
“You mean that I have no right to complain about the state of the world if I don’t do anything to save it or fix it.” The kettle whistles, and Harry waves his hand to turn off the burner and pour the water into the waiting teapot. “Fine, I guess, but I feel as though I’m the one pulling all the weight here. Can’t someone else be the saviour of magical Britain for once?”
“Would you be happier, leaving the job to someone else?” asks James, rubbing Lily’s back soothingly. “Would you be able to relax, not knowing if they’re doing it right?”
Harry bites his lip, unsure of his response.
Lily says abruptly, “What if it does turn out that he isn’t the same after all?” She looks at Harry through his own eyes. “You’ve been wondering who he’ll turn out to be, now that he may have been returned with a complete soul. You’re asking us what to do, what you’ll be expected to do, if he begins a new war. But what if he doesn’t? Will you be able to live with him as he is, knowing what he was? What he did?”
Harry can’t bear the intensity of her stare, and he looks away. “I—” he begins.
“Master had best not be being in the kitchen!” shrieks Kreacher, and Harry quickly waves his family away before he’s caught talking at thin air.
“We said I’m allowed to make myself breakfast, remember?” Harry yells back as the old elf hobbles into the room, glaring at him.
“Master is be making breakfast only when Master is not be making dinner,” says Kreacher coldly, and with a snap of his fingers, the cheese knife vanishes from Harry’s hand and reappears in Kreacher’s. Kreacher inspects Harry’s early start on breakfast and sniffs in disdain. “Master will wait in the breakfast room,” Kreacher commands firmly. “And Kreacher will bring Master his breakfast and”—Kreacher peers at the little teapot and sneers—“his tea.”
“Thanks, Kreacher,” says Harry meekly, and he shuffles out of the room obediently.
Harry sits at the breakfast table in the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black and thinks about how deeply and unbendingly he’d despised Kreacher after Sirius died. Voldemort’s scheme would not have succeeded without Kreacher’s assistance, and then Sirius would have lived at least a little longer with Harry. Time and understanding lent him and Kreacher the strength for mutual forgiveness.
How far could Harry’s forgiveness extend?
How far should Harry’s forgiveness extend?
---
Jakobs’s usually amiable face is stiff and cold when she meets Harry at his office just as he’s getting in to work. The rest of the team is standing behind her, white with fear.
“Jakobs,” says Harry, watching her carefully. He makes a show of shrugging off his cloak as he shoulders open the door to his office. “Peters, Everett, Burnes. Come on in.”
Jakobs waits until the door has been securely closed behind them before she speaks. “Storeroom 5—the storeroom our team was using—was broken into last night,” she says quietly. “The books, the ingredients, the artifacts—all cleared out.”
Harry goes still.
“Cleared out,” he repeats quietly, and the group of juniors flinch.
“Yes, sir,” says Jakobs, standing at attention. It was an eerie sight, given the usual informality of the Auror Department.
Harry sits down at his desk slowly and leans back in his chair. “How was the room secured?”
“The contraband was sealed up into Priority 1 lockboxes, and the room itself was sealed with a level-three containment charm. I can personally confirm that the spells on the lockboxes and the storeroom were active when I left last night. I’m willing to provide my memories.”
Harry drums his fingers against the arm of his chair. “That won’t be necessary, Jakobs, but thank you.”
Jakobs clears her throat, relaxing slightly. “Sir, I take full responsibility for not properly ensuring the protection of the evidence.”
“Priority 1 lockboxes were already overkill,” says Harry drily. “Never mind the containment charm on the room. A bunch of old books, some minor Dark artifacts, that might not even be classified as Dark in less than an hour, and a mini potions lab? None of it struck me as particularly rare. Do you disagree?”
Peters says, “The books could be rare, maybe, but everything else was middling-rare at most. Most of the potions ingredients were actually fairly common.”
“So who or what,” asks Harry, “would go through the effort of breaking into the Ministry, then breaking a level-three containment field, and then go through the extremely finicky and irritating process of cutting through the charms on those bloody lockboxes, all for a pile of relative junk? And, most importantly, why?”
Everett and Burnes both open their mouths, but Harry waves them silent again. “No, don’t answer that. Think about it. Gather up whatever’s left of your investigation notes, if anything, and report to Briefing Room Three.”
The juniors stare at him in surprise. “Potter?” asks Jakobs uncertainly.
“We’re opening this case up,” says Harry. “I’m calling everyone in.”
Before he heads to the briefing room himself, Harry makes a few stops: first, to the breached Storeroom 5, then to speak with the other senior aurors when what he finds there isn’t quite what he expects.
Finally, he finds himself thinking to himself. Something fun to look into.
---
“Necromancy?” repeats Greengrass dubiously.
Something like thirty-five aurors are squeezed in around an absurdly long conference table with Harry slouched casually at its head. The recitation of the facts of the case has been rather dull; Harry has occupied himself with tapping his wand against the underside of the wooden conference table and idly watching the reactions.
The junior aurors, when not required to speak, are sunken down into their chairs, looking terrified. The three other senior aurors are staring blankly down at the table in front of them, as pale and wan as they have been since Harry pulled them aside to brief them on his plans for this investigation. The promotion-track full aurors, meanwhile, are bright with alertness and curiosity, and it is they who dominant the conversation.
“But what would be the point?” Greengrass continues.
“Oh, please,” snaps Ron. “Isn’t that obvious? One of your Death Eater friends is looking to bring your old master back.”
Greengrass pales in fury. “Watch your tongue, Weasley, or be prepared to lose it.”
“Who else would go through all this trouble?” Ron continues, heedless. “We should make a run at the usual suspects.”
“If the ‘usual suspects’ were interested in any of the contraband listed here, they wouldn’t need to steal it,” says Patil, entirely unmoved. “They’d just tell their House Elf to go fetch it from the family vaults. None of this is worth stealing; not for the effort involved, anyway.”
A memo zips into the room and Harry snatches it out of the air. He waves at the aurors to continue their discussion, and he opens the note.
Fine, Kingsley wrote. Keep me apprised. And then, in a different ink: The Dark Arts Reclassification Bill just passed.
Ron leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “All the better to go after them, then, if their vaults are loaded up with Dark Artifacts! And if they are innocent, it’s in their best interests to cooperate with us, anyway.”
“And how is that?” Nott looks at Ron, sneering. “They know they’ll always be the aurors’ first suspects in anything no matter what they do. Why should they cooperate?”
“I agree,” says Harry. The entire table goes silent. It’s ridiculous; there are three aurors in the room who technically outrank him, based on their seniority. But everyone simply accepts that whatever he says goes.
“Who with?” asks Ron, frowning.
“All of you,” Harry replies easily. “If a Death Eater stole these items, I doubt it’s one we know about.” Seeing Ron stiffening out of the corner of his eye, Harry cuts off his argument before it can begin. “We’ll still make the rounds, though.”
Greengrass and Nott look furious but unsurprised, so Harry nods at them. “And we’ll make it worth their while. Full immunity for any inactive class-three or lower Dark items we come across during our searches in exchange for their cooperation, and immunity and non-seizure for any items we find that meet the new classification criteria. And we’ll make sure all the papers know how helpful and innocent they all are. That should keep everyone happy.”
Everyone is staring at him now, jaws dropped open.
“Harry,” pleads Ron. “This is an opportunity to clean up! We could do some real good!”
“‘Do some real good,’” repeats Harry incredulously, “by snatching up a bunch of dusty family heirlooms, half of which were only classified as Dark on a whim? Let’s worry more about the active harm some MUTANT might be attempting out there and less about lost knickknacks that are rotting away in Malfoy’s cupboards.”
“And if the ‘lost knickknacks’ in those cupboards are little kids?” snarls Ron, ignoring the bewildered glances that comment earns him. “What then?”
Harry gives Ron his blandest face. “Then we get the kids out and burn the manor to the bloody ground,” he answers coldly.
Ron leans back, satisfied, and the aurors sit in bemused silence for a long moment.
“Now,” says Harry, nodding at Jakobs and her team. “Tell us what rituals you think were most likely to have been our MUTANT’s gameplan.”
Peters clears her throat nervously. “While there remain a large number of rites that could possibly have been intended by the MUTANT, the ingredients and artifacts found that the site would have been sufficient to complete three rites: The Third Circle, the Returning Reign, and the Red Pheasant.”
Harry’s eyebrows shoot up.
“‘The Red Pheasant,’” asks Ron, sniggering. “Seriously?”
“What do they do? How are they conducted?” asks Patil.
Peters’s face goes red. Jakobs places a comforting hand on her shoulder and answers, “The notes on the rituals were all stolen along with the books. All we have left are the annotated lists the team made for archival purposes. We know those rituals make use of the confiscated items in some combination or other, but we don’t have any information on what they’re for.”
“Do you know, Potter?” asks Burnes hopefully.
Ron rolls his eyes, and Nott sneers.
Unfortunately, Burnes chooses this moment to suddenly become observant, because he notices their reactions and slouches down in his chair, flushing. “You knew a lot about the Anubis one, so I just thought you might recognise these, too.”
“‘The Anubis one,’” repeats Ron, grinning over at Harry.
Harry doesn’t grin back.
“I’ve heard of them, anyway,” he says mildly. “The Returning Reign is technically a summoning and possession ritual, I believe. It’s still used by Healers in some communities to revive coma patients. The Red Pheasant is an old healing ritual, too; it’s very power exhaustive, but with enough fuel, it can repair almost any physical damage on a body.” Or even build a new body from scratch. “The Third Circle is the only one of those three that’s really traditional necromancy, but I don’t think we have to worry about that one. I seem to remember it requiring really specific astrological conditions, the sort that only come around every century or so.”
“Well, once a century could be right now,” says Greengrass. “Do you remember what those conditions were?”
Harry gives her a wry smile. “Good point. No, I don’t. We’ll need to do some digging.”
“That one was in Raising the Dead,” says Burnes helpfully. “I remember because you pointed out that title specifically.”
I’m going to run you through a meat-grinder, thinks Harry, but he’s careful to keep his feelings under wraps and only hums absently.
“How do you even know this?” asks Ron, staring at him.
“I killed Voldemort four times, was present for three of his resurrection attempts, and I’ve been hit with the Killing Curse twice,” says Harry, ignoring the wide eyes those statements earn him. “You think that didn’t spur an interest in life and death?”
Ron frowns. “I guess…”
“I find it interesting that two of the three likeliest rituals are relatively benign,” says Greengrass. “And are arguably healing rituals rather than necromancy.”
Harry shrugs. “It’s not really that surprising. All healing magic is rooted in necromancy. And neither of the two are illegal, strictly speaking.”
Again with the staring.
“Jakobs, Peters, Everett, and Burnes,” says Harry. “Distribute copies of your lists. Aurors, take your lists door-to-Former-Death-Eater-door, as we discussed earlier. Remember, they aren’t to be treated as suspects, but as possible sources of much-needed information. And if anyone does have any Dark items that match the descriptions of our missing contraband, request—politely—that we be permitted to borrow them for study, especially the books. There’s some connection we’re missing, something that makes these items important enough to steal, and I want to know what it is. I doubt it’s any of those ingredients or artifacts, common as they are, so focus on the books.”
Greengrass speaks up. “In the interests of the investigation,” she says delicately. “It’s possible that I may have one of the books on that list, or something similar.”
Harry nods. “I reckon I have one or two, too. I’ll look, but the Black family library is a disaster zone. We may very well reclaim the stolen contraband before I’m able to find anything useful in there.”
“You keep Dark Arts books?” Ron yelps, horrified.
Harry can’t help but grind his teeth. He’s so through with this conversation. “Ron,” he says. “I live in the Most Ancient and Noble house of Black. Despite Sirius’s best efforts to discard everything Dark, gross, or just ugly that he could find, I still trip over cursed items nearly every week. Yesterday a lamp nearly took my arm off.”
Greengrass looks fascinated.
Ron, on the other hand, looks like he wants to throw up. “Why don’t you just move out?”
Harry stands and gestures for the other aurors to get moving. “Because I love it.”
It isn’t until he says it out loud that he knows for certain that it’s true.
Ron and Hermione had told him that they’d be bored if they always got along with one another. But for Harry, for whom emotions remain terrifying and huge things that he doesn’t quite understand, he’d much rather have his friendships and family be completely agreeable and supportive, and all the dangers he faces be physical.
And facing physical danger is fun when it’s not a constant threat of world destruction hanging over his head. Facing physical danger in small, controlled bursts is why he stays on this side of the Veil when so much of what he wants waits for him on the other side.
He sighs. He thinks he finally knows the answers to his dad and mum’s questions that morning. And he’s not sure he likes them.
---
Harry can do this. It’s no big deal. Obviously he can do this. He’s done way more frightening things before.
He faces the door to the friendly cottage.
He knocks.
“Coming!” calls Ginny from inside.
Harry stuffs in hands into his pockets to stop them from fidgeting.
“Harry!” says Ginny, surprised and not entirely welcoming. “Did you want to head down to the pub together? Let me change into different robes.” She vanishes back into the cottage, calling back over her shoulder pointedly, “You should have sent an owl!”
Despite the lack of invitation, Harry eases himself inside. “I mean, we can head down together, though it’s a bit early, yet. No, I wanted to talk to you about that… thing. That we talked about. The investigation thing.”
Ginny’s head pops back out from around the doorway that he knows leads to her bedroom as he closes the outside door carefully behind him. “The investigation thing? With the mysterious Dark Arts collection in the muggle flat?”
“Yeah,” says Harry. “See, the entire collection was stolen from the ministry last night.”
Ginny’s eyes widen in convincing shock, but they narrow quickly enough in suspicion. “And you came to me because…?”
“Because I don’t think it was you, but I need to make sure. And because I want to know what in there was valuable enough that it prompted someone to break a really absurd number of protection charms to get at it when, to my knowledge, a quick dash into Knockturn Alley should turn up basically the same sort of stock.”
Ginny worries at her bottom lip, but she isn’t the one who answers.
“You’re largely correct,” says a familiar, smooth voice from behind Harry. Harry forces himself to turn slowly and casually, even though his instinct has him wanting to whirl around, wand in the air. “Most of our materials were common enough. We were very careful in selecting the rituals we needed. We didn’t both feel comfortable crossing certain… boundaries, shall we say.”
Tom Marvolo Riddle is leaning against the open kitchen door, looking comfortable and gorgeous and very, very alive.
Harry has to remind himself, repeatedly, that he’s already made the decision to trust Ginny on this.
For now.
“Mr Mort,” greets Harry when he thinks he’s got his voice under control. It still comes out a bit scratchy, and it makes Tom smile a little in a sweet, teasing sort of way, like they’re the best of friends sharing a joke. Harry’s stomach twists violently at the sight. “I want to congratulate you on your caution and respect for the law. Though your naming ability leaves something to be desired, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Maybe I was hoping it would just be temporary,” says Tom, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I rather like the sound of ‘Tom Potter,’ actually. Now, I wonder how I could convince you to share your name with me?” His dark eyes flicker over Harry’s body lazily, and Harry shivers, face bright red.
“Ginny!” he tattles. “Your boyfriend is flirting with me!”
“Still not my boyfriend!” she calls back as she returns to the room, her hair tidied, her face freshly made up, and her work clothes having been changed for a lovely set of lilac robes that make her skin glow. Harry tries very hard to focus his desire on her. More embarrassing than his failure to do so is how obvious both the attempt and the failure are to his companions, if he takes their matching smirks as hints. “I’m ready now. Are you coming along, Tom?”
“Mightn’t someone recognise you?” asks Harry desperately. “Seems a bit dangerous to go walking about looking like… you.”
Ginny breaks down laughing, but Tom contents himself with a quick grin before he considers Harry’s question seriously.
“There are no photos or paintings of Tom Riddle,” he says. “I’ve—we’ve—made certain of that. And there are very few people living who have cause to remember this face and connect it to Lord Voldemort. Hagrid lives in France, now. McGonagall rarely leaves Scotland. And while Horace flits from manor to mansion somewhat unpredictably, I don’t expect him to join you at your pub night.”
“But if someone takes a photo for a paper and one of them sees it…”
Tom raises his eyebrows sardonically. “Voldemort was finally fully destroyed, remember? And even if he hadn’t been, he looked nothing like this by the time he died, nor would he have even without the experimental Dark Arts, not at his age. A strong resemblance to a student they knew sixty years ago is explainable in many more parsimonious ways than necromancy.”
“I suppose…”
“Tom,” Ginny breaks in. “Pub. Yes or no?”
Tom lets his eyes settle on Harry, the expression in them thoughtful. “Yes,” he says finally.
Harry flushes again and looks away.
“Brilliant!” says Ginny. “I can’t wait to see how Hermione reacts to you, and then how Ron reacts to Hermione’s reaction to you. Fireworks guaranteed!”
They’re out the door and waiting for Ginny to lock up so they can apparate away together when Harry remembers. “Wait, the books! You mentioned that only most of them were common. Which one wasn’t? What was worth stealing?”
Tom is suddenly standing very close, a long finger pressing itself lightly to Harry’s lips. The soft pressure makes them tingle. “Not out here, love,” Tom breathes into Harry’s ear. “We’ll talk later. Perhaps you’ll invite us in for drinks?”
“Drinks after drinks?” asks Harry against Tom’s finger, trying to sound unimpressed rather than like he’s approximately thirty seconds from either fainting or exploding due to sensory overload.
Tom’s eyes darken, and he slides his finger away to cup his whole hand around the side of Harry’s face. “I suppose it doesn’t need to be for drinks,” he purrs.
Just as Harry’s knees are about to give up the fight, Ginny snaps, “Boys! Pub!” and yanks them apart. “Honestly,” she grumbles, arranging them on either side of her, so that her arms are looped through theirs. “Right on my front porch. And Tom, you’ll have to take this slower, give Harry time to adjust. You know how he is. We dated him long enough.”
Harry chokes.
“Shall we?” asks Ginny brightly, and she apparates them all away.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Tomarry, brief!Harry/Ginny, Harry & Ginny, Ginny & Tom, Harry & Hermione & Ron, Hermione/Ron, Severus Snape & Harry
Rating: M
Chapter Word Count: 5,895
Chapter Count: 2 / 6 | Chapter 1
Summary: AU: EWE; MoD!Harry. Harry Potter, saviour of magical Britain, has proved himself to be great at dying and coming back again. He’s just not as good at the bits in between coming back and dying again.
Notes: The idea is that as Harry becomes more and more focussed on the here-and-now, the writing is supposed to become less dense and more upbeat. With any luck, I was at least somewhat successful at this.
“Professor,” says Harry as he ladles the potion carefully into tiny vials. “In your professional opinion, would you say that Voldemort was evil?”
Snape stares at him. The humour of seeing his long, angular face look so gobsmacked isn’t lessened by the fact that he’s a shade, but Harry does his best to focus on the ladling and not burst out laughing.
“Are you well, Potter?”
“Fine, thanks for asking. Just, you know, feeling a little philosophical. Nothing to do with real life or anything.”
“Potter. What have you done?”
“It seems a little rude that you’re just leaping to the assumption that it was me,” says Harry pointedly. “I’ll have you know that I had very little to do with what may or may not have happened.”
Snape stares up at the stone ceiling beseechingly. When no escape proves forthcoming, he returns his scowl to Harry.
“Aurors discovered a whole collection of books on necromancy, and Voldemort just seemed like the sort of bloke a necromancer would target. So I tried to Call him—”
“Potter.”
“What? Nothing wrong with a little conversation. Anyway, he didn’t come, and then when I called his mum—”
“His mum,” says Snape disbelievingly.
“Yeah, she said he wasn’t there. You know, in the land beyond the Veil, or what have you.”
Snape presses his fingers to his temples.
“But because of the horcruxes all being destroyed, I wonder if he’ll come back with a full soul this time. So he might be a little less crazy than when I met him. So that’s why I’m asking. When he was more… himself? Was he evil? I know he was a total shit in school and murdered people and got Hagrid expelled, but irredeemably evil?”
Snape sighs. “What is evil? What does it mean to be irredeemable? He was always, in my experience, cruel, for the deeds you mention and many others. I do not know what, if anything, could convince him to be otherwise. But the blind, mass destruction that he is best known for was a more recent development, I believe. One that began sometime near my graduation from Hogwarts.”
“So, assuming he does come back sane and fully souled, he’ll probably be the sort of person I should keep my eye on as an auror, but he probably won’t require a full-scale war?”
Snape’s lips twist into a grimace. “Probably,” he agrees. He hesitates, then adds, grudgingly, “Stay safe, Potter.”
Harry smiles at him. “Thank you.”
When Snape is gone, Harry scourifies the storeroom-come-potions-lab as thoroughly as possible. It’s unlikely that anyone will come in here for months, if ever, but Harry wants to ensure that no trace of him and his activities remains. He carefully stores the cauldron and his ingredients into a tidy potion kit, then shrinks it all and slips it into his pocket along with the stoppered vials.
With one last glance around the storeroom, he slips out into the hall as inconspicuously as possible and experimentally takes his trip down to his office at a trot. No one bothers him beyond a smile and a wave, all assuming he’s in a rush to save the world. It’s brilliant.
In his office, he spends a quiet hour completing paperwork and covertly handling his personal mail—Ginny agrees to dinner tonight, Luna shares a Quibbler special issue with their friends, Ron reminds their friends that they’re due another pub night, Hermione reminds their friends that they’re not to exchange private missives at work—before his peace is broken.
“Potter!” says Burnes, appearing by his open office door. “Good, you’re here early.”
“‘Morning, Burnes,” says Harry, not looking up from the Quibbler. “What can I do for you?”
“We’ve gone through those Dark artifacts we found yesterday, and you’ll never guess what we think our Dark wizard was planning to do with them.”
Harry bites back the automatic ‘or witch.’ “A resurrection rite?” he asks.
Burnes’s jaw drops open. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
Harry tries not to roll his eyes too obviously. “It was a pile of books on necromancy, Burnes. One of the books was actually titled Raising the Dead. Not much of a leap of logic, is it?”
Burnes looks at him, awed and amazed, and Harry feels instinctively embarrassed on behalf of the entire investigative team.
Harry prompts, “But I imagine you have more details on the specific rite our MUTANT was attempting?”
Harry vaguely remembers overhearing the Dursleys watching programmes on the telly where the inspectors would refer to their unknown criminals as ‘unsubs.’ The magical world, as always, comes instead with one of its absurdly long acronyms: Mysterious Undesirable Targets and Noxious Truants, or MUTANT. Harry once tried to make an X-Men joke, but even Hermione had stared at him blankly, so he let it go regretfully.
Burnes says, “Yes, well, we’ve got it narrowed to fifty possibilities,” and Harry tries not to wince.
“Excellent,” he says weakly, and Burnes glows with pride.
There’s a moment of silence before Harry asks, “Did you want me to do something?”
“Yes, right! Could you come and see? We’re not sure where to take the investigation next.”
Harry closes the Quibbler and gestures for Burnes to lead the way.
Harry is a senior auror at 23, and he shouldn’t be, but Burnes and his cohort of junior aurors are only 18. They should still be in training, and it shows.
“Here’s the list of possible rites that we’ve compiled,” says Burnes when they arrive at the Storeroom 5, which they’ve taken over for the investigation. He passes Harry a roll of parchment covered in a messy scrawl that Harry has to squint to read. “And over here is our catalogue of all the rites listed in the books, and over here is our list of all the ingredients and artifacts we found at the flat, including the archive numbers we assigned them. And then here on these shelves are the books and ingredients and artifacts themselves.”
Harry sees Barnes’s arms waving around out of the corner of his eye as Burnes gestures around the room, but he continues reading through the list of rites, frowning.
“This one,” says Harry, tapping the parchment. He ignores the junior aurors as they crowd around him to look. “The Rite of Anubis. Doesn’t that need a pyramid and a mummy?”
Peters hurries over to the centre table to refer to yet another list. “Er, yes,” she says after a moment.
Harry glances around the room, but none of the aurors seem to see a problem with this. “Was there any sign of a pyramid or a mummy in the flat? Any sign of access to one? Even any sign of any interest in Egypt?”
Burnes hesitates. “...No?” he answers uncertainly.
Harry stares at him. “...Right,” he says. “So we can probably cross that one off the list, don’t you think?”
“But, Potter,” says Everett. “There’s no evidence that it wasn’t that rite, is there?”
Harry closes his eyes. It’s too early in the day for this bad of a headache. “Right you are, Everett,” says Harry. “Why don’t you keep this list as a reference of possible rites our MUTANT was planning, and now start on a new list ranking these rites in terms of feasibility and likelihood.” He sees Burnes’s mouth open and cuts off that train of questioning before it can begin. “By ‘likelihood,’ I mean how easy it would be for a magical being living in England and in possession of the artifacts we confiscated to complete the rite. For example, any rite that can be completed using only the confiscated materials should go at the top of this new list. Does that make sense?”
At the general hum of agreement, Harry congratulates the junior aurors on their hard work and escapes back to his office.
Kingsley, Harry scribbles onto an office memo. Can I quit, please?
A response comes fluttering back to Harry before he’s even managed to find where he’d left off in the Quibbler.
No, the reply reads in Kingsley’s bold, clear writing. Not until the youngest senior auror is 40.
That’ll take ages! Harry writes back, scowling.
Yes. We’ll discuss this again in 17 years, Potter.
Harry frowns. Bermann is 28, Falvry is 30, and Mallory is 39. Unless…
Harry grabs his memo pad again. Are you counting me? That’s not fair!
Kingsley doesn’t reply, so he probably agrees and doesn’t care.
To be fair, Bermann, Falvry, and Mallory are only slightly more helpful than the junior aurors they oversee. Sometimes, Harry wonders if the whole reason the DMLE has gone so long without a formal head is Kingsley’s fear of being forced to hand the job over to Mallory on the basis of seniority. Even though Harry is by far the youngest of the senior aurors, the other three defer to him with almost embarrassing regularity.
Harry lets his head hit the desk with a thump. Ron, Patil, Greengrass, and Nott are all full aurors in line for promotion to senior. As long as they pass the exam (a breeze) and meet the requirements for the performance review (what’s taking them so long to hit the required caseload, anyway?), soon he should have someone else on hand to help him babysit.
As it is, full-time training and oversight duty was only fun up until he realised exactly how much oversight the junior aurors actually need, never mind the trainees. He’s been putting off his performance evaluations in the hopes that the juniors will provide him with something positive to write down other than the damningly faint praise of “diligent worker.”
Harry looks up at a knock on his open door. Jakobs has stuck her head in. “Potter? I just ran into Everett, and he wanted to ask you if a rite requiring an 81-member coven counts as ‘feasible.’”
Harry closes his eyes. “What did you tell him?” he asks, trying to keep his voice as non-judgemental as possible.
Jakobs grins at him. “I said, ‘Not unless the rite involves a Witch Weekly sponsored book signing.’ Only, then he nodded all thoughtfully and wrote that down. I’m not sure that team is getting enough sunlight.”
Harry rubs his eyes, nearly knocking off his glasses in the process. “What’re you working on, again?”
“I’m the first line of defense against loud noises and suspiciously malingering school children,” says Jakobs grandiosely. “Protection that elderly witches and their cats can truly rely on. I think I’ve gained an entire stone in teacakes.”
Harry snorts and digs through his desk until he finds the form he’s looking for. “Not anymore. Now you’re heading the Dark Muggle Flat investigation. Take the team out for lunch on a patio or something.”
“Will do, boss,” says Jakobs. “Though they might not need any. When I ran into Everett, he was on his way back up from the main lobby picking up a bagged lunch. His sister had just come all the way to the ministry to hand-deliver it to him. I think she said ‘hi’ to the whole team.” Her tone isn’t nearly as mocking as her words might imply, but Harry gives her a stern frown anyway. She salutes, grinning as she takes her copy of the assignment and heads out the door.
Harry exhales slowly and looks down at his desk sorrowfully. Now he wants teacakes.
Harry levitates the final washed and dried plate back into the cabinet and turns to Ginny with a smile. “See? We can do the after-dating friend thing. Dinner wasn’t too awkward, was it?”
It’s only one week after the pub celebration, and a week and a half after their last dinner together. Harry can’t remember the last time he and Ginny saw one another so frequently.
Ginny laughs at him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. There isn’t much light in the kitchen, and in the dark, her hair seems to flow like dripping blood.
“Quiet, candlelit dinners with just the two of us will be a lot more awkward once we’ve come clean about the breakup. Imagine how irritating it will be to explain that we’re not getting back together again.”
Her smile is inviting—inviting him to share the joke, inviting him to laugh with her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms casually. “I think they’ll get the message pretty clearly when you introduce them to your new boyfriend. Tom, is it?”
He’s almost certain, but not quite. When her eyes widen comically, he mentally pats himself on the back.
“How did you hear about that? I haven’t told anyone about him!”
Harry wags his eyebrows at her. “I have my ways,” he says, trying to seem just this side of Abused My Power as an Auror to Stalk You. The wizarding world has strange priorities, and stalking comes off better than speaking to the dead, unfortunately. Though it seems increasingly likely that Ginny’s priorities are differently aligned.
Ginny frowns at him teasingly. “Way to go, Mr Creepy,” she says, smiling. “Yes, I do have a new friend. Tom—Thomas Mort. He’s just back in England. His family moved away to the Continent to escape the war.”
Thomas Mort? Seriously? Couldn’t they do better than that?
“And when do we get to meet this Mr Mort?” asks Harry. He’s slightly surprised at how much he’s enjoying himself in this role of big brother, even given the twin pink elephants of necromancy and Dark Lords casting their shadows.
“Oh, he’s still settling in,” says Ginny, not meeting Harry’s eyes. “And really, Harry, we’re not at all like that, so introducing him to the clan would be absurd.” She grins suddenly and looks down at him. “He’s terribly handsome, so the fam would be making assumptions whether they knew about you and me or not.”
Harry feels himself flush, and he’s not entirely certain why. Ginny smirks at him, and he clears his throat. “Is he? Well, you should at least introduce him to us, then. I’d like to meet him, be he my replacement or my new friend.”
“Oh, trust me, Harry,” says Ginny, her smile strange. “It never crossed my mind to keep you two away from one another.”
Harry looks away, swallowing. “Lovely,” he says in a strained voice. He doesn’t realise he’s made a decision until he hears himself say, “Listen, Ginny—”
She stands there looking at him, beautiful and familiar down to the last freckle.
He can trust her. He knows he can trust her.
“I don’t want to tell you how to spend your free time,” he says. “But the Auror Department’s a bit of a madhouse right now. Yesterday, some muggle flat was discovered to be hiding a treasure trove of Dark Arts nonsense. From what I could see it was rather soft; if that new recategorisation bill passes in the Wizengamot, it might not even be illegal. But no one knows who it belongs to, where it came from, or why it was there. So you and your new friend might want to be careful out there.”
Ginny is frozen and pale. She nods her head very slowly. “They have no leads at all?” she asks delicately.
Harry meets her gaze. “None,” he promises.
“How alarming,” she says. “I’ll let Tom know to be careful.”
“Brilliant,” says Harry tonelessly.
They’re silent as Harry leads Ginny to the door and wraps her cloak around her. He opens the door for her, and then he can’t bear it any longer.
“Ginny,” he says, voice pleading. “‘Mort’? Really? Really?”
She leaves Grimmauld Place laughing.
“I just feel,” says Harry, waving around his cheese knife, “that I’ve already, you know, paid my dues and served my sentence. Do I really need to stand up and do it all over again? Am I morally obligated to?”
Lily smiles at him reassuringly, but her eyes are worried as she flickers her gaze over to James.
Remus raises his eyebrows. “I suppose that depends on how invested you are in the final outcome.”
“You mean that I have no right to complain about the state of the world if I don’t do anything to save it or fix it.” The kettle whistles, and Harry waves his hand to turn off the burner and pour the water into the waiting teapot. “Fine, I guess, but I feel as though I’m the one pulling all the weight here. Can’t someone else be the saviour of magical Britain for once?”
“Would you be happier, leaving the job to someone else?” asks James, rubbing Lily’s back soothingly. “Would you be able to relax, not knowing if they’re doing it right?”
Harry bites his lip, unsure of his response.
Lily says abruptly, “What if it does turn out that he isn’t the same after all?” She looks at Harry through his own eyes. “You’ve been wondering who he’ll turn out to be, now that he may have been returned with a complete soul. You’re asking us what to do, what you’ll be expected to do, if he begins a new war. But what if he doesn’t? Will you be able to live with him as he is, knowing what he was? What he did?”
Harry can’t bear the intensity of her stare, and he looks away. “I—” he begins.
“Master had best not be being in the kitchen!” shrieks Kreacher, and Harry quickly waves his family away before he’s caught talking at thin air.
“We said I’m allowed to make myself breakfast, remember?” Harry yells back as the old elf hobbles into the room, glaring at him.
“Master is be making breakfast only when Master is not be making dinner,” says Kreacher coldly, and with a snap of his fingers, the cheese knife vanishes from Harry’s hand and reappears in Kreacher’s. Kreacher inspects Harry’s early start on breakfast and sniffs in disdain. “Master will wait in the breakfast room,” Kreacher commands firmly. “And Kreacher will bring Master his breakfast and”—Kreacher peers at the little teapot and sneers—“his tea.”
“Thanks, Kreacher,” says Harry meekly, and he shuffles out of the room obediently.
Harry sits at the breakfast table in the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black and thinks about how deeply and unbendingly he’d despised Kreacher after Sirius died. Voldemort’s scheme would not have succeeded without Kreacher’s assistance, and then Sirius would have lived at least a little longer with Harry. Time and understanding lent him and Kreacher the strength for mutual forgiveness.
How far could Harry’s forgiveness extend?
How far should Harry’s forgiveness extend?
Jakobs’s usually amiable face is stiff and cold when she meets Harry at his office just as he’s getting in to work. The rest of the team is standing behind her, white with fear.
“Jakobs,” says Harry, watching her carefully. He makes a show of shrugging off his cloak as he shoulders open the door to his office. “Peters, Everett, Burnes. Come on in.”
Jakobs waits until the door has been securely closed behind them before she speaks. “Storeroom 5—the storeroom our team was using—was broken into last night,” she says quietly. “The books, the ingredients, the artifacts—all cleared out.”
Harry goes still.
“Cleared out,” he repeats quietly, and the group of juniors flinch.
“Yes, sir,” says Jakobs, standing at attention. It was an eerie sight, given the usual informality of the Auror Department.
Harry sits down at his desk slowly and leans back in his chair. “How was the room secured?”
“The contraband was sealed up into Priority 1 lockboxes, and the room itself was sealed with a level-three containment charm. I can personally confirm that the spells on the lockboxes and the storeroom were active when I left last night. I’m willing to provide my memories.”
Harry drums his fingers against the arm of his chair. “That won’t be necessary, Jakobs, but thank you.”
Jakobs clears her throat, relaxing slightly. “Sir, I take full responsibility for not properly ensuring the protection of the evidence.”
“Priority 1 lockboxes were already overkill,” says Harry drily. “Never mind the containment charm on the room. A bunch of old books, some minor Dark artifacts, that might not even be classified as Dark in less than an hour, and a mini potions lab? None of it struck me as particularly rare. Do you disagree?”
Peters says, “The books could be rare, maybe, but everything else was middling-rare at most. Most of the potions ingredients were actually fairly common.”
“So who or what,” asks Harry, “would go through the effort of breaking into the Ministry, then breaking a level-three containment field, and then go through the extremely finicky and irritating process of cutting through the charms on those bloody lockboxes, all for a pile of relative junk? And, most importantly, why?”
Everett and Burnes both open their mouths, but Harry waves them silent again. “No, don’t answer that. Think about it. Gather up whatever’s left of your investigation notes, if anything, and report to Briefing Room Three.”
The juniors stare at him in surprise. “Potter?” asks Jakobs uncertainly.
“We’re opening this case up,” says Harry. “I’m calling everyone in.”
Before he heads to the briefing room himself, Harry makes a few stops: first, to the breached Storeroom 5, then to speak with the other senior aurors when what he finds there isn’t quite what he expects.
Finally, he finds himself thinking to himself. Something fun to look into.
“Necromancy?” repeats Greengrass dubiously.
Something like thirty-five aurors are squeezed in around an absurdly long conference table with Harry slouched casually at its head. The recitation of the facts of the case has been rather dull; Harry has occupied himself with tapping his wand against the underside of the wooden conference table and idly watching the reactions.
The junior aurors, when not required to speak, are sunken down into their chairs, looking terrified. The three other senior aurors are staring blankly down at the table in front of them, as pale and wan as they have been since Harry pulled them aside to brief them on his plans for this investigation. The promotion-track full aurors, meanwhile, are bright with alertness and curiosity, and it is they who dominant the conversation.
“But what would be the point?” Greengrass continues.
“Oh, please,” snaps Ron. “Isn’t that obvious? One of your Death Eater friends is looking to bring your old master back.”
Greengrass pales in fury. “Watch your tongue, Weasley, or be prepared to lose it.”
“Who else would go through all this trouble?” Ron continues, heedless. “We should make a run at the usual suspects.”
“If the ‘usual suspects’ were interested in any of the contraband listed here, they wouldn’t need to steal it,” says Patil, entirely unmoved. “They’d just tell their House Elf to go fetch it from the family vaults. None of this is worth stealing; not for the effort involved, anyway.”
A memo zips into the room and Harry snatches it out of the air. He waves at the aurors to continue their discussion, and he opens the note.
Fine, Kingsley wrote. Keep me apprised. And then, in a different ink: The Dark Arts Reclassification Bill just passed.
Ron leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “All the better to go after them, then, if their vaults are loaded up with Dark Artifacts! And if they are innocent, it’s in their best interests to cooperate with us, anyway.”
“And how is that?” Nott looks at Ron, sneering. “They know they’ll always be the aurors’ first suspects in anything no matter what they do. Why should they cooperate?”
“I agree,” says Harry. The entire table goes silent. It’s ridiculous; there are three aurors in the room who technically outrank him, based on their seniority. But everyone simply accepts that whatever he says goes.
“Who with?” asks Ron, frowning.
“All of you,” Harry replies easily. “If a Death Eater stole these items, I doubt it’s one we know about.” Seeing Ron stiffening out of the corner of his eye, Harry cuts off his argument before it can begin. “We’ll still make the rounds, though.”
Greengrass and Nott look furious but unsurprised, so Harry nods at them. “And we’ll make it worth their while. Full immunity for any inactive class-three or lower Dark items we come across during our searches in exchange for their cooperation, and immunity and non-seizure for any items we find that meet the new classification criteria. And we’ll make sure all the papers know how helpful and innocent they all are. That should keep everyone happy.”
Everyone is staring at him now, jaws dropped open.
“Harry,” pleads Ron. “This is an opportunity to clean up! We could do some real good!”
“‘Do some real good,’” repeats Harry incredulously, “by snatching up a bunch of dusty family heirlooms, half of which were only classified as Dark on a whim? Let’s worry more about the active harm some MUTANT might be attempting out there and less about lost knickknacks that are rotting away in Malfoy’s cupboards.”
“And if the ‘lost knickknacks’ in those cupboards are little kids?” snarls Ron, ignoring the bewildered glances that comment earns him. “What then?”
Harry gives Ron his blandest face. “Then we get the kids out and burn the manor to the bloody ground,” he answers coldly.
Ron leans back, satisfied, and the aurors sit in bemused silence for a long moment.
“Now,” says Harry, nodding at Jakobs and her team. “Tell us what rituals you think were most likely to have been our MUTANT’s gameplan.”
Peters clears her throat nervously. “While there remain a large number of rites that could possibly have been intended by the MUTANT, the ingredients and artifacts found that the site would have been sufficient to complete three rites: The Third Circle, the Returning Reign, and the Red Pheasant.”
Harry’s eyebrows shoot up.
“‘The Red Pheasant,’” asks Ron, sniggering. “Seriously?”
“What do they do? How are they conducted?” asks Patil.
Peters’s face goes red. Jakobs places a comforting hand on her shoulder and answers, “The notes on the rituals were all stolen along with the books. All we have left are the annotated lists the team made for archival purposes. We know those rituals make use of the confiscated items in some combination or other, but we don’t have any information on what they’re for.”
“Do you know, Potter?” asks Burnes hopefully.
Ron rolls his eyes, and Nott sneers.
Unfortunately, Burnes chooses this moment to suddenly become observant, because he notices their reactions and slouches down in his chair, flushing. “You knew a lot about the Anubis one, so I just thought you might recognise these, too.”
“‘The Anubis one,’” repeats Ron, grinning over at Harry.
Harry doesn’t grin back.
“I’ve heard of them, anyway,” he says mildly. “The Returning Reign is technically a summoning and possession ritual, I believe. It’s still used by Healers in some communities to revive coma patients. The Red Pheasant is an old healing ritual, too; it’s very power exhaustive, but with enough fuel, it can repair almost any physical damage on a body.” Or even build a new body from scratch. “The Third Circle is the only one of those three that’s really traditional necromancy, but I don’t think we have to worry about that one. I seem to remember it requiring really specific astrological conditions, the sort that only come around every century or so.”
“Well, once a century could be right now,” says Greengrass. “Do you remember what those conditions were?”
Harry gives her a wry smile. “Good point. No, I don’t. We’ll need to do some digging.”
“That one was in Raising the Dead,” says Burnes helpfully. “I remember because you pointed out that title specifically.”
I’m going to run you through a meat-grinder, thinks Harry, but he’s careful to keep his feelings under wraps and only hums absently.
“How do you even know this?” asks Ron, staring at him.
“I killed Voldemort four times, was present for three of his resurrection attempts, and I’ve been hit with the Killing Curse twice,” says Harry, ignoring the wide eyes those statements earn him. “You think that didn’t spur an interest in life and death?”
Ron frowns. “I guess…”
“I find it interesting that two of the three likeliest rituals are relatively benign,” says Greengrass. “And are arguably healing rituals rather than necromancy.”
Harry shrugs. “It’s not really that surprising. All healing magic is rooted in necromancy. And neither of the two are illegal, strictly speaking.”
Again with the staring.
“Jakobs, Peters, Everett, and Burnes,” says Harry. “Distribute copies of your lists. Aurors, take your lists door-to-Former-Death-Eater-door, as we discussed earlier. Remember, they aren’t to be treated as suspects, but as possible sources of much-needed information. And if anyone does have any Dark items that match the descriptions of our missing contraband, request—politely—that we be permitted to borrow them for study, especially the books. There’s some connection we’re missing, something that makes these items important enough to steal, and I want to know what it is. I doubt it’s any of those ingredients or artifacts, common as they are, so focus on the books.”
Greengrass speaks up. “In the interests of the investigation,” she says delicately. “It’s possible that I may have one of the books on that list, or something similar.”
Harry nods. “I reckon I have one or two, too. I’ll look, but the Black family library is a disaster zone. We may very well reclaim the stolen contraband before I’m able to find anything useful in there.”
“You keep Dark Arts books?” Ron yelps, horrified.
Harry can’t help but grind his teeth. He’s so through with this conversation. “Ron,” he says. “I live in the Most Ancient and Noble house of Black. Despite Sirius’s best efforts to discard everything Dark, gross, or just ugly that he could find, I still trip over cursed items nearly every week. Yesterday a lamp nearly took my arm off.”
Greengrass looks fascinated.
Ron, on the other hand, looks like he wants to throw up. “Why don’t you just move out?”
Harry stands and gestures for the other aurors to get moving. “Because I love it.”
It isn’t until he says it out loud that he knows for certain that it’s true.
Ron and Hermione had told him that they’d be bored if they always got along with one another. But for Harry, for whom emotions remain terrifying and huge things that he doesn’t quite understand, he’d much rather have his friendships and family be completely agreeable and supportive, and all the dangers he faces be physical.
And facing physical danger is fun when it’s not a constant threat of world destruction hanging over his head. Facing physical danger in small, controlled bursts is why he stays on this side of the Veil when so much of what he wants waits for him on the other side.
He sighs. He thinks he finally knows the answers to his dad and mum’s questions that morning. And he’s not sure he likes them.
Harry can do this. It’s no big deal. Obviously he can do this. He’s done way more frightening things before.
He faces the door to the friendly cottage.
He knocks.
“Coming!” calls Ginny from inside.
Harry stuffs in hands into his pockets to stop them from fidgeting.
“Harry!” says Ginny, surprised and not entirely welcoming. “Did you want to head down to the pub together? Let me change into different robes.” She vanishes back into the cottage, calling back over her shoulder pointedly, “You should have sent an owl!”
Despite the lack of invitation, Harry eases himself inside. “I mean, we can head down together, though it’s a bit early, yet. No, I wanted to talk to you about that… thing. That we talked about. The investigation thing.”
Ginny’s head pops back out from around the doorway that he knows leads to her bedroom as he closes the outside door carefully behind him. “The investigation thing? With the mysterious Dark Arts collection in the muggle flat?”
“Yeah,” says Harry. “See, the entire collection was stolen from the ministry last night.”
Ginny’s eyes widen in convincing shock, but they narrow quickly enough in suspicion. “And you came to me because…?”
“Because I don’t think it was you, but I need to make sure. And because I want to know what in there was valuable enough that it prompted someone to break a really absurd number of protection charms to get at it when, to my knowledge, a quick dash into Knockturn Alley should turn up basically the same sort of stock.”
Ginny worries at her bottom lip, but she isn’t the one who answers.
“You’re largely correct,” says a familiar, smooth voice from behind Harry. Harry forces himself to turn slowly and casually, even though his instinct has him wanting to whirl around, wand in the air. “Most of our materials were common enough. We were very careful in selecting the rituals we needed. We didn’t both feel comfortable crossing certain… boundaries, shall we say.”
Tom Marvolo Riddle is leaning against the open kitchen door, looking comfortable and gorgeous and very, very alive.
Harry has to remind himself, repeatedly, that he’s already made the decision to trust Ginny on this.
For now.
“Mr Mort,” greets Harry when he thinks he’s got his voice under control. It still comes out a bit scratchy, and it makes Tom smile a little in a sweet, teasing sort of way, like they’re the best of friends sharing a joke. Harry’s stomach twists violently at the sight. “I want to congratulate you on your caution and respect for the law. Though your naming ability leaves something to be desired, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Maybe I was hoping it would just be temporary,” says Tom, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I rather like the sound of ‘Tom Potter,’ actually. Now, I wonder how I could convince you to share your name with me?” His dark eyes flicker over Harry’s body lazily, and Harry shivers, face bright red.
“Ginny!” he tattles. “Your boyfriend is flirting with me!”
“Still not my boyfriend!” she calls back as she returns to the room, her hair tidied, her face freshly made up, and her work clothes having been changed for a lovely set of lilac robes that make her skin glow. Harry tries very hard to focus his desire on her. More embarrassing than his failure to do so is how obvious both the attempt and the failure are to his companions, if he takes their matching smirks as hints. “I’m ready now. Are you coming along, Tom?”
“Mightn’t someone recognise you?” asks Harry desperately. “Seems a bit dangerous to go walking about looking like… you.”
Ginny breaks down laughing, but Tom contents himself with a quick grin before he considers Harry’s question seriously.
“There are no photos or paintings of Tom Riddle,” he says. “I’ve—we’ve—made certain of that. And there are very few people living who have cause to remember this face and connect it to Lord Voldemort. Hagrid lives in France, now. McGonagall rarely leaves Scotland. And while Horace flits from manor to mansion somewhat unpredictably, I don’t expect him to join you at your pub night.”
“But if someone takes a photo for a paper and one of them sees it…”
Tom raises his eyebrows sardonically. “Voldemort was finally fully destroyed, remember? And even if he hadn’t been, he looked nothing like this by the time he died, nor would he have even without the experimental Dark Arts, not at his age. A strong resemblance to a student they knew sixty years ago is explainable in many more parsimonious ways than necromancy.”
“I suppose…”
“Tom,” Ginny breaks in. “Pub. Yes or no?”
Tom lets his eyes settle on Harry, the expression in them thoughtful. “Yes,” he says finally.
Harry flushes again and looks away.
“Brilliant!” says Ginny. “I can’t wait to see how Hermione reacts to you, and then how Ron reacts to Hermione’s reaction to you. Fireworks guaranteed!”
They’re out the door and waiting for Ginny to lock up so they can apparate away together when Harry remembers. “Wait, the books! You mentioned that only most of them were common. Which one wasn’t? What was worth stealing?”
Tom is suddenly standing very close, a long finger pressing itself lightly to Harry’s lips. The soft pressure makes them tingle. “Not out here, love,” Tom breathes into Harry’s ear. “We’ll talk later. Perhaps you’ll invite us in for drinks?”
“Drinks after drinks?” asks Harry against Tom’s finger, trying to sound unimpressed rather than like he’s approximately thirty seconds from either fainting or exploding due to sensory overload.
Tom’s eyes darken, and he slides his finger away to cup his whole hand around the side of Harry’s face. “I suppose it doesn’t need to be for drinks,” he purrs.
Just as Harry’s knees are about to give up the fight, Ginny snaps, “Boys! Pub!” and yanks them apart. “Honestly,” she grumbles, arranging them on either side of her, so that her arms are looped through theirs. “Right on my front porch. And Tom, you’ll have to take this slower, give Harry time to adjust. You know how he is. We dated him long enough.”
Harry chokes.
“Shall we?” asks Ginny brightly, and she apparates them all away.