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batsutousaiTitle: Nose to the Wind
Series: Like a Ghost in My Town
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort, James Potter/Lily Potter
Warnings: AU, violence, universe hopping/rebirth, Dark!Harry, werewolf!Harry, underage relationship (ish)
Summary: While Harry had been content with his second chance, that didn't keep him from thinking what he could have done different, how many people could have survived if he hadn't been set on the very specific path he'd walked. Third time is the charm, though, right?
A/N: I struggled with this chapter a bit, because I didn't really have anything to happen (tbh, a war was supposed to start last chapter *side-eyes all the characters*) but once I actually started writing, things sort of...shaped themselves. Not sure whether or not I'm sorry.
For ages at the start of this chapter, very little time has passed, so Harry remains 16. (Hermione is 16, Will is 14, and Chris is 12.)
Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own and LiveJournal.
Chapter Twenty-Four – Your Razorblade Caress of Love
-0-
Given how obvious he was about having spies in the Realm of Death, it really wasn't that much of a surprise when, a couple of days after Lily returned home, James pulled him aside and asked, "Will we know if any Russians get it into their heads to try something like this again?"
"Absolutely," Harry promised, because while he might not have enough spies to place on every one of Golubev's followers, the death of the man who'd had his mother had given them the names of anyone clever or high-ranking enough to mastermind something like the Diagon Alley attack, and Harry had immediately sent almost two-thirds of his European spies to cover those people.
When he finally managed to convince himself his family would be fine if he left for a couple of hours, not quite a full week after the attack, he found the dark lord glaring at a too-large pile of paper stacked on the edge of his desk. "Trouble?" he asked, and he hated how tiny his voice sounded.
Tom looked up, his glare smoothing out into something fonder. "Only in that I suddenly have so many more reports to read through; how ever do you manage to keep up with your multitude of spies?"
"Ah." Harry stepped forward and picked the first parchment off the pile, trying not to be surprised when Tom didn't make any move to stop him. "A bit of delegating – there are plenty among the dead who were high ranking members of the military or government, or otherwise had to deal with incoming reports – and a bit of trusting that those I set to spying are clever enough to know when they see or hear something that I need to know about, and when it's something they can keep to themselves. Would you like help?"
Tom eyed him for a moment. "Do you know the code my people use?"
"No," Harry admitted, because he'd never cared enough to learn how any version of the dark lord communicated with his people. "But I'm a quick enough study."
"Doubtless," Tom muttered as he waved his wand to summon Harry a chair, "you'll have found a way to learn it in time."
"Possibly. I have no particular interest in standing at the head of an army again, but I do have the experience, and I think we can both agree that this work will go faster with two pairs of eyes."
"It's not as though you don't have your own means of discovering anything in these reports," Tom added, and Harry shrugged and nodded, because that was very likely true. "I do ask, however, that you avoid going off after whoever had your mother captive, should their name come up."
"Of course," Harry agreed.
Tom narrowed his eyes. "They're already dead," he guessed.
Harry shrugged. "Some nonhumans the man had captured and been torturing may have found a way to get free."
Tom watched him for a long moment, during which Harry practised his best enigmatic smile, before snorting and leaning forward, eyes moving down to the parchment Harry had taken from the pile. "At least it won't be tied back to the kidnapping. Now, for the code..."
Harry was indeed a quick study, and he had the benefit of knowing how the dark lord's mind worked, so it didn't take them but another hour to get through the pile.
"Are you intending to come by every night, now?" Tom asked as he stood and stretched, his back making an unpleasant cracking noise.
Harry shrugged. "I might pop by more often once term starts; for obvious reasons, I'm not particularly fond of leaving my family for extended periods of time."
Tom was quiet for a moment, presumably debating how best to respond to that, before he stepped around the desk and caught Harry's hand, using it to pull him upwards. "How is your mother?"
Harry sighed and let himself relax into the circle of his partner's arms. "Jumpy. She's putting on a brave front for everyone, but she smells just the littlest bit afraid more often than not. And she'll flinch if one of us touches her without warning. She tries to play it off, but, well..."
Harry was a werewolf, was a predator, but this was his mother, and he hated the knowledge that she was always just the littlest bit afraid, especially in their own home, where she should have felt safest.
Tom pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Give her time."
"I know. It's just..." He shook his head.
"Frustrating?"
Harry smiled up at Tom, though it felt strained. "Something like that."
Tom hummed, then leant in and kissed him, which Harry had absolutely zero complaints about.
Harry left soon after, a great deal of his nerves soothed away by his time spent with the dark lord. Too, the proof that Tom was willing to let him help, at least insofar as to going through his spies' reports, was warming, in a way; the dark lord had never trusted easily, and that he was willing to trust Harry, despite finding out that he'd been keeping such a large secret from him...
Well, Harry was grateful. And a part of him was maybe a little determined to keep no more secrets from his partner; if Tom asked, he would answer.
Harry wasn't the only one discontent on the first of September, that year. Lily was trying to hide it, but Harry doubted he was the only one who saw how much she didn't want to let Will, Chris, and Hermione go for a whole term. The three Hogwarts students weren't much better, though they didn't bother trying to hide it. (Chris had, at least, managed to keep himself from clinging to Lily or James, but Harry suspected that was more for the sake of appearance around other students, than because he didn't feel the need to do so.)
"You'll be home for Christmas," James reminded them all. "Once classes start, the days will fly by. Moreso if Will or Chris manage to make their house teams," he added, because with Harry's future quidditch team potentially settled, he'd turned to focussing on getting his other two sons to play. And with most of both of the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams having graduated over the past two years, there were a lot of spaces to fill.
"James," Lily hissed, while Sirius started laughing.
Harry rolled his eyes and told his brothers and Hermione, "If you need assurance for any reason, you know how to reach me, okay? But don't be afraid to go to your house prefects or your heads of house, either; no one's going to judge you if you need a hug."
"And if they do, let Mum or me know, and we'll take care of it."
"And by 'take care of it', Dad means I will speak with Severus about assigning detentions," Lily insisted.
James made a face, and they all let out laughs that were only a little strained.
The train's warning whistle sobered them all, and hugs were exchanged, a little tighter and longer than usual, and then the three students scrambled aboard the train, Hermione slamming the door behind them just before the wheels started to turn.
"Is it just me, or is it harder this year?" Lily asked Molly and Arthur, who had come to join them after shooing Ginny and Ron onto the train.
"It's not just you," Molly promised, pulling Lily into a hug.
"It reminds me of sending Bill and Charlie to Hogwarts their first few years, while we were still at war," Arthur said quietly, looking strained. "That sense that you're not sure you'll actually see them alive again."
Harry bit the inside of his cheek and stared after the train, hating the sense of helplessness fallen over them; he could only hope he heard about any attacks soon enough to either intervene himself, or send the necessary information to Voldemort.
James' hand on his shoulder startled him out of his dark thoughts. "As much as I hate to say it, we're going to have to trust that Voldemort and the Russians' treaty holds."
Sirius snorted. "Who would have guessed, twenty years ago, that we'd be trusting Voldemort to protect us all."
Someone let out a loud sniff, and they all turned to find Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange watching them. "Some of us, cousin," Bellatrix said, "never doubted the dark lord."
"Yeah, well some of us didn't leave the womb insane, either," Sirius shot right back.
Harry, foreseeing a fight about to break out, called, "Hey!" in the most insulted tone he could manage. Which, well, he may have just given his loyalties away, but it wasn't like his support of Voldemort was that big of a secret, just not something that usually came up.
"You're a special case," Sirius insisted, apparently determined to start a fight. "Bella, however–"
"A pathetic little mudblood's squib, supporting the dark lord?" Bellatrix said, her eyes intent on Harry. "Don't make me laugh."
Harry had never been particularly fond of Bellatrix, and her insult to Lily was in no way going to endear her to him. "Say that again, you–" Harry snarled, stepping forward and raising one clawed hand.
And then James was between him and Bellatrix, one hand clamping around his wrist. "Rodolphus, kindly lead your wife elsewhere."
"Come along, Bella," Rodolphus murmured, and they moved away.
James sighed and gave Harry a tired look.
"What?" Harry grumbled, tugging his wrist free and crossing his arms over his chest. "No one here likes that word."
"We don't start fights with Voldemort's people in public," Sirius said.
Harry wasn't the only one to shoot him a disbelieving look.
"She's family, that's different."
"Perhaps," Lily interrupted a bit drily, "it's time to head home. Molly, Arthur, always good to see you."
"Likewise," Arthur returned for them both, while Molly remained staring at Harry, looking a bit like she didn't know him.
"So," Lily said when they got home, before Harry could make an escape, "how am I explaining your loyalties to Molly when she, inevitably, asks?"
"Ah."
James laughed at them as he left the room.
Harry sighed and offered his mum his best apologetic look. "I mean, it would have come out eventually? Better she hears it from us, than the papers."
Lily sighed herself. "True enough."
"Anyway, it's not like squibs have been given a bad hand, under his rule. And he did pass the muggleborn act, too," Harry pointed out.
"And you're a werewolf, which is historically classified as a dark creature," Lily said. "Okay. Whichever of us she corners first, try to break it to her gently."
Harry raised both eyebrows at his mum. "Molly? Gentle? Please."
Lily coughed, her eyes dancing with laughter, and waved him off.
"Anything weird happening in Russia?" James asked Harry over dinner one night in late October.
Harry blinked and took a moment to think back over all the the reports he'd heard from his spies in the Realm of Death or seen while helping the dark lord get through his paperwork. "Not that I've heard. Why?"
James shook his head. "I just caught Maggie Ackerley acting a little off today. I'm sure it's nothing."
"I can have someone look into it," Harry offered.
"No, don't worry about it. I'm sure it's just nerves or something; she got called in to Amelia's office after an arrest gone wrong last week."
Harry shrugged and turned back to his dinner. "Okay."
Harry had warned Fred and George off betting on the World Cup with Bagman, so he wasn't particularly surprised when they managed to buy themselves space in Diagon Alley on the last week of October. They were planning something 'spookily epic' for their opening on Halloween, and Harry had somehow found himself volunteered to help them set up and, should they need the extra body, watch the register while they were out on the floor.
When he'd asked why him, George had pointed out that he wanted to eventually open a shop, so this was good practise. Fred had pointed out that he was their only younger 'sibling' who wasn't stuck at Hogwarts.
"Your mum asked you to, didn't she?" Harry asked after they'd given their almost sensible excuses, because he knew Molly was still a little sore about his coming out supporting the dark lord. Even if she did seem to accept his reasons, according to Arthur, via James. (The thing about being of age, was he didn't need a babysitter any more, and most of the Weasleys being at Hogwarts or having jobs, meant he didn't have any reason to go past in the afternoons or evenings, so he hadn't actually seen her since the first of September.)
They'd traded looks, then chorused, "Ordered, actually."
He hadn't really been inclined to complain about having something to do to fill his days a bit more, so he'd gone along with it with only a sigh for show. (The difficulty of his classwork may have increased a bit, with A Level classes, but his schedule still left him with a lot of downtime. Which had been part by design, so he could attend more of the Bats' quidditch games and practises, part simply due to the way the classes he'd wanted to take had fallen.)
Anyway, he had the potions and spell knowledge necessary to fully appreciate exactly how brilliant the twins' inventions were, and because he'd known them so long and had actually grown up with all of the Marauders this time around, he was capable of dodging most of their attempts to prank him. (If he wasn't hiding he could use magic, he'd be able to excuse avoiding all of them. Alas.)
The morning of the thirty-first had gone about how he'd expected, with a lot of making sure the shelves were fully stocked, avoiding pranks, and joking with the twins and Lee Jordan, who'd also got roped into helping out. The grand opening was to happen at two, so the twins kicked Lee and Harry out at noon, telling them to get a hearty lunch, then vanished back inside to, no doubt, ready some mayhem to attract attention.
Harry had brought money to eat at the Leaky Cauldron, while Lee had planned to go back to his flat, so they said their goodbyes and Lee apparated away.
Harry made it about two shopfronts down the alley, before someone grabbed him from behind and apparated.
He knew better than to struggle mid-apparation, but as soon as they were back on solid ground, Harry tore himself from his kidnapper and spun around, swiping one clawed hand through the space his attacker should have been in.
But Bellatrix just laughed from where she'd quickly moved out of the way. "Such an angry little wolfling," she mocked.
"I am going to rip out your throat," Harry snarled, taking a step forward.
"Scythe?" Voldemort said from behind him, followed almost immediately by, "Bella, there had best be a good reason Harry is here."
Harry forced himself to relax a bit, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Bellatrix. And, yeah, it was still weird hearing the dark lord use his name, but he was starting to get used to it, as often as they'd spoken to each other around other people over the past year.
Bellatrix ducked her head in a show of deference. "My Lord, I had heard of his devotion to you and believed that you, too, must be made aware. And what better way than an introduction?"
Voldemort's sigh was nearly silent. "We're acquainted," he said before his hand came down to rest gently on Harry's shoulder. "No killing my followers."
Harry huffed. "Spoilsport."
Voldemort squeezed his shoulder. "Have you eaten?"
Harry frowned up at his partner. "No. I was on my way to the Leaky, actually."
Voldemort raised a hairless eyebrow at that. "Why were– Ah. The Weasleys' new shop."
Harry snorted and nodded. "Yeah. Fred and George ordered me to get a 'hearty lunch', so Merlin knows what they've got planned for the opening."
Voldemort shook his head. "Bella, head in," he ordered, before telling Harry, "Samhain is an important day, and while many of my followers have their own ways to observe it after dark, I have always found an afternoon feast to be a fair way to join in, without impeding on anyone's traditions."
Harry quirked a smile. "That's almost sweet."
Voldemort closed his eyes, looking a bit more tired than Harry expected he'd have done if anyone else had said that to him. "In an attempt to avoid any future kidnapping attempts, this seems a sensible time to acclimate my followers to your presence."
"I mean, I'm not going to say no to food, not when the alternative is a sandwich at the Leaky. But if I'm not back by half-past one, the twins will likely find some way to make me regret it."
"Bella can apparate you back," Voldemort decided, and Harry snorted. "Come along."
The dark lord had shown him the larger dining room during his tour on Harry's birthday, but it had looked a lot different when it was empty of occupants. Now, full near to the brim with Death Eaters and their families, it looked somehow both smaller and larger.
"Expanding charms," Harry decided, and Voldemort snorted. "Am I sitting with Uncle Peter?" he asked as he spotted Peter in the crowd, his surprised expression barely visible with his head ducked low in a show of deference, same as everyone else in the room had done.
"You're sitting with me, where I can keep an eye on you," Voldemort informed him, and Harry bit his tongue to keep from snickering.
He ended up seated at Voldemort's right hand, which he suspected would be telling to quite a few of those in attendance. To his own right was the minister, his wife, and then their youngest child, while directly across from him was Bellatrix, with Rodolphus across from the minister.
"Mr Potter," Yaxley greeted once the food had appeared.
"Minister," Harry returned politely.
While conversation picked up easily enough on the far end of the table – Harry couldn't help but note that Lucius and Narcissa were both quite a bit further down the table than he would have expected – it was slow to start close to Voldemort, and Harry honestly couldn't say how much of that was due to him and how much was due to the dark lord.
Eventually, though, Yaxley turned to him and said, "I don't believe we ever properly thanked you for your intervention in the second task."
Harry blinked. "Oh. Honestly, I wouldn't have got involved if the dark lord hadn't insisted."
"An attempt to avoid questions," Yaxley assumed, his expression shrewd.
Harry shrugged. "Some. Too, once it became public knowledge at Hogwarts that my brothers have a squib in the family, they got a lot of abuse for it, which I think anyone should wish to avoid on the behalf of their family."
Yaxley inclined his head. "True enough. I do wonder, however, how you came to be fluent in Mermish."
Harry gave his best innocent blink. "I thought my father already answered that: I was born with it."
Voldemort cleared his throat, then said, "Corben, enough. Harry enjoys flummoxing others far too much to ever give a straight answer."
Harry ducked his head to hide his grin because, okay, that was fair. Especially when it came to people he wasn't particularly fond of.
"My Lord," Yaxley murmured before turning to Harry again and saying, "I'm given to understand, through your father, that you intend to seek employment on the quidditch pitch."
Harry blinked and nodded. "Yes. I mean, there's not a lot I can actually do. Mum and Severus are conspiring a bit, though, to get me to go into potions work."
"While it is true that the most notable positions at the ministry require one to be capable of using magic, the creation of the squib wand has opened more paths than had once been accessible; I believe you would find yourself more than welcome in the Department of Magical Creatures."
Harry eyed Yaxley for a moment; he suspected that, were Voldemort not right next to him, the minister wouldn't even be giving him the time of day, let alone thanking him for his help eight months ago and offering him a job. He hadn't had much use for those seeking his favour during his last life, and that hadn't changed just because he was no longer the most powerful magic-user in the room. (Though, debatably, he still was.)
Still, he knew better than to completely burn a bridge, especially given so much of his family worked for the ministry in some manner, so he replied, "I'm afraid my heart is a little too set on quidditch, for the moment. However, I will keep your offer in mind for future, Minister; thank you."
"Of course."
"And, should the ministry find themselves in need of a Mermish translator in future, you do now know where one is," Harry added, because he saw no reason to leave the ministry uncertain if they had an option, should they have need to speak with merfolk again.
"Indeed we do," Yaxley agreed with a smile that seemed just the slightest bit warm.
Only once it was clear the minister was done speaking, did Rodolphus ask, "Do you happen to have a quidditch team in mind to join?"
"Are any of the local set actually looking for players?" Rabastan asked from next to his brother, only to get elbowed by his own wife the next seat down.
Voldemort let out a silent sigh, and Harry had to cough into his hand to hide his amusement at his partner's suffering. "There's a couple of teams looking for players for their reserve teams, and Dowling, the Kestrels' keeper, word is he's looking to retire soon. I'm more interested in chaser, though, and the Bats are the only one with an opening there."
Rodolphus nodded, his expression thoughtful, leaving it for Rabastan to say, "The Bats are a bit of a middling team, though. Right?"
"The Bats are one of the best teams in the league, you gobshite!" someone shouted from down the table, their Irish accent especially strong.
"Whoops," Harry whispered with probably a little too much delight, while Rabastan called back, "What did you just call me, you wanker?"
:And you wonder why I dislike this sport,: Voldemort hissed, which served to shut everyone up.
Harry snorted at the dark lord, then told the Lestranges, "The Bats are actually a fairly formidable team, though they've had a bad few years. But Captain Sorley's pretty confident, and they've won their first two league games this season."
"As long as you're happy," Rodolphus decided, while Rabastan let out a wounded noise next to him. "Isn't that right, Rabastan?"
"Absolutely," Rabastan agreed quickly enough, Harry suspected he was under threat of violence.
Conversation moved to ministry topics, then, likely due to the number of ministry personal on their end of the table. Harry wasn't particularly surprised by any of it – James had given up attempting to keep work gossip from him years ago – and he suspected Voldemort was equally up to date.
Still, both Rabastan and Rodolphus mentioned members of their staff acting slightly out of the ordinary, and both times Yaxley had shifted in his seat, while his scent took on that subtle tang that suggested he was hiding something.
Before Harry could decide whether or not to press, Voldemort said, "Bella, take Harry back to Diagon."
"My Lord," she agreed and stood with all the grace and elegance one usually associated with Narcissa.
Harry checked his watch as he got to his feet as well, and, yes, it was definitely time for him to go if he didn't want to chance being late. "Thanks for the meal," he offered Voldemort with a slightly lopsided smile.
Voldemort inclined his head.
"Oh," Harry realised as Bellatrix started walking down the table on her side. He switched to Atlantean to say, "The minister's hiding something. Maybe to do with staff acting oddly."
Voldemort narrowed his eyes. "Is he, now?"
Harry shrugged, then hurried to join Bellatrix by the doors of the dining room.
"Secrets, little wolfling?" she asked with a too-sharp smile.
"Yeah. You want in on them, ask the dark lord," Harry shot back, and she laughed as she held the door open for him.
Their walk through the hallways of the manor was a peaceful one. But, when they reached the receiving room, Bellatrix barred the way and turned to him with the single most serious and sane expression he'd ever seen on her. "How loyal are you to my lord?" she demanded.
Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't think that's any of your business."
"I'm making it my business, boy," she snapped, violence in her eyes. "I will protect him, no matter what."
"He won't thank you for that."
"I don't need his thanks, only his continued life."
Harry forced himself to take a step back and actually look at Bellatrix. He'd always known she was fanatical – it had hardly been a secret, in his first reality – but he'd never really thought how that might look when she hadn't suffered Azkaban. She smelt of determination, protectiveness, loyalty, and a sort of love that Harry was a little disturbed to realise he completely understood, and he could see the same things in her stance, when he put aside old prejudice.
They were...a lot alike. Not a pleasant realisation, not given his history with another version of her, but he'd made his peace with Severus and Peter and Voldemort; surely he could find it in himself to make peace with Bellatrix.
So he took a breath, then admitted, "I love him."
Bellatrix relaxed, just a bit. "You love him," she repeated. "Enough to kill for him?"
"Yes," Harry said simply and without hesitation.
"Enough to give your life for him?" she pressed.
That was a bit more complicated, given the truth of his own nature, but the answer was the same: "Yes."
"Enough to give up your family for him?"
Harry's breath caught and he looked away. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I sincerely hope never to find out; I'm not certain I would survive the choice."
Bellatrix was silent for a long moment, and then she pushed the door to the receiving room open. "You don't want to be late," she said neutrally.
Harry nodded and preceded her in. He didn't fight her as she took his arm and apparated them, landing just slightly down from the twins' shop. "Be careful, wolfling," she warned before he could take more than a step away, and he turned back to frown at her. "The dark lord's favourites are always targets."
Harry smiled at her, letting show a hint of teeth. "Let them come; I'll rip their hearts out of their chests."
Her eyes widened, and then she threw back her head and cackled.
Harry left her to it, returning to the pre-opening shop and getting right back into helping with the set-up.
As he'd halfway expected, the shop turned into a madhouse within a couple of hours, which left Harry, the twins, and Lee all exceptionally busy. Harry stayed firmly at his station at the checkout counter, handling the money and bagging with as much polite professionalism as he could. Lee helped him when the line got too long, but he was mostly out on the floor with the twins, chatting with customers and restocking product as it ran low.
Things slowed down around suppertime, the flood slowing to a stream, then a trickle, until there were only two customers left in the shop.
"Well," Fred said as he approached the counter, "it looks like you can catch a quick dinner if–"
The jingle of the door sounded, and the newcomer deftly dodged the prank set up to go off in their face.
"Tom," Harry recognised as his partner stepped past the edge of the prank and straightened. "What are you doing here?" he asked a bit louder.
"Putting my life and sanity in danger, evidently," Tom retorted as he approached the counter, and Harry snickered, because it wasn't a bad point. "Mr Weasley."
"This one's Fred," Harry offered. "Fred, this is–"
"The boyfriend!" Fred realised.
Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "William," he muttered, then looked up at where Tom was watching him with a raised eyebrow and a hint of amusement in his eyes, which appeared to have been glamoured to be brown, rather than their usual red. "I need a ride to Hogwarts, so I can kill my brother."
Fred burst out laughing.
Tom snorted. "I somehow doubt that outcome, but I also have no intention in being involved in you explaining events to your mother; you'll have to enact your vengeance at Yule."
Harry coughed and ducked his head. "Spoilsport."
"So you've said. Come, I'm rescuing you for dinner."
"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed as he shrugged off the too-bright robes George had forced on him when he'd got in after lunch, insisting it would help customers tell he was a member of staff, should he end up on the floor. "I'll be back eventually. Send me a message if you get swamped again, though."
Fred snorted. "Go, please. Take your hot date out before someone tries to steal him."
"Oh, yes, that will end well," Harry muttered as he rounded the counter and stopped next to the dark lord.
Tom turned towards him, leaning in and pressing a hard kiss to his mouth. "Making up for earlier," he murmured against Harry's lips, before kissing him again.
Before Harry could think up a response after the second kiss, George called, "Is that Harry's mystery boyfriend?"
Harry moaned and hid his face against Tom's shoulder. "Merlin protect me from little brothers."
Tom chuckled, low and warm; as Harry had suspected, he didn't have quite the same hang-ups with that word, especially not when he could enjoy Harry's own embarrassment. "I'm stealing him away," he said.
"Yeah, if you don't come back, Harry, I promise not to judge," Fred insisted.
Harry groaned and, catching Tom's hand, led the way out of the shop. "The manor?" he guessed once they were outside.
Tom glanced down the alley at where a few young children were out with their parents, collecting sweets from bowls all of the shops left out front; it was, Harry knew, a muggle tradition that had proven impossible to break, though the dark lord's administration had made a valiant effort early on. "I had thought we might eat here," Tom said in a mild tone.
Harry frowned at him. "What about the danger of someone recognising you."
Tom sighed. "You are, in fact, of age, now. And, should one of those who knew me in my youth happen to be out tonight, instead of honouring the holiday at home, I suspect it will only clarify events of the afternoon."
Harry considered that, then shrugged. "I don't suppose anyone is really daft enough to question you, anyway."
Tom flashed him a smirk, and Harry made a show of rolling his eyes in response. "There's a little shop down Knockturn that serves traditional Samhain food. Assuming you dare to be seen down there."
"I'm a werewolf," Harry pointed out, because that would always be sufficient excuse to allow him into the darker parts of their world without anyone wondering too hard about whether or not his parents knew what he was up to.
Tom hummed in understanding, then used Harry's hand in his to pull him into and down Knockturn Alley, fairly obviously hoping to escape running into any of the children in the Diagon.
Harry's own family had always celebrated Halloween with pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating, most likely due to their living in a muggle neighbourhood, but he was a little surprised to recognise all of the food the little restaurant was serving as things that would appear at lunch or dinner on the day. Presumably, James had done his bit to continue some of the pureblood traditions he would have been brought up with.
"It occurs to me," Tom said once their server had left them with their food and gone to check in with a hag a few tables away, "that you are something of a doorway to death."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "If you want to talk with your mum, you can ask anytime, you know."
Tom cleared his throat. "Not quite what I meant, but I'll keep that in mind."
Harry snorted. "I'm not a doorway, more like a gatekeeper, really. There are constant, physical doorways, though; our Department of Mysteries has one."
Tom narrowed his eyes. "Do they, now? And there's more than one?"
Harry made a show of rolling his eyes. "It's only one-way, so they're essentially useless to normal people. But they are a direct portal to the Realm of Death; going through one would kill you, without the proper protections. I believe they were created by necromancers, but without a proper understanding of death magic, they're little better than a quick death. Though, I am given to believe that those governmental bodies with access to one use them to study death in what they consider to be a more morally acceptable way than the practice of necromancy."
Tom hummed and turned back to his food.
Harry left him for a few bites, but eventually had to ask, "Was there a reason for bringing that up? I mean, I'm aware that Halloween – Samhain – is a holiday for the recognition of and, to an extent, celebration of our ancestors, but–"
Tom shook his head. "Just a passing thought."
Harry considered that. "You understand," he said after a moment, "that not all deceased chose to stick around; your mum is rather an unusual case. My own grandparents, all four of them, they've since moved on and been reborn as new souls."
"So don't expect you to act as a conduit for anyone looking to speak with a dead loved one?" Tom asked drily.
"Essentially." Harry shrugged. "Those who remain usually do so to watch over a person, as your mother did for you, or an object, as with Chaucer. But if they believe that that person or item will be well cared for, or if they simply don't have anything they care enough to watch over, they'll pass on, start a new life."
Tom stared down at his food with a complicated twist to his expression. Finally, he asked, "My father?"
Harry sighed. "He moved on."
"Without a backward glance, I don't doubt," Tom muttered, stabbing his food with rather more force than Harry thought necessary.
"If you want to know more about your father, you need to speak to your mum," Harry said carefully. "I have never had occasion to meet him."
"I have met him," Tom snarled, "and you're missing nothing."
Harry reached across the table and caught Tom's wrist before he could commit any further violence against his food. "Voldemort," he said quietly. Calmingly.
Tom sighed and straightened, some of the tension draining out of his shoulders.
"I did meet your uncle, though," Harry offered once he was certain the dark lord was less inclined to murder, and Tom raised an eyebrow at him. "He was impressed at your duplicity. Said he probably would have done the same, had he known you existed. Your mum hit him for that, though."
Tom laughed, loud and a little bit of a surprise. And then he set down his fork and caught Harry's hand in his, bringing it up to kiss his knuckles. "You truly are a treasure, Scythe."
Harry ducked his head, embarrassed and maybe a little bit charmed. "Glad you think so," he managed to get out, "because you're stuck with me."
Tom smiled one of his more unfairly gorgeous smiles and replied, "I should hope so; I spent a pretty knut on that broom."
Harry rolled his eyes. "You're ridiculous," he insisted, pulling his hand away from the dark lord and trying not to grin too widely. "Finish your dinner so I can go back to hiding behind the register."
Tom snorted. "When are you finished tonight?"
Harry considered that, then raised an eyebrow at him. "Fred and George never actually settled on a closing time for tonight, so probably whenever we all start looking too tired to keep going, or once the crowds die down to nothing. Why?"
"No reason," Tom said in what Harry suspected was the least convincing tone he'd ever heard from any version of the dark lord.
Harry eyed him for a moment, then said, "It would probably serve the pair of them right if I took Fred's joke seriously and just never came back."
Tom's eyes glinted over his smirk. "Indeed it would. Do you need to warn your parents?"
Harry shook his head. "We all assumed I'd just crash at the shop."
Based on the way Tom went back at his food with intention, Harry had best finish his meal as quickly as possible.
Once they were both done and Tom had paid their tab, completely ignoring Harry's attempts to insist he could pay, they made their way outside, where Tom caught him around the waist and apparated them straight to his bedroom at the manor. Which didn't really surprise Harry, because he knew the dark lord didn't like leaving his room without his Voldemort glamour, but Tom followed that with leaning in and drawing Harry into the filthiest kiss he'd yet shared with this reality's version of the dark lord.
Harry had absolutely zero problem with filthy kisses, nor with the direction things seemed to be going, but when Tom shrugged off his own outer robe, Harry had to pull back and demand, "Are you sure?" Because the last thing either of them needed was for Tom to sleep with him, then freak out in the morning and withdraw.
Tom blinked, and then he smiled and cupped Harry's face between his hands. "I am absolutely, completely certain that I want to have sex with you tonight."
"Oh, thank fuck," Harry decided, and pushed past the dark lord's hands to kiss him again, his own hands going to the fastening of Tom's inner robe.
Tom chuckled into the kiss, his own hands moving much slower to undo Harry's robe.
When Harry had got the last of Tom's fastenings, he caught the dark lord's hands and asked, "What's wrong?" because there was something just the slightest bit uncertain in his movements.
Tom's brow furrowed and he looked away. "I've never...done this," he admitted after a second that felt almost too long.
Harry blinked, surprised, because the dark lord of his last reality had definitely had sex with a male before. But, of course, this wasn't the same man, and who could really say what differences between the two realities had contributed to that change. It hardly mattered, in the end.
Harry reached up and caught Tom's chin with one hand, pulling a bit until he turned back to Harry. "Do you want me to take the lead?"
Tom's mouth thinned, and Harry suspected he was baulking at the idea of letting anyone else have control over him.
But then, to Harry surprise, Tom quietly agreed, "Please."
Only a far stronger man than Harry could have said 'no' after that.
Contrary to how things had gone during the start of his relationship with his last reality's dark lord, adding sex to their relationship didn't mean they were grabbing for each other every time they happened to be in a room together, and nor did it mean they started making excuses for spending time together in private spaces. Harry suspected that was mostly due to them easing into their relationship, but it wasn't like he had a lot of experience to draw on; perhaps they were both different enough men that they didn't need to constantly be naked with each other.
It didn't mean that they stopped kissing when Harry came by in the evenings, or reaching across the desk and brushing hands while looking over the constant pile of reports on Tom's desk. And when Tom 'just happened' to be in Diagon Alley during one of the afternoons or evenings that Harry had let himself be talked into working at the joke shop, they would still catch hands and draw each other out of the shop for a meal break while Fred, George, or Lee laughed and waved them away as they took over the register or whatever Harry had been stocking when he got interrupted.
The evening after the Ballycastle Bats lost their third league game, Harry was stopped outside the entrance to Tom's room by Merope. "He's in the ballroom with the minister and a few other Death Eaters," she told him. "Someone is blackmailing them."
Harry frowned at that. "Who would have the gall to blackmail his people? And to what gain?"
Merope shook her head, looking strained. "I don't know."
Harry nodded and motioned to open a doorway, then stepped through to the dark lord's bedroom. There, he called the power of the Cloak over himself, cast some scent-blocking and silencing charms on himself, then made his way down to the ballroom.
Voldemort was seated in his throne, a palpable aura of rage surrounding him. Eleven men and women were kneeling in front of him, and while Harry could smell fear, he didn't believe it was fear of being cursed. And, as Harry drew closer, he found a pile of letters in front of the dark lord, which seemed to be the focus of his rage.
Harry stepped around the side of the throne and peeked down at the letter in Voldemort's hand, only for his partner to twitch, then hiss, :Scythe.:
Harry blinked – he hadn't been touching the dark lord at all, but he didn't suppose he should be surprised that his partner had a way to sense when invisible people were too close to him – and dropped his silencing spell to agree, :Yes. Your mum said something about blackmail?:
Voldemort seemed to relax slightly, and he motioned with his wand, calling up a different letter, which he then handed up to Harry.
After a quick glance to ascertain none of the Death Eaters were looking – they weren't; Voldemort had trained them well – he took the letter and opened it to skim.
The letter was written to a Farquhar Avery, who Harry didn't know personally, but knew worked in the portkey office at the ministry. The contents contained some potentially damaging information about his personal life, including that he had two non-family members in his home who read as kept partners: A male squib and a female muggleborn.
It took Harry a moment to realise that, while the letter went into great detail about some of Avery's other misdeeds, it didn't go properly in depth into the lovers. In fact, it didn't even specify that they were lovers, barely even implied as much. As though the information gained was incomplete, despite how accurate some other things were, or collected through means too innocent for the bedroom. Like through a child.
:Does Avery have children?:
Voldemort gave a jerky nod. :Two. One graduated last year, the other just started. All of them have younger children or siblings; it must be someone at Hogwarts.:
:Isn't there a new professor?: Harry asked, because the history of magic professor – not Binns, because Severus had apparently fired him as soon as he'd had the option – had died during the attack in Diagon. Harry hadn't really heard anything about the replacement professor, beyond that he wasn't boring and sometimes spoke with a slight lisp. Death? he called to his eternal servant.
Voldemort let out a low, angry hiss that meant nothing, then said, :I'll go to Hogwarts and–:
Harry pushed down against his shoulder before he could get up, stopping him even as Death replied, "Eraquas Ford is a legilimens and, it seems, has been using it on students to gain their secrets, especially younger ones who would have no training in occlumency."
My brothers? Harry demanded, struggling not to shred the letter in his hands or harm his partner.
"I extended the same protections over them and Hermione as I have you, as you would have requested, had you thought to ask. I do not, however, maintain the same attention to the protection over them, and regret that I was unaware of any attempts on them, so did not know to warn you."
Harry let out a shaky breath at the promise that his brothers and Hermione were safe from mental intrusion; as bad as it could have been for his secret to fall into the hands of someone with no compunctions about using it against him, the thought of what a legilimens could do to the minds of those he cared for seemed far worse. :Death has verified it was Ford,: he offered quietly. :He's been using legilimency against younger students.:
"This will be handled tonight," Voldemort announced, anger threaded through his voice.
"My Lord, you know who the blackmailer is?" one of the Death Eaters Harry didn't recognise pleaded. They sounded young and a bit like they were at the end of their rope.
"I do indeed, Cassius," Voldemort replied, just the littlest bit gentler. "Go home, all of you, and trust in me."
They all murmured, "My Lord," and turned to leave, not a one looking up at Voldemort, nor attempting to retrieve their letters; likely, they knew there was no point in attempting to hide their personal shames.
Voldemort waited until all of them had left the ballroom before turning towards Harry. "Let me see you," he ordered.
Harry tossed Avery's letter back on the pile as he let the Cloak's invisibility drop. "Apparently," he commented, "Death has been protecting my brothers and Hermione, or I would have already had to hunt this fucker down."
One of Voldemort's hands reached up and brushed a lock of hair back towards his ear. "You were right to suspect Corban was hiding something," he said, still with just a hint of anger in his voice. "He is an excellent occlumens, one of the best among my followers; I should have pressed him harder than I did after your warning."
Harry sighed and leant into the dark lord's hand, which had been hovering just out of range of touching his face. "Neither of us guessed what the cause was. Is whatever damage he and the others have done repairable?"
"Presumably," Voldemort agreed. "I don't yet have the full scope of the damage, and there is always the danger of him having some fail-safe, like information passed on to a reporter to release upon his death or disappearance."
Harry shook his head. "That can be dealt with, should it prove a concern."
Voldemort nodded, then drew his hand away and stood. "I presume you intend to follow along."
"I mean, I could also stay here and read into the sordid lives of these poor Death Eaters."
Voldemort turned to him with what Harry was fairly certain was meant to be an unimpressed stare, but there was a light in his eyes that suggested that a part of him, at least, was amused. "I think you've read enough of their 'sordid lives'," he said before vanishing the pile.
"Spoilsport," Harry complained, then stepped closer and leant up to kiss his partner.
Voldemort pushed into the kiss, one hand threading through Harry's hair and holding him in place as he deepened it. Just enough so Harry was ready to suggest they hold off on taking care of Ford for a few hours. Maybe until the next day entirely.
But then Voldemort pulled back and said, "I believe it will be easiest to floo to Severus' office."
"I think I hate you, just a little bit," Harry decided.
Voldemort snorted. "Focus, Scythe."
Harry groaned, but forced himself to pull away from his partner and turn his mind back to the problem at hand. Recognising that, while his brother and Hermione might have been safe, the Weasleys weren't helped a fair bit. "My way would be more direct than floo," he pointed out.
Voldemort cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable. "Be that as it may, informing Severus of our intentions would be..."
"Polite?" Harry suggested when Voldemort didn't continued. "You can just say the idea of stepping into the Realm of Death freaks you out."
"We're taking the floo," Voldemort informed him in a slightly stiff tone, then turned and stalked away.
Grinning to himself, Harry hurried after.
Harry ended up flooing with Voldemort, because he didn't actually have access to the headmaster's floo, despite what lies Severus might say to ease the minds of those who didn't know about Harry's alternate method of travel, and they stepped out into what appeared to be a meeting between Severus, the heads of house, and the head boy and girl.
Harry immediately pulled the power of the Cloak back over himself, hopefully before anyone spotted him.
"My Lord," Severus said while everyone in the room bowed their heads. "To what do we owe the visit?"
"Eraquas Ford," Voldemort replied flatly, and the five professors and two students traded sharp looks. "You suspect something of him?"
Severus cleared his throat. "My Lord, he's in the habit of assigning detentions instead of taking points, especially to younger students with powerful or influential parents. We had feared..." He cleared his throat again, looking more uncomfortable than Harry could ever remember him doing. "Well."
"Abuse," McGonagall said, raising her head and looking directly at Voldemort, fearless. "I attempted to sit in on a detention and he rescheduled it. And if he's doing anything to the students, they aren't talking."
"I doubt they're aware," Voldemort said. "He's using legilimency, then using the information he's learnt to blackmail the students' parents or older siblings."
Judging by the expressions Harry could see, the line behind Voldemort of people who wanted to see Ford dead for his actions was growing.
"It appears, Severus, that you will need to find a new history of magic professor."
"In this case, My Lord, I will be glad to," Severus replied with a hint of ice in his voice. "Professor Crouch, perhaps you can show the dark lord to Ford's quarters?"
"Headmaster," Barty agreed as he stood, then ducked his head to Voldemort and led the way to the stairs down.
Ford's quarters were on the third floor, down a back hallway that most students wouldn't think to go down. He opened the door when Barty knocked, looking cross. "What do you want now, Bart–" he started before catching sight of Voldemort and freezing, all of the colour seeming to drain from him.
"You're dismissed, Barty," Voldemort murmured, and Barty wasted no time in stepping past the dark lord – almost running into Harry in the process – and heading back the way they'd come. "You'll be inviting me in, Ford," Voldemort ordered.
Ford swallowed and stepped back, out of the way. "W-won't you p-please co-come in, your lordship?"
Harry slipped in behind the dark lord and brushed his arm with one hand as he stepped around him, moving a little further into the quarters. He hadn't been in a great many professor's quarters over his three lives, but he suspected most of them didn't have furniture that was quite so richly upholstered, nor an array of deeply magical knickknacks, one of which started shrieking when Harry approached the row.
"Cute," he said as he picked it up and broke it with a slightly casual show of werewolf strength, a silent charm dispelling the warning alarm for invisible beings. And then, with a quick spell to change his robes to the heavy, hooded black robes he used to make himself look not unlike Death, he drew away the power of the Cloak. "Impressive spellwork," he allowed as he turned to where Ford was staring at him with some uncertainty. "That particular ability can't be sensed by just any detection charm. But I don't think you made it."
"Unlikely," Voldemort agreed, a silky sort of edge to his voice. "Ford seems more the sort to blackmail others for such artefacts."
"Y-your lordship, I–" Ford started.
Voldemort struck, as fast as any snake, catching him by the throat and slamming him against the wall next to the door. "You what?" Voldemort demanded. "You thought it acceptable to root through the unguarded minds of children for your own gain? That you would use the information you gathered to destabilise my government?"
"N-no, y-your lord-ship! I w-wou-ld ne–"
Ford cut himself off with a scream, his eyes wide and glued to Voldemort's, and Harry suspected his partner was tearing through the man's mind with all the care of a raging bull.
With Voldemort distracted by ripping all of Ford's secrets from his mind, Harry took the chance to look around the room, casting the occasional detection charms and using his own sense of smell and sharp eyes to find points of interest, eventually unburying a book of notes on all of the things Ford had found out.
"Voldemort," he called back during a break in the screaming, "see if he's only got the one set of notes. Or just kill him so Death can find out for me."
There came the sound of snapping bones. "There are a couple of students he may have damaged the minds of," Voldemort said, sounding disgusted. "Severus will have to do what he can about healing them."
Harry grimaced, but held off responding as Death reported, "He only had the one notebook, Master, and he believed himself too careful to have need of a fail-safe in the form of a reporter. He did have thoughts of defecting to the Russians, should he think he might have been discovered."
Thank you, Death, Harry replied warmly, then turned to Voldemort and held up the notebook. "This was it. And it seems he didn't concern himself with any reporters as a backup, though he did have some plans to turn to Golubev, should he suspect he was in danger."
"If Gosudar was wise, he would have killed him after getting all the information he could from him; once a turncoat, always a turncoat," Voldemort said with a kick to the corpse. And then his gaze focussed on the book in Harry's hands.
Harry snorted. "Don't you have enough people's secrets?" he had to ask, even as he stepped over to the dark lord.
"Don't deny your own curiosity, my Scythe," Voldemort replied, catching Harry's wrist in one hand and drawing him in close. "You want to see the contents of that book just as much as I do."
"Of course," Harry agreed, because there was really no point in denying as much; if he hadn't, he would have destroyed it as soon as he found it. "But it can, perhaps, wait until after Severus is assured that he no longer has a mind rapist in his school."
"What is it you always call me?" Voldemort murmured, long fingers reaching past the shadow of his hood and brushing along Harry's cheek. "Spoilsport?"
Harry coughed. "You'll live," he promised, then stepped out of Voldemort's reach and pulled the power of the Cloak back over himself. "Severus first."
Voldemort politely vanished Ford's body before leading the way back up to the headmaster's office. Barty and Severus were the only two still there, so Harry changed his robe back and ended the Cloak's power.
"Harry," Severus said tiredly, having already greeted Voldemort, and Barty's head jerked up so he could stare at him a bit disbelievingly.
"You can turn invisible?" Barty asked, sounding a little strained.
"Of course," Harry replied. "Can't everyone?" He glanced up at Voldemort questioningly.
Voldemort shook his head. "Ford is no longer a concern for anyone. I will handle the announcement to the community at large, but you may wish to determine how to explain matters to the students before the papers arrive."
"Of course, My Lord."
"There were also some students Ford believed he may have damaged while poking through their minds."
Barty stiffened, his eyes narrowing, while Severus turned a shade of red Harry hadn't seen yet this reality, the one that said he was so beyond rage, it was nearly unspeakable. "Do you have the names, My Lord?" Severus asked in a steady voice, and Harry had to commend him on his control.
Voldemort passed on the names, and Harry was a little ashamed to admit that he was relieved that he didn't know either of them.
Assured that Severus would handle matters, Harry and Voldemort returned to the manor, where the dark lord drafted an announcement for The Daily Prophet and sent it out.
They ended up spending far too much of the night snooping through the book together, and eventually fell asleep together on the bed, the notebook fallen closed between them.
Stand Against the Moon Chapters:
Pro | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12
Nose to the Wind Chapters:
1 - Death Once Again || 2 - Bring Out All the Good Inside Me || 3 - Death and Living Reconciled
4 - Orphan Man || 5 - Using Gentle Words to Shelter Me || 6 - Living on Your Breath
7 - You Just Might Get it All || 8 - Never Want to Come Down || 9 - Only the Silence Remains
10 - Love is a Doing Word || 11 - Nothing Sacred || 12 - The Heart Yearns
13 - Mirrored in Your Stare || 14 - Camouflage Denial || 15 - Precious and Fragile Things
16 - Perfectly Reckless || 17 - Your Arms Feel Like Home || 18 - The Sun Will Set For You
19 - Your Love Has Always Been Enough || 20 - Keep Up This Charade || 21 - Truth Like a Blazing Fire
22 - Give Yourself a Try || 23 - Done Pleading Ignorance ||
25 - Summer's Scent Still Lingers || 26 - Burn Out the Stain || 27 - Final Masquerade
.
