Trigger warnings required for this chapter: implied/referenced sexual assault, graphic bodily harm/murder, false accusations of sexual assault. Potentially triggering section begins with "The corpse..." and ends with "...the force of his exit." Summary at the end of the chapter.
For a moment, nobody moved.
“You IDIOT boy!” Snape bellowed, striding towards Theo. Harry moved in an instant, vaulting an empty bed and landing between them, his raised wand glowing green. Snape halted but the rage and—fear?—on his face didn’t budge. “Do you know what you’ve done!”
“I would lay off the yelling, Professor,” Theo said. “I’ve warded the good mediwitch’s rooms, but who knows how long that will last?”
Snape’s nostrils flared. Emotions drained from his posture and within seconds he was once again the very picture of restrained neutrality, save for his black eyes, which glittered with some unidentifiable force. “You have killed Albus Dumbledore.”
“He killed my mother.” Theo picked up the applewood wand and stepped forward until he stood at Harry’s right and a half-step back, in a position with ancient significance. “He has grossly mistreated my family and my liege. I sought and won a blood-price for his crimes according to the laws of old.” Pansy followed him over and took up the same position on Harry’s left, propping an elbow on Harry’s shoulder and smirking at Snape. “Will you challenge me, Professor?”
Snape held very still. “I fear, Mr. Nott, that you have just placed yourself in great danger,” he said, “but very well. On your head be it.” With a glance at his watch, Snape added, “And it is well past curfew. If you are not in your beds within the next ten minutes you will not care for the consequences. And, should anyone see you, I cannot be your alibi. None of us was ever here. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they all murmured, and then Theo turned and swept out of the infirmary. Pansy towed Draco after him.
Harry hesitated. “It’s done, sir,” he said softly. “You have only one liege now.”
Snape laughed bitterly. “If only it were that simple.” He turned on his heel and left in a swish of black robes.
When Harry was sure Snape was gone, he stepped over to Dumbledore’s corpse, and peered down at it. This man had ruined his life. This man had cost him… so very much. And yet, in death, he looked at peace.
No, Harry thought. “You don’t deserve peace,” he whispered to the empty room. “I will dismantle your life. I will tear your legacy apart brick by brick until nothing remains. I will ensure that everything you feared comes to pass and that our world will be better for it. And I hope, wherever you are, you can watch.”
His eyes snagged on something, then, and Harry abruptly forgot what he’d been saying. The ring on Dumbledore’s hand… his dead, blackened hand, specifically… that ring looked familiar. Or, no, the crest on it did, an odd geometric pattern that was familiar for some reason. Harry’s tired brain couldn’t quite place it. Maybe the crack down the center of the ring was obscuring something.
If Dumbledore had thought it important, then it probably was. Harry plucked it off the old man’s finger and tucked it away into a pocket with the stolen wand.
Then he spat on Dumbledore’s body.
-----
McGonagall stood up in the morning, over breakfast, and announced in a trembling voice that Albus Dumbledore had passed away in the night, succumbing to a curse he had encountered the previous summer.
“NO!” bellowed Jules. As if he had given a signal, the Hall exploded into noise: sobs, cries, speculation and frantic conversation, everyone talking over each other—
A BANG drew their attention back to the dais. McGonagall lowered her wand and cleared her throat. “This indubitably tragic loss will be felt by each and every student to ever walk these halls under Albus Dumbledore’s protection and care. I will be interim Acting Headmistress until the Board of Governors makes a final determination as to Headmaster Dumbledore’s replacement. The… the funeral service…” She dabbed at her eyes with a tartan handkerchief. “The service will be held two days hence, on the grounds, as is tradition. Those of you who wish to return home in the meantime may do so. I am… so very sorry to have to impart this news to you, and my office is… is always open should any of you wish to talk.” She paused and visibly gathered her composure. “That will be all.”
Harry concentrated, for the rest of the meal, on giving every appearance of a student who had only just learned of the death just now, and was busily whispering about it to all his classmates. It wasn’t hard; with occlumency, he could simply compartmentalize the knowledge, and pretend as though he really had been in the dark until the announcement.
No one even looked at him twice.
No one except Neville, that is, whose gaze seared Harry’s skin until at last the students began to leave and he could escape back to the dungeons.
-----
“I know it was you.”
Harry blinked and looked up. “Pardon?”
“I know,” Jules repeated, face twisted into a fiery scowl, “that it was you.”
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be more clear,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “The train’s about to leave and I’d quite like to be sitting down before it does. What, exactly, was me?”
“Dumbledore!”
Harry sighed. “Jules, really?”
“Yes!” Jules kicked the door shut, trapping them together in one of the Express’ smaller compartments. Harry’s skin itched. “Or—if not you, then one of you. I saw him yesterday. He was fine!”
“Was he?” Harry said patiently. “Or was he weakened from that curse on his hand and… you know, I heard the funniest rumor that you were with him when he came back, Julian. Off adventuring with the Headmaster, were you? Run into some trouble?”
Jules flinched minutely.
“Ah, that’s it,” Harry said. “I thought as much. You were, what, going in unprepared and alone, and dear old Dumbledore had to wear himself out protecting you or some such thing, ran into a spot of trouble, and seeing as he was already weakened by that curse on his hand…” He tsked and shook his head. “And now I’m sure you’d like to blame me, because if he died on his own, then you feel like it’s your fault.”
“It’s not!” Jules said hotly.
“I know.” Harry shrugged. “He was a grown wizard and he made his own choices. You’re not responsible for them. I do recommend you stop jumping at shadows.” He steeled himself, patted Jules on the shoulder, and left.
The train lurched to life just as Harry shut the door behind him. He stumbled and had to catch himself on the corridor wall, and when he looked up, Neville was there, frozen mid-step and staring back at him.
He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look much of any emotion, actually. Harry opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say, not sure why he was hoping—
The compartment slid open again. “Harry, what are you doing?” Jules demanded. “You’re blocking the door. C’mon, Nev, Ron’s got a compartment for us up front.”
Neville shouldered past Harry and followed Jules without a backward glance.
-----
The twins were covering for Ginny, telling Arthur and Molly that she was spending the night at their flat, so she had just flooed straight from there back to Grimmauld. Harry hadn’t even finished shuffling his wards upstairs when she stepped out of the fire, pale and determined.
“You’re absolutely certain?” Harry said. Snape had delivered a signed contract assuring them that Voldemort wouldn’t do anything beyond what the plan required and would ensure the false memories could be safely removed from Ginny’s mind later—Harry would’ve insisted on that if the girls hadn’t; this wasn’t the sort of thing he would want any of his Vipers to carry around forever. But a contract didn’t mean it wouldn’t be hard, and painful, and unpleasant.
Ginny nodded resolutely. “I’m certain. He has to go, Harry. I’m with you.”
“Alright. You have an hour. I think Pansy wanted to bring some of the other girls over.” Harry shrugged with one shoulder. “To be frank, with your family, he will look upon you with… rather more judgment than he might the daughter of one of his followers.”
“I sort of figured,” she said, with a daredevil quirk at her mouth that reminded Harry this girl was from a family of Gryffindors, for all her impeccable Slytherin composure. “Let’s go see what kind of scary Dark witch hairdo Pansy’s charmed up.”
Harry probed the wards, and somewhat to his surprise, found that there were four people in the front parlor getting ready. He and Ginny met them there: Pansy had brought Daphne, Iris, and Flora with her. “Shoo, Harry,” Pansy ordered, not even looking up at him. “You’ve got your own work to do.”
“Pardon the intrusion,” Harry said sarcastically. Flora smirked at him; the others were already busy folding Ginny into their circle, Iris murmuring charms at her hair with a frown of concentration, so Harry beat a retreat to his rooms.
No sign of Barty. He pressed down the disappointment; doubtless Barty would arrive later, to show them the meeting-place.
Getting ready, for Harry, required less outer work than Ginny. He was an old hand at putting his damnable hair to rights and had plenty of formal traditional robes appropriate for this meeting—high-collared, close-cut, expanding panels for mobility and heavy with protective runes embroidered in metal thread. He laid out one in a pleasant violet shot through with veins of silver and sat down to meditate.
The hours and hours of obsessive practice since Yule had paid off. Harry sank into himself easier than ever before, his emotions receding like the tide, his conscious mind calming and smoothing into a mirrored surface. He had settled on that as his next level of defense: anyone trying to intrude upon his mind would find not a wall but a reflection, their intentions bounced back upon them, looking only at themselves.
Harry wrapped layer upon layer of mirror around himself until he floated in a sea of bright silver.
Returning to his own body lessened the floating sensation, but not entirely; the detachment of occlumency was in essence an intentional and magically reinforced form of dissociation, and Harry took comfort in it as he went downstairs to meet the girls.
Seeing Ginny caught him so off-guard he faltered a step. Normally, at Hogwarts, she wore her uniform intentionally rumpled, her fiery hair shoved back into a braid or ponytail; and around the other students she was a spitfire, laughing and loud and lance-bright, a dangerous thing fully under her own control. Pansy and the others had taken all her fire and banked it beneath a high-collared sleeveless red robe that clashed magnificently with her hair and caught the red tones of her earth-brown eyes. Her hair had been pulled up and braided into a crown around her head, every hair in place, as elegant as it was ruthlessly functional.
In short, she looked like every inch the pureblood scion of an ancient House, elegant and cold.
Harry smiled broadly. “Merlin, you look the part.”
Ginny’s mask cracked into a matching grin. “Right? I think I want to do my hair like this all the time. Iris knows some awesome braid charms.”
“My hair doesn’t stay contained by conventional measures,” Iris said drily, patting her own head, which currently sported two matching braids that ran close to the scalp to her nape and hung down over her back.
Harry looked around. “Well, we’re all dressed and ready to meet a Dark Lord, we’re just waiting on—” He felt it in the wards as the floo roared and Barty stepped out. Harry didn’t know if it was the house or him that shivered. “That,” he finished, turning towards the kitchen stairs.
Barty emerged and raked a critical eye over Harry and Ginny. “That’ll do,” he said, with the barest nod for the other girls. “Apologies for the delay. There’s been a—development.”
“Any problems?” Harry said, taking in the cut of Barty’s black robes and neatly parted hair with a completely different sort of appreciation than he’d given Ginny.
“None that you need to worry about. Internal matters.”
Harry nodded: he was perfectly happy staying well out of any Death Eater infighting, thanks. “Floo address?”
“Five Beatley Lane.”
Harry gave him a dubious look.
“It’s a temporary safe house, Dumbledore’s people are watching the floo,” Barty said, rolling his eyes. “We’re working on that, naturally, but best to be cautious.”
“Arse,” Harry said affectionately.
“Here’s one,” Barty said, grabbing Harry’s.
Harry smacked his hand away. “We’re not private!”
“Can’t blame him,” Ginny said cheerfully. “You have a great arse. But we probably should get going. I’d rather not turn up late to meet the bogeyman.”
Barty was still cackling as he spun away into the flames. Harry sighed and turned a halfhearted glower on Ginny. “That sort of thing—”
“I know, I know, not appropriate for Mr. Big Bad,” she said. “Go, already. I’ll behave.”
She would, too; Harry nodded and then impulsively wrapped an arm around her shoulders for a brief second before retreating into the floo himself.
The safe house on the other side was so utterly mundane that Harry couldn’t imagine Voldemort in it. The living room could have been Mrs. Figg’s, complete with lace and chintz and a worn shag carpet; Barty looked horribly out of place, standing at attention next to a pastel floral-print armchair.
Harry turned and neatly caught Ginny as she stepped out of the fire, spelling ash off her robes and offering her his arm in the position of an older family member, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. The tiny smile she offered up told him she recognized and appreciated what that meant.
“This way,” Barty said.
Voldemort was in an upstairs room. All the tacky mundanity had been stripped out of this space, which was a relief. Harry thought it might have been more jarring than he could handle to see Voldemort sitting on a lacy pink pouf. The thronelike chair that looked to have been grown straight up out of the bare floorboards was much more fitting.
As before, Harry matched Barty’s bow. Ginny, on the other hand, sank to one knee; she was, in essence, Harry’s vassal, and as Harry and Voldemort were now allies, she owed Voldemort a certain deference, though not as much as his Marked did in general.
“Risssse,” Voldemort said in that paper-dry sibilant voice. He studied Ginny for a profoundly uncomfortable moment; she bore up under it well, standing straight-backed and rock-steady. Harry was the only one who’d ever know her renewed grip on his elbow had tightened like a vise.
“You are entirely unlike the rest of your family,” Voldemort said at last. “How… fassssscinating. You underssstand what we are to do today? I have taken memoriessss from an individual who has… endured what you will claim to have endured. It will feel, to you, as real as if it had truly happened, for as long as the memoriesss live in your mind.”
“I understand, Lord Gaunt,” said Ginny, as he was not her Lord, and she could not claim the use of such a title. “I’m ready.”
“Very well. I shall need to enter your mind, to… underssstand your thoughts, elssse the false memories will not ssssit properly.”
Ginny lifted her head and met his eyes.
By the time he withdrew, she was trembling faintly, and Harry was supporting most of her weight in his right arm. With an effort of will he stayed in place, kept her upright, and made it look as little like she was about to collapse as possible.
“That issss all,” Voldemort said, looking now to Harry. “You may take her to resssst and then return for the memoriesss. She issss strong. She needsss to sleep a few hours, nothing more.”
“Thank you, Lord Gaunt,” Harry said with a bow not of respect but gratitude.
The whole meeting, legilimency included, had taken half an hour at most.
Harry got Ginny back through the floo, entrusted her to Pansy and Kreacher, and stepped right back into the fire. This time there was no escort; he made his way back up to Voldemort’s makeshift receiving room alone, finding the Dark Lord deep in a meditative trance and Barty standing patiently to one side.
“She’s well?” Barty said in an undertone.
Harry drew up next to him and let himself find comfort in the way their fingers laced together. “She’ll be fine.”
“Will you be?”
“I can handle some unpleasant memories,” Harry said. “They won’t really affect me, anyway. I’m just holding onto a package until I can give it to Ginny at the right time.”
“True.” Barty lifted Harry’s hand and ghosted his lips over Harry’s knuckles momentarily.
Voldemort stirred, and they straightened. “Lord Black… ahh, you have returned. The memoriesss are ready.”
“As am I,” Harry said, meeting Voldemort’s red-brown eyes squarely.
The legilimency this time was not a battering storm, but a hand extended. Harry accepted the overture as gracefully as he could. Accomplished legilimens could communicate thoughts, emotions, images, and entire memories as discrete packets of sensation; an accomplished occlumens could integrate those with their own mind or hold them separate. Harry, in this case, did the latter. The false memories, surface rippling with pain and fear and a sense of violation so profound he shied away from it, pressed on his mind, and he wrapped them in mirrors, reflecting the memories infinitely back on themselves.
Immediately the strain made itself known, like having to carry something that wasn’t too heavy but nevertheless wore on you over time. Harry probably couldn’t sustain this for more than a few days.
But a few days was all they needed. And he’d managed to accept the transfer without weakening his own defenses, another testament to his growing skill.
“I have them,” Harry said, blinking rapidly. “They are—very convincing.”
“Naturally.” Voldemort waved a hand. “Go, Lord Black, I have other businessss this eve… Barty shall return to you in ssseveral dayssss.”
Barty offered Harry his arm; Harry took it in the linked elbows of two equals in a courtship.
The propriety lasted until they got downstairs, at which point Barty made a frustrated sound and yanked Harry around to face him, kissing Harry deeply, almost desperately. Harry kissed back with just as much fervor: it had been far too long, his cock already straining at his pants and Barty’s fingers digging ruthlessly into Harry’s shoulder and waist.
Gasping, Harry pulled back. “We shouldn’t—you’re expected,” he got out.
“I know. Fuck.” Barty dropped his forehead onto Harry’s shoulder. “Fuck. I won’t see you until after the gala. There’s—well, like I said. Internal problems.”
“I know. It’s fine.” Harry kissed him one more time, deeply, and then stepped back out of Barty’s reach. “It’s just a few more days, yeah?”
“Not so bad,” Barty agreed, though the look on his face said otherwise.
Harry smirked. “Just think, by the next time you see me, James Potter will be dead.”
-----
The Potters’ summer gala was the society event of the year.
When first announced, a few months back, it had been a fairly transparent attempt to raise morale among the Light families and the Ministry’s higher echelons. James had announced after Dumbledore’s funeral that the gala would also be to honor the life of Albus Dumbledore— “A great wizard, who would want us to carry on with our lives, and honor him by carrying on the cause he gave his life for” —and that meant absolutely no one who’d gotten an invite was going to skip.
Certainly not the Weasleys.
Harry stood at the Potters’ property line. These wards were nothing like those around Dumbledore’s office. These wards were ancient, and active, and aware. These wards would be almost impossible to fool.
In blood and in magic, Harry was no longer a Potter. He was, however, still and always Jules Potter’s identical twin. That was, according to all his research, a bond almost impossible to break, no matter how tenuous their other ties of family and affection. Genetically, he and Jules were the same; with Jules’ blood, Harry would be able to impersonate him so well even these ancient wards couldn’t tell the difference.
Theoretically.
Harry took a deep breath and began.
First, some of his own blood, mixed into the vial—fresh for best effect. Then the chant. Hestia and Flora had come along for this part, joining their voices to his, reinforcing the twin-magic of the spell by presence alone. Harry let the words of the spell take him over as he drew runes up and down his bared arms, around his throat like a collar, on his forehead, cheeks, eyelids; over his heart—
It settled. Harry almost choked. This wasn’t nearly as bad as taking on Dumbledore’s essence as a false second skin; this felt almost natural. Which he supposed was the point. Jules’ essence felt, not like himself, but compatible, on such a deep level that Harry felt inexplicably soothed.
He wanted to keep this feeling. He wanted to cry.
Was this what James and Dumbledore had cost him? In another life, might he have grown up with this—this love, this comfort, not stolen but given freely by a brother who loved him?
The chant ended when the magic closed over his head. “Go,” Hestia said, “hurry.”
Harry was still reeling with the addicting feeling of Jules, clinging to it and almost basking in it, when he hit the wards. They scraped and dug at him but Harry barely noticed. And then they yielded all at once with a song of welcome that lanced straight to Harry’s center.
This is what he might have had.
Harry gritted his teeth.
Honestly, it sucked that there wasn’t time to indulge in a spot of revenge. He’d never hated James more than he did right now.
The gala was being held southwest of the house, in the gardens. Harry had entered to the north of the property; he immediately disillusioned himself and set off at a run for the manor. Memories from years ago guided him to a little-used access door, which in turn led to a staircase, which spat him out on the same floor as James’ office. A charm courtesy of Draco rendered him, if not invisible, then certain unnoticeable to portraits, which combined with his disillusionment allowed him to walk down the hallway without fear of detection.
And then, there it was—the carved oaken doors to a room that in another life would hold all of Harry’s inheritance.
He took a deep breath and pushed them open.
The study was, he had to admit, fairly impressive; a great carved wooden desk, bookshelves, a cabinet in one corner containing very expensive alcohol, a couple of semi-formal chairs in front of the desk and a collection of elegant but comfortable-looking seating in a cluster to the left, by the windows. And, of course, on the wall above the desk was a plaque bearing the seal of the House of Potter wrought in gleaming bronze.
Harry scowled at it. The antlers seemed to be judging him.
“Fuck you too,” he said, turning resolutely away. There was no real way to know exactly when phase two of the plan would happen; Harry had just told Ginny what time he would make his entrance and how long he estimated it would take him to get to the study. From there it was all on her and her mild attention-drawing charm. Which meant that in the meantime, Harry could take a look around Lord Potter’s study, and see what he turned up.
-----
James rolled his right wrist with a grimace. The Muggle handshake greeting was gaining popularity, and he appreciated how informal it was compared to all the stuffy pureblood rot, but Merlin, it got tiring when you had to shake the hands of about three hundred people.
It felt like half the Ministry had shown up at the Manor. Thank Merlin it was summer, because even with expansion charms, hosting this whole event indoors would have been impossible.
James spotted a familiar face, and plastered on a smile that would hopefully hide how annoyed he was. “Tiberius! So good of you to come.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” said his maybe-former ally jovially. James was still angry about the search-and-seizure law that had only passed because Tiberius’ little clique of holdouts from a bygone age had voted for it. How the bloody fuck was the Chief Auror supposed to root out Death Eaters and sympathizers if they couldn’t look for them? Completely stupid.
“You’ve got to try the punch—one of our elves made up a new recipe in Dumbledore’s honor,” James went on. “Absolutely fantast—oh, do excuse me, Tiberius, I see an old friend I’ve yet to greet.”
Tiberius said his polite goodbyes as well and that was as much as James could take. He kept up the brittle smile at least until his back was turned to the yellow-bellied old coot and he could allow a much more real sense of worry to cross his face. The person he had spotted was not an old friend, but Ginny Weasley, loitering rather alone at the edge of the party. He wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen her trying to catch his eye or not but there was obviously something wrong.
James approached her with caution. She was, after all, a Slytherin, but Molly insisted she was a good girl who kept to herself in that pit of baby Death Eaters, not like—not like some people (James scowled) who sorted Slytherin and completely went native, leaving their families behind. And James had always had a bit of a soft spot for the youngest Weasley. With her red hair and fiery personality, he had often thought that if he and Lily had had a daughter, she might’ve been a bit like Ginny.
“Hey, Gin,” he said, trying out a childhood nickname to put her at ease. “How’re you doing? No young suitors to take out on the dance floor?”
Ginny blushed bright red. “Oh, er, no, Lord Potter, sorry.”
“James, really, please.”
“Right. Sorry.” She scuffed one of her shoes in the dirt: it was a fashionable white leather thing with a heel, but smudged and dirty at the toe, which made James grin a little; she might be a Slytherin but she was no buttoned-up pureblood snot. “I, er, was hoping to talk to you, actually.”
“Oh? What can I do for you, then?” he said, stepping closer: her voice had lowered and her eyes were darting toward the other guests in fear.
“Um.” She bit her lip. “I, well, I’m in Slytherin, and… sometimes I… hear stuff. I can’t always…” She looked up at him, pleadingly. “Some of them would hex me if I made a fuss, you know? So I have to, like, just sit and listen. Or sometimes I have to—to say stuff I don’t—”
Oh, hell, she was tearing up. “Hey, no, don’t cry,” James said helplessly. With Jules, he’d have gone in for a rough hug, but Ginny seemed so damn fragile he couldn’t bring himself to do more than lay a hand on her shawl-covered shoulder, just at the juncture of her neck, like a tiny hug against her hair.
She sniffled. “Sorry. It’s just… I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell Mum, ‘cause what if she—what if she doesn’t let me go back? What if she thinks they’re all like that? Some of my friends are—they aren’t bad! It’s just the bad ones are the loudest, and the meanest, and… I just…” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper and James leaned in to hear her. “I just don’t want to get in trouble. I’d have talked to Jules about it, a few years ago, but we’re not as c-close as we used to b-be and he’s so busy all the t-t-time now…”
“You want to talk about it?” James checked, trying to hide the sudden eager pounding of his heart. If Ginny had overheard anything, no matter how small, it might give them an edge; the location of a safe house, maybe, the name of a sympathizer—he could spin that into evidence to satisfy one of those bloody Wizengamot panels, get a warrant, do a search, find evidence to parlay into more searches—
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please. N-not here. Somewhere inside. I d-don’t want… if it gets back to any of my House mates that I talked about it…”
“We can go to my study,” he said soothingly, brushing her hair back from her face like he used to do for Jules as a kid. “It’s warded, alright? Not even You-Know-Who could listen in on us. Hang on, I’ll grab Ethan—”
“No!”
Ginny’s voice had gotten a bit loud; she flushed and looked down. “Sorry. It’s just… it’s so stupid, I know it’s—but can we just—can you just show him the memory later, or something? I don’t really… know him as well.”
“That’s fine, yeah, that’s no problem. C’mon, right in here,” James said, steering Ginny towards the house with a gentle, comforting hand on her shoulder.
He kept up a soothing stream of chatter about quidditch all the way upstairs. Ginny was quiet, but responsive; it helped that they were both Chasers, and James was relieved to see her getting a little more animated by the time they got to his study. He shoved open the doors, ushered her inside, and called for an elf to bring them tea and cakes. Marnee popped in with a tray seconds later, bowed, and vanished again.
Only then did James raise the wards on the room. “We’re safe now,” he assured Ginny. “Got some really old wards here. Here, have some tea.” He carefully poured them each a cup. “Do you still take it with extra sugar?”
“Yes, please,” Ginny said quietly.
James grinned at her. “You always had a hell of a sweet tooth. On your fourth birthday you ate half the cake on your own. Molly never could work out where you put it all.”
She took the cup from him with a tremulous smile. Her eyes flicked up to something over James’ shoulder.
The world went black.
James woke up and his training kicked in—he didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t let his breathing change at all.
“I know you’re awake,” said a horribly familiar voice. “I rennervated you, Dad.”
Fuck. James jerked and opened his eyes: he was tied to a chair, arms wrapped up and around its back, wrists bound to the opposite elbow. His legs were pinned to the chair’s legs. Whoever had done this was prepared.
Harry. Harry had done this.
James couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Didn’t understand how Harry could’ve gotten in here, why he looked like—like some barbaric Dark wizard out of a story, arms bared in a sleeveless robe that showed every one of the strange runes inked over his skin. Was that… seriously, was that blood?
And Ginny, little Ginny, didn’t seem so fragile anymore. James knew he was being slow to put the pieces together but it was just—he couldn’t wrap his head around it. A second ago she’d been sitting there nearly shaking with nerves. Now she stood at Harry’s side, and the scared little girl was gone, replaced by a smirking young witch with danger in her eyes.
That was when James remembered how fucking scary Molly Weasley was in battle.
“Ginny,” he said, and coughed to clear his throat. Tried again. “Ginny, what are you doing? You know… you know the Dark are liars, you—are they doing something to you? Whatever it is, we can help you, okay? I can protect you…”
“Merlin, you weren’t wrong,” Ginny said, glancing up at Harry. “Really, James, you think I’m being blackmailed or some shite? Not even a little bit.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Harry said. James couldn’t avoid it any more: he met his eldest son’s glacier-cold death-green eyes and felt what was left of his heart shatter.
“Fine,” he breathed. “Fine, Harry, I… what do you want? Is it money?”
“No, it’s not money. I want you to hurt,” Harry snarled, suddenly wrathful, “like I hurt, hurt you enough to make up for the years of suffering you left me to so that Jules would be safe—” Ginny laid a hand on his shoulder, and he cut off, nostrils flaring. James watched with trepidation as Harry got himself under control. “I want to hurt you,” he said, more calmly, “but there isn’t time, and a mutilated corpse doesn’t fit the plan, so I’ll have to settle for this.”
“I’m not… I won’t give you Jules, I won’t—”
Harry’s mouth twisted into an expression of such hate that James flinched. “You think I’m here to hurt Jules? How stupid—no, don’t answer that.” He stepped forward, and he was shorter than Jules but on the force of presence alone, he towered. “For your information, I wouldn’t hurt a hair on Jules’ messy unkempt head. In fact, it appears I’m the only one actually trying to keep Jules alive. Remember that contract that I’m guessing you lot talked him out of signing?”
James jerked again, unwittingly. That contract—that trap— “That was you?”
“Not me, but the Dark Lord offered it for my sake,” Harry said with a casual shrug. “You see, I’m courting his de facto son.”
James choked.
“Oh, does that bother you?” Harry said, eyes glittering. “That I’m going to go home and get fucked into the mattress by a Death Eater? That we’re to be handfasted according to the old ways? Does it upset you to know that Voldemort was willing to leave his nemesis alive because I asked?”
“Harry,” James whispered, nauseous with horror. “Oh, God, Harry, what have you done?”
“What have I—?” Harry shook his head. “My sins are numerous, Father, but I suppose the most recent one would be arranging for the death of Albus Dumbledore.” Every word was a knife to James’ heart. “I also courted Tiberius Ogden away from the Light, shook up your voting bloc enough to get the search and seizure law through, arranged for the systematic destruction of Nedwin Pritchard—oh, and we tortured Pritchard’s older son, but I think that was fair, seeing as we caught him in the middle of doing the same to his own brother.”
“Did you kill… did you—”
“Dumbledore? No.” Harry smiled. “But my, ah, ‘lover’ isn’t quite right… paramour, maybe? Friend, at any rate. My friend, Theodore Nott, did it. You remember the day I met Theo, don’t you? The day you introduced yourself to me as my father and then left me alone in Diagon Alley? Stellar parenting, right there. It’s a wonder anyone ever left their children in your care.”
But all James could think was— “You haven’t killed. You haven’t… Harry, you’re not Marked. What I told to Ginny—it applies to you too,” James said desperately. Maybe now, maybe with Sirius out of the picture, maybe there was a chance James could convince Harry not to keep going down this path; and even if Harry never wanted to speak to him again, that would be fine, as long as he wasn’t one of the people James would have to put in Azkaban when this was over. “I know—Harry, I know I made mistakes with you. I should have tried harder, I—shouldn’t have distrusted you so easily, should have visited you… I’m sorry. But it’s not too late. You don’t have to—to become this. I can protect you, I’m the Chief Auror, I can make sure you’re safe, both of you… just, please, listen to me, before it’s too late.”
Harry was very still. “Do you know,” he said softly, “how long I have been waiting for you to apologize? And I had to physically tie you down to get it. Yeah, no. Too little too late. It’s sort of funny, actually. I’m not Marked, Dad, but I will be.”
James felt himself blanch as that sunk in, and along with it, the implications. “Harry…”
Harry raised his wand with a perfectly steady hand.
“Avada kedavra.”
James’ last thought was a desperate hope that Harry really would keep Jules alive before green light filled his mind, and he was gone.
-----
The corpse of his father slumped against the conjured ropes. Harry tried to remember how to breathe. His hands were shaking.
“Harry?” Ginny said softly. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. It came out hoarse. “Yeah. Sorry. Er.” Harry shook his head. “Right, the… memories.”
“Yes.” Ginny turned to face him and put her hands on his shoulders. “You did it. It’s done. He’s gone. He won’t hurt you again. He won’t get in anyone’s way.”
“No,” Harry said. “He won’t. Are you ready?”
“How will…” Ginny wet her lips, looking over the scene. “How will it… work, exactly?”
Harry didn’t mind taking a minute to explain again. Not with what she was about to go through. “Your brain likes to fill in the gaps. These memories are meant to integrate with your mind alone; they’ll fold into place and your brain will smooth over the edges. We have to stage it first. You should… you should take off your robe.”
Ginny bit her lip, hard. “Right. Okay.” She undid one button, hesitated, and then tore at the hem, hard enough to send several of the other buttons popping into the corners of the room. It was a hot day, and underneath the girlish pastel pink summer robe and shawl she’d worn a silk chemise and nothing else. With no detectable self-consciousness, she tossed the robe aside, and looked up at Harry again. “You should bruise me.”
“For the record, I hate this,” Harry said, and then, with a few murmured hexes, gave her a black eye and rings of bruising around both of her wrists. Dark fingerprints painted themselves onto her shoulder, right where James had touched her in the garden while Harry watched from the study’s window. Ginny bore it all with nary a sound of pain, though her eyes were glassy by the time Harry released the breath he was holding and stepped back.
That done, Harry handed Ginny the spare wand he’d brought along, and she levitated James’ corpse, bringing it along behind her onto the low sofa across from the hearth. Ginny sat down, then, deliberately, leaned back against the pillows and the sofa’s arm. The shell of James Potter hovered over her, not touching.
“Ready?” Harry said.
“This is going to be super gross,” she muttered. “Yeah. Fuck. Go.”
Harry rested a hand on her forehead for a brief moment. “You’re the bravest fucking person I know.”
“I’m a Weasley,” she said with a crooked little smile. “We don’t know what limits are. Get on with it, Black.”
Harry wished she was actually his sworn vassal, so he could leave her with a lord’s benediction. He steadied his grip on the ash wand and sent the reductor hex shuddering through it.
James’ corpse crunched with the impact. Blood spattered Ginny and the sofa. The body flew backwards, hit the bookshelves hard enough to send books tumbling and more blood flying, and then the body, utterly broken by a young girl’s terrified accidental magic, crumpled to the floor.
“Ready?” Harry said softly, moving around the sofa so he and Ginny were face to face.
She visibly braced herself. “Yeah. Do it.”
“Legilimens.”
Harry wasn’t great at legilimency. His priority had always been and would remain occlumency; Draco and Pansy and even Theo had much more finesse with offensive mind magics than Harry ever would. He could, however, easily slip into someone’s mind with their consent. Ginny was wide open and waiting patiently for the packet of false memories Harry slipped into her mind.
She had agreed to this, she knew what this would entail, they’d gone over the plan a dozen times, Ginny had gone into this with her eyes open; hell, she’d volunteered—and yet Harry still felt slimy as he gently maneuvered the memories out of their mirrored prison in his own mind and into hers.
As predicted, the integration happened immediately. Ginny’s whole body locked up and her heart accelerated as emotions and memories sank into her consciousness and battered at her. Harry couldn’t help. Couldn’t do anything but watch as Ginny endured memories of a rape that never happened.
“Fuck,” she whispered, a tear tracing down through the blood on her cheek. “Fuck. Harry. Go.”
She was right; too much time had gone by, Harry’s false Jules-skin was going to fade soon, and Ginny had to run for the party as soon as it had ‘happened’. He still could barely stand to leave her like this. Deep down, she knew the memories were fake, knew it hadn’t actually happened; but on the surface, in her emotions, it was real, betrayal and violation, so much pain and shame. Harry couldn’t stop himself drawing uruz, algiz, and dagaz on her forehead with his finger, careful to avoid the blood spatter. Strength, protection, and hope. It was weak magic without a focus or binding agent but it was all the protection he could give.
Then he was gone, running.
Harry wouldn’t see the chaos of Ginny staggering, bloody and sobbing, into the garden party. He wouldn’t hear the shouts of rage or the disgusted exclamations when Aurors burst into James’ study. He wouldn’t be there when Ginny’s family surrounded her to give her what comfort they could. He would only be able to imagine what was going on as he ran full tilt through the gardens and back to the north wardline.
Hestia and Flora were there to catch him when he threw himself through the wards, the last of Jules’ essence sloughing off him with the force of his exit.
-----
Though everyone knew by the next morning that James Potter had died and something horrible had happened, the Aurors were being tight-lipped and it took a few days for the story to break. Harry used the intervening time well. A few words in the right ears and Lords Ogden and Burke made sure Antonia Crickerly, a solid Senior Auror with plenty of experience but few of the accolades James had liked handing out to his friends, was tapped to lead the investigation. It was for ‘impartiality concerns,’ which was actually a concern, but mostly Harry just wanted to break James’ stranglehold on the Aurors, and what better way to do that than by helping a little-known outsider take the spotlight?
Ginny, meanwhile, stayed out of the papers entirely. There were rumors, but Harry suspected someone had bought off the Prophet to keep her name out of the society pages until the official investigation concluded.
Theo’s presence around Grimmauld was the only thing that kept Harry steady for those four days. Barty was still gone, doing who knew what for Voldemort, and the kids were a mess, showing their anxiety by being extra loud and pushy. Whenever they got to be too much, though, there was the light press of Theo’s fingers on Harry’s spine, or their fingers tangled together, or just Theo’s amused smirk from across the room.
On the fifth morning since the gala, the Daily Prophet arrived in the talons of a typically nondescript owl, and Harry flipped it open to find a picture taking up the entire front page above the fold: James and Ginny in the garden at Potter Manor, Ginny (face and hair charmed nondescript for privacy) with her head down and arms wrapped around herself, James leaning in towards her with a hand right where her shoulder met her neck.
It couldn’t have looked worse if Harry had staged the photo himself using puppets.
WIZENGAMOT INQUIRY, screamed the headlines, and JAMES POTTER DEAD, and POTTER ACCUSED OF MOLESTING DAUGHTER OF A NOBLE HOUSE!
Oh, right, the Weasleys were technically noble. That did increase the drama of it all, even if everyone would probably have also forgotten it.
Harry skimmed the articles. There was one big one on the whole thing, and a sidebar about Wizengamot conduct inquiries, a third side column delving into the forensics. Aurors had found the scene consistent with the victim’s memories, which themselves had been verified by two independent Ministry experts. The cause of death was blunt force trauma, and though the victim’s wand was clean, her memories clearly showed a burst of accidental magic tossing Potter off of her and into a bookcase.
“There is little doubt at this time that the late Lord Potter carried out the actions which the victim’s parents have accused him of,” Senior Auror Crickerly was quoted saying. “It it likewise assured that it was Potter himself rather than a body double. Whether he was in his right mind at the time remains under investigation.”
That much was expected. With the corpse in such bad shape, they could rule out potions but not the Imperius or other mind-altering spells. No one would ever be able to answer the question definitively. But enough people would believe it for Harry’s purposes. He just needed a crack in James’ invincible reputation.
Sure enough, the very next day, alongside a slew of outraged letters to the editor (“Potter would never—!” “Death’s too good for that [redacted] [redacted]!”), an unfamiliar journalist had done a report on James’ involvement in Harry’s childhood and drawn a parallel, pointing out that James had a history of caring little for children’s welfare.
Harry noted down that journalist’s name and sent it off to Pansy and Blaise; they’d find out who she was. Having a member of the press in his pocket could be beneficial.
Of course, James couldn’t be posthumously indicted, and there was no trial. Still, the name of the victim leaked around day seven (Harry suspected Skeeter; he’d trusted someone would snoop and work it out, or someone at the Ministry would get greedy and sell some documents) and with that, the entire Light political alliance went up in smoke.
-----
Severus propped his head in one hand and valiantly resisted the urge to just stand up and leave.
The Order, already in chaos without Dumbledore’s leadership, had been splintering even more beneath the weight of Potter’s gross betrayal of, well, basic decency. Severus personally suspected foul play but he wasn’t about to go helping these blithering imbeciles along. Honestly, if not for his Vow—
Said Vow tugged at him, and Severus couldn’t quite hide a wince. Best not to think on it. He returned his attention to the meeting.
Shacklebolt and Tonks were on the fence, and Robards had already stormed off, bellowing that he would not sit around with bonkers conspiracists guessing a Death Eater had somehow broken through Potter Manor’s impregnable wards. Mrs. Tonks and the damnable Thorne, on the other hand, were championing that very theory, and Thorne had already implied once that he thought Harry was involved.
Severus found himself most concerned about Molly Weasley. She had been cooking nonstop since well before they walked in the door, to judge by the quantity of food filling up every surface. For the most part she stayed out of the meeting, save occasional shrill interjections about how she believed Ginny but they couldn’t be sure Potter was sane, et cetera. She had been unstable since the loss of Arthur. Severus did not really want to find out what would happen if the assualt on her daughter pushed her over some invisible edge.
“Severus?”
“I beg your pardon?” Hell, he’d lost track of the conversation again. Severus looked unpleasantly down his nose at Mrs. Tonks.
“I asked,” she said with exaggerated patience, “what you believe occurred. Could the Death Eaters have gotten to James?”
Severus made a show of examining his fingernails. “I do not know. If any such plan was in the works, I obviously knew naught of it in advance.”
“Well what bloody use are you, then!” bellowed Tolster Fenwick. Mrs. Tonks glared him into silence and then turned back to Severus expectantly.
“I have yet to fully gain His trust—” killing Albus in public would have achieved such an end, damn those fool children— “and information within the Death Eaters is, as I have explained previously, highly compartmentalized. The Aurors have determined no potion was used: if there had, I would have been asked to brew it; but there was not, and so I was utterly extraneous.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “As to whether it is possible, I remain undecided. The Potters have no living blood relatives close enough to trick the wards; the Dark Lord himself has lamented their strength and hesitated to attack them in the past. It is possible that Potter found himself on the wrong end of a sympathizer’s wand while at the Ministry, but Aurors are trained to throw off the Imperius. Do you know if he was keeping up that training?” Severus said to Shacklebolt.
Shacklebolt shook his head. “Not with great certainty, but I can say we have been testing everyone every three months, and it was James’ idea to start having Senior Aurors authorized in use of the Unforgivables cast the Imperius on trainees and junior aurors at random within the Corps offices and the Academy, to improve their reflexes. Alastor caught James once, I think, and he shook it off in a minute or two.”
“So likely not the Imperius,” Thorne said with a mighty scowl. “How else could it have been done?”
“I know not.” Severus spread his hands. “There are as many curses as there are stars in the sky, and the Dark Lord is creative; he and several of his followers are perfectly skilled enough to invent a new spell. Perhaps a variant on the Confundus. Perhaps advanced legilimency. We will likely never know, unless someone goes to trial and confesses.”
Thorne’s scowl deepened. Severus knew perfectly well he and Mrs. Tonks and a few of the hotheaded younger recruits had been following, investigating, and occasionally threatening known or suspected sympathizers of the Dark Lord. Some of the older Death Eaters rather relished the challenge and joked about how it took Dumbledore losing his grip on the reins for the Order to become a real threat. There had been a couple deaths, too, that no one could quite explain, and while the Dark Lord seemed unconcerned, Severus remained suspicious.
A dead Death Eater couldn’t stand trial. A dead Death Eater likewise posed no risk. There were some who would weigh those two facts against one another and give the latter more import.
“You said blood relatives,” said one of the younger Order recruits whose names Severus hadn’t bothered learning. “What about the other twin? Harry?”
“He was disowned in blood and magic,” said Shacklebolt. “He’s not a Potter anymore, not in any way that matters. He barely looks like one. And, seriously, do you think a sixteen-year-old killed his own birth father?”
“You-Know-Who did,” Thorne shot back.
Tonks the younger half-raised a hand. “Sorry, but, er, I’ve met Harry Black. I don’t…” she paused under her mother’s judgmental eyes, but soldiered on— “really think he’s, you know, as bad as You-Know-Who. I dunno him all that well personally but I think I’d have noticed if he was some kind of, of sociopath.”
“Severus?” said Mrs. Tonks.
Would their questions for him never end? “I presume you ask because I have taught the boy these last six years? He is not a sociopath, and does not even approach the Dark Lord’s detachment from other people. He has friends about whom he cares sincerely. He loved Black the elder like a father. He empathizes with the young Muggleborns and half-bloods of Slytherin and is known among them as a resource should they encounter trouble with their pureblooded peers or with wizarding institutions that baffle them. I would perhaps not call him the soul of charity, but if your question is whether he’s remotely like the Dark Lord, the answer is no.”
“But do you think he could have done this?” Mrs. Tonks pressed.
“Ethically, or logistically?”
“Both.” Her lips were thin with annoyance.
“As to the latter, no,” Severus said, which wasn’t entirely true. “As has already been said, he was ritually disowned in blood and magic. You of all people ought to understand what that entails. He is not a Potter. His blood would not fool the wards; his magic is that of a Black’s, through and through.” Also a partial truth; Black was not his only inheritance, but Severus did not lie about the utter absence of anything Potter. “The gala occurred mere days after the school year concluded and I can confirm that Mr. Black did not leave the grounds for the Easter break. Unless you presume to tell me that he held James Potter under the Imperius since the Yule holiday or earlier—”
“Impossible,” said Shacklebolt. “We’d have noticed. There’s been at least one routine check since then.”
Severus gestured in his direction. “Precisely. Your culprit is almost certainly not a child of sixteen who has spent the last six months walled away in Scotland under the eyes of several people in this room.”
“I must concur with Severus’ perception of Black,” Minerva said, breaking her stiff and pale silence. “I have not once witnessed him espouse or act on blood supremacist views. He is polite, reserved, and talented; he works much harder than he prefers to show to his fellow students; he loves magic with a passion I have rarely seen. He exhibits genuine warmth for his friends, though rarely in public. Those friends number among every Hogwarts House, though perhaps unsurprisingly many of them are Slytherins.”
“So he runs with a bad crowd but isn’t a bully or openly a junior Death Eater,” Thorne said sourly. “That’s certainly not cause for a warrant.”
Severus hid his reaction with all the skill he had earned in years spying on the Dark Lord.
Luckily, he didn’t have to ask the question. “I’m sorry, a what?” said Shacklebolt.
“A warrant.” Thorne shrugged. “If we could get probable cause of Death Eater sympathies, even if it’s just the word of a couple of kids, we could do a search. We could’ve anyways what with the laws from last summer but that bloody new one hamstrung us.”
“I’m not sure what we you refer to,” said Shacklebolt testily, “as you are, I remind you, not an Auror. Any searches of Lord Black and his private property will be done in accordance with the law, with probable cause, by sanctioned Aurors, or not at all.”
“Yes, of course, my mistake,” Thorne said.
Severus was not convinced of his sincerity.
Evidently, neither was Shacklebolt. “Ethan, if you’ve been getting up to some vigilante nonsense on the sly—”
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Tonks cut in. “Nothing to worry too much about, Kingsley, and certainly no breaking and entering to search someone’s home. I believe Ethan and a few of the others have just been keeping an eye out in some of the seedier pubs and such where we’ve noticed suspected Death Eaters and sympathizers gathering before.”
Shacklebolt settled back down, but he did not look happy.
Severus, on the other hand, wanted to be happy, and could not. The newer, saner version of the Lord to whom he had once sworn himself was entirely more palatable than the raving, paranoid lunatic of those years between 1978 and 1981. This Dark Lord would not have killed Lily. This Dark Lord resembled the man in the oldest Death Eaters’ stories and was someone Severus might gladly follow—were it not for his Vow.
At least, if nothing else, he retained this position among the Order. He could watch them and, where possible, manipulate them in a way that most benefited Potter junior. And he could warn Harry Black that he might soon have—Severus permitted himself to indulge—a bit of a thorne in his side.
Summary of potentially triggering section: Harry explains to Ginny how the false memory insertion works (it relies on the human brain's tendency to paper over and fill in any gaps). She removes her robe and tells Harry that he should use magic to simulate bruises. Uncomfortably, Harry complies. Then they stage the scene so that when Harry blows James' corpse back with a curse, it will appear to forensic analysis as if he had been blasted off of Ginny by accidental magic. Harry uses legilimency to implant the false memories provided by Voldemort. Ginny tells him to leave, and he does, fleeing before the spell that steals Jules' essence wears off.
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