AN: *Frustrated author noise* My muse is being a tetchy useless shit. Seriously I'm just about out of stories to catch up on or start reading, and my muse has decided this means it needs to act like its mainlining pixie sticks to keep me entertained. I've been bouncing from new ideas, to older snippets, to omakes for a couple of stories that I love. But I think I have it going in the right direction again.
Thank Functionality folks, he does great work and puts up with my non schedule.
POV: Harry
Shaking off the feel of apparition, I shared a look with Taylor. We both glanced at Professor Dumbledore's now withered hand then back at one another.
"Professor, I know you told Mrs. Weasley not to worry about it, but, your hand…" I asked carefully.
"Ah, well, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised at your curiosity. Suffice to say I'm not quite as quick as I once was. Though I daresay I was quick enough to stop it from spreading."
"Maybe it's just the American in me, but that's a lot less reassuring than 'you should see the other guy.'" Taylor said. "Was it an ambush or did someone tag you with a lucky hit?"
"Ahh, well, in this case neither. I had an unfortunate brush with a cursed object." Dumbledore admitted.
Taylor nearly missed a step.
"Cursed objects? So, what? All someone needs to do is lay a curse on a doorknob or something and they could…" She cursed under her breath. "People like me are a nightmare for security, but I'm starting to think magic is so much worse. Honestly, I know of more than a few capes who put most of what I've been reading to shame, but you're all just so diverse."
"Laying powerful curses on an object is not a simple or easy task." The headmaster began to lecture. "Which is not to say that people with the skill to do so do not exist. Only that they are rare. Voldemort is capable of such, as are some curse breakers and enchanters. But it is an exacting skill to develop, and not one favored by our enemies."
Taylor just muttered something about bugs and poison checkers. Not too long ago that would have sounded paranoid. Now I was wondering if it was paranoid enough. Could bugs trigger enchantments? Would something poisonous to humans affect bugs? Maybe there would be something in headquarters to test that on.
"We're going to need to pick a day when Harry and I can go out and get some essentials." Taylor said, changing the topic. "Which probably means we'll need to visit the bank he's mentioned. Still can't believe everything is paid for in gold. Wouldn't expect credit cards, but no checks?" Taylor shook her head.
Professor Dumbledore paused for a bare moment before continuing on casual as anything.
"Oh, whatever for?"
"Personally? Glasses, at least two pairs so I have one to wear and one to build into my next mask. An extra spare wouldn't hurt either though I read something about repair charms? So, two should be fine. Harry's prescription isn't too far off mine, but it isn't a match either." She shot a glance my way. "Might not hurt to get you a pair either, Harry. Those look more than a bit worn, and it's good to check the prescription hasn't changed."
I nodded a bit absently. It certainly couldn't hurt. Besides, Katie had mentioned prescription goggles for quidditch at some point, and I'd never gotten around to looking into that. Actually, those might be better in a fight too. Less chance of them getting knocked off.
… Would it be stupid to ask Taylor to make me a mask too? I didn't want to copy the Death Eaters, but playing super hero with a genuine villain… Who happens to be my wife… and now it's a weird thought. Damn Dean and his stupid magazines.
"Beyond that? I want to get Harry a wand holster. It's important to take proper care of your weapons. There are probably medicinal potions I should be adding to my bug out bag. Body armor for both of us… and probably his friends, if there is something that's spell resistant we can buy. I have no idea what kind of magical things might make for good weapons or distractions, but I'm sure there are a few. Even if I have to get creative. It's all going to depend on how much Harry is willing to spend. Well, that and how much I can trade for, or otherwise acquire."
Which meant steal. Although I wasn't sure what she might have to trade with. Maybe insect based potion ingredients? There were plenty of those, but they weren't exactly the priciest ingredients.
Body armor was probably a good idea even if it wouldn't stop an unforgivable. It probably would have saved Hermione from that hit she had taken in the Ministry. How much was I willing to spend? To keep us safe and alive… I'd be pretty ok with emptying my vault if it kept us all in one piece. I could always get a job after, if I lived… Maybe I shouldn't admit that out loud though. Taking it one purchase at a time would be smarter than giving her a blank check.
Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully, even as he was frowning.
"Glasses will have to be handled in person, certainly, but having you two out and about poses something of a security risk as I'm sure you can imagine. And any such trip will require someone to act as guard, which will require freeing them from other duties. For glasses I'm sure we can arrange something in the next few days. For the rest… hmm. You will need to visit Gringotts for funds, but it's far too risky to simply allow the pair of you to wander Diagon alley. Mail orders would be safer, though purchases would need to be delivered somewhere else before getting sent on to headquarters."
Taylor didn't look thrilled, but she did look mostly accepting.
"Are there any options for spell resistant body armor?" I asked, genuinely curious now.
"A few." Dumbledore admitted absently. "Various magical animal hides are used for that purpose. Dragonhide is the most effective, and most expensive, though it will require an out of country order. The last man to work with it in Britain died in the last war for refusing to sell to the Death Eaters."
"What about Basilisk hide?" I asked. If that would work, we could probably outfit all of Hogwarts and the Aurors with more left over.
"Ahh, well, had the corpse been properly handled after it was killed… but it's been dead three years already. I doubt the hide is still in good enough condition to be worked with. Or if portions of the hide are still usable, I dare say you would be hard pressed to remove the stench of decay, even with magic." Professor Dumbledor said.
Taylor pinched the bridge of her nose.
I could all too easily imagine the sort of rant she was holding in about wasting so much valuable material. Which, fair. But I'd been just about dead on my feet by the time everything was done, and then the school year was over. Also, I was twelve. If someone was supposed to think of it at the time it should have been the Professors.
"Ahh, here we are." Professor Dumbledore announced in front of a small stone house. "Come along then let us see if we can't convince Horace to join us at Hogwarts this coming year."
"Is there any particular reason he would trash the place, and turn himself into an armchair?" Taylor asked, looking toward the house dubiously.
Professor Dumbledore paused a moment before nodding.
"Horace, like many others, is deathly afraid of Lord Voldemort. He has gone to rather extreme measures to disappear from society since rumors of Voldemort's resurrection first spread. We must have tripped an alert when we arrived."
Taylor twitched, but said nothing. It only took a second for me to guess why. Anyone could learn to set up some kind of alert. And apparently, they could be subtle enough that even Professor Dumbledore might miss them. That was… well it had a lot of potential, but it was also something we would need to keep in mind because anyone else might also know it.
"Come along then. I'm sure Horace will be thrilled to meet the both of you."
"Can't remember the last time anyone was thrilled to meet me." Taylor muttered. But she jammed her hands in her sweatshirt pocket and followed me in.
The place really was trashed. Bottles of alcohol, shattered. Furniture, destroyed. Carpet, walls, and ceiling: singed, chipped, and gouged. Professor Dumbledore was looking over the carnage with a bemused smile. Taylor wearing a flat, if dour, expression walked past the Professor and poked the one intact chair with her foot.
"If you turned yourself into a chair hoping a young girl would sit on you, you and I are going to have a very serious problem. And I think the headmaster would need to rethink hiring you." She said.
Professor Dumbledore sagged slightly and actually seemed to pout at Taylor's back.
There was a delay of only a few seconds before the chair started to shift. The now revealed man was old, though not so obviously aged as Professor Dumbledore, a great deal rounder, and red faced with obvious embarrassment.
"Dear girl, I meant nothing of the sort!" He insisted. "How on earth did you know I was the chair?" He asked.
"Mrs. Potter, despite what the press have been saying, is a young woman of surprising skill." Dumbledore spoke up. "Speaking for myself Horace, the lack of Dark Mark over the home was a rather large clue."
"Ahh, blast. Knew I was forgetting something." Horace muttered as he began casting repair charms about the room. "Still not too shabby for a rush job."
"Indeed." Dumbledore said, before pitching in to help repair the room and everything in it.
In under a minute everything was back to pristine condition.
The Professor and Mr. Slughorn began to talk, but I was distracted watching Taylor carefully pick up and examine a detailed glass figurine of a chubby little angel. Even as jaded and calm as she tended to be there was a hint of wonder as she examined the repaired glass figure and found no faults or cracks. With a shake of her head, she placed it back on a shelf and turned to me with a raised eyebrow. Not sure what to say I just offered a shrug and a small grin.
"No, Albus! Absolutely not!" Slughorn declared.
"Very well then. Would you at least be so kind as to let an old friend use your washroom before leaving?" Professor Dumbledor asked.
"I, oh very well down the hall on your left." Slughorn sighed.
Taylor and I shared a glance both wondering just what we were supposed to do in this situation. The silence didn't even stretch long enough to become awkward before Slughorn started talking to fill it.
{}{}{}{} POV: Taylor.
"That was pretty slick, Harry, talking him into agreeing like that." I said, offering a bit of honest praise. Getting people to change their minds wasn't a simple trick, and Harry had managed it almost naturally.
"I'm not even sure what I did." Harry admitted sounding just a bit baffled.
My lips quirked up into a fleeting grin. Natural charisma might not be reliable, but considering how many manipulators and liars I'd dealt with? Bumbling honesty was actually a refreshing change of pace. Now if only I actually believed Dumbledore was cut from the same cloth. But leaving Harry and Slughorn alone, knowing Slughorn liked famous people and Harry's mother had been one of his favorite students? Never mind the old man's timing.
No, Dumbledore was perfectly able to play the manipulator. I just didn't know him well enough to guess if this was normal or not. Or if I should be worried about it.
"Well, we've dallied long enough I should say." Dumbledore said. "Come along then."
Harry and I grasped the old man by the elbow and we vanished in another gut wrenching crack.
Five quick steps and we were off the new street and into a building that I barely had a chance to look at. The place didn't give a great first impression.
It was like someone was only part way through renovating a haunted house that had stood vacant for years. There were a few interesting bugs. Including something humanoid with wings that just had to be magic. All of which was interesting, but…
With a sigh I stepped around the headmaster and marched for the kitchen. Dumbledore and Harry shared a look before following in my wake.
Pushing open the door I stepped in to just what I'd known I'd see. A scruffy looking middle aged man with a receding hairline stuffing the silverware into an expanded pouch.
I cleared my throat very pointedly and glared.
The man spun on his heel, one fist full of spoons, and dropped the bag in favor of groping for his wand. Considering I was still sandbagging my power I decided to meet a potential threat with full expediency. I hit him full in the face with my pepper spray.
The thief went down howling, and his wand bounced off into a corner. Dumbledore sighed from the door.
"Merlin damn it, Mundungus."
Then Harry started shouting. And the thief was still howling, and Dumbledore utterly failed to calm either down. Using the distraction, I secreted away the expanded pouch and return the silverware to the cabinets.
{}{}{}{}
Harry paced across the sitting room floor while I took careful notes of the meeting being held downstairs in the kitchen. Unsurprisingly most of Dumbledore's order was either skeptical of or outright dismissive of me. The range of reasons why was a bit surprising though.
Molly hated me for being a criminal with the audacity to slap her. Mundungus thought I was a menace, and a surprising number of people supposedly fighting for equality just outright assumed my lack of magic made me a non threat. The Lupins insistence to the contrary did absolutely nothing to change anyone's opinions.
Honestly, if these idiots weren't even willing to believe a first hand account over the idiotic speculation of a newspaper that hadn't even interviewed me… Would any intelligence I got from listening in on these meetings even be trustworthy? Was I going to have to personally confirm every scrap of information?
Dumbledore finally dragged the gossip session masquerading as a resistance movement onto relevant topics but… It was so much worse than even my lowest expectations. They had a list of known Death Eaters and sympathizers. They were barely managing to keep eyes on a few of them and the rest of their efforts could be summarized as sending envoys to communities of ostracized sapient creatures in the hopes that they would stay out of the fight to maintain their miserable existence instead of backing the terrorists promising them a better future.
There was no talk of making key figures on the other side vanish. No discussion about working with elements of the government that opposed the Lich. No discussion of stockpiling medicinal potions, or establishing safe houses, or even any kind of training regime to get the group ready for combat.
Hell, their most respected fighter seemed to be a retiree that never learned to duck. Obviously, he'd seen a lot of combat, or at least one very thorough torture session, but really? Magic or no magic, someone that old had to be slowing down.
The meeting started to break down into small groups gossiping and with a huff I shoved the notes towards Harry and took over pacing while he read. A few minutes later Harry looked up from the last page.
"Maybe I'm just not used to this sort of thing, but shouldn't there be more than this? It doesn't sound like they're really doing a whole lot. I mean Mister Weasley has his hands full trying to maintain the statue of secrecy but the rest…"
"Unless they've got some sort of spell up, they really aren't doing anything important. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who the so-called Dark Creatures are going to side with. We've got nothing they want, and the Lich is promising them better lives. If what they were saying about werewolves' standards of living is true, I can't even blame them for wanting a better life."
Harry grunted.
"This isn't a resistance movement Harry. It's barely better than a social club. Half the meeting was about you and me and it wasn't even about how I could help."
"Maybe this was just a slow meeting? Maybe they'll discuss important things at the next one?"
I scoffed, but didn't dismiss the idea entirely. This could have been an emergency meeting just to confirm this safe house was still usable and touch base on a few ongoing missions. I just didn't fully believe that. Not when the closest they got to discussing combat missions was assigning who was on duty for emergency response and cleaning up the aftermath of attacks.
Harry put down my notes and sprawled on the couch.
"I hate this place."
I blinked at the change of topic and settled into a chair giving Harry my… Well, not my full attention. Not when I was still tracking everyone and eavesdropping, but I could worry about building an actual resistance movement later.
"Sirius hated this place. It was a constant reminder of his awful childhood and he was stuck here for a year before…"
"… I'm sorry." I said. "I didn't realize you felt that way about this place."
Harry grunted.
"It just reminds me of him, and how miserable he must have been right up until the end when he decided to do something as stupid as duel Bellatrix in front of the Veil of Death."
Well… one more thing to ask about at some point because that was an ominous name.
"… What was he like?" I asked. Harry and the Lupins had danced around talking about the man as much as they could. Understandable given they were obviously grieving. It did make me curious though.
"A joker through and through. Kind of mean to people he didn't like… sad, depressed even. I don't know, I barely got the chance to know him. I wish I could have known him better."
"…You seem to care about him a lot for someone you didn't know very well?" I asked carefully.
Harry barked a short dark laugh.
"I suppose. He was just… he was my chance to get away from the Dursleys. He was a connection to my parents. He actually hung around near the school living off rats just in case I needed help." Harry ran a hand through his hair and stared determinedly at the coffee table. "He cared about me."
There wasn't really anything I could say to that. Eating rats? If Dad had been a third that determined to help me after the locker… If nothing else I could respect the late Sirius Black for that.
"He sounds like a good man." I offered for lack of anything better to say.
Harry shook his head and looked over the meeting transcript again.
"…Taylor, what would you do? If you were in charge?"
I eyed Harry for a minute but let the change of topic slide.
"I'm not sure. I'm still getting up to speed on everything magic can do. That means there are elements to this I can't guess at. If we capture someone, how long until the Lich finds out? Can he track them back to wherever we hold them? Is it possible to get outside assistance from the international community or would that just be giving him more people sympathetic to his ideology? How did the bastard dodge death and how can we undo it?"
I shrugged.
"If we're just talking about dealing with his organization? There are two methods. Pick off his people one by one and try to inspire fear in his subordinates and anyone who might be considering joining up, while pumping whoever we catch for information. Or you could try and get a complete picture of all his minions and then get them all with a few simultaneous strikes. I don't think the order has the manpower to pull that off though. There's too few of them, and most of them don't seem like fighters."
Harry chewed at his lower lip.
"And stopping Voldemort?" Harry asked.
"I don't know. If we can't figure out how to kill him we could get creative. Bind his limbs and leave him locked up somewhere. If you could pull a Gray Boy, we could trap him in a time loop or freeze him in time? We could maybe sever his spinal cord and leave him trapped in his own body. If transfiguration can hold indefinitely, you could turn him into a rock and then lock that in a vault somewhere. Put him through sensory deprivation for a year or three and he might just tell us how to kill him just to make it stop."
I shrugged again at Harry's open mouthed horror.
"My world isn't a nice place, Harry. There were plenty of fates worse than death, and I got to see a few of them up close before I got dumped here. They aren't exactly my first choice for anyone, but if we can't kill him…"
Harry shivered.
"Let's call that plan B. Or maybe F or G."
I hummed noncommittally. I wasn't really enthusiastic about those kinds of options either, but it had worked on the Butcher. I wouldn't just write it off if we might need it.
"So, we have a small mansion that's halfway livable. We aren't really allowed to leave except to go back to the Weasley's where I might just start feeding Molly flies. We've got almost two months until your school starts and the Order's intel is, so far, the next best thing to useless." I summarized.
"We do have the Black family library." Harry offered. "It's full of all kinds of books on dark magic. We've got my old school books if you want to keep reviewing those. I can probably get some owl order magazines from someone."
"Harry, I haven't had this much down time since I first put on my mask. Yeah, I want to know what I'm up against first, but nearly two months of doing nothing while they run around killing people…" I pushed my emotions into the swarm fighting to keep relatively calm. "Letting your enemy do whatever they want is a shit plan, Harry."
"We can't exactly tell the order how to do things, Taylor. They wouldn't listen to either of us."
I wanted to object to that. Someone in that group had to know they weren't doing anything meaningful. But adults hadn't listened to me until I put on the mask, brought them food and water and proved I'd fight the Nine for their sake. Getting them to listen here was going to mean reestablishing my rep while I was sandbagging for an edge.
"If I ever get home, I'm going to have words with crazy bitch, and Dinah. This was not what I signed up for when I turned myself in."
Harry gave me a funny look but I was in no mood to explain.
I'd get through this. One way or another. I just wish I knew how.
