(no subject)
Title: Night Without the Day
Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Harry/Draco later on, Ron/Hermione, Fred/George, various others as fic progresses
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Warnings: Drugs, violence, sex, incest, twincest, abuse, slash (male on male, potential female on female), cursing, het
Other: Canon through 7th book except for Epilogue.
Summary: Death is the natural ending to life--the perfect balance. But what happens when death is faulty? How does the world restore the balance?
Ten years since the final war. Ten years since the death of so many loved ones. With wounds just healing, the wizarding world is just wrapping up the last of the trials. Things seem like they are going well when the old savior reemerges suddenly from his self imposed exile. And with him, faces many never thought to see again. Faces that many thought were lost forever to the grave.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Chapter 1: Saviors, Mohawks, and Coke
I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Death? Why this fuss about death. Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! ... Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
~ ~ ~
Music pulsed a sweet serenade, rattling his eardrums, making his chest vibrate with the bass as he slid with the sweating masses. Behind him, Millicent’s body, having grown more slender but supple with age, was pushed into his back, her full breasts a firm heat where her long, black waves over his shoulders were a ticklish, dampening cool. In front of him was Blaise, his silver shirt rippling in the light like liquid, gleaming like mercury across the dark plains of his body, his hair having grown long, the tight braids disguising his ears, body hunched, features hidden in the exposed cleavage of Pansy, who was beside him. The two were writhing, Blaise’s gyrations rubbing against Draco’s cock, Pansy’s short tresses spiked and back as her leg rested between her friend’s thighs. They were dry humping each other to the music, and Draco didn’t mind. Because Blaise’s ass always felt right underneath him.
But it was hot. Too hot. And the music was becoming obnoxious. A loud, screeching, techno and electrical beat that his heart felt the need to mimic in his temples. It mingled with the smell of sex, liquor, and sweat, fogging his mind from the thoughts of life outside. A world where he worked to reestablish the Malfoy name, and fought tooth and nail to distance himself from the memory of his imprisoned father and his mother with her madness brought about by war. It was a world where trials of Death Eaters was still going on ten years later, and the mark on his arm, faded though it was, still branded him as effectively as a Scarlet A across his chest.
It didn’t help that a new surge of youth, claiming the title of Neo DE’s like some magical branch off of their muggle Nazi counterparts, started walking around with shaved heads and dark marks and beating up on anyone they didn’t like. Ever since a recent attack in Hogsmeade, the looks had been coming again. As if he was somehow financing the little shits. Like any pureblood would approve of such plebian tactics.
Millicent grabbed his groin. Sparks flew behind his eyes and suddenly Blaise released a roar, Pansy squeaking. Grey eyes turned in time to see Blaise’s white teeth against dark lips latching onto her white breast, breaking skin, blue eyes hazed as he jerked against her thigh in what Draco knew to be an orgasm. At some point, Blaise’s hand had wound up Pansy’s skirt, and Draco was reminded of shortly after school-they hadn’t changed a bit. The four of them with their sexual exploits, their promiscuity amongst only each other, the strange kinship they all shared that was only made tighter by the fact that each of them had fucked every other, and more than once, all at the same time. Good old pureblood ideals. Roman, in a way. Fuck the man you fight beside on the battlefield, and you’ll defend him with your life.
Or something like that.
He slipped away from Millicent, making a motion of fetching a drink. A bastardized version of Chamillionare kicked in. “Evening News”. He knew the song, only because Gregory had moved to the states a few years back and continuously emailed him the shit music from that he listened to. Making his way to the bar, panting, adjusting his robes to hide his erection, he brushed short hair away from his face and leaned his hip on it. He still couldn’t get over the place-the whole of the club was dimly lit, decorated in a copper and glass design that reeked of an odd late 1800’s-1900’s turn of the century air. The counter top was golden red metal, lined with thick leather, and behind it on the wall were two mirrored circles containing the liquor. The shelves there held only antique bottles of shit that Draco wasn’t sure he had the stomach to handle, if the dates were anything to go by. And the tender-the tender dressed like something out of a weird American Muggle movie. A white shirt, flowing at the sleeves, a vest, and a pair of goggles over his eyes, boots laced up to his knees and a red bow around his neck. Like out of a Western, maybe, only if Westerns smoked a bit more crack and had fags in them. And maybe some bleach, he mused, looking to the streaks in the tender’s hair...
The man approached, but Draco couldn’t hear him when he spoke. The music was too loud. It took a bit of shouting back and forth, but finally Draco conveyed his desires, and he turned away a good three minutes later with a bottle of water in hand to watch the surge of people as they writhed across the floor.
It was a relatively new club, but obviously, business wasn’t lacking. The amazing part was the people-they dressed so strange, a style that Greg had told him was referred to as “Steampunk”, after being flooded with picture messages from the blond's cell. Many looked like the tender, or donned themselves in wild dresses with curled hair and overly done, ornate looking mechanical clothing pieces. An offshoot of the “age of steam”, as Gregory had explained to him, combining old American Western with strange technology.
Imagine Jack the Ripper with a rocket launcher, Gregory had texted him back after Draco had, in so many words, demanded what the fuck he was going on about. Draco still didn’t get it, but whatever.
The place was filled with all types, as well. A mix between wizards, witches, and muggles who didn’t seem to notice the use of magic (perhaps they were all squibs?). The place had grown quite popular, and Draco was shocked when they had decided to visit the only two week old building and found the line for entry well over an hour’s wait. But it had been worth it. The music, while irritating, was enough to get lost in, and the costumes some of the people wore turned out to be entertaining to the extreme. Some were hideous, and some were simply...fucking awesome, for lack of a better word.
Feeling almost better, he took another swig and readied to toss the still half filled container into the garbage bin, wanting to spare himself a trip to the pisser for as long as he could. Public restrooms were disgusting, after all, and definitely not befitting of a Malfoy. But halfway through his drink, he stopped, catching a glimpse of something familiar. He shifted at his post, then recoiled into the shadows as he appeared, melting like liquid, completely unbothered by the crowd, looking for all intents and purposes like he had, in fact, not even realized they were there.
Harry Potter. It had been ten years-maybe a little over that-since their last encounter at the Battle of Hogwarts. He knew from rumor and ministry contacts that the man had remained low on the radar, giving his testimony via writing, and seeing as he was the savior, there was really no reason for anyone to deny him that opportunity. Then he had left England all together nearly four years ago, if word was correct. Moved up to some place in...in Canada was it?...was Canada even a country?
Sipping at his water, Draco skimmed grey eyes over the other. He obviously hadn’t arrived there to party. He wore a tight shirt that hugged a too skinny body, with well fitting jeans, and over it, the red robes of an official Auror, hanging like an afterthought on shoulders that, if the neck and face were anything to go by, were suntanned and strangely, fascinatingly delicious. His hair was shaggy as ever, his green, green eyes obscured by thin rimmed glasses that looked as if they had seen better days. They did nothing but enhance the heavy bags that made him look like a caricature of Droopy the Dog, and Draco couldn’t help but entertain the notion that whatever it was Harry had been doing, getting laid was not part of it.
Harry paused at the bar, the tender coming over. A flash of muggle currency and the man disappeared behind the counter as fast as he came, moments later emerging with the club’s owner, all without anyone seeming to realize the lithe was blond was still standing by, watching like a studio audience to a boring sitcom. Draco knew the look of the bar's founder from the commercials that had been airing all over the magical holo’s in Diagon and in the picture ads in the paper, though he was shocked that the robust, fat bastard looked even more like an inflated beach ball in person than he did behind the lens. What in the world would Harry have to do with him?
Whatever questions or curiosities he had were dashed when the two suddenly made their way to a door marked “Employees Only”. Huh. Maybe they were fucking, he thought, chucking the near empty Aquafina container away, shuddering in horror as his mind graced him with the image of a deep roll swallowing the savior. Maybe that's where he had been for four years. Maybe Canada was actually a mole under all the lard. Oh Merlin, he just grossed himself out.
Shrugging it off, feeling better about himself and his spot in life now that he had witnessed the shitty looking hero with his own eyes, he grinned and decided to call it a night. Why stick around to let something happen to destroy his glee at learning that Harry was worse off than himself? It took him only a bit to find his friends again and explain away his absence with a headache and assure them that no, no, he didn’t need them to help him home, he was going to be fine, really.
And it was the truth; he had never felt so good about himself.
Battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There are some fates worse than death.
Unknown
~ ~ ~
It wasn’t the first time Harry Potter had stood in this room. Perhaps not the exact same, but it was a near replica of the one he had been in countless times in Romania, dimly lit because the normal occupant’s vision was tender, walls covered with acrylic paintings of daylight scenarios and pictures of cottages on the English countryside. And across the thick, hand carved desk with the yellow, antique globe, was a light glaze of white powder which he knew from experience was probably the most valuable cocaine known to man. One lick of that would put his bank account out a good couple hundred galleons.
“Let me fetch his lordship.” Glancing to the robust fellow, Harry nodded, watching as he toddled much in the way Vernon once had before the heart attack landed him in an early and much deserved crematorium. And much like Vernon, the man played a role-fake owner to the club of Steam and Whistle, the person to make a public appearance and handle all the paperwork and press. Of course, it was only because the true brains behind the operation was unable to ever let himself be known or seen, just as Harry was never allowed to tell anyone that he knew who the real owner was. The name, in fact, was forbidden to ever cross his lips.
As if on cue, the very subject of his thoughts entered the room, a willowy male, all liquid grace and feline strut despite a pronounced limp and a thick, hollow, brass cane that he leaned on heavily. He was a strange individual, a white medical mask over the lower half of his face, like he were a paranoid bystander during the SARs epidemic. One bright blue eye was offset by the dull whiteness of the other. The paler, blind eye gave the impression that the pupil had burst, the black bleeding out and around as oil during a spill. It breached beyond the iris to make the whites look inky and dirty. Around the eye, and over his cheek, remnants of scars puckered his face lightly-white lines that looked like could have been painted on, if not for the tight pull to the healthy flesh around them, obscured only partly by a tumbling of bangs that he tried to use to hide it. And his hair, red hair that Harry had always seen down around his jaws when they were in Hogwarts, was cut short on the sides, the rest up in Mohawk that didn’t exactly manage to stand up fully on its own.
He made his way painfully to a seat, helped by his guard; a lumbering, massive man dressed in a suit, covered from head to toe quite literally, wearing thick black gloves and a plain white kabuki mask that set his face in a perpetual moment of concentration. Not one inch of flesh was visible, and Harry knew it was more for the benefit of everyone else, rather than for the man’s own ego.
The red head leaned his cane against the desk on the back, eyes fluttering as his hips loudly popped, shivering in pain that never fully faded. Harry, oftentimes, felt tired and worn, but compared to these two...compared to these two, he knew he had it easy.
“Please, have a seat,” the red head urged, waving long, white gloved fingers at the chair across from him. Harry complied, settling himself in and glancing between the masked man and the redhead. “Rooster”, as he was called in passing by a few people, all thanks to the hairstyle he had chosen. But then again, the older of the Weasley twins had always been one for flamboyant designs.
“Thank you,” Harry murmured. The masked man, Vincent Crabbe, stepped forward, moving so very confidently for the burned scar tissue Harry knew to make up his body, and produced a white bag of powder, pouring out the pile onto the desk before them. A few graceful, swift movements had it broken up into lines, and then he offered them each a straw. Harry declined, though Fred took it, slightly trembling fingers grasping the black plastic item, decorated with glittering skulls.
“My pleasure,” Fred replied, ridding himself of cordiality as he pulled the mask down from over his nose. It was slightly crooked, offset from the center from where the rock slide had mangled his body, though beyond that, he looked not a day over nineteen. “It’s been a while since you’ve been in England,” he stated, shoving the end of the straw into his nose, holding one nostril closed with his knuckle. Then he snorted. One, two, three lines, eyes watering in the dim light as he shivered in sweet relief. Leaning back in his seat, he grabbed a kerchief from the long black robes he wore, white fur lining the sleeves blending in with the snowy cotton square of fabric as he dabbed the blood from his nose. “What brought you out of hiding? Did Montreal become a bit boring for you?” Harry studied the actions, not as bothered as he had been the first time he witnessed the event, understanding it more now than he ever did.
“Rather peaceful actually, for the few weeks at a time that I’m able to actually stay there,” he informed him, green eyes glittering, thick brows pinching together. “Your kind has a rather nasty habit of appearing where you shouldn’t be and keeping me busy.”
“You didn’t come out of vacation just because I came back to England a little early, did you?” Fred asked, lips still hidden, voice only slightly muffled by the cloth. Quirking well kept copper brows, the supposedly deceased Weasley twin tapped the end of his black straw on the counter, wiggling his nose and sniffling.
“Actually, I did,” Harry replied. “The Ministry was under the impression you were staying in Romania for at least another fifty years. That is, after all, part of the conditions for your continued existence.”
“No, the conditions were ‘banished until a reasonable time has passed’, actually. Fifth page, paragraph seven. It’s been a decade, Harry. Who’s going to realize who I am?” Fred waved the concerns away, running his hand through his Mohawk, showing just why the gel wasn’t holding as he wrestled his fingers through the mass. “Please, and it’s not like I’m the only one here. There’s plenty of us. Don’t worry. We’re not going to turn our insatiable hungers to you unsuspecting mortals. It’s not like you can sustain us anyway.”
Feeling a hint of disgust at the statement, Harry tried not to let it show, crossing one leg patiently over the other and folding his hands in front of himself. “Plenty is an understatement,” he said patiently, ignoring the rest of Fred’s words. “You were all rather content to stay away before. What’s changed, Fred?”
“One little mass migration gets your knickers in a twist, does it?” Fred sighed, turning to Crabbe, resting his chin on his palm as he adjusted the cloth mask over his own mouth again to recover his still bleeding nose. “I’m not high enough for this. Go get me more, would you? And do you want anything to drink, Harry?”
“No.” Harry had learned long ago to never take a drink from one of their kind. Vince nodded, disappearing from the room the way they had entered, the back door leading into the labyrinth of hallways behind the bar. Harry clutched his fingers together, taking a measured breath, and then dove in headfirst. “Look, Rooster...Fred... I need to know what’s doing, yeah? I got orders out my arse to investigate this. We’ve got thirty of you Cursed moving in at one time, and about thirty more sneaking across the borders in the past week. That’s over sixty in the space of days. One or two I can turn a blind eye to. But sixty means I need to do paperwork, and I fucking hate paperwork.” The meaning was clear. Harry was practically begging for an easy excuse to shorten the load he'd need to write up and make it easy on all of them.
Fred’s response was put off when Vincent entered back into the room, the masked man moving like a Ken doll in his perfect grace and appearance but rigidity as he lowered a tray of white powder before his boss, situating it like a good servant would an expensive meal. Vince stepped away, and Fred’s fingers twitched over the straw, eyes glued to the treasure in front of him, but he gently pushed it aside, opting instead to lean forward and focus his attention on Harry.
“I...” He paused, looking back to Vincent as if for permission to continue, but then frowned, once more studying Harry’s face. “As...a Cursed...I will only tell you that I’m not telling you or helping you with shit.” It was a common response he got as part of the Ministry-no wizard or witch suffering from the affliction that kept Fred and Vincent the walking, living, breathing dead was readily apt to talk to the government that refused to assist or acknowledge them, and threatened them and their families.
This wasn’t what I fought for... The thought was cut short in Harry as a tired desperation started to hit him, realizing that he had fallen into the same category with Fred as he had fallen into with most of the others he dealt with. He made to stand, but then a silk covered hand was resting on his, and he met the half blind look from Fred head on. “But as your friend, Harry,” Fred continued, imploring. “There are some things that are...worse...than death, as the Ministry has so eloquently explained would be our punishment if we came back here, not to mention what they would to our loved ones. But there are things that are worse than...that.” Fred was pursing his lips behind the mask-Harry could tell by the way the spider’s web of white scars made his blind eye pull. “We came here for safety,” Fred whispered. “We believe if we cannot enter into England without detection, then neither...neither can It.” Then the redhead fell silent, fingers digging painfully hard into Harry’s wrist.
“...It?” Harry pressed slowly, urging more details. Fred blinked, then abruptly let him go, leaning back in his chair and tugging the mask back away from his nose, readying his straw.
“That’s all I can tell you.” Pulling the tray of drugs back in front of himself, he dabbed the kerchief at his nose again, then pressed the tip of the straw into his still blood stained orfice. For a moment, Harry couldn’t see it; Harry looked at Fred, but couldn’t find the boy who had been laughing moments before the wall fell on him. He couldn’t find, in that face that was familiar yet changed, the young Weasley who had laughed and sung and held so much hope and so much joy that he had seemed to keep an entire world afloat by always knowing just how to cheer Harry’s spirits up. Fred Weasley was lost behind the jaded image of the cursed creature he had become, and while the body lived, the boy had long since died. The young saviors heart felt sick. This wasn't what I fought for. “Close the door on the way out, will you?” the older Weasley twin said, then pressed the free end of the straw into the pile, inhaling in a long drag.
Unable to watch, feeling shaken to his core at the stranger he had once known, he turned and made his way out, knowing that the conversation was done. As the door latched behind him, the music of the club enveloping him, the last image he saw was a red mohawked head rearing back, blood pouring across his lips from the abrasion of powder to the sensitive sinuses, slender body convulsing back into the seat.
Chapter One
Current | Next
Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Harry/Draco later on, Ron/Hermione, Fred/George, various others as fic progresses
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Warnings: Drugs, violence, sex, incest, twincest, abuse, slash (male on male, potential female on female), cursing, het
Other: Canon through 7th book except for Epilogue.
Summary: Death is the natural ending to life--the perfect balance. But what happens when death is faulty? How does the world restore the balance?
Ten years since the final war. Ten years since the death of so many loved ones. With wounds just healing, the wizarding world is just wrapping up the last of the trials. Things seem like they are going well when the old savior reemerges suddenly from his self imposed exile. And with him, faces many never thought to see again. Faces that many thought were lost forever to the grave.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Chapter 1: Saviors, Mohawks, and Coke
I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Death? Why this fuss about death. Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! ... Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
~ ~ ~
Music pulsed a sweet serenade, rattling his eardrums, making his chest vibrate with the bass as he slid with the sweating masses. Behind him, Millicent’s body, having grown more slender but supple with age, was pushed into his back, her full breasts a firm heat where her long, black waves over his shoulders were a ticklish, dampening cool. In front of him was Blaise, his silver shirt rippling in the light like liquid, gleaming like mercury across the dark plains of his body, his hair having grown long, the tight braids disguising his ears, body hunched, features hidden in the exposed cleavage of Pansy, who was beside him. The two were writhing, Blaise’s gyrations rubbing against Draco’s cock, Pansy’s short tresses spiked and back as her leg rested between her friend’s thighs. They were dry humping each other to the music, and Draco didn’t mind. Because Blaise’s ass always felt right underneath him.
But it was hot. Too hot. And the music was becoming obnoxious. A loud, screeching, techno and electrical beat that his heart felt the need to mimic in his temples. It mingled with the smell of sex, liquor, and sweat, fogging his mind from the thoughts of life outside. A world where he worked to reestablish the Malfoy name, and fought tooth and nail to distance himself from the memory of his imprisoned father and his mother with her madness brought about by war. It was a world where trials of Death Eaters was still going on ten years later, and the mark on his arm, faded though it was, still branded him as effectively as a Scarlet A across his chest.
It didn’t help that a new surge of youth, claiming the title of Neo DE’s like some magical branch off of their muggle Nazi counterparts, started walking around with shaved heads and dark marks and beating up on anyone they didn’t like. Ever since a recent attack in Hogsmeade, the looks had been coming again. As if he was somehow financing the little shits. Like any pureblood would approve of such plebian tactics.
Millicent grabbed his groin. Sparks flew behind his eyes and suddenly Blaise released a roar, Pansy squeaking. Grey eyes turned in time to see Blaise’s white teeth against dark lips latching onto her white breast, breaking skin, blue eyes hazed as he jerked against her thigh in what Draco knew to be an orgasm. At some point, Blaise’s hand had wound up Pansy’s skirt, and Draco was reminded of shortly after school-they hadn’t changed a bit. The four of them with their sexual exploits, their promiscuity amongst only each other, the strange kinship they all shared that was only made tighter by the fact that each of them had fucked every other, and more than once, all at the same time. Good old pureblood ideals. Roman, in a way. Fuck the man you fight beside on the battlefield, and you’ll defend him with your life.
Or something like that.
He slipped away from Millicent, making a motion of fetching a drink. A bastardized version of Chamillionare kicked in. “Evening News”. He knew the song, only because Gregory had moved to the states a few years back and continuously emailed him the shit music from that he listened to. Making his way to the bar, panting, adjusting his robes to hide his erection, he brushed short hair away from his face and leaned his hip on it. He still couldn’t get over the place-the whole of the club was dimly lit, decorated in a copper and glass design that reeked of an odd late 1800’s-1900’s turn of the century air. The counter top was golden red metal, lined with thick leather, and behind it on the wall were two mirrored circles containing the liquor. The shelves there held only antique bottles of shit that Draco wasn’t sure he had the stomach to handle, if the dates were anything to go by. And the tender-the tender dressed like something out of a weird American Muggle movie. A white shirt, flowing at the sleeves, a vest, and a pair of goggles over his eyes, boots laced up to his knees and a red bow around his neck. Like out of a Western, maybe, only if Westerns smoked a bit more crack and had fags in them. And maybe some bleach, he mused, looking to the streaks in the tender’s hair...
The man approached, but Draco couldn’t hear him when he spoke. The music was too loud. It took a bit of shouting back and forth, but finally Draco conveyed his desires, and he turned away a good three minutes later with a bottle of water in hand to watch the surge of people as they writhed across the floor.
It was a relatively new club, but obviously, business wasn’t lacking. The amazing part was the people-they dressed so strange, a style that Greg had told him was referred to as “Steampunk”, after being flooded with picture messages from the blond's cell. Many looked like the tender, or donned themselves in wild dresses with curled hair and overly done, ornate looking mechanical clothing pieces. An offshoot of the “age of steam”, as Gregory had explained to him, combining old American Western with strange technology.
Imagine Jack the Ripper with a rocket launcher, Gregory had texted him back after Draco had, in so many words, demanded what the fuck he was going on about. Draco still didn’t get it, but whatever.
The place was filled with all types, as well. A mix between wizards, witches, and muggles who didn’t seem to notice the use of magic (perhaps they were all squibs?). The place had grown quite popular, and Draco was shocked when they had decided to visit the only two week old building and found the line for entry well over an hour’s wait. But it had been worth it. The music, while irritating, was enough to get lost in, and the costumes some of the people wore turned out to be entertaining to the extreme. Some were hideous, and some were simply...fucking awesome, for lack of a better word.
Feeling almost better, he took another swig and readied to toss the still half filled container into the garbage bin, wanting to spare himself a trip to the pisser for as long as he could. Public restrooms were disgusting, after all, and definitely not befitting of a Malfoy. But halfway through his drink, he stopped, catching a glimpse of something familiar. He shifted at his post, then recoiled into the shadows as he appeared, melting like liquid, completely unbothered by the crowd, looking for all intents and purposes like he had, in fact, not even realized they were there.
Harry Potter. It had been ten years-maybe a little over that-since their last encounter at the Battle of Hogwarts. He knew from rumor and ministry contacts that the man had remained low on the radar, giving his testimony via writing, and seeing as he was the savior, there was really no reason for anyone to deny him that opportunity. Then he had left England all together nearly four years ago, if word was correct. Moved up to some place in...in Canada was it?...was Canada even a country?
Sipping at his water, Draco skimmed grey eyes over the other. He obviously hadn’t arrived there to party. He wore a tight shirt that hugged a too skinny body, with well fitting jeans, and over it, the red robes of an official Auror, hanging like an afterthought on shoulders that, if the neck and face were anything to go by, were suntanned and strangely, fascinatingly delicious. His hair was shaggy as ever, his green, green eyes obscured by thin rimmed glasses that looked as if they had seen better days. They did nothing but enhance the heavy bags that made him look like a caricature of Droopy the Dog, and Draco couldn’t help but entertain the notion that whatever it was Harry had been doing, getting laid was not part of it.
Harry paused at the bar, the tender coming over. A flash of muggle currency and the man disappeared behind the counter as fast as he came, moments later emerging with the club’s owner, all without anyone seeming to realize the lithe was blond was still standing by, watching like a studio audience to a boring sitcom. Draco knew the look of the bar's founder from the commercials that had been airing all over the magical holo’s in Diagon and in the picture ads in the paper, though he was shocked that the robust, fat bastard looked even more like an inflated beach ball in person than he did behind the lens. What in the world would Harry have to do with him?
Whatever questions or curiosities he had were dashed when the two suddenly made their way to a door marked “Employees Only”. Huh. Maybe they were fucking, he thought, chucking the near empty Aquafina container away, shuddering in horror as his mind graced him with the image of a deep roll swallowing the savior. Maybe that's where he had been for four years. Maybe Canada was actually a mole under all the lard. Oh Merlin, he just grossed himself out.
Shrugging it off, feeling better about himself and his spot in life now that he had witnessed the shitty looking hero with his own eyes, he grinned and decided to call it a night. Why stick around to let something happen to destroy his glee at learning that Harry was worse off than himself? It took him only a bit to find his friends again and explain away his absence with a headache and assure them that no, no, he didn’t need them to help him home, he was going to be fine, really.
And it was the truth; he had never felt so good about himself.
Battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There are some fates worse than death.
Unknown
~ ~ ~
It wasn’t the first time Harry Potter had stood in this room. Perhaps not the exact same, but it was a near replica of the one he had been in countless times in Romania, dimly lit because the normal occupant’s vision was tender, walls covered with acrylic paintings of daylight scenarios and pictures of cottages on the English countryside. And across the thick, hand carved desk with the yellow, antique globe, was a light glaze of white powder which he knew from experience was probably the most valuable cocaine known to man. One lick of that would put his bank account out a good couple hundred galleons.
“Let me fetch his lordship.” Glancing to the robust fellow, Harry nodded, watching as he toddled much in the way Vernon once had before the heart attack landed him in an early and much deserved crematorium. And much like Vernon, the man played a role-fake owner to the club of Steam and Whistle, the person to make a public appearance and handle all the paperwork and press. Of course, it was only because the true brains behind the operation was unable to ever let himself be known or seen, just as Harry was never allowed to tell anyone that he knew who the real owner was. The name, in fact, was forbidden to ever cross his lips.
As if on cue, the very subject of his thoughts entered the room, a willowy male, all liquid grace and feline strut despite a pronounced limp and a thick, hollow, brass cane that he leaned on heavily. He was a strange individual, a white medical mask over the lower half of his face, like he were a paranoid bystander during the SARs epidemic. One bright blue eye was offset by the dull whiteness of the other. The paler, blind eye gave the impression that the pupil had burst, the black bleeding out and around as oil during a spill. It breached beyond the iris to make the whites look inky and dirty. Around the eye, and over his cheek, remnants of scars puckered his face lightly-white lines that looked like could have been painted on, if not for the tight pull to the healthy flesh around them, obscured only partly by a tumbling of bangs that he tried to use to hide it. And his hair, red hair that Harry had always seen down around his jaws when they were in Hogwarts, was cut short on the sides, the rest up in Mohawk that didn’t exactly manage to stand up fully on its own.
He made his way painfully to a seat, helped by his guard; a lumbering, massive man dressed in a suit, covered from head to toe quite literally, wearing thick black gloves and a plain white kabuki mask that set his face in a perpetual moment of concentration. Not one inch of flesh was visible, and Harry knew it was more for the benefit of everyone else, rather than for the man’s own ego.
The red head leaned his cane against the desk on the back, eyes fluttering as his hips loudly popped, shivering in pain that never fully faded. Harry, oftentimes, felt tired and worn, but compared to these two...compared to these two, he knew he had it easy.
“Please, have a seat,” the red head urged, waving long, white gloved fingers at the chair across from him. Harry complied, settling himself in and glancing between the masked man and the redhead. “Rooster”, as he was called in passing by a few people, all thanks to the hairstyle he had chosen. But then again, the older of the Weasley twins had always been one for flamboyant designs.
“Thank you,” Harry murmured. The masked man, Vincent Crabbe, stepped forward, moving so very confidently for the burned scar tissue Harry knew to make up his body, and produced a white bag of powder, pouring out the pile onto the desk before them. A few graceful, swift movements had it broken up into lines, and then he offered them each a straw. Harry declined, though Fred took it, slightly trembling fingers grasping the black plastic item, decorated with glittering skulls.
“My pleasure,” Fred replied, ridding himself of cordiality as he pulled the mask down from over his nose. It was slightly crooked, offset from the center from where the rock slide had mangled his body, though beyond that, he looked not a day over nineteen. “It’s been a while since you’ve been in England,” he stated, shoving the end of the straw into his nose, holding one nostril closed with his knuckle. Then he snorted. One, two, three lines, eyes watering in the dim light as he shivered in sweet relief. Leaning back in his seat, he grabbed a kerchief from the long black robes he wore, white fur lining the sleeves blending in with the snowy cotton square of fabric as he dabbed the blood from his nose. “What brought you out of hiding? Did Montreal become a bit boring for you?” Harry studied the actions, not as bothered as he had been the first time he witnessed the event, understanding it more now than he ever did.
“Rather peaceful actually, for the few weeks at a time that I’m able to actually stay there,” he informed him, green eyes glittering, thick brows pinching together. “Your kind has a rather nasty habit of appearing where you shouldn’t be and keeping me busy.”
“You didn’t come out of vacation just because I came back to England a little early, did you?” Fred asked, lips still hidden, voice only slightly muffled by the cloth. Quirking well kept copper brows, the supposedly deceased Weasley twin tapped the end of his black straw on the counter, wiggling his nose and sniffling.
“Actually, I did,” Harry replied. “The Ministry was under the impression you were staying in Romania for at least another fifty years. That is, after all, part of the conditions for your continued existence.”
“No, the conditions were ‘banished until a reasonable time has passed’, actually. Fifth page, paragraph seven. It’s been a decade, Harry. Who’s going to realize who I am?” Fred waved the concerns away, running his hand through his Mohawk, showing just why the gel wasn’t holding as he wrestled his fingers through the mass. “Please, and it’s not like I’m the only one here. There’s plenty of us. Don’t worry. We’re not going to turn our insatiable hungers to you unsuspecting mortals. It’s not like you can sustain us anyway.”
Feeling a hint of disgust at the statement, Harry tried not to let it show, crossing one leg patiently over the other and folding his hands in front of himself. “Plenty is an understatement,” he said patiently, ignoring the rest of Fred’s words. “You were all rather content to stay away before. What’s changed, Fred?”
“One little mass migration gets your knickers in a twist, does it?” Fred sighed, turning to Crabbe, resting his chin on his palm as he adjusted the cloth mask over his own mouth again to recover his still bleeding nose. “I’m not high enough for this. Go get me more, would you? And do you want anything to drink, Harry?”
“No.” Harry had learned long ago to never take a drink from one of their kind. Vince nodded, disappearing from the room the way they had entered, the back door leading into the labyrinth of hallways behind the bar. Harry clutched his fingers together, taking a measured breath, and then dove in headfirst. “Look, Rooster...Fred... I need to know what’s doing, yeah? I got orders out my arse to investigate this. We’ve got thirty of you Cursed moving in at one time, and about thirty more sneaking across the borders in the past week. That’s over sixty in the space of days. One or two I can turn a blind eye to. But sixty means I need to do paperwork, and I fucking hate paperwork.” The meaning was clear. Harry was practically begging for an easy excuse to shorten the load he'd need to write up and make it easy on all of them.
Fred’s response was put off when Vincent entered back into the room, the masked man moving like a Ken doll in his perfect grace and appearance but rigidity as he lowered a tray of white powder before his boss, situating it like a good servant would an expensive meal. Vince stepped away, and Fred’s fingers twitched over the straw, eyes glued to the treasure in front of him, but he gently pushed it aside, opting instead to lean forward and focus his attention on Harry.
“I...” He paused, looking back to Vincent as if for permission to continue, but then frowned, once more studying Harry’s face. “As...a Cursed...I will only tell you that I’m not telling you or helping you with shit.” It was a common response he got as part of the Ministry-no wizard or witch suffering from the affliction that kept Fred and Vincent the walking, living, breathing dead was readily apt to talk to the government that refused to assist or acknowledge them, and threatened them and their families.
This wasn’t what I fought for... The thought was cut short in Harry as a tired desperation started to hit him, realizing that he had fallen into the same category with Fred as he had fallen into with most of the others he dealt with. He made to stand, but then a silk covered hand was resting on his, and he met the half blind look from Fred head on. “But as your friend, Harry,” Fred continued, imploring. “There are some things that are...worse...than death, as the Ministry has so eloquently explained would be our punishment if we came back here, not to mention what they would to our loved ones. But there are things that are worse than...that.” Fred was pursing his lips behind the mask-Harry could tell by the way the spider’s web of white scars made his blind eye pull. “We came here for safety,” Fred whispered. “We believe if we cannot enter into England without detection, then neither...neither can It.” Then the redhead fell silent, fingers digging painfully hard into Harry’s wrist.
“...It?” Harry pressed slowly, urging more details. Fred blinked, then abruptly let him go, leaning back in his chair and tugging the mask back away from his nose, readying his straw.
“That’s all I can tell you.” Pulling the tray of drugs back in front of himself, he dabbed the kerchief at his nose again, then pressed the tip of the straw into his still blood stained orfice. For a moment, Harry couldn’t see it; Harry looked at Fred, but couldn’t find the boy who had been laughing moments before the wall fell on him. He couldn’t find, in that face that was familiar yet changed, the young Weasley who had laughed and sung and held so much hope and so much joy that he had seemed to keep an entire world afloat by always knowing just how to cheer Harry’s spirits up. Fred Weasley was lost behind the jaded image of the cursed creature he had become, and while the body lived, the boy had long since died. The young saviors heart felt sick. This wasn't what I fought for. “Close the door on the way out, will you?” the older Weasley twin said, then pressed the free end of the straw into the pile, inhaling in a long drag.
Unable to watch, feeling shaken to his core at the stranger he had once known, he turned and made his way out, knowing that the conversation was done. As the door latched behind him, the music of the club enveloping him, the last image he saw was a red mohawked head rearing back, blood pouring across his lips from the abrasion of powder to the sensitive sinuses, slender body convulsing back into the seat.
Chapter One
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