(no subject)
Title: Night Without the Day
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Remus/Sirius (upcoming chapters), Ron/Hermione, past Fred/Angelina/George, George/Angelina, Fred/George, various others
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Warnings: Language, drug use, violence, slash
Chapter Warnings: Memories of Lucius cosplaying Sephiroth. Past character betrayal, drug use.
Other: Canon through 7th book except for Epilogue.
Summary: 10 years after the war, the DE trials are just drawing to a close. For Draco, Ron, the Weasley clan, and many others, life is just getting back into place. But when Harry Potter returns from a self imposed exile, haggard, emaciated, and withdrawn, he brings him with a mission to face a new threat, forcing open a Ministry Cover up that's made victims of not just the living, but those who were supposed to have been dead.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Authors Note: This is the hardest chapter I have ever had to write. I just need it to be known that there is more to Fred's story than the ending of this says, because I have very angry muses in my head. Also, Lucius is not pleased with me.
I'm also just not sure how I feel about this, because it was incredibly long, so I had to cut off the second half of it for the next chapter ^^ So Fred's reputation winds up getting stiffed in this one.
I know this is not a normal characterization of him. But don't worry. All will be explained on the why's and the hows. There is a method to this madness with Freddie
Chapter 5
So Many Lies
”I fought the war,
I fought the war,
but the war won’t stop, for the love of god.
I fought the war,
I fought the war,
but the war won.”
~Metric, “Monster Hospital”
”I've lived so many lives each death has left my face scarred
Hid so many lies under my breath that I can't face God
Dig into my mind deep enough you'll find a graveyard”
~Sage Francis, “Mourning Aftermath”
It had been days. Pacing the length of his hotel room, Harry hitched the towel up on wet hips, glowering down to the glowing face of his phone and slamming the touch screen with a calloused thumb to once again scroll through his recent calls. At least twelve from one he pretended he didn’t know was a ministry sanctioned cell number, and even more outbound to Fred. He didn’t bother counting, just clicked the green button for what felt like the millionth time in the past hour, brushing back his wet hair to hold it up to his ear. A moment’s delay, and then ringback tone of Metric’s “Monster Hospital” blasted out like he knew he would. He hated that song. Fucking hated that song after listening to it so much, and had made as many mental notes as he had calls to delete it off of his Archos when he got home. Waiting until he reached voice mail, he hung up and tossed the blasted G1 off to the side, watching it bounce uselessly on the bed.
He also needed to demand what the hell Kingsley was doing letting unauthorized Ministry officials call him, he thought distastefully. How many times had he gotten his hopes up when it rang, only to find that it was that strange number, which he ignored as often as possible. Once he had dared to pick it up, and a frighteningly familiar voice had said the words, “Harry?-“ before Harry hung up without letting them continue. Whoever it was that was calling, Harry didn’t need to talk to them. No matter how much he wanted to-no matter how much his heart wept when he heard a voice that he could not let himself believe was Ron. It wasn’t worth the trouble he would get everyone involved in. Much less the pain of having to keep it secret anymore that they didn’t have to suffer.
That Fred was still alive.
No. No. There was no reason for Ron to get a hold of him. If Kingsley had condoned the call, Harry would have gotten word long before the redhead made the first attempt at communicating.
Sitting down on the bed, he splayed out long legs, brushing drops of water off of a bruise on his thigh. If Fred didn’t call him back, he had no idea where to go from here. There had been four other occurrences similar to Ophelia, but each in separate clans since the summer of 1998. He supposed he could attempt to investigate those, but his contacts were limited and the Cursed were such a cliquish species that he doubted he would get any farther than he could with Fred. It was only their friendship in life that had allowed the now younger looking of the twins to trust him in the first place.
There were other avenues he could pursue-try to find out what had been so different about that year. He knew that it had to be significant, and something told him it might have to do with the Final Battle. Perhaps someone had died that had made a wrong transition? But even the Department of Mysteries was starting to block him off, purposefully excluding information on the full details of the Cursed, giving him the same run around they had for so many years. At the rate that things were going, he was going to have to resort to breaking in once again to the Department and trying to find out for himself, much like he had in Hogwarts. Or else attempt to infiltrate one of the Clans. It was dangerous, and most of it could be bypassed, Harry thought, if only Fred would answer his damned phone.
Disarm you with a smile, and leave you like they left me here to wither in denial, the bitterness of one who’s left alone...
The loudness of his own ring was shocking, the vibrating piece of plastic on the bed rattling against his back and making the already paranoid male’s inside’s leap with shock. Fumbling it up in shaking fingers, he swore under his breath that if it was that same unknown, he was going to kill someone. Instead he felt a moment of disbelief when Fred’s name popped up on the screen. Finally.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he snapped, which probably came out as more of “-fuck you been?” to Fred, the green eyed boy starting before he had even fully clicked answer. Fred chuckled on the other side.
“Missed me, sunshine? I missed you too.”
“Fuck you,” Harry answered, giving out a deep breath of relief. “I need to see you. I got some questions to ask.”
“Yeah, the flood of calls was indicative of that.” There was a slight clacking of the cane, followed by Fred’s muffled voice saying something in a far too cheerful tone to his guard away from the speaker. It was easy to tell, from the past years of interaction, that Fred was high. It was in the tremor to his words and the shakiness of his laughter-like he had been stitched together with Elmer’s glue and was ready to fall apart at any moment. It was obvious that the anniversary of the war and of Fred’s Death Day had done more harm than Harry had initially thought it would. Probably just being back in England set all of them off kilter. It would certainly explain a lot of Harry’s own sudden obsession with solving everything in five minutes.
“You want to meet up tomorrow?” Harry wondered slowly, hoping to give Fred a chance to come down.
“How about now?”
“What?”
“I’m downstairs,” Fred said simply, then the connection was cut. Harry cursed, rising from the bed, swiping a hand through his hair again. He loved Fred, he did, but when the man got into his drugs it was impossible to really tell how he was going to be or what he was going to do. He had barely pulled a pair of worn jeans on over his still damp hips before a knock on the door signaled the redhead’s arrival. He frowned in discomfort as the denim rubbed awkwardly against the moisture laden thighs, pausing to adjust them momentarily before letting his old friend in.
“Mm, naked,” Fred assessed brilliantly, and Harry blushed as he felt the half blind eyes sweeping over him from under brass and glass goggles that obscured them. Tugging on a gas mask strapped around his face, Fred swaggered past the green eyed savior, leaning heavily on a new cane and dressed from head to toe in every inch the Steampunk costume. A pair of clockwork wings were on his back, over a brown leather duster that tickled that backs of his calves, boots covered by military style leggings that held the trousers firm. Copper hair was out of its normal wild poof he kept it in for the sake of the club, and instead was held firm at the back of his head in a comfortable ponytail. Had Harry no intention to find him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell under all the disguise with a simple glance.
For that’s what it was. While the style was something that he knew his friend liked to look at, there was only reason Fred Weasley wore it; it was a way of staying hidden. A cover up that would be seen more as a strange manner of dress than a way of stopping people from recognizing him. Harry knew as well as Fred that it was much a way of hiding himself as Vincent's own covering, and was just as tiring to keep up.
Still, it was a little much, especially as Vince lumbered in after him, carrying a bag in the crook of his arm, looking as irritated as a man in a mask could be. He too was over the top, dressed in an almost Western attire, a white ruffled shirt under the normal black vest, and, of all things, a razor edged bowler hat resting on his head and casting shadows across his Kabuki mask. He paused to look to Harry, and Harry had the impression that Crabbe was begging silently for help, to which the black haired auror shrugged helplessly.
“Shopping?” Harry asked, locking the door behind them. Vincent tossed the bags onto the extra bed, making a wheezing noise in place of a relieved grunt. Fred slipped off the wings and threw his own face covering to the side, goggles resting up on his head.
“Convention,” Fred replied, smooth and a little loopy, pupils blown, whites of his eyes bloodshot and glassy. “Like my wings?”
“Fantastic...I can’t believe you ignored me all this time for a convention.”
“Well, I was planning to call you back on the first night, but then you kept ringing me. I wanted to see how long it took you to stop,” Fred stated easily, grin lighting up his face, tugging at the spider web of scars around his cheek. He pulled out a cigarette, lowering himself down onto Harry’s bed and gathering the blankets behind him to be able to lean back comfortably. “You left me 42 voicemails. I mean 42? Really? How very Deep Thought of you.”
“It wasn’t 42,” Harry sighed, only to be corrected when Fred dragged out a brass plated Blackberry, scanning through the Visual Voicemail and holding it up.
“All of those from you,” Fred replied, flipping open his Zippo with his free hand, the sweet scent of dark mint and tobacco filling the room as the male inhaled deeply. Harry’s lips turned down in an irritable frown.
“And it didn’t occur to you that it was important?” Harry ground out, crossing his arms. Fred shrugged, staring up to him, muscles twitching as he tucked both lighter and phone back into their respective pockets on the coat.
“Well, I’m here. What’s going on?”
Harry took a deep breath, glancing over to Vince, needing to know the other was close enough to handle the drugged up immortal in case the line of questioning caused him to turn unruly. The redhead’s hired guard was leaning against the side of the bed, close enough to Fred to be able to grab him should the immortal Weasley try something stupid, as he was known to do while on a binge. How Vincent managed to tolerate him, Harry would never know, but he suspected it had everything to do with how the man had been friends with spoiled Draco Malfoy all throughout the blond’s tempestuous Hogwarts years. Comforted by this, as well as the small nod the masked giant gave him, Harry turned his attention back to Fred.
“I need you to tell me about Ophelia Bones.”
At once, the look of mirth faltered, the jovial mood shattering with the speed afforded only by strong emotions and stronger drugs. Fred’s muscles jerked harder, lashes fluttering, ashing his cigarette into a glass of flat Coca Cola on the nightstand. Fred shifted his weight and propped his cane up across his thighs, the comforter rustling underneath him to give voice to the incessant squirming.
“Well, Harry, that doesn’t seem quite like an emergency since it happened so long ago. Read your own people’s records. She was eliminated.” Fred snorted. “Can’t believe that earned me 42 voicemails.”
“It’s more than just her being eliminated, and you know that,” Harry pressed, voice dropping, trying to take on a gentler tone than he felt. “It’s before she was eliminated. I need to know what happened to her when she disappeared.”
“I have no idea what you’re on about,” Fred lied as he looked away, giving a half languid shrug interrupted only by the spasms of a soon-to-be-overdose. How many times the redhead had done enough to kill a normal human, Harry would never know, but just from watching the redhead, he gathered that only the damage done before death lingered. No matter how many times Fred seemed to snort his weight, he wound up right as rain the next day, right back at trying to liquefy his brains long enough to stop himself from existing. Harry felt the beginnings of disgust but pushed it back. He had no right to judge Fred. Not when he had gone through so much.
Instead, he went over to his laptop case, retrieving the Bones file and flipping it open to the image of her burning body and the bag of ashes, throwing it down onto the bed, taking up the spot on the fabric that Fred had seemed to find suddenly so interesting.
“You two were friends,” Harry prodded. “She designed clothing for you, and you were often seen together taking dinner at your home in Constanta. You went with her and Alphard Black to the Great Wall for a meeting in 2003 with some business men. Then she disappeared. Just...out of existence, Fred, like that.” Harry snapped his fingers, then pulled over one of the chairs from the breakfast table, settling down across from the blue eyed male. Fred seemed frozen, staring at the gruesome image of the Cursed witch’s execution, cigarette dangling forgotten between trembling digits that hovered inches above the last ashes of her remains. “You know what happened to her, Fred. And what happened to her is what you’re all afraid of happening to you. Four other times.” Harry pulled out other bits of paper, each with names of similar events and dates. “Four other times someone has disappeared, and each time they reappear, a mass migration happens. This time, you came to England. This was your friend, Fred. You know what happened to her. You know what happened to these people. Now I need to know too.”
For long moments, all Fred could do was sit in silence, staring, thumb petting over a bone shard in the baggy, agony written across his features as dark as a moonless night. A slow, whimpering breath escaped his lips, and then he was moving, dropping the cigarette into the cup, grabbing up the case file and clutching it to his chest in a desperate hug, cheeks stained with the dampness of his own tears.
“She reminded me of mum,” Fred choked out, body rocking back into Vincent’s large hand as the guard gently gripped his shoulder. “I told her I’d protect her from it and I didn’t.”
“From what, Fred? What didn’t you protect her from?”
“I can’t...” Fred took a deep breath, swiping at his eyes. “I can’t explain it, Harry. What we are...we’re Cursed. We’re the dead, but we’re all...” He turned his head up, tilting it back to look into the face of Vincent for help. A silent communication passed between them, and Vincent nodded, releasing Fred and clapping his palms together to get Harry’s attention.
“We are all sinners,” Vincent signed. “None of us are good people. There are no Dumbledore’s. No Mother Theresa’s. Something we have done has prevented us from entering heaven. But none of us are bad enough to so fully deserve hell. We have been locked out of both versions of the afterlife, and placed back here for whatever reason. Our magic binds us to our bodies, and our curse of immortality prevents us from damaging them. But our magic is so intent on keeping us from decaying, that we cannot use it any longer. We cannot heal ourselves. That is where we become predators. We feed off of magic of other people. Normally, people don’t feel it. It gives us enough to no longer be hungry to keep our own bodies sustained, and whatever we take, a person typically gets back in a few days time. Like a human can make more blood after the bite of a vampire, a magical being can make more magic after we feed. But to heal our bodies and make us young again...we drain them completely. We eat their very essence of their power, and then we eat their souls. It’s why some of us are healed, and the rest of us...” Vincent stumbled in his speech, looking down to Fred’s own injuries, clearly recalling his own as well. He took a moment to rub over his fingers, popping them to remove a bit of the stiffening caused by the severe burns beneath. “But there is something that wants us. Something that feeds even off of us. There is no such thing as immortality. Even we die, but our death is permanent. We are a soul, and this thing eats our souls. It is from the bowels of hell itself, come to reclaim us, even if we seem to have at first avoided that terrible place.
“When Ophelia came back, she had seen it. She knew what happened. Her body was withered and tortured, her flesh nearly gone from her being. She screamed for days, and Fred could only hold her as she described horrors so intense that it could only be hell that was coming for us. When the Exterminator came, she begged to be burned. They say when you burn us, you destroy our souls. She said to burn her, and to cast her ashes in bleach, to eliminate every trace of her being. It was better than what awaited her. Fred was determined to watch, as was I. It is good to know what waits people like us in the world beyond.”
Harry was quiet for a time, head reeling from the knowledge. It was more than he had ever learned in all his years from the Ministry, and he couldn’t help but wonder how much they had withheld from him, and how much of what Vincent said was actual truth versus learned superstition.
Vincent dropped arthritic fingers onto Fred’s shoulder, shifting onto the bed behind and wrapping heavily clothed limbs about a whipcord torso, shoving the wings out of the way with his knee. Leaning back gratefully, Fred tucked his chin against Crabbe’s wrist, petting the bone shard still and staring blankly across from them at the wall.
“Can you tell me what It is?” Harry finally asked, voice breathy, feeling as shaky as the cocaine made Fred look. Every time he spoke to the two, he had no doubt about just why Fred partook of his particular vice. It was such an uncertain and miserable life that it reminded Harry of how lucky he was to have nothing left. Reminded Harry that sometimes an absence of friends and stressors was more valuable than the overabundance of loss that Fred and Vincent had suffered and would continue to suffer so long as they were afflicted and alone.
“I can’t,” Fred mumbled. “It’s part of our very foundation and how we were made, or at least Alphard says. He thinks it’s made out of the same Dark Magic that we were.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You need to go to someone who understands Dark Magic. Someone who’s been immersed in it, and who can tell you all about Dark Creatures and their powers.”
Immediately, Harry tensed, eyes widening as his mood shifted from morose to remembered embarrassment. Fred caught on to it, the young joker that was still present behind the intoxication laden Cursed rearing it's head and sitting up painfully from Vincent’s hold, sensing the blush before it formed like a shark sensing blood on the water. “What? What about that got you all school girl like?”
“I’m not going to Lucius!” Harry suddenly burst out, hands clenching into fists. No, no Lucius. Harry preferred to avoid him as much as possible. Last check he had done shortly after Lucius had become one of the Cursed, the man had been in Japan, and dressed in a costume Lucius explained was a character named Sephiroth. He had spoken to Harry through clenched teeth and with a face the color of a tomato, before promptly going on a rage filled tangent about Japanese girls and their strange sexual fetishes, and the unfairness of card games that landed him at the service of said girls for a night.
Harry had wanted to tell him he didn't need the elaboration-would Lucius please just answer the Ministry questionnaire?-when they had been interrupted by the bedroom door slamming open. A female had stood on the other side, which Harry could tell she was a female by the outfit designed to not cover her breasts, wearing a spiky blond wig and carrying a massive, fake sword, declaring she and Lucius-er, Sephiroth-needed to have their final showdown. Harry, baffled by the experience, quickly made his leave. He hadn't gone back since. Not even after receiving an owl, carefully pinned in Lucius most delicate script, inviting him to come and play someone he called Reno in his next encounter, as he had once again lost a game of cards.
No...Harry preferred not to even remember that Lucius existed.
“What the hell, mate!” Fred pressed, using his cane to span the distance between them and shove Harry by his chest. “What is it? You’re beet red and look ready to explode! What’d old Fairy Hair do to you?”
“Nothing!” Harry quickly denied, waving his hands helplessly and shoving away the stick. “We need to get back on topic!”
“You have to at least tell me what happened with Lucius, then.” Harry opened his mouth but Fred waved him off before he could protest. “Later. I understand. It’s best to get this over with, but you owe me a bloody good story, apparently.”
“Right,” Harry answered tersely, mentally crossing his fingers. He was never recounting that tale. It made him feel dirty just thinking about it.
“Lucius isn’t the only person you can go to regarding those things. There are more Cursed in the world that are proficient with Dark Arts.” The news relieved Harry, even while confusing him. Brushing a hand through his still damp hair, he tugged at the unruly locks and peered up through thin silver rimmed glasses to Fred and Vincent.
“But those who would know about this level of dark arts...they don’t tend to be good people. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that with that criteria, that Lucius came back,” Harry admitted honestly, though he knew that it had to be, no matter how many strange encounters the blond got in thanks to bets and pride, mostly due to the love the man had for his wife and child and the sacrifices he had made at the trials. It was that same sacrifice-as well as seeing the proud patriarch get to his knees and beg the judges to release spare his child-that had made Harry step forward and take pity on him. What else could he do when someone that had seemed so selfish for so long willingly took the blame for any crime they asked, for the sake of keeping his wife and child out of Azkaban and away from the kiss?
While Harry hadn’t been willing to say anything on Lucius’ behalf, he had spoken on behalf of Draco and Narcissa. It was purely an act of pity on Lucius' part, who had looked ready to weep when he learned Draco and his wife would be spared the fate of the father. Harry truly didn't care what happened to Draco, and certainly, most certainly, had been terrified at the thought of a world without the blond git in it.
“They don’t have to be particularly good people,” Fred corrected, breaking Harry's train of thought, squeezing Vincent’s fingers and stretching out his legs slowly in front of him. “They have to have redeeming qualities. Something good that's stayed in them despite it all.”
“I’m...I can’t think of anyone I know that came back,” Harry admitted, rubbing a hand over his mouth. Fred quirked a brow even as Vincent’s head tilted to the side, and Harry suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that he was on the outside of something important. “What is it?”
“You really don’t know?” the redhead wondered, frowning deeply, flesh around his blind eye distorting slightly. The masked male shook his head and signed something against Fred’s chest, mostly out of Harry’s eyesight. “I know, Vincent,” Fred said in response to the private statement. The to Harry, “Harry...we’re not the only cursed. There’s more of us. A lot more than you probably know of. Just like you don’t know who the Exterminator is, or if there’s even any other ministry officials that are authorized. I just didn’t think they’d be keeping this a secret from you.”
Harry stared at them, and when it was clear by his blank gaze he had no idea where they were going, Fred bit his lower lip and reluctantly continued.
“Snape, Harry. Professor Snape. He’s been living under a special allowance in England since the war ended. You need to go talk to Professor Snape.”
It occurred only later, as Harry was sitting on the balcony, the full extent of what Vincent had said. Shoving up the screen to expose his keyboard, he made short work of the text to be sent to Fred, hoping the other wasn’t so blitzed out of his mind that he wouldn’t be able to answer. Those fears were quickly allayed when his phone pinged in reply. Looking at Fred’s response, Harry could only blink as cold shock washed through him.
There, glowing brightly on the screen, Harry’s own question of What did you do to get you blocked from heaven?
And Fred’s reply, surreal and painful as a knife to his gut.
I was a spy for Voldemort.
Start at the Beginning
Previous | Current | Next (Coming Soon)
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Remus/Sirius (upcoming chapters), Ron/Hermione, past Fred/Angelina/George, George/Angelina, Fred/George, various others
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Warnings: Language, drug use, violence, slash
Chapter Warnings: Memories of Lucius cosplaying Sephiroth. Past character betrayal, drug use.
Other: Canon through 7th book except for Epilogue.
Summary: 10 years after the war, the DE trials are just drawing to a close. For Draco, Ron, the Weasley clan, and many others, life is just getting back into place. But when Harry Potter returns from a self imposed exile, haggard, emaciated, and withdrawn, he brings him with a mission to face a new threat, forcing open a Ministry Cover up that's made victims of not just the living, but those who were supposed to have been dead.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Authors Note: This is the hardest chapter I have ever had to write. I just need it to be known that there is more to Fred's story than the ending of this says, because I have very angry muses in my head. Also, Lucius is not pleased with me.
I'm also just not sure how I feel about this, because it was incredibly long, so I had to cut off the second half of it for the next chapter ^^ So Fred's reputation winds up getting stiffed in this one.
I know this is not a normal characterization of him. But don't worry. All will be explained on the why's and the hows. There is a method to this madness with Freddie
Chapter 5
So Many Lies
”I fought the war,
I fought the war,
but the war won’t stop, for the love of god.
I fought the war,
I fought the war,
but the war won.”
~Metric, “Monster Hospital”
”I've lived so many lives each death has left my face scarred
Hid so many lies under my breath that I can't face God
Dig into my mind deep enough you'll find a graveyard”
~Sage Francis, “Mourning Aftermath”
It had been days. Pacing the length of his hotel room, Harry hitched the towel up on wet hips, glowering down to the glowing face of his phone and slamming the touch screen with a calloused thumb to once again scroll through his recent calls. At least twelve from one he pretended he didn’t know was a ministry sanctioned cell number, and even more outbound to Fred. He didn’t bother counting, just clicked the green button for what felt like the millionth time in the past hour, brushing back his wet hair to hold it up to his ear. A moment’s delay, and then ringback tone of Metric’s “Monster Hospital” blasted out like he knew he would. He hated that song. Fucking hated that song after listening to it so much, and had made as many mental notes as he had calls to delete it off of his Archos when he got home. Waiting until he reached voice mail, he hung up and tossed the blasted G1 off to the side, watching it bounce uselessly on the bed.
He also needed to demand what the hell Kingsley was doing letting unauthorized Ministry officials call him, he thought distastefully. How many times had he gotten his hopes up when it rang, only to find that it was that strange number, which he ignored as often as possible. Once he had dared to pick it up, and a frighteningly familiar voice had said the words, “Harry?-“ before Harry hung up without letting them continue. Whoever it was that was calling, Harry didn’t need to talk to them. No matter how much he wanted to-no matter how much his heart wept when he heard a voice that he could not let himself believe was Ron. It wasn’t worth the trouble he would get everyone involved in. Much less the pain of having to keep it secret anymore that they didn’t have to suffer.
That Fred was still alive.
No. No. There was no reason for Ron to get a hold of him. If Kingsley had condoned the call, Harry would have gotten word long before the redhead made the first attempt at communicating.
Sitting down on the bed, he splayed out long legs, brushing drops of water off of a bruise on his thigh. If Fred didn’t call him back, he had no idea where to go from here. There had been four other occurrences similar to Ophelia, but each in separate clans since the summer of 1998. He supposed he could attempt to investigate those, but his contacts were limited and the Cursed were such a cliquish species that he doubted he would get any farther than he could with Fred. It was only their friendship in life that had allowed the now younger looking of the twins to trust him in the first place.
There were other avenues he could pursue-try to find out what had been so different about that year. He knew that it had to be significant, and something told him it might have to do with the Final Battle. Perhaps someone had died that had made a wrong transition? But even the Department of Mysteries was starting to block him off, purposefully excluding information on the full details of the Cursed, giving him the same run around they had for so many years. At the rate that things were going, he was going to have to resort to breaking in once again to the Department and trying to find out for himself, much like he had in Hogwarts. Or else attempt to infiltrate one of the Clans. It was dangerous, and most of it could be bypassed, Harry thought, if only Fred would answer his damned phone.
Disarm you with a smile, and leave you like they left me here to wither in denial, the bitterness of one who’s left alone...
The loudness of his own ring was shocking, the vibrating piece of plastic on the bed rattling against his back and making the already paranoid male’s inside’s leap with shock. Fumbling it up in shaking fingers, he swore under his breath that if it was that same unknown, he was going to kill someone. Instead he felt a moment of disbelief when Fred’s name popped up on the screen. Finally.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he snapped, which probably came out as more of “-fuck you been?” to Fred, the green eyed boy starting before he had even fully clicked answer. Fred chuckled on the other side.
“Missed me, sunshine? I missed you too.”
“Fuck you,” Harry answered, giving out a deep breath of relief. “I need to see you. I got some questions to ask.”
“Yeah, the flood of calls was indicative of that.” There was a slight clacking of the cane, followed by Fred’s muffled voice saying something in a far too cheerful tone to his guard away from the speaker. It was easy to tell, from the past years of interaction, that Fred was high. It was in the tremor to his words and the shakiness of his laughter-like he had been stitched together with Elmer’s glue and was ready to fall apart at any moment. It was obvious that the anniversary of the war and of Fred’s Death Day had done more harm than Harry had initially thought it would. Probably just being back in England set all of them off kilter. It would certainly explain a lot of Harry’s own sudden obsession with solving everything in five minutes.
“You want to meet up tomorrow?” Harry wondered slowly, hoping to give Fred a chance to come down.
“How about now?”
“What?”
“I’m downstairs,” Fred said simply, then the connection was cut. Harry cursed, rising from the bed, swiping a hand through his hair again. He loved Fred, he did, but when the man got into his drugs it was impossible to really tell how he was going to be or what he was going to do. He had barely pulled a pair of worn jeans on over his still damp hips before a knock on the door signaled the redhead’s arrival. He frowned in discomfort as the denim rubbed awkwardly against the moisture laden thighs, pausing to adjust them momentarily before letting his old friend in.
“Mm, naked,” Fred assessed brilliantly, and Harry blushed as he felt the half blind eyes sweeping over him from under brass and glass goggles that obscured them. Tugging on a gas mask strapped around his face, Fred swaggered past the green eyed savior, leaning heavily on a new cane and dressed from head to toe in every inch the Steampunk costume. A pair of clockwork wings were on his back, over a brown leather duster that tickled that backs of his calves, boots covered by military style leggings that held the trousers firm. Copper hair was out of its normal wild poof he kept it in for the sake of the club, and instead was held firm at the back of his head in a comfortable ponytail. Had Harry no intention to find him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell under all the disguise with a simple glance.
For that’s what it was. While the style was something that he knew his friend liked to look at, there was only reason Fred Weasley wore it; it was a way of staying hidden. A cover up that would be seen more as a strange manner of dress than a way of stopping people from recognizing him. Harry knew as well as Fred that it was much a way of hiding himself as Vincent's own covering, and was just as tiring to keep up.
Still, it was a little much, especially as Vince lumbered in after him, carrying a bag in the crook of his arm, looking as irritated as a man in a mask could be. He too was over the top, dressed in an almost Western attire, a white ruffled shirt under the normal black vest, and, of all things, a razor edged bowler hat resting on his head and casting shadows across his Kabuki mask. He paused to look to Harry, and Harry had the impression that Crabbe was begging silently for help, to which the black haired auror shrugged helplessly.
“Shopping?” Harry asked, locking the door behind them. Vincent tossed the bags onto the extra bed, making a wheezing noise in place of a relieved grunt. Fred slipped off the wings and threw his own face covering to the side, goggles resting up on his head.
“Convention,” Fred replied, smooth and a little loopy, pupils blown, whites of his eyes bloodshot and glassy. “Like my wings?”
“Fantastic...I can’t believe you ignored me all this time for a convention.”
“Well, I was planning to call you back on the first night, but then you kept ringing me. I wanted to see how long it took you to stop,” Fred stated easily, grin lighting up his face, tugging at the spider web of scars around his cheek. He pulled out a cigarette, lowering himself down onto Harry’s bed and gathering the blankets behind him to be able to lean back comfortably. “You left me 42 voicemails. I mean 42? Really? How very Deep Thought of you.”
“It wasn’t 42,” Harry sighed, only to be corrected when Fred dragged out a brass plated Blackberry, scanning through the Visual Voicemail and holding it up.
“All of those from you,” Fred replied, flipping open his Zippo with his free hand, the sweet scent of dark mint and tobacco filling the room as the male inhaled deeply. Harry’s lips turned down in an irritable frown.
“And it didn’t occur to you that it was important?” Harry ground out, crossing his arms. Fred shrugged, staring up to him, muscles twitching as he tucked both lighter and phone back into their respective pockets on the coat.
“Well, I’m here. What’s going on?”
Harry took a deep breath, glancing over to Vince, needing to know the other was close enough to handle the drugged up immortal in case the line of questioning caused him to turn unruly. The redhead’s hired guard was leaning against the side of the bed, close enough to Fred to be able to grab him should the immortal Weasley try something stupid, as he was known to do while on a binge. How Vincent managed to tolerate him, Harry would never know, but he suspected it had everything to do with how the man had been friends with spoiled Draco Malfoy all throughout the blond’s tempestuous Hogwarts years. Comforted by this, as well as the small nod the masked giant gave him, Harry turned his attention back to Fred.
“I need you to tell me about Ophelia Bones.”
At once, the look of mirth faltered, the jovial mood shattering with the speed afforded only by strong emotions and stronger drugs. Fred’s muscles jerked harder, lashes fluttering, ashing his cigarette into a glass of flat Coca Cola on the nightstand. Fred shifted his weight and propped his cane up across his thighs, the comforter rustling underneath him to give voice to the incessant squirming.
“Well, Harry, that doesn’t seem quite like an emergency since it happened so long ago. Read your own people’s records. She was eliminated.” Fred snorted. “Can’t believe that earned me 42 voicemails.”
“It’s more than just her being eliminated, and you know that,” Harry pressed, voice dropping, trying to take on a gentler tone than he felt. “It’s before she was eliminated. I need to know what happened to her when she disappeared.”
“I have no idea what you’re on about,” Fred lied as he looked away, giving a half languid shrug interrupted only by the spasms of a soon-to-be-overdose. How many times the redhead had done enough to kill a normal human, Harry would never know, but just from watching the redhead, he gathered that only the damage done before death lingered. No matter how many times Fred seemed to snort his weight, he wound up right as rain the next day, right back at trying to liquefy his brains long enough to stop himself from existing. Harry felt the beginnings of disgust but pushed it back. He had no right to judge Fred. Not when he had gone through so much.
Instead, he went over to his laptop case, retrieving the Bones file and flipping it open to the image of her burning body and the bag of ashes, throwing it down onto the bed, taking up the spot on the fabric that Fred had seemed to find suddenly so interesting.
“You two were friends,” Harry prodded. “She designed clothing for you, and you were often seen together taking dinner at your home in Constanta. You went with her and Alphard Black to the Great Wall for a meeting in 2003 with some business men. Then she disappeared. Just...out of existence, Fred, like that.” Harry snapped his fingers, then pulled over one of the chairs from the breakfast table, settling down across from the blue eyed male. Fred seemed frozen, staring at the gruesome image of the Cursed witch’s execution, cigarette dangling forgotten between trembling digits that hovered inches above the last ashes of her remains. “You know what happened to her, Fred. And what happened to her is what you’re all afraid of happening to you. Four other times.” Harry pulled out other bits of paper, each with names of similar events and dates. “Four other times someone has disappeared, and each time they reappear, a mass migration happens. This time, you came to England. This was your friend, Fred. You know what happened to her. You know what happened to these people. Now I need to know too.”
For long moments, all Fred could do was sit in silence, staring, thumb petting over a bone shard in the baggy, agony written across his features as dark as a moonless night. A slow, whimpering breath escaped his lips, and then he was moving, dropping the cigarette into the cup, grabbing up the case file and clutching it to his chest in a desperate hug, cheeks stained with the dampness of his own tears.
“She reminded me of mum,” Fred choked out, body rocking back into Vincent’s large hand as the guard gently gripped his shoulder. “I told her I’d protect her from it and I didn’t.”
“From what, Fred? What didn’t you protect her from?”
“I can’t...” Fred took a deep breath, swiping at his eyes. “I can’t explain it, Harry. What we are...we’re Cursed. We’re the dead, but we’re all...” He turned his head up, tilting it back to look into the face of Vincent for help. A silent communication passed between them, and Vincent nodded, releasing Fred and clapping his palms together to get Harry’s attention.
“We are all sinners,” Vincent signed. “None of us are good people. There are no Dumbledore’s. No Mother Theresa’s. Something we have done has prevented us from entering heaven. But none of us are bad enough to so fully deserve hell. We have been locked out of both versions of the afterlife, and placed back here for whatever reason. Our magic binds us to our bodies, and our curse of immortality prevents us from damaging them. But our magic is so intent on keeping us from decaying, that we cannot use it any longer. We cannot heal ourselves. That is where we become predators. We feed off of magic of other people. Normally, people don’t feel it. It gives us enough to no longer be hungry to keep our own bodies sustained, and whatever we take, a person typically gets back in a few days time. Like a human can make more blood after the bite of a vampire, a magical being can make more magic after we feed. But to heal our bodies and make us young again...we drain them completely. We eat their very essence of their power, and then we eat their souls. It’s why some of us are healed, and the rest of us...” Vincent stumbled in his speech, looking down to Fred’s own injuries, clearly recalling his own as well. He took a moment to rub over his fingers, popping them to remove a bit of the stiffening caused by the severe burns beneath. “But there is something that wants us. Something that feeds even off of us. There is no such thing as immortality. Even we die, but our death is permanent. We are a soul, and this thing eats our souls. It is from the bowels of hell itself, come to reclaim us, even if we seem to have at first avoided that terrible place.
“When Ophelia came back, she had seen it. She knew what happened. Her body was withered and tortured, her flesh nearly gone from her being. She screamed for days, and Fred could only hold her as she described horrors so intense that it could only be hell that was coming for us. When the Exterminator came, she begged to be burned. They say when you burn us, you destroy our souls. She said to burn her, and to cast her ashes in bleach, to eliminate every trace of her being. It was better than what awaited her. Fred was determined to watch, as was I. It is good to know what waits people like us in the world beyond.”
Harry was quiet for a time, head reeling from the knowledge. It was more than he had ever learned in all his years from the Ministry, and he couldn’t help but wonder how much they had withheld from him, and how much of what Vincent said was actual truth versus learned superstition.
Vincent dropped arthritic fingers onto Fred’s shoulder, shifting onto the bed behind and wrapping heavily clothed limbs about a whipcord torso, shoving the wings out of the way with his knee. Leaning back gratefully, Fred tucked his chin against Crabbe’s wrist, petting the bone shard still and staring blankly across from them at the wall.
“Can you tell me what It is?” Harry finally asked, voice breathy, feeling as shaky as the cocaine made Fred look. Every time he spoke to the two, he had no doubt about just why Fred partook of his particular vice. It was such an uncertain and miserable life that it reminded Harry of how lucky he was to have nothing left. Reminded Harry that sometimes an absence of friends and stressors was more valuable than the overabundance of loss that Fred and Vincent had suffered and would continue to suffer so long as they were afflicted and alone.
“I can’t,” Fred mumbled. “It’s part of our very foundation and how we were made, or at least Alphard says. He thinks it’s made out of the same Dark Magic that we were.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You need to go to someone who understands Dark Magic. Someone who’s been immersed in it, and who can tell you all about Dark Creatures and their powers.”
Immediately, Harry tensed, eyes widening as his mood shifted from morose to remembered embarrassment. Fred caught on to it, the young joker that was still present behind the intoxication laden Cursed rearing it's head and sitting up painfully from Vincent’s hold, sensing the blush before it formed like a shark sensing blood on the water. “What? What about that got you all school girl like?”
“I’m not going to Lucius!” Harry suddenly burst out, hands clenching into fists. No, no Lucius. Harry preferred to avoid him as much as possible. Last check he had done shortly after Lucius had become one of the Cursed, the man had been in Japan, and dressed in a costume Lucius explained was a character named Sephiroth. He had spoken to Harry through clenched teeth and with a face the color of a tomato, before promptly going on a rage filled tangent about Japanese girls and their strange sexual fetishes, and the unfairness of card games that landed him at the service of said girls for a night.
Harry had wanted to tell him he didn't need the elaboration-would Lucius please just answer the Ministry questionnaire?-when they had been interrupted by the bedroom door slamming open. A female had stood on the other side, which Harry could tell she was a female by the outfit designed to not cover her breasts, wearing a spiky blond wig and carrying a massive, fake sword, declaring she and Lucius-er, Sephiroth-needed to have their final showdown. Harry, baffled by the experience, quickly made his leave. He hadn't gone back since. Not even after receiving an owl, carefully pinned in Lucius most delicate script, inviting him to come and play someone he called Reno in his next encounter, as he had once again lost a game of cards.
No...Harry preferred not to even remember that Lucius existed.
“What the hell, mate!” Fred pressed, using his cane to span the distance between them and shove Harry by his chest. “What is it? You’re beet red and look ready to explode! What’d old Fairy Hair do to you?”
“Nothing!” Harry quickly denied, waving his hands helplessly and shoving away the stick. “We need to get back on topic!”
“You have to at least tell me what happened with Lucius, then.” Harry opened his mouth but Fred waved him off before he could protest. “Later. I understand. It’s best to get this over with, but you owe me a bloody good story, apparently.”
“Right,” Harry answered tersely, mentally crossing his fingers. He was never recounting that tale. It made him feel dirty just thinking about it.
“Lucius isn’t the only person you can go to regarding those things. There are more Cursed in the world that are proficient with Dark Arts.” The news relieved Harry, even while confusing him. Brushing a hand through his still damp hair, he tugged at the unruly locks and peered up through thin silver rimmed glasses to Fred and Vincent.
“But those who would know about this level of dark arts...they don’t tend to be good people. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that with that criteria, that Lucius came back,” Harry admitted honestly, though he knew that it had to be, no matter how many strange encounters the blond got in thanks to bets and pride, mostly due to the love the man had for his wife and child and the sacrifices he had made at the trials. It was that same sacrifice-as well as seeing the proud patriarch get to his knees and beg the judges to release spare his child-that had made Harry step forward and take pity on him. What else could he do when someone that had seemed so selfish for so long willingly took the blame for any crime they asked, for the sake of keeping his wife and child out of Azkaban and away from the kiss?
While Harry hadn’t been willing to say anything on Lucius’ behalf, he had spoken on behalf of Draco and Narcissa. It was purely an act of pity on Lucius' part, who had looked ready to weep when he learned Draco and his wife would be spared the fate of the father. Harry truly didn't care what happened to Draco, and certainly, most certainly, had been terrified at the thought of a world without the blond git in it.
“They don’t have to be particularly good people,” Fred corrected, breaking Harry's train of thought, squeezing Vincent’s fingers and stretching out his legs slowly in front of him. “They have to have redeeming qualities. Something good that's stayed in them despite it all.”
“I’m...I can’t think of anyone I know that came back,” Harry admitted, rubbing a hand over his mouth. Fred quirked a brow even as Vincent’s head tilted to the side, and Harry suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that he was on the outside of something important. “What is it?”
“You really don’t know?” the redhead wondered, frowning deeply, flesh around his blind eye distorting slightly. The masked male shook his head and signed something against Fred’s chest, mostly out of Harry’s eyesight. “I know, Vincent,” Fred said in response to the private statement. The to Harry, “Harry...we’re not the only cursed. There’s more of us. A lot more than you probably know of. Just like you don’t know who the Exterminator is, or if there’s even any other ministry officials that are authorized. I just didn’t think they’d be keeping this a secret from you.”
Harry stared at them, and when it was clear by his blank gaze he had no idea where they were going, Fred bit his lower lip and reluctantly continued.
“Snape, Harry. Professor Snape. He’s been living under a special allowance in England since the war ended. You need to go talk to Professor Snape.”
It occurred only later, as Harry was sitting on the balcony, the full extent of what Vincent had said. Shoving up the screen to expose his keyboard, he made short work of the text to be sent to Fred, hoping the other wasn’t so blitzed out of his mind that he wouldn’t be able to answer. Those fears were quickly allayed when his phone pinged in reply. Looking at Fred’s response, Harry could only blink as cold shock washed through him.
There, glowing brightly on the screen, Harry’s own question of What did you do to get you blocked from heaven?
And Fred’s reply, surreal and painful as a knife to his gut.
I was a spy for Voldemort.
Start at the Beginning
Previous | Current | Next (Coming Soon)