FicWad

Chapter 23 – A Conversation

Harry let out a shuddered breath, as his father staggered away from him, the man pale and looking dangerously close to losing his dinner.

Harry didn't even try to hold back against his own stomach's attempt to turn itself inside out. He let nature take its course, bending over and sicking up everything he'd eaten before going to bed and dry heaving what he hadn't.

“A little warning next time.”

Harry heard his father croak, as he convulsed with the magical backlash racking his body. “C-couldn't stop.” He forced himself to look up at his father, clutching at the left side of his chest in an empty effort to slow his wildly beating heart. “Jaeger – the guy who got there first,” he clarified when his father quirked an querying eyebrow at him. “He's a tracker.”

James regarded Harry warily, his face going from pale to chalk white in the darkness of the night. “Good enough to track you?”

Harry nodded weakly. “I shredded my wards over us ... plus, with the collision of curses upon the point where we disapperated ... he shouldn't be able to pick up our trail, but … I had to be sure.”

Before father or son could say anything more, there was a clang of a heavy lock being unbolted and the thick oak doors of Castle Black swung inward, spilling torchlight down the stone steps leading up to the castle's entrance and across the cobblestone courtyard, lighting upon Harry and James's bedraggled forms. A house-elf stood silhouetted in the arch door frame.

The creature bowed lowly. “Master expects you in the parlor.”

Harry traded glances to his father, before casting a quick vanishing charm to clean up his vomit. Upon tucking his Omnioculars into the interior pocket of his bomber jacket, he forced his shaky legs to carry him up the dark stone slabs to the open doors. Subsequently apparating 15 times wasn't something he'd ever heard to be wise, now he knew with certainty that it wasn't. Still, knowing with 99.99% surety that Jaeger wouldn't be tracking him and his father and would be just lucky to tap into an uncontaminated echo of his magical signature was well worth the momentary discomfort. Focusing his mind inward with the intent of righting his skewed sense of equilibrium, he marched into the entrance hall of Castle Black with purpose.

It had been over a year since Harry had last set foot in Castle Black. The entrance hall was as grand and extravagant as he remembered it. The stone walls and ceiling rose high above him by employment of Gothic arches that were supported exteriorly by flying buttresses, while achieving an impossible vault before their time by means of magic. The stained glass window that depicted the Gods of the Old Religion and spanned the expanse above the great oak doors like a temporal tapestry was dull with the cloudy, moonless night, only lit interiorly by the massive, gold crafted chandelier that hovered in perpetual defiance of gravity in accordance with the runes engraved along it's vine like surface.

The large family portrait at the top of the grand marble staircase was the only thing within the hall that appeared to have been updated since Harry's last visit. Sirius and Mayra didn't look any older in the new portrait than they had in the old one. Their three children, Aries, Mira, and Caelum, however, were a different story. The six year old Aries stood tall and proud beside his father, dressed in perfectly tailored dress robes and looking very much like a child version of Sirius right down to his steel colored eyes. Mira, standing directly in front of Sirius and dressed in a satin white dress robe, smiled a smile so reminiscent of her mother's smile that her Black heritage paled in comparison on her five year old face. Caelum, the youngest and the only one of the three to have inherited their mother's brown eyes, stood before Mayra. The two year old's hand was clasped firmly in his mother's, while he puffed his chest proudly.

The family of five waved in greeting to Harry and James, as the two stormed up the grand staircase and rounded the dimly, torch lit first floor hall in the direction of the parlor.

Mirth filled laughter greeted Harry's ears and became more distinct with his every step towards the parlor, passing portraits, paintings, and other various forms of one of a kind artwork along the way. He felt a twinge of irritation towards his godfather for being able to laugh so freely at a time like this stir within him. He forced it back. Sirius had no way of knowing just how fucked his and his father's morning had been so far.

And it's not going to get any better, Harry thought bitterly, as he pushed open the heavy door barring him entrance to the parlor without bothering to knock. He, his father, and Sirius needed to have a conversation, one that he had hoped would never be necessary. Not to mention, Pettigrew's alive status had to be eating at his father and wouldn't be any more pleasant for his godfather to swallow.

“Harry …” Sirius's greeting trailed off and the inebriated smile slipped right off of his face, as he took in his godson's state. His startled gaze snapped onto James, upon the bespectacled man stepping into the parlor behind Harry.

“Shit, James,” Frank Longbottom cursed, nearly chocking on his Firewhiskey. He set his glass down with concern plain in his eyes. His gaze swept from father to son and back again.

For an extended moment, Harry stood where he had come to a halted stop, taking in the scene before him. A fire crackled low in the stone hearth opposite the door and oil lamps and candles burned throughout the room. His godfather sat at the elm table that served as center piece for the room, his cigar burning in the crystal ashtray that he favored, while a glass of Firewhiskey was clutched in his hand, as if he were about to pick it up, but had froze mid-action. Frank was seated opposite him, dressed in civilian robes and looking exhausted. Between the two men, the half drunk decanter of Firewhiskey rested on the polished elm surface invitingly.

Harry strode forward, ignoring the eyes that followed him. Upon reach the table, he conjured himself a glass and picked up the decanter to poor himself a measure of its amber liquid, forcing his hand to remain steady as he did so. Hearing his father's approach behind, he was unsurprised when second glass appeared beside his own. He unquestioningly filled both glasses with a copious amount of alcohol.

As Harry proceeded to shrug off his dripping bomber jacket and toss it over the back of the nearest plush, leather armchair, which he then plopped down upon – joining his godfather and Frank at the table – James took his own glass and crossed the room over to the hearth.

Bring his glass up to his lips, Harry looked up and met Sirius's openly objectionable stare defiantly. The man glanced back at James pointedly and with expectation, as the first detectable trace of Firewhiskey crossing his tongue and burning down his throat. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that Frank's reaction was on par with his godfather's and the man was looking to his father with similar expectation and objection.

James ignored the two men in favor of downing half of his whiskey in a single swallow and turning his back to the room to stare into the hearth.

“Give me that,” Sirius said with authority and held out his hand for Harry's glass, as he round on his godson, clearly understanding that James wasn't about to demand Harry relinquish his drink.

“Let him keep it,” James commanded, his gaze locked on the fire burning in the hearth and not as much as moving a muscle.

“Lily–” Sirius began in protest.

James let out a derisive snort. “What's one more thing kept from her? It's not like we don't lie to her face day in and day out.” He let out a dark laugh that bordered on being hysterical. “When all this finally blows up in our face, we're dead men anyways.”

“With an attitude like that, you can bet your life on it,” Harry accused, glaring at his father's back grimly, while a whisper in the back of mind wondered if his father's pessimistic words would turn out to be the truth when all was said and done. He pushed the thought from his mind with ferocity. That line of thinking would get him killed.

“Malfoy, Burke, Nott, Olavi Lahti, Nicolau Dantès, the Sokal brothers, and your tracker pal, Jaeger,” James listed off and turned to meet Harry's accusatory glare with one of his own. “Care to fill in the rest of the line up? Because that's only a little over half of their lot and our odds are pretty much royally fucked by them alone, the threat of Voldemort aside. Our Hit-Wizard ranks are at an all time low, our Auror Department is filled with god damn numskulls that can rarely tell their opponent from their own back side, and everyone knows that our DMLE Officers are useless beyond a simple case of Muggle baiting and the occasional pub brawl.”

“Dumbledore? The Order?” Harry asked seriously, having already suspected the state of this world's DMLE. Peace time was not conducive to a military force. It had taken years to raise a proper militia in the other world. He'd been hoping to have the upcoming year to gather allies and assemble them in a workable force, before the fighting broke out, but with what he saw tonight, he doubted that he'd have even the few months before the winter holidays.

It was Sirius who expressed doubt this time, though he looked a bit lost as to what Harry and James were on about. “Albus wouldn't trust anything we have to say, not after …” He trailed of, sharing a significant look with James.

“Aboutthat.” James dug into the breast pocket of his saturated cloak and, with fury marring his brow, chucked his Omnioculars to Sirius with more force than was strictly necessary.

Harry took a long drink of his Firewhiskey, as his godfather caught the Omnioculars and brought them up to obscure his vision and start the playback. He welcomed the haze of the alcohol pumping through his bloodstream. He could already feel himself recovering from his and his father's jaunt across Britain and the alcohol numbing the traitorous anxiety and fear threating to consume him. He closed his eyes, employing Occlumency to finish the job. He had known that he wasn't going to be pleased with what he saw tonight, but never had he thought that Voldemort would be so close to obtaining a permanent body.

“Er …” Frank made to stand. “I think I'll just –”

“Sit!” The barked command from Harry, James, and Sirius, who hadn't bothered to look away from the Omnioculars's playback, had Frank lowering himself back into his chair, looking decidedly wary.

Harry regarded the man speculatively, his eyes roving over Frank Longbottom's muscular form and taking in the man's keen blue eyes which he had long associated with the man's son. He hadn't forgotten that Frank was in the room with them. He just hadn't cared, as the Obliviation Charm was quite effective in said situations.

As if reading Harry's mind, James discretely drew his wand behind Frank back.

“A person Dumbledore trusts could prove imperative.” Harry cocked his head, his eyes never leaving Frank, subtly telling his father to hold off on the memory wipe. He wasn't entirely sure that Frank couldn't be of use to them, if Dumbledore would prove to be truly unwilling to trust information passed to him by his father or godfather. It had been publicly known for years that Sirius's relationship with Dumbledore – and with several other Order of the Phoenix members that he had once gotten on with – had deteriorated immensely in the last six or so years, but he hadn't thought that his father stood on similar shaky ground. Recent events accounted for, however, his father's standing had to be at least questionable by this point. His fellow British were a superstitious lot and the House of Peverell wasn't remembered for kissing babies. Bones's off the mark conjectures certainly wouldn't help matters either.

“If you lot are up to sharing information and working with the Order, I'm all ears,” Frank said in a carefully composed, even tone, looking directly at Harry as the de facto authority in the room. He'd most definitely been listening to their conversation and drawing his own conclusions from what he'd heard. “But if your not, I'd rather not hear more than I have. Deniability and all, when the bodies start dropping.”

In show of the amusement Frank's pronouncement brought him, Harry smirked. He'd always like the Longbottoms – loyal, observant, and, at times, infallibly blunt. “Bodies?” he asked, putting on an innocent face.

“I had you in my direct sight the other night, Lord Peverell.” Frank met Harry's gaze meaningfully. “I'm more than grateful for what you did for my son – for everyone in that ballroom – but you won't find one person that witnessed you drop that woman willing to believe she was your first kill or that you wouldn't kill again just as easily.”

“Careful, Auror.” Harry brought his Firewhiskey to his lips. Behind his glass, he said, “I might just get the impression that you believe me capable of premeditated murder.”

“Such a belief would be most difficult to prove in actuality, I'm sure.”Frank wet his lips, his eyes studying Harry cautiously. “I'll say again, if you've something you'd like to share with me, now's the time. Otherwise, I'd rather be going.”

Harry leaned back in his chair, placing his Firewhiskey on the table and taking the time to consider the man before him fully. He'd known Frank his entire life in this world, yet knew very little about the man in truth. He knew even less about him from the man's counterpart in the other world. He wanted to believe that he could trust Frank Longbottom in this world as much as he had once trusted Neville in the other world.

“He's a good fighter,” James said, boring his eyes into Harry. His empty glass rested on the hearth beside him. “He's close to Albus and Mad-Eye, still has the trust of the Order, whatever you're thinking on that front may be.”

“Tonight changes things,” Harry said gravely, speaking to his father, yet not looking away from Frank. “I no longer have the time needed to insert myself into Dumbledore's confidence. Nor can I in good conscience sit on the information we've obtained. I hesitate in bring the Ministry's attention to the matter, naturally, but Dumbledore … I trust him to know how best to handle the situation without screwing us. Unless,” his eyes snapped to his father, “there's a reason I shouldn't trust him.”

“Just be careful.” James gave Harry a dark, warning look that told of his own distrust towards the man they spoke of. “That's all I can say. Your and Albus's views differ greatly.”

Harry nodded. He knew well just how different his and Dumbledore's views were, as well as understood his father's message, which was hardly news to him: one wrong move, one wrong word, and Dumbledore could just as easily be his enemy as his ally. If it ever came to that, he'd play the redemption card that Dumbledore so loved to believe in. If Dumbledore had a single weakness that could be exploited without fail, it was his ability to relate to deep remorse. Though, some would argue that his ability to do so was the man's greatest strength. Seeing as said ability had led to Dumbledore being killed in cold blood by a man he believed redeemed in the other world, Harry had to agree with the former view point rather than the latter.

Harry took another long drink of his Firewhiskey – polishing off his glass – and shifted his gaze back to Frank.

“What do you make of me?” he asked, deciding to make his decision regarding using Frank to bring Voldemort's current activities to Dumbledore's attention upon the man's answer. Bill Weasley, who he now planned on getting in contact with sooner rather than later, was an option as well, though Frank definitely had a stronger standing with Dumbledore and the Order.

“You're dangerous,” Frank said without hesitation or an ounce of doubt, looking entirely sober as he met Harry's gaze with bold eyes and his posture straighten to that of a man of conviction. “Far more so than any kid your age has any right to be. If I wasn't certain that some part of you cares deeply for my son, I wouldn't be tempted to trust you or anything you've allowed me to see or hear in the slightest.” He raked his eyes up and down Harry's form, as if forcing himself to accept that the teen before him wasn't just an illusion. “I'd like to believe that the son of James and Lily Potter is capable of restraint, but I know what I see before me and what I saw the other night. Invaincu et sans miséricorde – never did anyone in the last seven hundred years ever dream just how true those words would turn out to be.”

“I do care for your son,” Harry confirmed. For his sanity and my family, I'll fight this war until I've nothing left to fight for. “He's been a good friend to me ov–”

“That sniveling, traitorous, little rat!” Sirius very nearly knocked over his chair in his rush to stand. In his flurried anger, the Omnioculars he'd been viewing clattered to the floor and his two-thirds filled glass of Firewhiskey splashed across the table, the empty glass rolling ominously towards the edge of the table to join the Omnioculars.

Harry was up and out of his chair in a instant, knowing his godfather all to well.

Sirius had no sooner taken a step towards the parlor door when his godson leveled his cherry wand at his chest.

“Don't be stupid,” Harry said plainly, meeting his godfather's furious gaze that all but audibly commanded him to move out of the way unrepentantly.

“Sit down, Sirius.” James left his place by the hearth. In three long strides, his grip was strong on the forearm of Sirius's wand arm.

Sirius turned to glare at James, as if James moving to stop him as well was a betrayal to them both.

“I know,” James said and a visceral sort of understanding seemed to pass between the two men, before their gazes shifted to Harry.

“I'd say that you lot could have him,” Harry lowered his wand, “but considering I'm the one he actually tried to kill – more than once if you get my meaning – I do believe I've the right to call dibs.”

“We Obliviated you!” Sirius sputtered.

Harry looked to his father. The man didn't share Sirius's shock.

“Think about who you're talking to, Sirius,” James said, releasing Sirius's arm and turning back towards the hearth. He quietly summoned the decanter of Firewhiskey as he did so. “I wouldn't be surprised if the Obliviation didn't take back then. I don't want to know,” he added, as he poor himself another copious glass of Firewhiskey, his last words clearly directed at Harry.

The Obliviation had taken. Harry – or rather Porteur – had simply broken through it when merging his two selves. Compared to his other world memories, Pettigrew holding a wand to his eight year old throat and demanding wildly why he couldn't 'just shut up and hold his tongue, like a good boy', all the while making it clear that he planned on killing him as soon as he worked up the nerve, was barely worth noting as an attempt to murder him in his book. His father and godfather felt very different about the whole affair, as he well knew and Pettigrew found out, upon the two barging into Pettigrew's mother's house looking ready blast the rat to smithereens.

Harry wasn't entirely sure what had happened between Pettigrew, his father, and his godfather, after his father had taken him home, Obliviated him, and said not even a comforting word to him, as he'd stormed right back out of the house still in a rage. All he knew about Pettigrew's supposed murder was what his father had confirmed for him earlier and what he'd observed over the last six years – Sirius drinking himself into a stupor every chance that doing so might be deemed acceptable and his father throwing himself almost obsessively into his work, while doing his best to balance the demands of his home life.

And they wonder why Bones is still attempting to finger them for murder and other nefarious activities over half a decade later, Harry thought forlornly. The Black and Potter vaults had bought his father and godfather their freedom, as well as both alibiing each other out, but that hadn't change the fact that anyone with two brain cells to rub together had known even back then who had done Pettigrew in. The fact that Pettigrew had gone to the DMLE just hours before kidnapping him and had reported his father and Sirius to be former Death Eaters and had volunteered to be a key witness against the two in trade for the Ministry's protection … well, Amelia Bones hadn't been able to prove that either, but she had sure tried.

Sirius resumed his seat, albeit unwillingly.

Harry, after assuring himself that Sirius was settled, returned his attention to Frank. The blond man looked distinctly perturbed, frowning between his companions with a knitted brow.

“I've a proposition for you,” Harry said, drawing Frank's attention solely to him. He picked up his bomber jacket from the back of his chair and retrieved his Omnioculars. He tossed his coat back onto his chair and stepped forward, setting the Omnioculars down on the table directly in front of Frank. His eyes bore into Frank's with the gravity of his next words. “Take these to Dumbledore – put forth your greatest effort to conceal from who, where, and how you came by them and refrain from revealing or discussing what you heard tonight to any other being outside of ourselves – and I will guarantee your son's life to the very best of my ability as long as I breath. I do believe you've heard enough to night to understand the position I'm offering to put myself in.”

Frank swallowed visibly and glanced to James, almost as if he expected James to protest Harry's offer. At receiving silence and no indication that James was about to protest anything at all, he looked back to Harry.

Harry quirked an eyebrow at the man, challenging him to refuse him.

“I just bring these to Dumbledore?” Frank asked, picking up the Omnioculars and looking them over. “That's it?”

“Following my parameters, yes,” Harry confirmed.

“No oaths or anything?” Frank gave Harry a searching look.

“Should I not trust you?” Harry asked, knowing without a doubt that he could trust Frank with the task set. “Or is it that you don't trust me to keep my word?”

Frank regarded Harry for a measured moment. Finally, he claimed the Omnioculars fully into his possession, placing them in an interior pocket of his robes. He stood, rising to his full height to tower a good six inches over Harry. “If Dumbledore calls on the Order,”he looked to Sirius and then to James, “should you be taken into consideration?”

“If he's willing to take the risk.” James nodded stiffly and brought his refilled glass of Firewhiskey to his lips.

Frank looked for the briefest of seconds as if he had a lot he wanted to say to James. “Sirius?” he asked, turning to said man instead.

“We both know he won't ask for me.” Sirius looked up at Frank with sincerity.

“But if I were to vouch for you and James?” Frank offered.

“I've always had James's back,” Sirius said in answer, giving neither an affirmative or a negative answer to his willingness to rejoin the Order.

Frank accepted Sirius's answer for what it was, and with a hasty good night and stating his intentions to show himself out, he quit the room.

The second that the parlor room door snapped shut behind the blond man, Harry set about setting privacy wards to ensure that his and his father and godfather's following conversation would not be overheard or interrupted.

“Did you ever grant Pettigrew access to Grimmauld Place?” Harry round on Sirius and demanded without so much as a lead in or waiting for his godfather to register the wards he'd set.

Sirius paled almost instantly at the question and made to get up once again. His godson's wand leveling at his throat this time, stilled him.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Harry said with a displeased scowl tugging at his lips, pieces of the night's puzzle sliding into place to depict a picture he did not like. He tilted his wand just so, a silent instruction for his godfather. He wasn't done with the man just yet. Sirius could correct his error later, once he had the information he needed and had imparted the information he now felt necessary for his father and godfather to know.

Sirius followed Harry's wand warily and sunk back into his chair, as commanded.

“You never revoked the permissions either.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No,” Sirius admitted, his eyes sliding up Harry's wand to his godson's face, “I didn't.” His glare was open and his restraint visible.

“Did you ever notice a gold locket on display in the drawing room – on the second shelf, about the center, in the left cabinet?” Harry's entire focus was intent on the man before him, his being tensed with anticipation for Sirius's answer. He hoped beyond hope that his godfather would confirm that the Locket of Salazar Slytherin had once resided in Grimmauld Place. His knowledge from the other world just couldn't be that off. The Locket had to have been there and Pettigrew had to have retrieved it. “Think, Sirius,” he all but growled, when Sirius didn't respond right away.

“I don't know!” Sirius regarded Harry's wand with trepidation. “I –He volunteered to help clean the place out. We never even finished the kitchen before the little fuck did what he did and shit went down the way it went down. He was supposed to be dead! If this locket you're on about was there and it's not now, he probably packed it off when he scurried back to his master like the traitorous rat that he is. I sure as hell have never seen it.”

“Kreacher, call Kreacher,” Harry ordered. If Sirius didn't know anything about the Locket, then surely Kreacher had seen it in the house, if the Locket had ever resided within Grimmauld Place at all.

“Kreacher died last week, Harry,” Sirius said almost apologetically.

“What?” Harry felt himself reeling inside. At the same time, certainty slammed home within him, the final pieces of the puzzle falling into place. Kreacher's death was no coincidence. Voldemort was covering his tracks. The Locket had resided within Grimmauld Place at one point and Kreacher had known about it. There wasn't a part of him that doubt it, even if he couldn't technically prove as much. As a trace of relief slithered down his spine and settled his gut, he belated registered that he was still holding his godfather at wand point. “Sorry,” he murmured and holstered his wand.

“I take it this locket is important,” Sirius ventured cautiously.

Harry glanced from Sirius to his father, who had been watching him with his own wand in hand. Meeting his father's narrowed eyes, he understood as plain as day that it would have been him that his father aimed for had he actually attempted to hex Sirius just then.

“You could say it's important,” Harry agreed, looking back to his godfather. This is not going to be a pleasant conversation, he thought to himself grimly. “Considering that it housed a shard of Voldemort's soul and is now the anchor for Voldemort's current, very corporeal avatar, I'd say it's actually a little bit more than important.”