Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Unlikely
April 18th, 1997
Apparition could be tracked very easily here, Harry learned. That it could be tracked at all wasn’t new, but this “blue science” thing that was so popular in this world— and with good reason— was behind a system that Voldemort had called “pylons.” They were basically everywhere, an infrastructure built up by Grindelwald before his death, and they were as useful for tracking apparition as they were for guiding the same across long distances.
There were ways around that, though. This train that they had just boarded was their fourth.
“I’ve been thinking about some things,” Harry said as he settled into his seat. “Since we left Gilderoy.”
“What, exactly?” Voldemort tossed a scrap piece of paper out of the window. A moment later, as the train started to roll forward, he drew a shrunken book, something on physics, out of his pocket and resized it. Harry was used to him reading and carrying on a conversation at the same time. Harry had done it as well, but there was no shortage of times that the strangeness of this world caught up to him and he could focus on nothing else.
“When our worlds diverged,” Harry answered. “I think that it was when Grindelwald killed Dumbledore. It was the other way around, in my world.”
“Interesting.”
“And I think… I think that means I know who controls the Elder Wand in my world.”
Voldemort looked up from the book. “Really.”
“It was Dumbledore. It must have been,” Harry said, losing himself to the thoughts drifting through his mind. “He defeated Grindelwald, who had the wand. So the wand passed on to him. And then y— Voldemort killed him. One of his horcruxes, anyway.” Harry looked out the window. “But I don’t think that the horcrux knew about the Elder Wand because it’s still with Dumbledore’s body the last time that I checked.”
He looked back to see Voldemort staring at him.
“I… created horcruxes in this world of yours,” he said. There was no sense of expression in his voice. “Multiple.” He smiled, just barely. “I caught your slip. Or slips. A few partial syllables here and there add up. But horcruxes.”
Harry felt an urge to squint his eyes at Voldemort. “You don’t have any?”
“I have too much pride to lose myself to an addiction to dark magic.”
“You were serious about being willing to die.”
Voldemort nodded. “But what about Grindelwald’s death could have changed my course?” he asked, leaning back on his bench.
Harry had to stifle a laugh. This was ridiculous. “Nothing.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You— well, the other you, he made his first two horcruxes two years before Dumbledore and Grindelwald had their final duel. And Grindelwald didn’t die then anyway. He was just imprisoned.”
“Dumbledore was merciful.”
“And here, Dumbledore’s dead. Because you… what? Didn’t make any horcruxes? How does that add up?”
“I can’t tell you.” Voldemort paused and dashed the air with his wand. “We may need to get going.”
“Why?”
“I just had to dismantle a detection ward in the surrounding cars.” Voldemort touched the frame of his spectacles. “It would be preferred if we could speak more surreptitiously, mind to mind.”
Harry thought about what he had seen. The little things that Voldemort had said that didn’t make sense. The way that Tonks had looked at him, had talked with him. The way that he carried himself, even, and the fear, the honest to Merlin fear that he had heard in the wizard’s voice when he blocked that curse from the Behemoth soldier.
He thought of the blackness that was on Voldemort’s arm even now, slowly growing every day and turning gray at the edges. To protect that other Harry. His student.
“Sure,” he said, and Voldemort removed the spectacles before Harry’s breath had fully left his mouth.
His mind slammed into Harry’s own like the train they were riding, and for a horrible second Harry thought that he should have been more suspicious, that he had been so naïve.
Der Prüfer are here, he was made aware.
The Eternal Kaiser’s Death Eaters, Harry had decided when he heard about them days before. Their name meant inspectors, auditors, and examiners, and they nicely filled all those roles.
Then what are we going to do?
Grindelwald’s tools were called the Deathly Hallows, Harry became aware, and he wondered if Voldemort— no, Riddle, if Riddle somehow hadn’t understood his message.
Harry stared at him, wondering how to make a shout out of a thought. Are we running? Laying a defense? This is your world, not mine.
Grindelwald took many years to collect them all. Riddle held up a hand but otherwise stayed motionless. When you return to your world, find the Elder Wand. Let it draw you to the other Hallows. The Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility, the Peverell Family: Let these be the names to guide you.
Harry could hear them getting closer, announcing a car-by-search for fugitives. He could hear stressed cries, and demands for paperwork to be displayed. He wondered how good their disguises were, if their polyjuice and enchantments would be enough to convince der Prüfer to move on.
Why are you telling me now?
You needed to know sometime.
The door to their compartment opened up. Standing outside it were five men in silver-and-white robes. Darkness swallowed up their faces, like a void ripped out and strew across them, dappled nothingness and streaks of oblivion. Their wands were leveled mostly at Riddle.
Der Prüfer.
Harry wondered how good their chances were, that this was all a horrible, horrible coincidence and the search was going on for some other reason.
“We are conducting a search of every compartment,” one said in a voice that failed to betray its sex. “We require your papers.”
Riddle handed them over. There was a lengthy pause as it flipped through forged passports and tickets. The Prüfer gave them back, seemingly satisfied, and for a moment Harry thought that they were in the clear.
“Shamil Sultanovich and Elton Bussink…” Harry couldn’t tell, but he thought that the Prüfer looked back and forth between them. Those weren’t the names on their paperwork, though.
And then Harry realized what was happening.
Oh damn it all.
“Please come with us to the back of the train.” The Prüfer’s fingers slid back and forth along its wand. “If you cooperate, we will allow you to make a deal.”
Riddle slowly stood up. “It would be our pleasure to cooperate with you fully,” he said, and then he turned. “Come, Elton.”
Sultanovich and Bussink. Harry thought he could feel cold laughter. A couple of blackmail artists from out of Tangiers. Nobody expects us to put up a fight— they’re runners only— so live up to the expectation for now.
Harry did as he was told, his head bowed, and focused on the compartments and cars that they passed through and the feel of the chilly air through his clothing as they passed from one car to another. He wondered what kind of deal they were going to work out with der Prüfer. If Riddle was planning on subtly pumping them for information at the same time that they played interrogator.
It was none of that at all, he learned.
It happened as soon as they passed into the luggage car.
“Reducto!”
Harry hit the floor and rolled out of the way, taking cover behind a too-small box whose size he fixed with an engorgement charm. That hadn’t been Riddle’s voice. He looked back to take stock of the situation just in time to see a Prüfer raise its wand in Riddle’s direction.
He cast an incendio, Riddle cast protego to shield the Prüfer, and then Harry decided that the world didn’t make sense anymore. Or he had been right from the beginning and everything was going horribly, horribly bad and he wasn’t going to get out of here alive.
Then he noticed the decapitated corpse bleeding out on the floor, just as the other two Prüfer dropped to the floor. He looked at the survivor, the one that Riddle had saved.
A plant?
The shadows concealing its identity slowly dissolved, but Harry still didn’t recognize the face until it started to change.
“Tonks?”
She grinned.
“You’re lucky I was along to save your arses. Even yours, Tom,” she said. She poked the air with her wand.
“Would you have been here if I hadn’t requested it?”
“Naw. Probably doing something boring,” she replied.
“How long were you one of them?”
“Since one of them wandered off a little while ago. They’re not used to metamorphmagi, I reckon!”
Riddle tapped each of Prüfer in turn. They seemed to disappear under the touch of his wand. “Nor old wizards that know their spells. But then, they weren’t expecting either of us.” He smiled. “Shamil and Elton owe us for a lucky break, I think. Here, Harry. Take a cloak. I’ll do it for you since you don’t know how.”
Harry held the cloth in his hands. “We’re disguising ourselves as der Prüfer?”
Riddle nodded. “We’ll throw these pebbles outside when we cross back to the next car,” he said, holding out three small rocks in his hand.
“Der Prüfer?”
Riddle nodded.
Apparition could be tracked very easily here, Harry learned. That it could be tracked at all wasn’t new, but this “blue science” thing that was so popular in this world— and with good reason— was behind a system that Voldemort had called “pylons.” They were basically everywhere, an infrastructure built up by Grindelwald before his death, and they were as useful for tracking apparition as they were for guiding the same across long distances.
There were ways around that, though. This train that they had just boarded was their fourth.
“I’ve been thinking about some things,” Harry said as he settled into his seat. “Since we left Gilderoy.”
“What, exactly?” Voldemort tossed a scrap piece of paper out of the window. A moment later, as the train started to roll forward, he drew a shrunken book, something on physics, out of his pocket and resized it. Harry was used to him reading and carrying on a conversation at the same time. Harry had done it as well, but there was no shortage of times that the strangeness of this world caught up to him and he could focus on nothing else.
“When our worlds diverged,” Harry answered. “I think that it was when Grindelwald killed Dumbledore. It was the other way around, in my world.”
“Interesting.”
“And I think… I think that means I know who controls the Elder Wand in my world.”
Voldemort looked up from the book. “Really.”
“It was Dumbledore. It must have been,” Harry said, losing himself to the thoughts drifting through his mind. “He defeated Grindelwald, who had the wand. So the wand passed on to him. And then y— Voldemort killed him. One of his horcruxes, anyway.” Harry looked out the window. “But I don’t think that the horcrux knew about the Elder Wand because it’s still with Dumbledore’s body the last time that I checked.”
He looked back to see Voldemort staring at him.
“I… created horcruxes in this world of yours,” he said. There was no sense of expression in his voice. “Multiple.” He smiled, just barely. “I caught your slip. Or slips. A few partial syllables here and there add up. But horcruxes.”
Harry felt an urge to squint his eyes at Voldemort. “You don’t have any?”
“I have too much pride to lose myself to an addiction to dark magic.”
“You were serious about being willing to die.”
Voldemort nodded. “But what about Grindelwald’s death could have changed my course?” he asked, leaning back on his bench.
Harry had to stifle a laugh. This was ridiculous. “Nothing.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You— well, the other you, he made his first two horcruxes two years before Dumbledore and Grindelwald had their final duel. And Grindelwald didn’t die then anyway. He was just imprisoned.”
“Dumbledore was merciful.”
“And here, Dumbledore’s dead. Because you… what? Didn’t make any horcruxes? How does that add up?”
“I can’t tell you.” Voldemort paused and dashed the air with his wand. “We may need to get going.”
“Why?”
“I just had to dismantle a detection ward in the surrounding cars.” Voldemort touched the frame of his spectacles. “It would be preferred if we could speak more surreptitiously, mind to mind.”
Harry thought about what he had seen. The little things that Voldemort had said that didn’t make sense. The way that Tonks had looked at him, had talked with him. The way that he carried himself, even, and the fear, the honest to Merlin fear that he had heard in the wizard’s voice when he blocked that curse from the Behemoth soldier.
He thought of the blackness that was on Voldemort’s arm even now, slowly growing every day and turning gray at the edges. To protect that other Harry. His student.
“Sure,” he said, and Voldemort removed the spectacles before Harry’s breath had fully left his mouth.
His mind slammed into Harry’s own like the train they were riding, and for a horrible second Harry thought that he should have been more suspicious, that he had been so naïve.
Der Prüfer are here, he was made aware.
The Eternal Kaiser’s Death Eaters, Harry had decided when he heard about them days before. Their name meant inspectors, auditors, and examiners, and they nicely filled all those roles.
Then what are we going to do?
Grindelwald’s tools were called the Deathly Hallows, Harry became aware, and he wondered if Voldemort— no, Riddle, if Riddle somehow hadn’t understood his message.
Harry stared at him, wondering how to make a shout out of a thought. Are we running? Laying a defense? This is your world, not mine.
Grindelwald took many years to collect them all. Riddle held up a hand but otherwise stayed motionless. When you return to your world, find the Elder Wand. Let it draw you to the other Hallows. The Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility, the Peverell Family: Let these be the names to guide you.
Harry could hear them getting closer, announcing a car-by-search for fugitives. He could hear stressed cries, and demands for paperwork to be displayed. He wondered how good their disguises were, if their polyjuice and enchantments would be enough to convince der Prüfer to move on.
Why are you telling me now?
You needed to know sometime.
The door to their compartment opened up. Standing outside it were five men in silver-and-white robes. Darkness swallowed up their faces, like a void ripped out and strew across them, dappled nothingness and streaks of oblivion. Their wands were leveled mostly at Riddle.
Der Prüfer.
Harry wondered how good their chances were, that this was all a horrible, horrible coincidence and the search was going on for some other reason.
“We are conducting a search of every compartment,” one said in a voice that failed to betray its sex. “We require your papers.”
Riddle handed them over. There was a lengthy pause as it flipped through forged passports and tickets. The Prüfer gave them back, seemingly satisfied, and for a moment Harry thought that they were in the clear.
“Shamil Sultanovich and Elton Bussink…” Harry couldn’t tell, but he thought that the Prüfer looked back and forth between them. Those weren’t the names on their paperwork, though.
And then Harry realized what was happening.
Oh damn it all.
“Please come with us to the back of the train.” The Prüfer’s fingers slid back and forth along its wand. “If you cooperate, we will allow you to make a deal.”
Riddle slowly stood up. “It would be our pleasure to cooperate with you fully,” he said, and then he turned. “Come, Elton.”
Sultanovich and Bussink. Harry thought he could feel cold laughter. A couple of blackmail artists from out of Tangiers. Nobody expects us to put up a fight— they’re runners only— so live up to the expectation for now.
Harry did as he was told, his head bowed, and focused on the compartments and cars that they passed through and the feel of the chilly air through his clothing as they passed from one car to another. He wondered what kind of deal they were going to work out with der Prüfer. If Riddle was planning on subtly pumping them for information at the same time that they played interrogator.
It was none of that at all, he learned.
It happened as soon as they passed into the luggage car.
“Reducto!”
Harry hit the floor and rolled out of the way, taking cover behind a too-small box whose size he fixed with an engorgement charm. That hadn’t been Riddle’s voice. He looked back to take stock of the situation just in time to see a Prüfer raise its wand in Riddle’s direction.
He cast an incendio, Riddle cast protego to shield the Prüfer, and then Harry decided that the world didn’t make sense anymore. Or he had been right from the beginning and everything was going horribly, horribly bad and he wasn’t going to get out of here alive.
Then he noticed the decapitated corpse bleeding out on the floor, just as the other two Prüfer dropped to the floor. He looked at the survivor, the one that Riddle had saved.
A plant?
The shadows concealing its identity slowly dissolved, but Harry still didn’t recognize the face until it started to change.
“Tonks?”
She grinned.
“You’re lucky I was along to save your arses. Even yours, Tom,” she said. She poked the air with her wand.
“Would you have been here if I hadn’t requested it?”
“Naw. Probably doing something boring,” she replied.
“How long were you one of them?”
“Since one of them wandered off a little while ago. They’re not used to metamorphmagi, I reckon!”
Riddle tapped each of Prüfer in turn. They seemed to disappear under the touch of his wand. “Nor old wizards that know their spells. But then, they weren’t expecting either of us.” He smiled. “Shamil and Elton owe us for a lucky break, I think. Here, Harry. Take a cloak. I’ll do it for you since you don’t know how.”
Harry held the cloth in his hands. “We’re disguising ourselves as der Prüfer?”
Riddle nodded. “We’ll throw these pebbles outside when we cross back to the next car,” he said, holding out three small rocks in his hand.
“Der Prüfer?”
Riddle nodded.
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