Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Bones Identity

Herpo the Foul

by paracelsus 1 review

Hermione makes a discovery. Harry searches for Nicky.

Category: Harry Potter - Rating: PG - Genres: Crossover - Characters: Harry,Hermione,Ron - Warnings: [!!!] [V] [X] - Published: 2008-03-06 - Updated: 2008-03-07 - 2828 words

3Original
Gaius and Tiberius Prince were visiting Albert Hirsch in his apartment in Zurich. The brothers sat and sipped their drinks. Hirsch was pacing nervously.

"How is our man?" Hirsch asked.

"He's giving no trouble. We're doing as you suggested and keeping him busy with training. It's as if he were in the army. When can we start using him?" Gaius replied.

"You have to seal the bond first. For the moment, he is obeying you mechanically. He will follow direct orders but he can do so slowly and carelessly. Once the bond is sealed, he will serve without question and to the best of his ability," Hirsch said.

"So let's find the Squib and get on with it," Tiberius cut in.

"First we have to deal with Potter," Hirsch said.

"Why Potter?" Gaius asked.

"He knows too much. How did he find me?"

"The Squib told Bones that you were in Zurich," Gaius said impatiently.

"But why was he looking for me at second hand book shops? Why was he asking about those two particular books?”

“I have no idea,” Tiberius said.

“Who cleaned out my safe?"

"I did," Tiberius said.

"Did you take everything? All the books, all the notes, all the receipts?"

"Yes, you went through them yourself in Zurich."

"I remember. Are you positive that you got absolutely everything? Was there even a single scrap of paper left?"

"I can't be sure."

"Then we have to assume the worst. Potter knows or suspects everything. We need to neutralize him before we take any further action."

"But no one believes him," Gaius said. "They think that he's just a kid with big ideas and an overblown sense of self-importance."

"So your late cousin said. I believe he also pointed out that he was stubborn and could count on support from his talented friends. We need to neutralize them"

"You mean kill them?" Tiberius asked.

"No, just erase their memories," Hirsch said.

"Killing them would be safer," Gaius said.

"No it would not,” Hirsch replied. “ If Potter is found dead, there will be a massive manhunt and you will certainly be suspects."

"But what good is a memory charm if he has notes on a file."

“Notes only help if you take the trouble to read them. All we need is for Potter to forget about us for a few weeks. Then there will be nothing he can do."

In London, Harry did not need any help to forget about Jason and the Prince brothers for a time. There was too much else to do. Some Death Eaters were still at large and there were rumours of a new dark wizard gathering followers in Africa. The Bones file had been closed. The word from the Americans was that Jason preferred to stay in the country where he had grown up. Harry was under orders not to interfere.

He also had to find time for his personal life. He had been neglecting Ginny and there was still a massive amount of work to do if he ever wanted to make Grimmauld Place a fit to raise a family in. It was on this subject that he went to see Hermione in her cubicle in the research division of Magical Law Enforcement.

“Hello Hermione,” Harry began, “I finally convinced Kreacher to let me take down the House Elf heads from the hall. I convinced him that the remains of his ancestors deserved to be treated with dignity. We’re going to bury them in the garden on Saturday afternoon. I was wondering if you and Ron could come.”

Hermione barely looked up from the book she was reading. Harry could not remember a time when the subject of House Elf rights had failed to get a response from her.

“There’s no time for that now,” Hermione said. “I’ve worked out what they did to Jason. The book that Hirsch bought from Tom Riddle was the Codex of Herpo the Foul.”

“You mean the wizard who first bred the Basilisk?”

“That’s him. He also made the first horocrux. The book records all his secret spells. It’s written in some sort of code that very few people have been able to break. A witch decoded the book in the fifteenth century. She left a description of what the spells did but not how to cast them.”

“`But Hirsch, a Muggle, picked up this book and some how decoded it?”

“He must be clever. He studied classical Greek in school and must have learned code breaking with the CIA.”

“So what do you think they did to Jason?”

“The book talks about a special type of horocrux. You make it for someone else and then break it into two parts. Then when you put one part on the person whose soul you split, you can control him. Military dog tags come in two parts. That way, if a solider is killed, his buddies can leave one tag with the body and take the other to headquarters. The Prince brothers must have arranged to visit Jason in prison. They could have slipped one tag on him using some sort of unbreakable charm and kept the other to control him with."

“Is this spell like the Imperius curse? You can resist that.”

“It's more like the spell that enslaved the House Elves. At first, the victim can't disobey a direct order but he still has some free will.”

“Then Jason can still fight back. Dobby resisted his masters and so did Kreacher."

“It gets worse. Once the person wearing the horocrux commits another murder, a special type of murder, the bond becomes permanent. He can’t resist any more.”

“What do you mean by a special type murder?”

“The victim has to be someone close to you. Someone who trusted you and helped you.”

“So that means that the Prince brothers will look for someone close to Jason and make Jason kill them?”

“Yes, Harry. Be careful. They could be after you.”

“I don’t think so. I was never that close to Jason and we never fully trusted each other.”

“Who then?”

“I don’t know. There weren’t a lot of people Jason was close to. He had a girlfriend once, but she was killed.”

“There must be somebody.”

“He did mention someone else. He asked if he could take her to live with him in Hogsmeade.”

“Did he give a name?”

“No.”

“So where do we start?”

Harry thought for a moment and then said, "I'm going to go and watch some Quidditch."

Hermione gave him a look of disgust and left the room.

The United States was playing Albania in the World Quidditch Cup qualifying round. As Harry hoped, Maximus Brankovitch was in the American box. Harry introduced himself.

“I’m so pleased to meet you, Mr. Brankovitch. I’ve heard so much about your capture of the Snitch in the 1990 World Cup. Victor Krum told me it was his inspiration.”

“Thank you Harry, I’ve heard that you were a fine player. Did you ever consider going pro?”

“I did but I had some unfinished business with Tom Riddle.”

“By the way,” Harry said, “I met your brother Septimus when I was in Washington. Is he around?”

“He’s coming to the match tomorrow,” Maximus said. “Drop by and say hello.”

The next day Harry spent a few minutes talking Quidditch with Septimus. When he was satisfied no one else was listening, he got to the point.

“What happened with Hirsch? Did my information get passed on to the Muggles?”

“Nothing, the official story is that the Muggles faked the murder of Hirsch and blamed it on Bourne. They say that the Muggles don’t really want to find Hirsch because he could embarrass them. I know for a fact that’s not true. I’m back in CIA headquarters and there’s a massive manhunt going on for both Hirsch and Bourne and someone named Nicky Parsons.”

“Who is Nicky Parsons?”

“Another agent. She worked with Hirsch managing Bourne. Then at some point she sided with Bourne and passed him secret information. She’s been hiding ever since. The strange thing is, she’s a Squib.”

“Why is that strange.”

“When you join, there’s a security check. They find out absolutely everything about your past, talk to your family, your school teachers, friends. They want to know what your parents do, where they went to school. There’s no way you could get through that if your parents were a witch and a wizard.”

“But you got in.”

“That was different. When the Department of Magic wants to place an agent, they have ways of by-passing the security check. The create fake backgrounds and use a Confundus charm on the selection committee. It's a very complicated. The Secretary of Magic clears everything with the President.”

"Why couldn't they do that for a Squib?"

"What would be the point? When they go to all that bother, the want to plant someone who's a fully trained wizard."

“Any idea where she is now?”

“No, she was hiding out at the wizarding casino in Las Vegas but she left and no one has seen her since.”

“The match is starting. Let me know if you hear anything more.”

Harry returned to the office and studied a map. He decided that Nicky would most likely head to Mexico and from there to the Caribbean. He dispatched a long-distance Post Owl with a message asking Nicky to contact him.

The Prince brothers travelled to England and began to shadow Harry, Ron and Hermione. It was not easy. Harry and Hermione worked long hours in the Ministry of Magic where security was high. Ron was always in Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes where security was even better. Their chance came on the weekend. Hermione, Ginny, Harry and Ron were walking through the woods near Ottery St. Catchpole. The day was fine and warm. The Prince brothers followed under invisibility cloaks. The path divided and the two couples went in separate directions. Gaius followed Hermione and Ron and Tiberius followed Ginny and Harry.

When the brothers met at their hotel. Gaius had a self-satisfied smirk while Tiberius was glum.

"You look like you enjoyed yourself," Tiberius said resentfully.

"Didn't you?" Gaius asked.

"Potter had his invisibility cloak with him."

"But did you get him?"

"Yes. I could see where the grass was flattened and I aimed there. The sound helped too."

"Are you sure you got him."

"Yes, I let him see me when he was walking back and he just said hello politely and walked on."

The brothers reported back to Hirsch.

"At last something goes right," Hirsch said. "Now we can collect Parsons."

"Why can't we just send Bones after her?" Gaius asked.

"He isn’t trustworthy yet. He can still malinger and delay. She could get away and he could be caught."

"What about one of us using Polyjuice to impersonate Bones?" Gaius suggested.

"Parsons knows him too well,” Hirsch said. “They may have some private code words and countersigns. Remember, she is dangerous, even if she is only a Squib. That bullet came within half an inch of killing you, Tiberius."

"So what do you suggest?"

"We use someone she does not know but will trust – Harry Potter. We send an Owl from Potter offering to help and request a meeting. Then we intercept her reply and we have her"

"That won't work", Tiberius said. "Post Owls can't be intercepted. A reply addressed to Harry Potter will only go to Harry Potter."

"But which Harry Potter?" Hirsch replied. "There is a wizard by that name in Vermont. He is an older man who lives alone. Put him under the Imperius curse and he will be your mail drop."

“What then?”

“Find any young man with black and green eyes. Use his hairs to make the Polyjuice potion.”

“What about the scar?”

“I can fix that with stage makeup.”

Nicky was able to get out of the United States without difficulty thanks to a quirk of magical history. The wizards of North America had largely ignored the colonial wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a result wizard and Muggle borders did not match. The American Department of Magic controlled most of the former British territories in the United States and Canada but much of the south-western United States was part of magical Mexico.

She took the Floo network to Santa Fe where she cleared the wizard customs office with only a quick passport check. A Port key took her to Mexico City. From there she used Muggle transport. The Prince brothers must have more friends than she had thought. She had not expected them to track her so easily.

Nicky took a bus to Puerto Morales, just south of Cancun. She checked into a small hotel and began to answer ads for private yacht crews. She would move around the Caribbean islands and look for a way to Europe.

There were a lot of ads for boat crews, but Nicky had trouble finding the right one. She wanted someone who was not running drugs, would not try to sleep with her and did not ask too many questions. She eventually found a married couple with a yacht broker business who were delivering a boat from Cancun to a buyer in Antigua. They would let her come along for a share of expenses. All they asked for was a quick look at her passport. The rest of the crew consisted of a married couple from Germany and a single woman from Australia.

Nicky was alone on the deck when an Owl fluttered over her head. There was a letter attached from Harry Potter offering help and asking her to set a time and place for a meeting.

She studied the letter closely. It was handwritten in quill pen on British Ministry of Magic letterhead. The letter was on A5 letter paper rather than parchment. If it was a forgery from the Prince brothers they must have done their homework. The Brits had stopped using parchment only a few months ago as an economy measure. When she had been working at the casino, Nicky had overheard two old pure bloods from England complaining loudly about the change. That upstart Shacklebolt, they said, wouldn't rest until he had destroyed all the fine old magical traditions.

Still, there was something not quite right about the paper. She studied the edges. Two of them were perfectly straight but the other two were slightly rough, as though they had been cut off. She held the paper up to a light and saw that the watermark was off centre. Someone had taken a sheet of American letter-size paper and cut it down to the nearest standard European size. Good work boys, but not quite good enough, she thought, as she tossed the letter over the side.

Nicky left the boat in Jamaica. The next port of call would be Puerto Rico and she wanted to keep clear of United States territory. A few days later she received another letter from Harry Potter. It was on A4 paper with a Ministry of Magic watermark. She sent her reply by return Owl.

Harry was puzzled when he got Nicky’s letter. He did not remember writing to her and had no idea who she was. He went through his desk and found a copy of his letter with some cryptic notes about someone named Bones or Bourne. He could not remember any active cases involving those names. He went to the closed file room and found Jason’s file. Somehow he had completely forgotten a case he had worked on for months.

Harry met with Ron and Hermione and showed them Nicky's letter and the file. They could not remember anything either.

"We must have been memory charmed," Harry said.

"That's impossible,” Ron said. “A Weasley Shield Shirt will block those, no problem. I always wear mine when I'm outside."

Hermione started blushing and giggling nervously. She looked at Ron, who blushed red. Harry began to blush. Ron glared at Harry and turned and even deeper shade of red.

"We'd better go to St. Mungo's and see if they can fix it," Hermione said.

Afterwards, Harry sent a reply to Nicky confirming a time and place for a meeting.

As the days passed, Nicky regretted using Jamaica as a meeting place. She knew that there was an active CIA station in Kingston. There were too many places in the crowded streets where danger could lurk. There were wizard communities in the interior where she might hide but she worried that a foreign Squib might attract too much attention. It was better to lose herself in the crowds. She was passing a delivery van in the market when two men jumped her. A hood dropped over her head and she felt a needle enter her arm.
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