Chapter Text
“Legilimens!”
It turned out that some Death Eaters, at least, had pitiful Legilimens defenses. Harry sorted quickly through the whirling chaos of Rabastan Lestrange’s mind, skipping over memories about being tortured or torturing in search of the one thing he wanted.
And he found it.
“Harry?”
Harry blinked and opened his eyes to find that he was lying on the snowy ground. Hermione and Ron stood over Lestrange, who was still bound and looked to have been Stunned. Harry was a little upset with himself to find that it had probably been the Stunner that had brought him out of Lestrange’s mind, rather than his own mastery of Legilimency.
What mastery? sneered Snape’s voice in the back of his mind.
Harry ignored that as best he could, and got slowly and painfully to his feet. “They’re having a masked ball in Malfoy Manor in five days,” he said aloud. “To celebrate the winter solstice. I got the Apparition coordinates from Lestrange.”
“You really think we can sneak in there?” Ron’s freckles stood out on his pale face.
“Not we.”
It took Ron a moment to get it, but Hermione was already shaking her head. “Harry, it’s the most dangerous for you, you can’t go alone—”
“And I’m the only one who can really tell for sure if there’s a Horcrux there,” Harry interrupted. “You know that my scar will probably hurt if it is. The locket doesn’t have enough of a feeling to give us practice in identifying a Horcrux, but my scar would.”
He thought, with a pang, of Ginny, who’d probably spent enough time with the diary to feel a Horcrux, and had her whole life disrupted as a consequence. But he couldn’t do anything for Ginny at the moment.
Hermione took a deep breath and blinked. “Do you really think that you’ll be able to do this on your own?” she whispered.
“Hermione! You can’t be serious about letting him do this!”
“I think it might be the best chance we have, and we don’t have much time. Harry’s right that he’s the only one who can reliably identify a Horcrux. And…”
Harry stood silently, waiting for Hermione to speak. Her gaze was on Lestrange, and she cleared her throat several times before saying anything.
“And Harry was the one who captured Lestrange,” she finally whispered. “The one who survived a duel with You-Know-Who. You know that he’s the only one of us who could reliably defend himself if he shows up.”
“He’s the one who’s most important, too! We can’t just give him up to the Death Eaters!”
“And he’s the one who’s most protected by the prophecy!”
Harry watched Hermione shoot him quick little glances, and thought he understood. For whatever reason, Hermione knew that Harry was about to explode inside his skin. He needed to do something besides running and hiding. He needed to enter the heart of danger, and Hermione understood that and was trying to head off a bigger explosion later on.
It surprised Harry, a little, that Hermione understood him so well. But he sat back and let them argue it out, adding his voice only when necessary. Ron, as expected, crumpled before the both of them.
But he did mutter when Harry and Hermione had started to discuss what mask he’d need to conjure, “How do you know that this isn’t just a big trap to get you to do exactly this?”
Harry didn’t think he needed to dignify that with an answer.
*
“You’re going to have to be careful with the mask.”
Harry smiled at Hermione as she waved her wand over the mask and smoothed out the edges of the conjured thing, which had been pretty rough at first. “Thank you for letting me go.”
“I know as well as you do that you’ll break apart if you don’t get to do something soon.” Hermione jabbed her wand at the mask again, and it turned into the shape that Harry knew she was aiming for, a snow leopard’s white face with blank eyeholes. The holes would have a glamour on them when Hermione was done that would turn his eyes a nondescript brown color. Too much chance that someone might recognize him otherwise. “This is a way that I hope will work, and let you find a Horcrux, and keep the two of us safe if something happens.”
Harry nodded. She was right. People who had knowledge of the Horcruxes would need to survive and keep themselves safe if he failed. “Thanks, Hermione.”
She worked on the mask for a few more minutes. They were alone in the tent. Ron had gone for a walk, still upset about having lost the argument that Harry ought to stay away from the ball.
Harry, meanwhile, felt excitement spark to life in his gut. This would be a different kind of sneaking then the kind he’d done all around Hogwarts under his Invisibility Cloak, and with higher stakes. But it would be doing something.
And Lestrange’s coordinates had indicated that the ball was being held in Malfoy Manor, and that the Manor was basically Death Eater headquarters. That ought to mean that Voldemort would have a Horcrux there if he had them anywhere.
If it didn’t, then at least they could eliminate one place from their search.
“Done.”
Harry turned back to Hermione. She held up the mask and examined it carefully. Harry thought the silvery spots in the fur looked good.
She held it out to him, and he put it on.
The sensation of the glamour settling over his eyes was strange enough to make Harry shudder. But he knew that the spell was moving on, casting an illusion over his hair, turning it a deep brown color and making it look smoother.
It wouldn’t hold up if someone else touched his hair, but Harry was going to make sure that didn’t happen.
“It looks…”
“Yeah?” Harry turned back to Hermione, who looked a little disturbed.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then shook her head. “You look wild. Dangerous. I think you can pass for a Death Eater.”
Harry nodded. They’d chosen to mask him as a snow leopard mostly because it wasn’t the kind of animal that had any association with him, unlike a stag or a snowy owl, but also because it might fit in with Death Eaters. “All right. And the hair glamour works?”
“Yes.” Hermione bit her lip and then abruptly flung her arms around him. “Oh, Harry, be careful.”
Harry leaned in and hugged her. The mask cut off his vision at the corners, but he didn’t think that would be a huge problem. He could wear his glasses under the mask; it was roomy enough, and the glamour would hide them, too.
“What are you going to do with Lestrange while I’m gone?”
“I have a flask of the Draught of Living Death I brought with me. A few drops will put him to sleep for months. Only one flask, though. We’ll have to make…different choices if we take any more Death Eaters captive.”
From the way her voice faltered, Harry imagined that she was thinking of harder choices as well as different ones. He hugged her back, and then turned around and hugged Ron when his best friend came into the tent.
And then it was time to start working on the robes he would have to wear, and the moment passed.
*
“You look like Malfoy’s dark-haired cousin.”
“In these circumstances, that’s a compliment. Thanks, Ron.”
“Wish it wasn’t.”
Harry ignored the way that his best friend was staring at him, and continued looking at himself in the conjured mirror instead. Hermione’s glamours were working perfectly. He was a nondescript brown-haired, brown-eyed man in black robes that glittered with silver and gold on the edges and hem. The mask and the robes were both going to draw more attention than he was.
“And that’s a good thing, is it?” Ron asked aloud when Harry pointed this out. “You want people to notice you at all?”
“I have to look like I belong there. And it’s better for them to notice my clothes so that they can’t describe me, if it comes to that.”
“The clothes attract attention, but the person wearing them doesn’t,” Hermione added, coming up behind Harry and laying a hand on his shoulder.
“If you say so.”
Ron still seemed to be upset about something, and Harry didn’t know if it was losing the argument against Harry going, the danger Harry would be in, or something else. Harry leaned forwards and hugged Ron anyway, and Ron snatched him so close that Harry was inhaling and exhaling the smell of his best friend’s robes.
“Be careful,” Ron whispered, his voice harsh with command. “Stay safe.”
“I want to come back to you more than anything,” Harry said. And it was true. Sure, this would be an adventure and he needed that, but he would never do anything to damage his relationship with his friends. “And I have my Cloak. I doubt even the wards at Malfoy Manor can destroy that.”
Ron clapped him on the shoulder the way Hermione had, finally smiling. “There’s that. Still, be careful, mate.”
Harry nodded and turned to Hermione. She hugged him, as well, staring into his eyes as if she could see the future and how safely he would return to them.
“Remember to run if you think someone even suspects something.”
Harry nodded fervently. The last thing he wanted was to be caught by Snatchers, or Voldemort himself.
And remember not to say the bloody name Voldemort, he told himself sternly, as he turned and walked towards a point far enough away from the tent that even someone who managed to trace his Apparition—which was theoretically possible—wouldn’t manage to find it.
The snow crunched under his feet, and Harry threw back his head and took a deep lungful of the crisp air. Then he grabbed hold of his magic and whirled around, Apparating on the spot.
He was going to do this.
*
Theo was bored.
It was, unfortunately, the way that things were most of the time at Death Eater gatherings. The violent duels and intricate intrigues his father promised him must have been things of the first war only. Now, everyone around Theo was preoccupied with whether the Dark Lord would torture them, or if they could get someone else tortured.
Or if someone is going to get involved in the torture, Theo thought, eyeing Bellatrix Lestrange as she aimed her wand at Draco.
Draco was smiling with only his mouth. A second later, Bellatrix whipped her wand up and laughed like a child. “Of course I wouldn’t really curse my nephew!” she announced to everyone watching. “That isn’t the kind of thing Cissy likes me to do!”
Theo’s eyes went to Narcissa Malfoy, who was standing in the corner of the room with her husband. She was smiling with her mouth alone, in a way that would have made Theo sorry for Bellatrix if he could have felt such an emotion.
But that was only a brief distraction from the fact that he had no friends on his intellectual level here, and no one he didn’t know. He knew all their families, their alliances or enmities with the Notts that went back a hundred years, whose parents had bitten whose as children—
Then he paused.
There was someone who looked to be about his age making his way towards Theo whom he didn’t know.
Theo drifted towards him, disguising it as a natural quest for a tray full of food, while studying him intently. He wore robes fine enough to match anyone’s in the room, and a snow leopard mask that Theo had to admit was well-done. He had curious, alert brown eyes, and he glanced around all the time without gaping, as if he had been to only a few of these gatherings but knew enough to act polite.
But he hadn’t been to one of these gatherings before. Theo was sure of that.
A new recruit?
Theo licked his lips a bit. That sounded good to him. And it meant that he wouldn’t have to pretend that he was interested or excited, which his father would have scolded him for when they returned home if Theo couldn’t act well enough.
For now, Theo turned so that his path would intersect with the new recruit’s, and smiled when he caught the man’s eye.
“My name is Theo Nott,” he said softly, “to be Marked by the Dark Lord next year. And you are?”
*
The only parties Harry had really attended before were a few birthday parties and Gryffindor Tower post-Quidditch parties. This gathering was as far from those as possible, so far that Harry wasn’t sure it deserved the name of “party” at all.
People leaned towards each other and talked in hushed voices. Often they did it with their eyes on others, as if they intended to be overheard—or make the others wonder what they were talking about. Then there was Bellatrix Lestrange’s threat of torture against Malfoy, who looked rightfully terrified.
Harry’s wand hand twitched when he saw Bellatrix. But he forced himself to ignore her and keep going. He would keep his promise to Hermione and Ron and not take any risks that could attract someone’s attention.
He would come back to them.
“My name is Theo Nott,” someone said quietly in front of him, “to be Marked by the Dark Lord next year. And you are?”
Harry took a deep breath and turned around. Well, he had known it was possible he would run into some of his Slytherin classmates. And at least it wasn’t Malfoy, who might have known him no matter how disguised Harry was.
Nott was smiling at him. The expression sat oddly on his face, Harry thought. He couldn’t remember seeing Nott smile at Hogwarts. Although he also looked different because of the eagle half-mask he was wearing.
Harry gave a little bow. “My name is Dionysius Fawley,” he said. Hermione had helped him choose the name, of course. There were apparently a lot of Fawleys who lived in Ireland and on the Continent, and no one could keep track of them all, or the ridiculous names they gave their kids. “I needed to—check out what happens in a place like this before I could truly be Marked.”
Harry loathed every word coming out of his mouth, but so what? He had hated going on the run and living in a tent, too. At least this way, he got to do something more productive than whine about it.
Nott raised his eyebrows. His eyes were very blue and cold in the holes of the mask, something Harry had never noticed before. “Indeed? What is there to deliberate about?”
“Well, I know the Dark Lord wants powerful recruits,” Harry said, totally bluffing. “I don’t know if I’m powerful enough for him. If I could be useful to him.”
“Would you allow me?”
“What?” Harry blinked at the hand that Nott extended towards him.
“To feel your magic,” Nott said, with a narrow smile that made Harry cautious. “I just wanted to see if you were wasting your time here.”
Why does he care?
But Nott had said that he was going to be Marked, so probably he wanted to see if Harry was competition. Harry shrugged and extended his hand. It would cause more of a stir if he resisted, he thought.
Nott laid his fingers on Harry’s palm and closed his eyes. Harry waited. He had no idea what was going on, and thought it just as likely that Nott would make up some bollocks. But he was a little curious, too.
And it deflected the glances he got now and then, he thought, to be interacting with someone these people knew.
*
Theo had felt other people’s magic before. It was a gift that he had inherited from his mother. His father had tried to pretend that it came from the Nott bloodline, but Theo had found out the truth two years ago in a journal his mother had left behind when she’d gone through the Door.
And now—
There was a softly-burning star in the center of Fawley’s chest, Theo thought. Usually he got an impression of the kinds of spells someone could cast, but here was simply light. Brilliance. Theo wrinkled his forehead and let go of Fawley’s hand.
“Anything?”
Theo stared at Fawley. He looked back. He seemed calm, not expecting any particular answer, and not ready to lash out about it, either. He tilted his head when Theo didn’t respond. “You found out that I would be useless to the Dark Lord?”
Miraculously, he didn’t sound upset about it. Theo shook his head and spoke the first words that occurred to him. “What’s the most powerful spell you’ve cast in the past?”
Fawley’s forehead wrinkled this time. Then he said, “Well, it would probably be a defensive one. But I don’t know how you would classify one spell as more powerful than the other. The effect, or the effort that you put into it?”
Lying. He’s lying. He can think of a powerful spell that he’s cast, but he doesn’t want to reveal it to me.
Theo found himself delighted. Probably this mystery would be a small one, a tiny intrigue, but that didn’t matter much. Fawley was still more interesting than standing around and waiting for someone to be tortured.
“Are you sure about that?” Theo asked, aware that his voice had descended into a purr.
“The effort and the effect distinction? It’s the only one I can think of. Is there something else I should be debating you about?”
“You don’t have much classical education on the qualification of spells, then.”
“No. My parents didn’t exactly educate me.”
“And you didn’t go out there and find some books for yourself?”
“I had better things to do.”
“Like what?”
“Surviving.”
Fawley’s eyes flashed as he spoke, and Theo supposed he had accidentally poked some sore spot. He took a step back with his hands raised in the air. “I was only asking.”
“Right.”
Fawley turned away from Theo with a distrustful glance and started to make his way towards the back of the room, where the tables of food and drinks were. But Theo didn’t want to let his entertainment go now that he’d found him. He moved with Fawley, and got an exasperated glance for his troubles.
“You don’t have to escort me.”
“But I wouldn’t want you to get lost.” Theo widened his eyes and let his bottom lip tremble. Fawley didn’t look as if he believed it, of course—at least he wasn’t that stupid—but his gaze did snag on the line of Theo’s lips.
Interesting.
Maybe Theo could solve a few problems this evening. Not just his boredom and the fact that he would probably never find very interesting things to do in the Dark Lord’s ranks, but the problem of his virginity, too.
Happily, Theo trailed Dionysius Fawley to the back of the ballroom, talking to him about the way that he could summon a Malfoy house-elf if the delicacies on display weren’t enough for him, and ignoring the obvious attempts to get away from him. Fawley would just have to get used to Theo’s presence.
For the evening, anyway.
Although, if Fawley was accepted by the Dark Lord after all…who knew?
*
Great. Now I don’t have a chance to get away and hunt around for a Horcrux.
Harry managed to keep a polite expression on his face as Nott explained about how to summon a Malfoy house-elf, and how to get variations of the food on the table, and what his favorite wine was, and how he enjoyed the tiny chocolate cakes the house-elves produced, and on and on. Had he been this talkative at school? It must have been in the Slytherin common room only.
Well, this was a wash, Harry decided gloomily as he pretended to take large sips of the glass of wine Nott had provided him with. He didn’t need Hermione’s guidance not to get drunk right now.
At least they knew that he could sneak into a Death Eater gathering without being recognized. Maybe he could do it again if they had another ball where they wore masks.
“Oh, listen!”
Harry turned around from the table, wondering if Nott was calling his attention to a torture session, and already bracing himself not to interfere. But instead, Nott was looking towards a trio of women setting up drums and harps on a crystal stage. Odd choice of instruments to go together, Harry thought, but no one had asked his opinion.
“Yes?” he asked.
“They’re about to start the dancing.”
“Oh.”
Nott turned to smile at Harry. The eagle’s beak looked like a natural part of his face, a curved, hooked weapon ready to stab and tear apart. “You don’t sound enthusiastic.”
“I don’t like dancing,” Harry said shortly, his mind going back to the Yule Ball. Not that he’d really given Parvati a good time, either, but he hoped she might have forgiven him for that by now. “Not good at it.”
“Maybe you just haven’t danced with the right person.”
Nott had sunk a load of insinuation into his voice. Harry glanced sideways at him, and saw Nott holding out a hand again.
“Would you care to?” Nott asked softly.
Does he just want to read my magic again, see what he can tell about me from it? Harry couldn’t fathom another reason that Nott would want to dance with him when he’d just said that he would be a horrible dancer and basically embarrass Nott on the floor. Or maybe Nott would gain some sort of social cachet from looking graceful while his partner looked horrible.
“No, thanks,” Harry said, with a bright smile. He hoped the brightness would hide the falsity. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you having black and blue feet tomorrow.”
“It’s as if you’ve never heard of Healing Charms.”
Nott said the words lightly, but his eyes were hard and suspicious. Harry hid an exasperated sigh and laid his hand in Nott’s. “Fine, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you about how terrible I am.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Nott said, and swept him onto the dance floor in the middle of a tune that was surprisingly jaunty and fast.
Harry sighed and braced himself for the horror to come.