The day on which Harry was to meet Dumbledore at Stonehenge arrived more quickly than the red-haired boy would have wished. He looked down forlornly at the ageing potion in his hand while sitting on his new bed in his new room, before chugging it.
As always, the taste wasn’t the best, but the feeling of the body blowing itself up to be larger than it had any right to be yet, was much worse.
Harry got up from the suddenly somewhat small bed and stretched in front of the mirror.
“You know, it is nice to know I’ll be even hotter when I grow up,” he said happily, lifting his arms to flex them. Then he scourgified himself several times to remove any trace of dead skin or anything else, before putting on an untouched muggle outfit he’d bought at a thrift store in Berlin yesterday. Uncleaned, untouched, all gross.
“At least you’re humble,” the hat grumbled from where it sat on top of Harry’s wooden closet.
“Don’t forget talented,” Harry quipped back before bending down to finagle with his newly acquired cd player and started blasting some tunes for his leathery friend.
“Intesteresting new direction of music you’ve grown curious about,” Harry commented idly as the intro to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic started.
“If you talk more shit, you gonna get dealt with real quick,” the hat rapped back fast, bobbing its head.
“Well, as long as you’re having fun,” Harry sighed while his brain refused to compute the fact that his 1000-year old friend was having his gangster rap phase.
“Dobby,” he said, causing his servant to pop his side.
“Is it time?” the butler asked with his wide eyes bulging from a serious and refined face.
“Yes, to the spot we discussed,” Harry said with a nod of his adult features, before pulling up his hoodie and using a spell to cast his face in shadows.
He’d chosen to go muggle this time, to trip up Albus into potentially focusing on the wrong thing.
It was very convenient that the felix felicis had set up this meeting right before Harry received conclusive evidence that Fudge was being possessed by Voldemort, but that didn’t mean the meeting would be any easier to get through. The man was unlikely to let go of Harry that fast considering he’d stolen the elder wand and considering that Dumbledore would likely be more vigilant this time, he didn’t want to use the Dobby-Express in front of the man.
That’s why when he appeared, it wasn’t at Stonehenge, but rather a few kilometres away from the structure, one hour before meeting time.
Without anything else to do, Charon started walking, his second-hand shoes squelching on the snow that had apparently decided to fall in Britain this year.
The walk ended, if anything, too quickly and he was casting a notice-me-not charm on himself to avoid the overnight security of the famous site very soon after his transportation from Spain.
He arrived at the stones and kicked away some of the snow to reveal the grass beneath, before squatting down and pulling out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, imported directly from the US, rather than just the product made for different markets.
Smoking was a behavioural addiction, and Harry Evans didn’t smoke. The American brand would, upon investigation, point towards the States. The clothes had been thrifted, with the help of Dobby, in Germany. All traces of DNA had been scrubbed from his body with repeated castings of the sort of hygiene spells even a germaphobe might shy away from.
Now the only hope was that Dumbledore didn’t just straight up attack him, at which point the gig would be up. Either Harry would get caught, or the man would notice the usage of Dobby, creating a point of investigation which could possibly unravel everything.
He put a cigarette to his lips and lit it with a small flame from his pointer finger as the clock struck midnight.
“Clear sky tonight,” he commented idly to himself as he looked up at the bright stars and took a drag.
“Mars is bright,” an elderly voice joked from right behind him.
Harry did not jump, but simply stood up from his squat, continuing to smoke his cigarette as he turned around.
Dumbledore was there in a hideously purple robe and a phoenix on his shoulder.
“Didn’t know there would be muggle guards in the background,” Harry said, nodding towards the security team loitering around to the side. “Detracts from the mystique.”
“The mystery is rather, what you did with my wand,” Dumbledore said instead of engaging with the small talk.
“I needed it for an experiment, then got rid of it, same with the stone. They’re back with their maker now,” Harry replied.
“I noticed you returned the cloak,” the headmaster pointed out.
“The cloak is the one hallow that doesn’t leave a trail of blood whenever it appears, no point,” Harry muttered, using a pre-fabricated excuse. “Wand was stupid anyway, supposed to make you all-powerful but every wielder got killed and had it stolen, funny that.”
“And the stone?” Dumbledore asked.
“You didn’t use it either, did you?” Harry replied.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled at him aggressively alongside the starlight, before the man shook his head.
“There was still no noticeable effect to combining the three, just in case you were wondering and haven’t verified the same,” Harry continued. Then he shook his head. “Anyway, we’re not here to talk about that.”
“It was very curious to have my wand stolen and for the thief to set up a meeting as they did so,” Albus mused.
Harry took a drag from his cigarette. “I had a feeling I’d have something to tell you,” he said after breathing out the smoke. “As an apology, for well, you know. Really didn’t belong to you but I do feel bad for bullying the elderly. Always afraid their heart won’t handle it and they’ll just drop dead.”
“Such empathy, it warms my thankfully still-beating heart.”
“Anyway, I had a chance encounter with one of those horcruxes recently. Golden locket, very gaudy. It’s being worn by your country’s minister. I forget his name. Cake?”
“Fudge?” Dumbledore asked, eyes narrowing, before they widened.
Harry snapped his fingers. “Yeah! That’s him! Thought you’d want to know!”
The headmaster was growing progressively pale in the face. As if having been given horrible news.
Harry sincerely wanted to ask what was up, and why the man wasn’t happy. After all, this was the last horcrux, no? It was better to know where it was rather than not knowing.
“Horace, he’s meeting, right now,” Albus suddenly said urgently while looking at the ground. “The location is!” he exclaimed, before looking up at Harry, seeming indecisive.
“I must go!” he exclaimed, before clapping his hands in the air as Fawkes rose from his shoulder. Both of them disappeared in a bright flash of fire that illuminated the night.
“Huh?” Harry asked, blinked, confused.
“Who’s there?” a voice suddenly shouted from where the site guards had been standing around.
A flashlight suddenly lit up Charon’s form.
Charon, for his part, started running.
“Stop right there criminal scum!” one of the guards shouted angrily while Harry put his cardio training to good use.
“That was easier than I expected!” Harry exclaimed as he sprinted away.
-/-
“Sit down, sit down, make yourself comfortable,” Fudge said as he bid the old potion’s professor to take a seat in his living room.
“You shouldn’t have my boy,” Slughorn said with a jolly laugh as he sat down on a large green armchair, causing Fudge to take to the couch and cross his legs while leaning back, arms spread out on the headrest.
A house-elf promptly delivered a tea set and put it on the coffee table separating the two men, the creature poured the green tea into cups before shuffling off.
Horrible creature, he’d have to get rid of it when his tenure in this body finally expired. It felt that something had changed with its master, which was why Fudge had taken away its ability to speak, or communicate in any other way really.
“You surprised me, minister,” Slughorn said, his jowls quivering disgustingly and his moustache twitching around like a fly as he took and ate a piece of candied pineapple laid out on the table in a little crystal bowl. “I haven’t seen a campaign that well thought-out in many years, I must applaud the skill!”
“It was nothing, nothing I tell you” Fudge said demurelly, leaning forward to take his teacup and take a sip.
As was common in people, Slughorn took his as well, but didn’t drink yet.
“To think I missed out on a talent like that back in Hogwarts,” the man lamented instead, shaking his head. “I see that my eye for genius isn’t nearly as developed as I thought it was!”
Fudge nodded sympathetically. “Some people are late bloomers, I count myself amongst them. Merlin knows I wasn’t giving it my all in school, there was nothing to notice!”
Horace raised his cup towards the minister. “Well, we can treat this late dinner as a long overdue rectification! A personal little slug club!” he announced, before finally taking a sip of the tea.
That’s when he froze and furrowed his brows. Then he froze literally, locking up in his position on the couch, teacup still held in one hand.
“A long over-due meeting indeed,” Fudge said in a low voice, lowering his wand which had just cast the petrification jinx.
“What is the meaning of this,” Horace slowly asked through the mouth that Fudge had intentionally left untouched. The professor’s eyes desperately swivelled around the room as he struggled against the magical bondage, face growing red.
“Calm down, professor,” Fudge said kindly. “You’re at an age where you need peace and quiet. There’s no escape, so just lay back and relax.” He twitched his finger, causing one of the pieces of crystallised pineapple to float up from its little dish and gently hover in front of the man’s mouth. “Take a piece,” he offered kindly. “It’s your favourite, after all.”
Slughorn suddenly paled. “How did you know?” he asked warily after Fudge had let the pineapple drop, done with the small jest.
Fudge leaned back on the couch and smirked. “Let’s call it… Intuition.”
Slughorn, if it was possible, grew even more pale, to the point where he could have been likened to a piece of parchment. “You- no- how?” he stuttered.
Fudge shook his head. “You gave me the clues yourself, trying to run from responsibility now?” he asked.
The professor’s face slumped together in complete defeat. “What did you do, Tom?” he asked in a sad voice.
“I did what I had to do,” Voldemort replied coldly. “Not that you would understand. Building your network with students, happy with having your name mentioned, with having pictures taken with people who would be something one day. How an unambitious fool like you ever became head of Slytherin I will never know.”
“What do you want?” Horace suddenly asked in a steely voice, his resistance against the petrification increasing. It wouldn’t matter, there was nothing he could do, he’d been caught completely unaware.
“I checked on the gaunt shack recently, colour me surprised at how I found it ransacked, my ring gone,” Fudge said in a low and dangerous voice. “There’s only one person who could have realistically broken through my defences and that is Dumbledore. Similarly, there is only one person who could have realistically put him on the right trail in regards to my… methods.” He breathed in deeply, controlling himself and his rage to prevent himself from casting the cruciatus at the bumbling fool and delaying the interrogation any further. He opened his eyes again. “Does Dumbledore know about my horcruxes?” he asked directly.
Slughorn looked back defiantly, lips pressed tightly together, before they slowly parted under the duress of Voldemort’s will. “Yes,” the professor whispered out quietly, his eyes widening. “Veritaserum,” he concluded quickly.
“Which of the horcruxes have you found so far?” Voldemort continued asking.
Slughorn desperately tried to refrain from speaking, but his mouth eventually opened to tell the truth. “All but one.”
Upon hearing the answer, Voldemort sprang up and angrily raised his wand at the man, he approached the quivering old professor and pressed the tip into his fat neck. “Did you destroy them?” he asked in a low voice.
Slughorn nodded once. “You’ll fail, Tom, you’re doomed to fail. The horcruxes, you’re one so you didn’t see the effects they had on you, but you lost your mind. You became a beast, a mere animal lashing out and destroying everything around you. What was fought wasn’t a war, it was pure terrorism without purpose! You could have been the minister -had the country eating out of your hand- decades ago!”
“Do not presume to lecture me,” Voldemort hissed quietly as he calculated.
A stark reality hit him.
A horcrux couldn’t make another horcrux. His immortality had become completely compromised.
All his plans were in danger.
He knew that the other him was floating around somewhere uselessly after the failed debacle of last year, he would have to return sooner than intended. But how? He didn’t have time to play a game of catch and mouse with a distrustful ghost.
Someone else.
Someone else would have to find the original.
“I should have killed you the day I graduated,” Voldemort eventually concluded.
“I should have killed you the day you enrolled,” Slughorn spat back, literally, hate in his eyes. “A failed experiment, ungrateful wretch, incompet-”
“Avada Kedavra,” Voldemort incanted furiously, causing a flash of green light to illuminate his living room, he disappeared in a crack of apparition a second before a burst of fire appeared at the front door of the now quiet house.
-/-
Tonks watched her bunny patronus swirl and dance by her side as she stood in front of the dreary prison in the cold wind of the north sea.
“What an assignment,” she complained quietly. “Reward for already knowing the patronus? More like punishment.”
A crack suddenly rolled through the dark night, causing her to frown and look up at a short squat figure that had just appeared at the entrance to the dark tower, sprayed with droplets of sea water as it was.
“Minister Fudge?” she wondered curiously, remembering the man from when he’d toured the auror academy months ago. “What are you doing here in this horrible weather?”
The minister adjusted his ever present bowler hat and wiped something off his face -was that spit?- before waving at the auror trainee. “Official business. Trust me, I wouldn’t be spending my time here unless I urgently had to!” he exclaimed as he got closer, hands in the pockets of his coat.
“I’ll get the warden to arrange an escort,” Tonks said, following protocol. The man would likely complain about being woken up, but she’d definitely get a demerit if she didn’t comply with procedures and it came out.
She turned around to head into the dark tunnel leading into the ground floor of the tower.
“No need, no need,” the minister said behind her, suddenly very close.
Tonks shook her head, every visitor needed to be accompanied by the warden, no exceptions. “It’s to protect you as much as anything else sir, you never know what these damned dementors will do,” she complained. Those beasts really wanted to lash out at every opportunity, why hadn’t the ministry suddenly simply buried them underground yet and thrown away the key she had no idea.
The minister didn’t reply to that, which was a bit odd considering how talkative he usually was, so Tonks looked back at the man as they neared the door opening up the tower.
The last thing she saw was a wand and a flash of light.