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Trinity: Brothers	By : Hijja Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 2224 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Trinity: Brothers
- 1
Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm merely experimenting with them a bit. No harm intended, no money made.
Rating: R
Note: Written for Xandria's First Kill Project. A debt of sorts goes to Fyre, whose title Fractured Triangle sparked this plot. Humble thanks to Chthonia for the life-saving beta and for putting up with my whingings. I don't deserve you!

Warning: *points to challenge*; character death, darkfic, general nastiness, some adult content - approach with caution, please!

Trinity: Brothers

by Hijja (kennahijja@yahoo.com)

He knows it's about him the moment the timid third year slips into the potions dungeon and whispers something into Fleur Delacour's ear. The young professor's gaze comes to rest on him the same moment as Ron's hand touches his arm under the table.
"H... Mr Potter," Fleur says, "Professor Dumbledore would like to speak with you."
He feels the level of curiosity in the room rise several notches. Unconsciously, he prepares himself for a stinging comment, a familiar drawl, before remembering that its owner did not return to school at the beginning of their seventh year. Calmly, he stands up and steps out.
The distance between the dungeons and Dumbledore's tower refuge gives him time enough to ponder whatever message could be waiting. Dread bubbles up inside him, but he forces it down with some effort. Perhaps... perhaps it's something else, this time.
"Blood-flavoured lollipops," he says to the gargoyle.
Dumbledore is seated behind his desk, and he looks up as Harry opens the door. The drawn expression on the headmaster's face tells him that his hopes have been, again, in vain. It's a face that seems to age with every passing day, as if time were hovering over him with a pencil, drawing further lines onto an already lined piece of parchment.
"Harry... please, sit down."
He doesn't want to go through the usual motions, but rudeness doesn't seem to be appropriate either. He wonders just when he stopped regarding the headmaster as the answer to all questions. Now, there aren't any answers left.
"Who?" he asks, and it comes out more harshly than intended. Please... not Hermione!
"There was a Death Eater attack in Margin Alley."
Oh. Oh God!
Margin Alley. He's been there, only last year.
"I'm afraid that the Lovegood house and Quibbler printing office have been completely destroyed."
Harry can't move a finger. He just stares through Dumbledore at the sad-faced paintings on the back wall. A bitter sensation wells up in his throat, that could turn into a scream, or a moan, if he let it. He doesn't.
"I am so very sorry, Harry, but I thought it would be better if you heard it from me than in the Great Hall. Miss Lovegood and her father were both killed."
Luna. She left Hogwarts a week before the end of term. Mr Lovegood had decided that the 23rd anniversary of the Quibbler deserved a grand celebration, and Professor Flitwick had agreed to let her go. Most exams were over, anyhow.
It just can't be! They were so careful. Never showing they were more than friends during the last year, except to their closest companions. Only a few clandestine meetings in Hogsmeade. One short visit to Margin Alley in the summer. Avoiding even being seen together in public.
"No!" Only when Dumbledore puts his hand on Harry's and repeats, "I'm so sorry," does he realise he has voiced his protest aloud. He swallows.
"How did it happen?"
"We don't know yet, Harry. Buthouthough I'm aware it's no consolation, the premises were blasted, and... it must have been over very quickly." He pauses and moves his hand as if to touch Harry's shoulder, but stops. "The Quibbler was the first paper to publicly announce Voldemort's return. We should have foreseen that he would hold a grudge against Cyrus Lovegood."
Oh, sure! Harry sneers mentally. And Mr Granger was such an ace with the dental drill that Voldemort had been worried for his teeth! No, no amount of rationalisation will make this any less his fault.
Harry shakes his head in denial as rage begins to thaw the ice in his bones.
"How much longer?" It feels like a scream, but it isn't. His voice is brittle, but clear, and very, very quiet. "All the planning, and the secrecy, and the power the Order of the Phoenix is supposed to gather, and we have nothing to show for it! Three years, Professor, and we have nothing." It's the frustration of thirty-five agonising months breaking free. "I've sat here and listened to the same thing about Sirius, and Remus, and Snape, and Hermione's father, and the Dursleys. How many more before we do something?"
"Oh Harry," Dumbledore sighs. "Haven't we tried? Remus and Kingsley led a direct attack on the Riddle House, and didn't even make it through the outer wards. Poor Severus died trying to win Voldemort's trust. I refuse to endorse another suicidal mission. Please try to understand that." The headmaster pats Harry's hand consolingly. "You are excused from classes of course. Take the rest of the week off if you like. And remember - your friends are always there for you, and so am I."
Harry nods carelessly. There's only one more week of classes left anyhow, not that it matters now that the NEWTs have been written.
"We will find a way," Dumbledore promises as Harry gets up to leave.
Harry nods again, for the headmaster's benefit but without a shred of honesty.
"Of course we will."

~~~ *** ~~~
He makes his way back down to the Potions Dungeon, but doesn't stop there.
The torch-lit silence in the dungeons is almost sepulchral now that the Slytherins are at classes. He lets himself into Snape's quarters with a password almost forgotten. The rooms have not been touched since the sarcastic bastard's death, although Harry suspects that Dumbledore had the more valuable potions texts removed to the library. Fleur Delacour has chosen a tower suite over residence the dungeons, thank you very much. The house-elves still clean the rooms, though.
Harry walks through the main room, where he has spent innumerable nights being mind-raped and hexed, then into Snape's private laboratory, where he has been force-fed Potions knowledge he never wanted to have. They had both hated the fact that Snape had once more been chosen to teach the Boy Who Is Destined To Defeat The Dark Lord Again. If Dumbledore had hoped that the forced proximity would diminish their mutual loathing, he had been severely disappointed for sure. They had fought each other till the end.
At last, Harry curls up in Snape's uncomfortable excuse for a rocking chair and wishes the man were still around. He wants nothing so much as someone to curse him out of his mind. It would make him feel better. It would take Luna's smiling face off his mind.
Dumbledore and the Order are doing nothing but sitting on their collective miserable arses, he realises, rocking back and forth, back and forth. Just like the last time, he's giving preppy talks to the faithful and waiting for another miracle. The old man may have defeated Grindelwald, but he is not going to defeat Voldemort. And neither is Harry, prophecy or no prophecy - not at the rate things are going.
He wishes Hermione were here instead of risking her life fighting Death Eaters somewhere in Russia. To his intense surprise, she didn't turn against him after her father's murder - after all, Voldemort would never have targeted Mr Granger had he not been the father of his friend. Instead, she had slapped him viciously when he had gone off on a guilt trip over it. But she had left nonetheless - gone on exchange to Durangrang at the beginning of their final year. Or rather, she had joined Viktor Krum in the running of Durmstrang after Igor Karkaroff had finally mustered the courage to crawl back to his Lord and whatever punishment awaited him for being 'too cowardly to return' in time.
Judging from her letters, Hermione seems to thrive on it - and on Krum's company - but Harry wishes desperately she could be here now. He can't imagine baring his feelings to anyone else.
Absent-mindedly he picks up the heavy notebook that has been left face-down on the reading table, and flips through it. Snape's potions journal. He pauses when his eyes fall on a familiar phrase. Potio Ombra Cordis... Snape's heritage, as unfinished as his life. The Draught of the Shadow of the Heart. Harry scans the nasty scrawl that turns into neat letters only to record ingredients and measurements. Snape's attempt to circumvent Veritaserum; the potion he had taken before going off in a desperate attempt to convince Voldemort of his loyaltyer aer all. Quite obviously, it had not worked.
And yet... Harry feels his mind working almost independently of his consciousness, fingers twisting the corner of the page.
'Ombra Cordis will suppress your true thoughts and feelings,' Snape had lectured at him while Harry had dashed back and forth between the supply cabinets and the preparation table. 'It'll burn what you want to believe into your mind. If you're strong enough to control the illusion you're trying to create without letting it take you over, that is,' the Potions master had added with a twisted grin, as if proud to have made such a double-edged discovery. It was a flaw he had not had the time to remedy. Harry wonders whether his invention let him down, or whether Voldemort just fulfilled his promise and killed the traitor on the spot.
Snape, who had looked into Quirrell's eyes, and those behind, and had told him off right to the face of his former master. Yes, Harry still hates the greasy, malevolent git, but he acknowledges, shuddering, what incredible courage it must have taken to walk right into that presence again...
And yet, Snape had failed to infiltrate the Death Eaters from the inside just as dismally as Remus and Kingsley had failed in their open attack on Voldemort's stronghold. Harry caresses the thick parchment under his fingers. But at least they tried. Better than hiding at Hogwarts like puppies before the storm, tails tucked beneath them in fear. Better to die striking a blow than waiting for the next one to fall. And the next, and the next...
Harry smoothes down the page and lights a magical fire under Snape's experimenting cauldron with a wand's flick. A second flick fills it with water. Then he gets up to raid the former Potions master's storages for the ingredients he'll need.

~~~ *** ~~~
It is the queasiest broom ride of his life, but he doesn't dare to Apparate. The Ombra Cordis coils in his stomach and his brain like a serpent. It is a cold, sickening whisper, a frightful burning of the mind. He wonders how he is ever going to face, not to mention face down, the Dark Lord like this. Shuddering, he lifts one hand from the broomstick and pulls the Invisibility Cloak closer ad hid his shoulders. Voldemort has to believe him! He'll have to make him believe. Whatever it takes.
He executes a wide curve over the twinkling lights of Great Hangleton, and directs the Firebolt towards the smaller assembly of lights that is Little Hangleton, until finally bringing it down at the very outskirts of the village, close to his goal. He knows his way around the place, better than anyone. Knows it from dreams that have etched themselves into his brain with the impact of a branding iron.
He deposits the broom, cloak and the two remaining phials of the Draught behind some disused hoes and spades in the shed off the gardener's house. He vaguely remembers watching the lame old man die, like so many others, in a dream. Dead, like Luna, like Sirius, like poor Mr Granger, Incendio-ed in his own dental practice. All dead because he'd been too cowardly to kill, just once. Another surge of blackness swirls through his mind and smoothes the edges of the pain away. He welcomes it.
He never notices the first two wards he breaches on his way up the garden path to the Riddle House. The third gives a slight tingle that brushes his neck, the next a little more of a buzz. After that, he just stops and looks ahead. Let them react to this brazen invasion of their realm!
A disbelieving chuckle from behind the Fighting Aspidistra bushes reveals that they have done so.
"Potter." A familiar, languid drawl, the voice he has missed at Hogwarts, the way one misses an aching root after the tooth has been extracted. "I've always dreamed I'd be the one to take you, but I never expected you to oblige so easily."
Several footsteps resound behind Harry - Malfoy has brought company. No surprise there.
"I've come to see your master." Cold, clipped, contemptuous.
"Have you, Potter? Come to avenge your ill-fated lover?"
Rage begins to tie itself into a burning knot in Harry's chest. Calm! he tells himself.
"I won't waste my time on a random underling." Harry's voice cuts like a knife, and finds its target. "Take me to Voldemort."
"Your wand." The playful glee is gone. Harry pulls the wand from his belt and forces himself not to cling to it. With deliberate carelessness he throws it behind him. Cloth rustles, and Malfoy's anger warms his back.
"Go ahead."

Stepping through the main door of the Riddle House is like falling asleep at night - the familiarity of innumerable nightmares. The potion churns in his stomach, surges through his head. An iron broom sweeping up thoughts and piling them into new patterns that are not his own, but created to overshadow them. His scar begins to burn, but it's still less disturbing than the Draught.
Voldemort has turned the main dining hall into his throne room. He waits for Harry, seated in an ornate, high-backed armchair on a narrow dais. The shapes of Death Eaters line the walls. Draco Malfoy bows and lays Harry's wand at his master's feet.
"Well done, my Death Eaters," Voldemort purrs as Malfoy and his cronies merge into the shadowy circle. Harry wonders if he has walked into a meeting or if the Death Eaters are always here, like a ring of circus animals, unchained only occasionally to wreak havoc at their master's bidding.
Voldemort rests hhin hin on his folded hands and smiles.
"Dear Harry. What brings you to me? Have you come to challenge me? Or to surrender?" The pain in his scar surges, and Harry shuts his eyes against it. Better to speak in darkness.
"When we first met, you asked me to join you," Harry tells the dark. "If you still want me, I would do so now."
Whatever it takes!
He feels air moving close by. A dry hand touches his cheek, and he shudders.
"Look at me, Harry." The voice is low, and repulsively intimate. His head hurts so much. Harry thinks of Luna and opens his eyes. Stares into that deadly face. Whatever it takes.
Voldemort's Legilimency brushes Harry's mind in an acrid hiss, fanning his grief and despair and drinking them in together with the illusion of the Ombra Cordis. And thanks to Snape's Occlumency lessons, Harry is pretty sure his enemy only touches what thoughts he allows through the mind-link. And of course Voldemort is still oblivious to the inevitabilities of the prophecy.
The Dark Lord extends a hand and one of the robed figures scurries up with a crystal goblet.
"Drink," Voldemort orders. "We should speak without secrets between us, unlike the last one to come to me from Hogwarts with treason in his heart."
Harry takes the goblet from the Death Eater's hand, brushing cool silver. The fluid slides down his throat, cool and soothing, deceptively pleasant.
"Severus Snape was a traitor," he states, willing it so.
"And you, my Harry, you are not?" Voldemort inquires mildly.
"Snape came back to you to be on the winning side," Harry answers, and his memories unravel and restructure themselves around these words. "I..." He falters, one last time. Whatever it takes.
"I have come to offer you my service. For a price."
Voldemort Accio!-es Harry's wand from the ground and turns it over in his hand.
"And what, my young Gryffindor, would you have me do in exchange for your services?"
"Guarantee the safety of my friends," Harry says. It's so close to the truth it barely causes a ripple. "Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, the Weasleys, Mrs Granger, our Gryffindor year mates and their families. Spare them, and I will serve you." As he speaks it, it becomes truth, unencumbered by the regulative of the Veritaserum. He has brewed it right after all.
"An intriguing offer." The Dark Lord points Harry's wand at him contemplatively. "But here you are, where I could just kill you. Or make you watch while I kill those you worry about so much, before permitting you to follow."
Harry shakes his head slowly.
"If you kill me, it might shock the wizarding world," he concedes. "But if they see me at your side, it'll demoralise them. You'll find it easier to take over that way."
"And why would you want me to take over?" Voldemort hisses. "What about your loyalty to the light? What about Dumbledore?"
Harry shrugs. "Dumbledore cannot protect my friends," he replies flatly. "You can. I just want this war to end. Too many have died already. And if you have to win for it to stop, so be it."
The Dark Lord ponders it, turning Harry's wand in his hands before gently letting it come to rest against Harry's cheek. The malicious tenderness of the touch makes him shiver.
"And you'll take the Dark Mark? You'll be one of my Death Eaters? You'll kill for me, Harry? You'll exist for me, and for nothing else, for the rest of your life?"
Harry's mouth is horribly dry, as if the potion had transferred every drop of fluid to the waves that are roiling and thundering through his brain. He looks directly at the red-eyed abomination that is demanding his very soul.
"Whatever it takes."
Voldemort responds with a lipless smile.
"Yes, Harry, it will take something." There is an undertone in the raspy voice that sends shivers up Harry's spine.
"You did not think it would be so easy, did you? That I would not require proof of your sincerity?" Voldemort brings up his hand to Harry's scar, which burns as if a trail of liquid fire were running down his forehead. "I will spare your friends and their families," the merciless voice continues. "All, except one."
Cold dread pools in Harry's stomach.
"One?"
"Yes, one, Harry." The Dark Lord's gaze runs over the quiet circle of Death Eaters. "My... sources tell me that you have two close friends. You will surrender one of them to me to seal our bargain. Which one is up to you. I'd prefer the Mudblood female that is givmy Emy Eastern servants such trouble, but the choice is yours. Will you do that for me, Harry?"
Almost on impulse, Harry wants to shake his head. He stops himself just in time. Whatever it takes, he reminds himself. Tell him whatever it takes.
Voldemort leans back as if to enjoy his victim's internal struggle, and when Harry finally looks up and whispers "Yes," a glint of respect seems to ignite in the crimson eyes. Or maybe it's mockery. Or even contempt. Voldemort holds out his hand.
"Kneel, and give me your arm."
Harry sinks down on the hard floor and obeys. The spider-fingers close around his wrist while the Dark Lord's other hand, still clasping Harry's wand, pulls back his sleeve to expose his forearm. When the tip of the wand comes to rest there, Harry can't suppress an inarticulate sound that could be protest, fear, or despair. He bites down on his tongue to choke it off.
A stream of black pours from the tip like ink seeping from a cracked bottle, and settles itself into the familiar circle. It remains liquid black, although a small shape seems to try and uncoil itself from the blot with a slithering movement that makes Harry's stomach cramp at the mere sight of it. To his surprise it doesn't hurt, but the blot emanates a sickly warmth which radiates right through to the bone and curls its way into his very bloodstream.
"You're now carrying the Dark Mark in its embryonic state," Voldemort explains pleasantly. "If you fulfil your part of the bargain and return within a day, I will transform it into the full Dark Mark, and you'll live. If not, the magic will spread through your blood and poison you from the inside. There is no antidote."
"Twenty-four hours is a long time," a muted voice interjects from within the formerly quiet circle of Death Eaters. The voice is familiar, and its anticipatory tone sends a shiver down Harry's back.
"Do you have any objections, my friend?" Voldemort asks calmly.
"No, my lord," the Death Eater hastens to point out. "I am merely thinking that a whole day might be overly generous, especially for a young wizard capable of Apparating." The tall figure disengages itself from his comrades and drops on one knee before the Dark Lord. "We all," he continues with a sweeping gesture, "are awed by the skill with which you lured the Boy Who Lived to our side. We will accept him gratefully as one of our own. On the other hand, young Mr Potter has done several of us great injury over the past years, and it would seem almost too... forgiving not to hold him to account for that."
A nasty smile slithers across Voldemort's lips.
"Ah, my friend, you are pleading your own case, and that of your son, aren't you? But yes, I would not want my faithful followers to be denied just retribution." The smile deepens. "You may have him until sunrise, my friend, and of course your dear Draco, who has served me so well today." His eyes sweep over the circle, searching for another face. "Wormtail. I think you, too, deserve recognition for your services, and revenge for thongsongs inflicted on you." A third cloaked figure steps out of the circle and hesitates for a moment before taking its place next to the other two.
Harry listens to the exchange, and feels as if the gastric acid in his stomach is slowly freezing. It's all he can do to suppress a tremble. How far off is sunrise - six hours? Eight? Ten? And what will they do to him?
Whatever it takes, his mind repeats.
"And Lucius?" Voldemort speaks up again. "Our young acolyte has a mission to fulfil. He will have to be in working order when the sun rises."
Lucius Malfoy bows. "Of course, my lord."
The three Death Eaters form a semi-circle at Voldemort's side when the Dark Lord turns back to their victim.
"Contrary to what you may believe, Harry, I'm not cruel beyond belief. If you decide that you can't fulfil my demands, I'll offer you a quick death instead of waiting for the ultimatum to pass. Tell me, and I will spare you the attentions of my servants," he nods at the waiting trio.
Harry tucks his trembling hands into the folds of his robes. If he can't conquer the fear, he will at least hide it from sight.
"I... thank you for that... generous offer, my lord," he grinds out, head bowed. "But I will honour our agreement. Whatever it takes," he repeats.
When he looks up, he fondly believes that the glint in the Dark Lord's crimson eyes is one of respect and not just sadistic satisfaction at hearing his young enemy condemning himself to torture. He brushes a thumb over Harry's cheek and smiles.
"As you wish, my little one." He turns to the Death Eater trio. "Take him away, and put up some Silencing Spells so that he doesn't keep us awake all night."
With a mocking flourish, Lucius Malfoy holds out his hand to Harry, who haughtily overlooks it. He exits the room, head held high, followed by the three Death Eaters, to meet whatever fate they have in store for him.
Whatever it takes, his mind echoes with every step. Whatever it takes.

~~~ *** ~~~
He manages to keep a barely controlled facade until he's out of sight of the Riddle House, and only collapses when he reaches the shelter of the little garden shed. Then he stuffs both hands in his mouth to stifle any sound, and screams. He only notices that he's bitten down on his knuckles almost to the bone when the copper taste in his mouth becomes overwhelming. He doesn't feel anything, though. Perhaps they did too thorough a job with the healing spells...
It would be so very easy for him to lie here until his time runs out, until the Mark's liquid poison swamps his blood. That's why they did it, he knows. To break him, turn him into a whimpering, mindless creature that will not ever worm itself into Voldemort's trust and endanger the special place Malfoy has mapped out for himself and his heir in the ranks of the Death Eaters.
Malfoy... no, he can't think about them. If he does, the memories alone will drive him insane.
With trembling hands he fumbles for another of the phials with the Ombra Cordis. Fuck Snape and his lectures about mental stability, he thinks vehemently as he struggles with the stopper, almost dropping the phial several times. He needs something to stop him from losing it completely. He wonders if he is trembling at the brink of madness, or has gone over that particular edge already without noticing. Could you not notice?
The fluid spills onto his tongue, sweet and intensely bitter, evaporating before it can be swallowed. As if the potion were a shadow itself. It surges through his brain like a swarm of bees, but leaves behind something resembling clarity.
Clarity that only brings more helplessness. Perhaps he should stay here, after all. Because there is no way he will ever do what they want him to. No, not they - don't think of them. Him. Voldemort. There is no way he can hand over any of his friends to them. To Him. He is going to die. No, he's been dead ever since he's heard that condition. So why didn't he ask him to kill him when he had the chance? Why did hethrothrough...
He drags the broom out of the shed and mounts it with shaking limbs, realising that there's no way he can Apparate in this state. And if he falls off and breaks his bloody neck, what does it matter? It would be a fitting end. And yet, Hogwarts beckons in his mind's eye like a guiding light - he has made such an incredible mess of things, but if anyone can still help him, it's Dumbledore.

It is the worst broom ride of his life, including that one in sixth year when Slytherin Bludgers fractured three of his ribs before the first goal. How could it have gone so abysmally wrong?
His stomach lurches as he thinks of the poison, of how he is going to die, because even Dumbledore, he realises in the splitting clarity of half-madness, is not going to unmake this. Harry has come close, so close, to get to Voldemort, has sacrificed so bloody much, and it's been all in vain. So close, and yet he can not follow through on the ultimate betrayal.
Can not.
The thought of handing Hermione over to those mask-faced jackals is beyond incomprehensible, would have been even before he experienced the sheer depth of their depravity himself. The flash of recollection almost throws him off the Firebolt, and the poison curling in his bloodstream is suddenly a trivial thing compared to the sickness those images provoke. The broom slows to a painful crawl while he clings, trembling, to the handle.
Harry wraps the Ombra Cordis around his mind like a shield. He can handle anything, do whatever he has to, whatever that is. The broom's course stabilises, and it accelerates again.
And Ron...? How can he think about Ron? Even if it is the only chance to kill Voldemort, to get revenge, for Cedric and Sirius and all who went after them, for innocent Luna, who could soothe his heart and sharpen his mind, and will never do so again. For himself, least of all.
All, all academic. He could never do it.

~~~ *** ~~~
His subconscious has a decent sense of direction, he realises as Hogwarts begins to loom in front of his eyes, morning mist from the lake still curling about the towers like tattered flags of parley. His feet touch the cobblestones of the yard and stop there. It feels like terra incognita, like he has never been here before. His sense of has has been scalded away like everything else.
Invisibility Cloak still drawn tightly around him, Harry slips through the entrance hall like an intruder. That early in the morning - the antiquated clock outside the Great Hall shows it's a quarter to six - only a handful of the earliest risers are out of bed. A peek into the Hall reveals half a dozen sleepy lower-years propped over steaming mugs and books in preparation for a late exam. The lone brown-haired girl at the Gryffindor table could be Hermione, and tears sting in Harry's eyes as he imagines her looking up and smiling like hundreds of times before. But she isn't, and doesn't. Hermione is two thousand miles away, and he will not ever again think about calling her back.
Harry climbs up vast staircases and crosses empty corridors. Hogwarts, dead at sunrise.
You may have him until sunrise.
He'd almost pleaded with Wormtail to stay when the man had made to leave after throwing the compulsory curses that his master demanded, with no little revulsion on his face. But even then Harry had known that Pettigrew's presence would not have compelled them to hold back...
It takes him several minutes to notice that he has collapsed against the pedestal of the bust of Siegfried the Smarmy. It takes even longer to notice that he is crying soundlessly, and when he does he slams his fist against the marble in a fit of rage. He still doesn't feel anything.
Just when he has about resigned himself to remain there as an invisible puddle of misery until death comes, voices sound from further down thrridrridor. An early gaggle of upper-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs gathers outside the still-locked Charms classroom. They are huddled together, whispering, but the warped acoustics of the corridor allow some words to drift to Harry's ears. 'Luna' is one of them. He has seen students angsting over Death Eater killings - far, far too often in the last few years - and knows how terror and pity draw such groups together closely, as if touch could bring consolation. Yes, Harry is familiar with that, but there is a pervasive air of uneasiness about the group which makes him get up, shrug out of the cloak and pad noiselessly over towards them. They are so absorbed that they only realise he's standing behind them when his voice cuts coldly across their murmurs.
"What about Luna?"
They flutter apart like a flock of sparrows and stare at him in shock. "What did you say?" Harry repeats.
A gangly brown-haired Ravenclaw - Stewart Ackerley, if he remembers correctly - stares at him with something akin to terror.
"Potter," he stammers. "I'm so sorry. We know that she and you-" Before he can continue, Harry grabs him by the knot of his blue-bronze school tie and twists it around his hand forcefully enough to elicit a strangled noise.
"Tell me!" His hard voice forces several of the students a step back.
"Potter, you can't just-" a brave soul among the group objects, but is silenced by the sudden appearance of Harry's wand in his free hand. He relaxes his choke hold just enough to stop the boy from turning blue, and leaves the wand to hover between the pair in an eloquent threat.
"My brother works at the Department of Magical Catastrophes," Ackerley finally croaks. "They were sent to... to clean up after the attack on the Quibbler office." He winces. "He said that Luna... that she had been tortured, and... assaulted." He looks down at the floor dejectedly, oblivious suddenly to Harry's grip on his throat. "I'm sorry, Potter. You shouldn't have heard it like that. I thought the Headmaster..."
"I thought so, too," Harry replies flatly.
The Ravenclaw girl who stood up for Ackerley - Quirke, Harry's memory supplies - steps up, sorrow replacing the outrage on her face.
"Are you... will you be all right, Harry?"
He looks down at her, bile and bitterness mingling at the back of his throat.
"No Orla," he answers with complete honesty. "I won't."
They are still staring at him as he walks away, wand in his hand forgotten.
'It was over very quickly,' right, Dumbledore?
There was a time when he had loved the old man - he wonders where that has gone. Voldemort has shown him more honesty tonight. In a remote corner of his mind he understands it was said to protect him, but there have been too many protective lies and he knows, with absolute certainty, that he would never have gone to the Riddle House had he known, had he even suspected what they...
He shakes so hard the wand drops from his fingers, and it takes two tries to pick it up. He reaches for the last strands of the Ombra Cordis to shield himself from the quagmire of vile memories that tries to suck in his mind, but they elude him.
Harry wanders off, wetness spilling down his face, desperately trying not to think about Luna and what must have happened to her. He cannot go to Dumbledore. He could not conceal he knows, and he's too broken for a confrontation. It would be futile, anyway. Better to die quietly.

After a while, he realises that his steps have led him, inevitably, to the Gryffindor common room and then up to the seventh year dormitory. He walks in, eyes roaming over the familiar setting. His own bed curtains are shut securely, as if he were a ghost and the real Harry Potter was sleeping peacefully behind the red fabric. Soft snoring reverberates through the room - it's early, and the NEWTs are done. Ron's upper curtain is open, as if he'd gone to bed intent on listening for Harry's return. A vain attempt, Harry knows,auseause once Ron has fallen asleep, not even a wizard's duel between Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor across his pillow could rouse him.
The open curtain beckons him, and Harry slips through to sit on the edge of Ron's bed. It's a quiet place to think, and he needs to think. Ron's head is burrowed into the far end of the pillow like a reddish Niffler. All that's visible are flaming strands of hair. His mere sleeping presence is comforting, a comfort Harry knows he has no right to after what he has been considering to do to Ron before. Here is his best friend, who couldn't be more his brother if they shared blood, and he...
Vaguely, Harry marvels that he can even think about so absolute a betrayal, yet he is. Perhaps it's the last residue of the potion - surely he could never think it otherwise, could he? But... it's a chance. The first real chance to come along for the Order in over three years. All it would take would be one life, and no matter how desperately Harry wishes it could be his own, he cannot be both sacrifice and avenger. Part of him wants to wake Ron up and tell him everything. It should be Ron's choice to make, shouldn't it? What right does Harry have, taking it away from him?
But then he realises it would be the ultimate act of cruelty. He'd condemn Ron to a lifetime of guilt and self-contempt should he refuse, and to black, unbearable terror should he agree. No, if Harry is really going to do the unthinkable, the blame and the guilt must be his to bear. It's far less than he deserves. Better for Ron to hate Harry than himself.
The mark pulses against his arm, slick, oily and sickening. Harry smiles bitterly at the absurdity of his thoughts and gets up to leave.
"Harry?" The voice is thick with sleep, eyes blinking up owlishly from the pillow.
Harry is on his feet in an instant, tense and panicked. A callused hand closes around his wrist before he can slip away.
The>The Ombra Cordis builds its walls around his heart until he can look at his best friend again. Ron is nervous, almost scared, and Harry wants to hit him, again, for his blind faith.

In the end, they sneak up the garden path and on into the House under Harry's Invisibility Cloak, with no one to see and nobody to stop them. And why would they, Harry thinks, when he's doing exactly what they want of him?
When they reach the dining hall, Harry hesitates one last time, feeling Ron's shoulders trembling slightly against his under the cloak. When he throws the double doors open - there is no use in stalling, after all - Ron's hand clutches his arm and he utters a strangled, "What-?"
He falls silent when he takes in the scene before him.
The hall looks just as it did when Harry last saw it. Voldemort sits in his high-backed seat, but this time the languid shape of Bellatrix Lestrange is curled up on the narrow dais next to him. There seem to be fewer Death Eaters in attendance, and those who are present cluster in small, casual groups.
Voldemort and Bellatrix look up from their conversation as the doors open, and Ron groans, more to himself than to Harry.
"Merlin! You can't just walk in like that!"
But Harry does, walking them both forward, and throwing shut the doors before pulling off the cloak and letting it slide to the ground.
Ron freezes like a gnome facing a Jarvey as the attention of the entire room focuses on them.
Even through the Occlumency-blocked link between them, Harry feels Voldemort's twinge of surprise. Dark, sadistic surprise, but surprise nonetheless. He rises, while Lestrange leans back in sinister anticipation.
Voldemort's eyes slide over Harry's impassive face and come to rest on Ron. Harry can almost taste Ron's terror as a bitter tang at the back of his throat. His fingers are diggingnfulnfully into Harry's arm.
"Mr Weasley, I assume?" At the glee in the creature's voice Ron's nails dig deeper. He gives Harry a frantic look and Harry realises with a sudden, sickening jolt that he's waiting for an instruction, a clue to his role in the implementation of Harry's 'plan'.
It should hurt more, Harry thinks distractedly, but perhaps Malfoy's healing charms have finally numbed his mind as well as his body. He scans the room for them with all the paralysing terror of a rabbit with a bird of prey's talons embedded in its neck. But Bellatrix Lestrange aside, they're all anonymous behind masks and robes, and the panicked prickling in his neck remains.
You should be fearing for Ron, you miserable, cowardly bastard!
"I bid you welcome to my... lair, as young Harry would undoubtedly phrase it," Voldemort says.
"Harry?" Ron's voice is very small, sounding lost in a way Harry has never heard before.
"Iorryorry, Ron." And that is not enough, will never be enough, is so woefully insufficient that merely thinking it is an insult. But then again, there could never be an adequate apology.
"Does it distress you, Mr Weasley, that your supposed best friend has brought you here to die?"
Ron's attentiolts lts off Harry like a sheet of ice and focuses on the Dark Lord with almost hypnotic intensity. Harry makes a small protesting noise at the words, which Voldemort picks up on.
"Though that is not entirely fair on Mr Potter, is it? No, he seems to be very loyal to his friends, more so than to his ideologies." He gives Ron that horrid lipless grin that has haunted Harry's countless nightmares. "No, our Harry chose to give himself to me in exchange for the safety of clo closest circle, and your life is the price he has been willing to pay to prove his devotion. Well, yours or that Mudblood female's at Durmstrang, but it seems he has considered you the more expendable. I will leave it to you to decide, Mr Weasley, whether the friendship of the Boy Who Lived has been worth the price you'll pay for it."
Harry, who has felt Ron tense at the mention of Hermione's name and then fractionally relax afterwards, realises at that moment that Voldemort has misunderstood one crucial thing: far from being expendable, Ron being his best friend is actually the only reason he can do that to him.
Voldemort turns his attention back to Harry.
"Would you hand me Mr Weasley's wand, please?"
Harry looks at Ron, his own wand clutched in a shaky hand. He cannot read a shred of emotion in the mask-like face. Just when he has worked up the courage to cast Expelliarmus, Ron hands him wan wand with cold dignity. Harry takes it and passes it on to the Dark Lord without looking at either.
"Now that you've fulfilled your part of the bargain," Voldemort twirls the wand in his hands, "I will accept your fealty, Harry. It is, however, customary for all my aspiring Death Eaters to prove their dedication, and ability. Are you capable of casting the Unforgivables, Harry?"
Having his name spoken like that feels like being gently drowned in filth, and Harry is painfully aware of where this is going.
"Yes." His gaze flicks to Bellatrix Lestrange, who gives him a wink and a throaty chuckle. The other two he's learned from Snape, hating him for it all the while.
"Since you've fulfilled your obligations so well, I will of course not request that you demonstrate the Dark Arts on young Mr Weasley." Voldemort's voice practically drips with derision. "My servants tell me that you provided them with great entertainment last night, and I'm sure they would be more than happy to... take ca. of. of your little friend-"
"No!" Harry's voice cuts through the hall before he knows he's going to speak up. "I'll do it."
He would rather fight all of them - and Voldemort - wandless and barehanded all allow the Malfoys to lay a finger on Ron.
"Very well." The Dark Lord leans back into his seat, looking for all the world like a theatre-goer anticipating a particularly juicy performance. "You may proceed at your leisure."
A prickle at the back of his head warns Harry not to take Voldemort's seeming approval at face value - this is a test, and he knows it as well as anyone in the room. There is still a chance that the Dark Lord will amuse himself by watching him curse Ron and then kill him, too. And that will not do. If he has to damn his soul to a fate worse than a Dementor's Kiss, it will have to be worth it. He has to leave an impression. He has to make Voldemort want to keep him. Whatever it takes.

Imi>Imperio!"
At the sound of the curse, Ron flinches like under a whip and starts to tremble. He fights it, but only half-heartedly. Perhaps it's the shock. Perhaps he just doesn't care any more. And resisting Imperius has never been Ron's strong suit. The shivers increase when Harry speaks his commands, low, cool and precise. Voicing it in his mind would have been enough, of course, but if he has to do it, he'll do it right. The collective gasp from the ed sed spectators seems to prove his point.
Now Ron fights, hands clenched and almost biting through his lower lip, but now it's too late - the Curse has had time to take root in his mind. Ron is shaking so hard that his teeth are chattering as he sinks to his knees, slowly and reluctantly as if an invisible yoke was pressing down on his shoulders. His nails scrape over the cloth of Harry's robe on the way down in mute, ineffectual protest.
Harry tries to even his breathing as hands slide over his robes, over his skin, and he curses himself, curses Ron, and swears the most horrifying death he con contrive on the Malfoys who have twisted his mind and made him capable of so great an abomination.
A sickening heat rush spills through him as he feels these painfully curved, pliant lips, and he has to dig nails into his palms and chew his tongue to stifle a sound. Bliss and agony mingle on Ron's slightly upturned face, bliss from the curse, and agony from the humiliation of the act.
If Harry closes his eyes very tightly, draws his mind into himself and shuts out his surroundings with all the willpower he can muster, the sensation alone is pleasant. No, more than pleasant - exquisite. But that's not him, it's the Ombra Cordis. It has to be, doesn't itas tas to be. Has to!
When it's over and Harry's clothing has been properly restored and the curse has been called off, Harry takes in the glistening lips, laboured breath and the incredulous horror that mars Ron's face and wonders when he will finally wake up from this nightmare! He can see the spiderweb-cracks behind those tearfilled eyes and knows he has shattered something beyond repair. He has truly become what he hates most. And a sinister, minuscule fragment of his mind revels in it. Which is probably the worst of all.
"Don't bother getting up," Harry sneers, which provokes a titter of laughter from the watching Death Eaters.
He looks down at Ron, so pathetic, so humiliated, so broken. It doesn't make him sad - it makes him angry. Harry recalls his petulance and petty jealousy, his cruel rejection during the Triwizard Tournament, the unfulfilled ambition that has always overshadowed their friendship, but those are small things - he won't be able to sustain the Cruciatus Curse on that.
Noat fat fills Harry with a surge of blind rage is that Ron should have known. He'd had the proof shoved in his face again and again: a Parselmouth who resurrected Voldemort; who channelled the Dark Lord and practically set up his godfather to be killed; who Crucio-ed a madwoman and confessed under a vow of secrecy the rush of dark pleasure he felt when he threw the same curse at Snape.
Ron should have realised, he should have seen right through him, seen that he was unworthy. But no, Ron has to be blind, and bloody trusting and stupid, and now he won't even fight, and he deserves everything he's going to get. He's asking for it.
Harry embraces his rage, lets it course through him and fill him, and flings it at the miserable bundle at his feet with all the force he can muster.
"Crucio!"
For a while, tloodlood that thunders in his ears is almost enough to drown out Ron's screams. It's only when they rise into wild, high-pitched shrieks and finally weaken to inhuman gurgles and moans that Harry dares to steal a glimpse at his handiwork, a sick creature held up only by the invisible hands of the Ombra Cordis.
The contortions of Ron's body on the floor call to mind the image of an alien, red-black snake, twisting imorbmorbid dance. He doesn't know how long he watches, half-hypnotised, before being able to gather enough presence of mind to Finite! the curse. At last, the writhing stops, and so do the noises, and Ron's body stills at his feet, bleeding nails still digging, claw-like, into the lacquered parquet. His cheek has come to rest against the side of Harry's boot in such an abject, feeble plea for mercy that a raw, protesting sound wells up in Harry's throat.
Ron's eyes open to look up at him, pupils ringed wiadneadness and something else that Harry is unable to decipher, but he knows that if he has to withstand that look for one more second, he will turn that cursed wand of his against Voldemort and the whole room, and then he'll die for it and they'll do worse - if there is worse - to Ron just to spit on Harry's memory.
He raises his wand one last time because he just can't bear it any more, and drowns his horror and disgust and despair in a flood of the green light that so complements his eyes.

He only realises that he has lost his balance when he finds himself on his knees next to the body, wand falling from his paralysed hand, numb and frozen. Even when Voldemort walks up to him, Vanishing Ron's body with a careless wand-flick on the way, and lifts up his chin with bony fingers to look into his face, he just kneels there, eyes still filled with shadows of the Avada Kedavra, his mouth a thin, harsh line as if he'll never speak again.
"You have managed to surprise me once again, Harry Potter," the Dark Lord acknowledges, and Harry thinks, Good, you can kill me now.
But emoremort just reaches into his s ans and takes out a heavy pouch and throws it to a smirking Bellatrix Lestrange.
"You lost me quite a sum, Harry, but the performance was certainly worth it," he states. "You were right about him, Bella," he concedes over his shoulder to the female Death Eater.
She gives a low, delighted chuckle and tucks a strand of black hair behind her ear in a surprisingly girlish gesture.
"I felt the beautiful darkness in the little one," she breathes, eyes shining.
They share a meaningful look before Voldemort takes hold of Harry's limp arm and touches his wand to the spot where the Mark is still glistening wetly against his skin, and it burns, burns enough to jolt Harry out of his paralysis, though not quite enough to make him care. Wetness is replaced by a rough, burning sting, and suddenly Harry realises that he is not going to die today. He is a vengeful creature, Lord Voldemort, and watching Harry torture himself to madness with these memories will be so more infinitely pleasurable for him than the relative mercy of ending Harry's existence here and now.
He ws ons on shaky legs as Voldemort's hand pulls him upright.
"You will accompany me to my quarters, my young servant. There are things we have to speak about."
Harry doesn't answer, but there is something comforting about just letting the man whom he is going to kill lead him off to wherever he chooses. As long as he remains a passive marionette in those hands, he's not going to lash out in anguish and bring them all down on him.
As he makes to step into the torch-lit corridor, one of the Death Eaters next to Voldemort steps up and pushes back his hood to reveal thin, colourless hair and pale-blue eyes. He scrutinises Harry for a long moment, and then holds out his hand - human, not silver - with an unreadable expron. on. A shudder passes through Harry from head to toe as he waits for what he knows is going to be the most brutal blow of all.
"Welcome, brother," Peter Pettigrew says.
Harry bows his head and takes the proffered hand.

~~~ *** ~~~
Three ms las later, the headlines of the wizarding press - from the Daily Prophet to Witch Weekly to the Aberfeldy Crup Breeding Bulletin - all publish one headline only. It proclaims that You-Know-Who has been defeated, a second time, by Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. No details are forthcoming, although the letters to the editors abound with outrageous theories in the days and weeks following the initial report. But no official confirmations or denials follow. The hero of the wizarding world has vanished, and with him what seems to be the majority of Voldemort's former followers.

~ End of Part 1 ~

~ To be continued in Part 2: Trinity: Lovers ~

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Trinity: Brothers