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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood	By : DictionaryWrites Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3021 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and the characters therein belong to JK Rowling; I'm playing in the sandbox, as it were, whilst claiming no ownership and making no money.

Chapter List
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Harry sighs, and he wipes his quill over the blotter before setting it aside again. In front of him, open, is a copy of the Daily Prophet, and over its double page spread is an exposé of sorts on Chad Arnett, noting his burial, his lack of next of kin, and so on, as well as going through his crimes in the past year or so. Harry is trying to write an editorial in response to the article, wishing to talk about how Chad Arnett is only a worry on the side rather than the wizarding world's primary focus, but the words just won't come.
He feels powerless, sitting at a lunch table and thinking about the Death Eaters and Lockhart's followers both, and he can't bring himself to touch any of the food in front of him. In his pocket, folded into a small square, is a note from Professor Dumbledore, which had just read, in neat handwriting, "Our first lesson will progress at 7pm this evening."
Harry takes a sip of his pumpkin juice, and the taste makes him feel sick, so he sets it aside again. There's a creak of the great hall doors as the Divination students come down from the tower for lunch, and Harry glances towards the group of them. Ron Weasley looks as pale as a sheet, and Lavender Brown is clutching tightly to Parvati Patil's sleeve on one hand, and holding a Ravenclaw's hand tightly in her other. They're all looking directly at him, and Harry squints at the group of them, seeing a slightly taller figure in deep grey robes behind them.
He feels some of the blood drain out of his face, and he whips his head around to look at the staff table. Snape and Sinistra are already on their feet and coming towards them, and Harry packs up his things, wanting to get out of the great hall as quickly as possible.
"Harry," Ron says, voice quavering. "We were in Divination, and-"
"Yeah, Ron, I've put the pieces together," Harry says quickly, shutting him up. "You, you're a records man from the Ministry. The Unspeakables always send a records man so that they stay anonymous." He's not a very tall man at all now Harry's up close to him, and the other fourth years are nearly up to his height: he has hair the colour of chestnuts, and his eyes are a glassy blue behind the thin, oval rims of his glasses.
"Yes," the man says. His voice is deep, way deeper than Harry would have expected to look at him. "You should come with me, Mr Potter. Professor Snape, sir, you would accompany him, as his Head of House?"
"Yes," Snape says firmly. His expression is neutral, but Sinistra looks wide-eyed, and she shows her worry on her face even if Snape doesn't. "Get out of the way." This is directed at the Divination students lingering around them, and they all blanch, quickly making their ways over to their house tables and settling themselves down. The only one that lingers is Ron, and he reaches out, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder and squeezing, just slightly - it's what Arthur would do, if he were here, Harry is dimly aware. Ron opens his mouth twice, but both times he gives up, and he eventually settles on not saying anything - he just nods his head to Harry, and he makes his way back to the table.
Harry, Snape and the Ministry man step into the entrance hall, and Sinistra, after a murmured word with Snape, walks towards the staircases, obviously on her way to Dumbledore's office.
"It is my duty to inform you, Mr Potter, that you were a named figure in a prophecy made this morning at 11:22 by Professor Sybil Trelawney." The Ministry man is wearing a neat, copper nameplate on his right breast, under the Ministry symbol embroidered there: Dorian Keats. Keats' face is forced into a sort of neutrality, but he isn't anything like Snape - Harry can see that his lips are held too tightly together, that his cheeks are drawn a little too pale, and that he has a few lines in his forehead. He looks scared.
"What other figures were named?" Harry asks. Keats' nostrils flare, and he draws in a tiny breath.
"The Dark Lord was the other figure mentioned, Mr Potter." Keats' blue eyes study Harry's face, and Harry turns his head away slightly, thinking it through. He hadn't really considered taking Divination as a subject last year, choosing Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures instead, but he'd reread the chapter on Divination in Cecilia's book, An Introduction To The Wizarding World. It had noted a generally lax attitude to the magic throughout the wizarding world, but a section had been devoted to the Hall of Prophecies in the Department of Mysteries: only those mentioned in prophecies could pick them up from the shelves and listen to them once they were made, and in the case of immediately mentioned figures, they would be contacted and informed about the process. "It is my duty to ask you if you would like to hear the contents of the prophecy."
"Divination is a murky science," Harry says quietly. "There's no guarantee the prophecy will be fulfilled, whatever it is."
"No, sir," Keats agrees. His face is clinging to its attempt at neutrality, but his voice quavers. Harry looks at Snape, who he finds is already looking at him. Snape's black eyes are impossible to read as he looks at Harry's face, and Harry finds himself wanting to ask the man's opinion, but he knows that Snape won't give him a straight answer, and so he looks back to Keats.
"I want to hear it," Harry says. Keats inclines his head, and Harry shoulders his bag properly, following him and Snape out into the courtyard and down towards the Hogwarts gates to Apparate into London.
---
Unspeakables, Harry discovers, do not wear masks.
He doesn't know why he assumed that they did - he'd known for a while that Unspeakables worked anonymously in the Ministry due to the dangerous and confidential nature of a lot of their work, and his mind had simply conjured up the image of an Unspeakable in their deep, purple robes and wearing a mask not that different to those of the Death Eaters, but they don't. As Harry and Snape follow Dorian Keats down the corridors of the Department of Mysteries, which Keats traverses with ease, Unspeakables pass them by, and although Harry looks at their faces, he finds that as soon as they pass by, he forgets the features of them.
"Professor," Harry murmurs quietly, and Snape glances at him.
"It's an enchantment embedded in their robes, Potter," he answers at length, and he says, "Unspeakables have always been anonymous, and have worn similar enchantments since the advent of the Ministry of Magic." Harry nods his head, not saying anything further, and he treks after Snape and Keats. As they move, Harry tries to take not of the corridors he's moving through, but they're complex and weaving, even compared to the somewhat labyrinthine nature of the rest of the Ministry, and he gives up as Keats leads them through a circular room with a dozen doors around its edges.
The hall they enter is high-ceilinged and cavernous, and in every direction span shelves upon shelves of deepest ebony, lit by the candles hovering neatly in the air above them. Upon each shelf, neatly labelled with a bronze plaque beneath it, are numerous globes of various sizes, each made of clouded glass - they vaguely remind Harry of crystal balls, but he knows a devoted Divination student like Lavender Brown would probably lecture him on the differences.
"These are the prophecies, aren't they?" Harry asks, and Keats gives a neat inclination of his head. He gestures for Harry to follow him with a silent inclination of his head, and Harry follows him. Snape, Harry notices, lingers back slightly now - he keeps within a distance to see Harry, but he remains slightly out of earshot. Harry isn't sure whether it makes him glad or nervous. "How did it get here?" Harry asks quietly. "It was only recorded an hour ago, and you were in the castle."
"Prophecies aren't recorded by memory." Keats murmurs. "Magic woven into the globes here will alert Unspeakables that a prophecy has been told, and the magic will catch the prophecy itself, and then someone will be dispatched to collect memories of the incident to verify it. We can note down memories and the words of the prophecy for our own records, but the prophecies here can only be examined by those directly mentioned in them. Here, it's this one."
Keats has pretty, manicured hands that are very pale: he wears light blue polish on his neatly trimmed nails, and on the back of his left hand, a small tattoo of a constellation. It's with his left hand that he points to a globe on the shelf. Underneath, the brassy plaque reads clearly:
S.P.T. to L.B.
Dark Lord & Harry Potter
Harry stares at it, his lips pressed together. Suddenly, a thousand questions are running through his head - why does it just say L.B. when it was in front of the whole class? Why is the cloudy substance within the globe black when the others are various, misty shades of red and green? What will it feel like to touch it? Will Harry hear it through his ears or inside his head? What if he drops it? Will Keats hear it? Would Voldemort be able to pick it up?
Harry reaches out, takes the glassy sphere in his hand, and takes it from the shelf.
Immediately, the Hall of Prophecies seems to fly out from under him, leaving him suspended in blackness, and he clutches tightly at the globe in his hand, looking sharply from one way to the other. He sees, then, a sort of ghost of Professor Trelawney float in the darkness - except she isn't a ghost. She's in full colour, but she's opaque, and when Harry tries to put his hand through her, part of her chest disperses like mist before reconstituting itself. Her voice is hoarse and trembling, and it's weighted with a significance that's completely absent from her usual pageantry.
"The Dark Lord, long thirsty, will sate himself on the deaths of snakes, but here will be his last drink..." As the ghost-Trelawney speaks, her hands shake at her sides, not moving or waving around like they do when she normally talks, and her eyes are glassy and unfocused behind her glasses. Harry wonders what it feels like to go into a trance like that, dimly, but he knows he doesn't ever want to find out. Just looking at Trelawney do it is horrible. "The Boy Who Lived, now Dying, will fall at his hand... And with this snake-speaker's death, so too will the Dark Lord begin his fall... Snakes will flee from the Dark Lord's serpent tongue, and his thirst will never again be slaked... The Boy Who Lived, now Dying, will stopper his thirst..."
The blackness and Trelawney fade away into the same ether, and Harry is left standing still, holding the prophecy orb too tightly in his right hand.
"Did you hear it?" Harry asks softly.
"Not this time," Keats says quietly, in a voice that Harry knows is trying to be comforting, but sounds weak. "But I took down the details of it earlier."
"Can I have a written copy?" Harry asks. Keats inclines his head. He teeters on his feet, glancing around the Hall of Prophecies, and then looking at Harry's face. He looks concerned, even more than before, somehow. "What?"
"If you'd replace that prophecy, Mr Potter..." Keats says quietly, and once Harry has, he follows Keats down another set of shelves. Hands behind his back, expression carefully blank, Snape is already standing there. On a brassy plaque beneath another prophecy reads:
S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord & (?) Harry Potter
Harry stares at it.
"When was this one made?" Harry asks. He's surprised by how quiet his own voice sounds, despite the echo in the hall.
"Some short time before the Dark Lord came upon you and your parents in Godric's Hollow," Snape says. He doesn't say anything else, and his quiet voice seems to ring with significance between the shelves. Harry stares at the plaque, stares at it in utter silence.
"Mr Keats, why wasn't I told about this one before?"
"It was made when you were an infant," Keats answers cleanly. "And when it was initially made, it might not have referred to you specifically. Had no other prophecy been made concerning you in the meantime, you would have been notified of its existence in the Ministry upon your coming of age."
"Sounds great," Harry says dully. "A wizard's watch and a fucking prophecy about me and Voldemort."
"Do you want to-" Harry ignores Keats, reaches out, and grabs the prophecy off the shelf.
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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood