Chapter Text
A circle has no beginning and it has no end.
Death calls forth the end of Life, the same way Life ends Death.
The serpent rolls around and around, no beginning and no end. It grows and changes but never ceases. It bites it's tail and it poisons itself with Life, the same way it cleanses itself in Death.
In the same manner the Cycle of Rebirth continues, as Souls come and Souls go. They experience, and they forget. They start again.
(But something went wrong, somewhere down the line.)
Harry wasn't supposed to come back after the first time.
A circle has no beginning and it has no end.
But the tail grows shorter each time.
Getting caught by Grindelwald's intense focus of attention was a dangerous thing. He didn't simply content himself by admiring from afar, no.
The man wanted to possess, to crawl into every nook and cranny of the objects of his interest and make them simply his.
Once he caught wind of a little Seer appearing out of the woods in the middle of Hogwarts, he set his spy on his trail. The woman was useless for much else, for all the Clairvoyant she proclaimed to be, and using her mind to watch through her eyes the proceedings at Hogwarts gave him a feel of what his biggest threat to date was up to.
Dumbledore seemed rather cozy in his position of inaction. Even as he loomed like a rather dark cloud over Grindelwald's reign, so far he had made no move against him for quite a few years now, no matter the pressure the British Ministry of Magic seemed to be trying to put on his shoulders.
Not after Credence.
He had, however, seemed oddly suspicious of the little Seer, as he watched through his spy's memories. He had looked down his nose at the new student, suspicious baby blue eyes missing their delightful twinkle for once. His gaze followed the boy from room to room, across corridors and around the Castle's grounds.
However, that was as much as he was able to see. His spy left much to be desired where the aspect of following the boy was concerned. The boy seemed to pop in and out of existence as he willed it, disappearing from corridors where no place to hide was available, appearing behind people and statue's seemly at random, one moment not there and the next simply breathing in the space where nothing had stood before.
He intrigued Grindelwald to no end.
His Seer magic left much to be desired. At least, that is what it looked like at first. He seemed to have an affinity for tricky situations and seeing into other students rather bad luck. And that was it, as far as the Dark Lord could see.
Until.
Until he predicted the little muggleborn's death.
He watched on from his spy's memories as the boy spoke of a terrible Future that would come to be and no one seemed to pay him any mind. But Grindelwald knew the barely concealed warnings woven between sweet words and sleepy smiles. He knew the tilt to his voice when he spoke, and were he there to witness it, he would bet his life that little Harry's Magic would have the taste of a void waiting to open, of a million universes melted together gracing his skin, of ozone and Other.
His spy had watched from the corner of a corridor as the boy sat alone in the still of a window overseeing the Castle grounds, drawing in a little notebook with different colours, completely lost in the task.
He had been approached by a taller boy, one who seemed to constantly hang onto his shadow and cling like a particularly dark cloak of magic and darkness. The boy had taken one look at the notebook and Grindelwald had known instinctively that the boy had drawn into the Future. The brown haired boy had possibly taken a metaphorical step back, jaw slack and manic eyes wide.
When his own spy had finally caught sight of the girl lying dead between the doorway of an overflowed bathroom in the yellowing pages of the notebook, Grindelwald wondered what else the little boy could See.
His own Seer abilities had limitations, however exploited and controlled they seemed to be. He had honed his senses as best he could over the years, but even he had reached a wall he could not cross.
He could not look into his own future, for starters. Only once had he been capable of such a feat, and so far that future had not yet come to pass. If it ever would.
He did not enter a trance or sprout out prophecies as many of the most known Seers did. Most of his Sight was tied to his Magic. Most of it took shape of visions and illusions of distorted happenings, different possibilities of things he already had a certain knowledge of.
The little Seer seemed to have no such limitations.
Grindelwald craved to crawl into his mind and uncover every single secret, to use his powers for himself and possibly unlock the knowledge he so desperately craved.
The Deathly Hallows.
Dying was rather like falling asleep. It was familiar, and comforting to some extent. He was always ready when it happened, no matter how many times the sheer thought of ceasing to exist scared him half to a panick attack.
Giving under the weight of his own consciousness, slipping under a warm cloak and letting himself be carried off somewhere else, where there were no hurts and no responsibilities and... something was wrong.
The tether that kept Harry from slipping was missing.
And Harry was not dying.
His magic snapped and raged against whatever poison was running through his veins. It made his blood feel sluggish, viscous as it struggled to travel through his veins.
He tried to remain still, breathing through it as his magic tried to work overtime to dissolve whatever they had given him.
As he regained more and more awareness of his surroundings he became aware that he was on his side on a push and warm surface.
Metal had been wrapped around his wrists and neck, cold where they touched his skin and tingling like they had electricity running through them.
He opened his eyes to an opulent room, so full of objects and fine cloths it would give any Malfoy, past or present, a run for their money. Everything blurred together, one object onto the next. He'd lost his glasses.
He was laying on the center of a big bed, curtains around the mattress half closed and letting through little light.
Rugs of different sizes and materials covered the stone floors, from pelts of what looked like impossibly big bears to tapestries depicting battles carefully hand stitched in reds and maroons.
The metal around his wrists, from what he could see, was covered in runes.
Someone had taken the time to take any and all accessories he carried on him, from his star pendant to his various rings and bracelets, everything except... for the little dragon curled around his finger, seemly unperturbed from all the moving around.
His star robes where also missing, of course, far, far away from him and hopefully having done their purpose of protecting the little silver eyed boy, leaving him in only the white knitted sweater Abraxas had lent him for the occasion and black slacks.
As if called to existence the little dragon seemed to sigh, curling even tighter around his finger. One green stone eye closing as it snuggled against his skin. Harry stared for a long moment. He had never seen it move like that, before. Like it was alive and breathing and rather content where he was.
He wondered what had triggered it. He knew, instinctively, that Tom Riddle had drenched the ring in his own Magic (and even his blood after his run in with the Basilisk), and the inside of the wings barely seen when worn were covered with tiny runes stitched in magic.
Something had changed from the time he had acquired the ring to now.
A mystery for another day perhaps. Now he needed to know where he was, and how to get the fuck out.
He moved to sit, gasping as pain travelled down his back from somewhere around the back of his neck. He breathed through the pins and needles spreading through his skin for a few moments, still dizzy and uncoordinated from whatever was running through his veins at the moment.
Struggling, he left the bed behind as he tried to stand on unsteady feet, desperately looking for something to hold on to. His cane, just like his wand, and his glasses was nowhere in sight.
The perpetual chill in the room only made his limp worse.
He wobbled to the front of the room, to the only closed door that could possibly lead to the outside.
He discovered then, that the metal around his wrists and neck was not only a rather gauche accessory, as he tried to use his magic to unlock the door, but a pair of dampening shackles.
Magical shackles had been placed around him at some point it seemed.
He wandered how long ago that was.
He wondered why the little ring still moved about around his finger still, if no magic connected it to Harry now.
He was terribly cold, more so than usual.
At some point food had appeared on the little table by the foot of the bed, ham and cheese in small bite sandwiches with boiling hot water on a painted tea set, bags of leaves of different flavours off to the side, ready to steep.
Something deep in his gut told him to not touch the food.
What seemed to be hours later someone finally came to drag him out.
He had been sitting on the floor close to the roaring fire, a blanket taken from the bed wrapped around him as he tried and failed to maintain warmth. He had never been more aware of how much magic he used to keep his body temperature up until that moment.
The Acolyte sent to escort him out had looked first towards the bed, possibly an unconscious glance and then had locked eyes with Harry, trembling by the fire with blue tinted lips. The man startled bad enough to drop his wand, which he carried on one hand, pointed and ready, as if Harry would be any danger as he was now.
He was dressed in blood red robes, thick and lined with fur on the inside, black and silver details embroidered on the outside. His face was half covered by a white blank mask, strawberry red hair falling in and around the white porcelain.
He glared at the man and leaned closer to the fire. He held no weapon now. Now wand, no magic.
Only the heavy candlestick holder, almost white in it's color, heavy with luxury, that was hidden beneath the blanket gave him any assurance of security.
"Milord requires your presence, Das Büberl." His words were heavily accented, almost unintelligible from one another to Harry's slow brain. When he received no immediate response from him, he approached with long strides. "MiLord—"
"I heard you the first time." He spat back between his teeth, limbs locking around his own knees as he tried to keep warm. If the Dark Lord required his fucking presence he would have to get Harry himself.
The man's face twisted, a frown pulling down at the corners of his lips.
Harry took a slow breath, the smell of the hearth and the cold, cold, cold filling his lungs until they could burst, and then let it go slowly. He looked at the man stood before him, green eyes unfocused and seeing beyond.
Then promptly looked away again.
The man was of no importance.
He would be dead before the night was upon them.
Harry let himself be dragged through the door, blanket still tightly wrapped around him and shamelessly leaning most of his body weight on the man.
If they would provide no cane, he would not pretend to walk on two functional legs for them.
The man muttered underneath his breath in what sounded like distorted German to his own ears as he more or less was obligated to haul Harry across the long hallway. Thankfully it was covered in a thick red carpet from one end to the other, otherwise Harry feared he would have already succumbed down to the cold linoleum floor underneath.
The Castle (because it could be nothing more and nothing less) was drenched in magic, from heating spells that barely scratched the surface of the biting cold that crept from the outside, to wards closing off rooms and even entire sections of the Castle as they strode past.
(He could almost taste the outside wards keeping them locked in on the back of his tongue.)
Harry tripped as he went, eyes refusing to focus on what was in front of him, seeing shadows where there were none, people striding in, running, screaming bloody and robes torn and— he was slipping before the man could catch him.
Before he could wake, he heard screams.
He could not have been unconscious for more than ten seconds, enough for his body to hit the ground but not enough to loose his bearings.
Curses flew above his head, none gracing his skin but flying dangerously close.
The man who had escorted him out of his room lay dead on a pool of his own blood, throat cut from one end to the other like butter. His blood was warm were it touched Harry's hand, tainting his borrowed white knitted sweater red.
Red.
The little dragon on his finger opened it's green eye, looking back at Harry like a rather content accomplice to a crime it didn't commit.
When Harry looked up he understood why.
The brass tips Tom Riddle had gifted him, five or six by his count, all stolen in moments where he was distracted and aloof, that had been carved in magic and drenched in spells and runes and twirls and drawings were attacking everything and everyone within their reach, opening skin like it was made of petals, avoiding spells and curses and cutting through people and magic and wands with single minded focus.
People fell down like dead flies.
Harry looked through with detatched horror as they tore through everything on their path to him.
Until Grindelwald strode through the room.
He held the candle holder close to his body, hidden by the red stained blanket.
Harry struggled to sit, the metal around his body pulling at his Magic, not letting a whisp of it pull through as he watched the brass tips go for the throat of a woman by the Dark Lords side.
Fire sprouted from Grindelwald's familiar looking long wand, scalding hot and almost white in colour, as a Phoenix made of flame devoured and melted the brass tips Tom had so lovingly carved for him.
They didn't go without a fight, of course.
Once the Magic was released from the confines of the metal they tried to latch onto the nearest living human, the woman, poisoning her veins and making her gasp in pain as they tore through tissue and veins in search of her heart.
Grindelwald had no qualms about turning the flames on her.
Harry watched in horror as she burned, gagging as the smell of burnt flesh hit him square in the face. The ring tightened around his finger, little fangs bitting without breaking skin. The pain helped him center himself a little. Helped him look away.
Then the screams finally ceased, and the silence sounded loud against his ears. Blood pumped rapidly in his veins, magic burning to get out.
"Interesting piece of magic, that. Yours?" The Dark Lord drawled, turning in his heels to look at Harry. A pleased smirk graced his lips. He cared not for his fallen soldiers, it seemed.
"No." Harry breathed through the terror gripping him. He had fought a Dark Lord already. He could fight another.
"Ah. Well. I imagened not." When Harry was finally able to lift his head again he almost gagged once more. The look on the man's face was impossibly predatory, greedy as he tried to slip past Harry's defenses and look through his mind. His magic was heavy, greasy and slippery, uncaring of Harry's own mind and hurts.
Harry was not the best when it came to Occlumency. Snape had told him so several times in fact, as he violated his mind over and over.
But Harry didn't need impenetrable defenses.
He needed distractions.
And he was an expert in having scattered memories, thoughts pulling from one side to the other with no rhyme or reason, that only made sense to him.
He wanted to look? Then look he would.
He pulled on the most intrinsic part of himself, from the depths of his consciousness, from the warm, warm feeling of slipping off.
When dying was concerned, the nothingness stared back from the void.
And that was all Grindelwald could see when he gazed at those unfocused green, green eyes.
The void. Looking back at him.
There was no slipping past the memory, as he could not see where it began and where it would end. It was all encompassing, from all sides and all angles. Forcing his way through would not be an option. Death had no beginning and it had no end, after all.
There was no feeling, no distinguishing emotions or premonitions.
Only darkness.
For someone who feared Death more than anything, who feared the nothingness of having a grave unmarked, forgotten to the world beyond a coffin with dreams left unaccomplished... it was torture.
Grindelwald looked away after a few seconds, mismatched eyes wide and pupils blown.
The loss made something throb at the back of his eyes.
"It is impolite to read another's mind without permission, didn't you know?" Harry couldn't help but ask, teeth bared. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, moving sluggishly as he tried to speak, slurring his words.
He was cold.
Grindewald snapped his eyes back to him, something unhinged in his expression.
But Harry was not scared now. He was past fear.
Adrenaline pumped through his veins in place where his magic should be, opening up all his senses.
He had been on the focus of a Dark Lord for longer than he had been alive, already.
This? This was familiar.
It seems his only purpose in life was to be obsessed over by a Dark Lord, and then another, slightly more sane one.
And then there was Grindelwald, whatever it was that he wanted out of Harry.
"You smell terribly like Death."
And he did. Tendrils upon tendrils of magic had been tightly wrapped around the Dark Lord, a monstrous malformed tapestry of their own on top of his own Dark, foul Magic. Lives that had been cut too short by his hand, where whisps of Life had been snipped and had stuck to the blade that had torn them apart. The stentch of sweet death was agonizing. This man was playing a dangerous game, not only seeking Death but pretending himself to be a Reaper, worthy of taking the Souls of those fallen on his wand.
Grindelwald only tilted his head in response, mismatched eyes looking beyond his shadow, trying to get a glimpse of Harry. The real Harry, that is. Not whatever had been left behind.
He would find nothing.
He had wondered too, where he had gone. Where the other half of him was, after he'd been trapped by flames and caged like an animal with nowhere to go.
There was a reason Harry could look beyond the veil, to possible Futures not yet come to pass where Universes stretched thin and overlapped, where they collided together, out of sight and out of reach for normal people.
"Du bist süß." He approached Harry like he would a wounded animal, wand in hand pointing right at his head and with sure steps. "Come, Little Seer. We'll see what we can do about that attitude of yours." He was dragged across the floor on his knees by Magic, brought to the Dark Lord's side like a rather moody sack of potatoes and not a human being. He so badly wanted to curse him, fire burning through his veins in response.
He held onto the candlestick and hoped.
Tom Riddle was furious.
Tom Riddle was in shambles.
He had torn a woman half mad in vain. Her body would forever reside in the Chamber of Secrets, alongisde the burnt corpse of Slytherin's Basilisk. He had promised to make her life torture, however short it was.
And he did.
Let it be known Tom Riddle kept his promises, bound in blood and magic.
He had tied her up, half mad and barely conscious already, babbling incoherent words in what could have been German but he couldn't be sure, and dragged her down, down, down to the Chamber.
He had forced her hand, pulled from memories upon memories of writting back and forth with the Dark Lord. Letters that had been then burnt to the crisp now recreated down to the dot.
Forcing Grindelwald's perfect penmanship was even easier. Erasing any and all traces of his own magic, leaving behind only the faint Dark pull, so similiar only someone who knew Grindelwald intimately would be able to tell the traces of magic apart, on the stamp around his signature. Impersonal.
For she was just another underlying left running around Europe.
He planted the parchments all over the place, like careless love letters proudly displayed around her office, around the Divinations classroom, around her sleeping quarters.
He burned his sigil in magic on every available surface he could, discretely but possessively on every piece of clothing, jewelry and furniture.
He didn't even have to fake her obsessive behavior regarding Harry, as he found multiple still pictures of him in a closed box. He left those for the Aurors to find, too.
Dark magical artifacs lost to time were pulled from his little forgotten Library, foul and drenched in black tendrils, no matter how much time had passed since they had been used in any rutials. That, more than anything, would attract attention. Hopefully everything else fell into place on it's own.
She would go down, one way or another, and her name would be forever associated with Grindelwald's. She would not be alive to see it, and yet warrants for her arrest would be put out Nation wide.
As it was, she was the mole rat inside of Hogwarts, and he would make damn sure everyone knew.
And finally, when she was no longer of use to him, from the forced handwriting to the burned memories and copying her magic traces— the green light filled her line of vision and she was nothing more than a pile of bones to lay to rest.
And yet.
And yet, he still didn't know where Harry was located.
He had expanded through and stretched his contacts thin, trying to feel out some of Grindelwald's followers for the exact pin on his current whereabouts.
Nothing.
Nobody seemed to know nothing of a kidnapped boy, or where the Dark Lord planned to be.
It seemed like a stand still.
It was driving Tom up the wall.
Then.
Then Abraxas had come running in, in the middle of a private meeting with a Ravenclaw Prefect whose cousin was deep between the trenches somewhere in Russia and claimed to have close contact with a few Acolytes who might possibly know something, when the blond boy burst through the door.
The panicked look to his features wavered before falling back into a cold mask, clear eyes piercing through the girl standing by the fire, such intensity making her flinch in her place. His eyes dragged to Tom, sitting by a big wooden desk absolutely covered in paper of all possible sizes and colours, from local news paper clippings to maps and letters and pictures.
He spoke before Tom could begin to regain a sense of decorum.
"Terribly sorry to cut this short, but this needs your outmost attention now, my Lord." He stood straight, back to the door and eyes tight around the corners, deep purple beneath them not concealed with glamours or makeup. His hair curled around his face and down his back in loose waves, even if someone at some point in the last two days had tried to contain it in a braid. He was a Knight at this very moment, and not the Heir to his House. He stood like a soldier ready for battle, and the girl was on his way.
Their eyes locked and in a second he was in.
Abraxas didn't spare another look to the Ravenclaw standing in the room, and neither did Tom. He apologized to her without glancing her way as he browsed through Abraxas' scattered mind, his occlumency shields low enough to permit him to ruffle through his most recent memories.
Looking through memories was like looking through a veil. The older the memories, the less details the person could recall, the less vivid they were.
Abraxas' mind was normally an organized Palace dressed in white, calm and unshakeable. Few white peacocks guarded the entrance, and they brushed against Tom as he strode past the Main Doors.
His mind was normally organized, yes, memories locked away in endless rooms and floors, where happy memories tainted the pearly white doors in shiny colours, sad ones in deep blues and blacks.
The Palace was not white now, as Tom walked through.
It was as if someone had turned off all the lights, and left it in complete darkness. The marble shone through in faint oranges, guiding him where Abraxas wanted him to look.
One of the first doors down a long corridor was painted in all the possible and impossible colours of the rainbow.
It was Harry's door.
The first memory shoved his way was recent, if the sharp edges and clear vivid colours was anything to go by.
Abraxas had been writing to his father, letters curling close together as he rushed his hand through the paper. There was not much Lord Malfoy would not do for his son and Heir, and the kidnapping of a Hogwarts student his son's age had kicked a wasps nest, both metaphorical and physical.
Ministry Officials had tried to cover things and keep them under wraps, but the waves of angry parents and angry Lords sitting at the Wizengamot and demanding answers grew by the hour, by the day.
He was adding his magical seal to the paper when noise alerted him he was not alone.
Orion was not back yet from where he had disappeared behind the firmly closed doors of Cassiopeia's Office.
Abraxas looked around the room with tired eyes, wand sitting by his side on his desk.
The noise started up again.
It sounded terribly like an animal trapped in something, desperately trying to get out.
It was coming from Harry's bed.
He rose from the chair where he'd been writting, quietly and carefully as to not alert whatever it was making the noise of his presence.
He approached the bed, wand in hand.
Beside the star robes and hanging from one of the carved wooden posts of the bed was the black leader crossbag Abraxas had gifted Harry what seemed like an eternity ago, and it was swinging from side to side.
The sound was coming from inside.
Cautiously and with a wave of his hand, Abraxas opened the top, only to have to duck down and step back several feet as what looked like brass tips flew out in a synchronized line and tore through the windows of the room with no care for the water that seeped in.
Luckily the cracked glass repaired itself before any real damage could be done.
Abraxas looked back at the bag, thinking.
Logically, he knew Tom had gifted Harry with multiple and varied brass tips, for his writting and drawing. They were drenched in his magic, and even in the brief moment they had flown past he could feel their charged energy. It didn't explain why they had chosen to see themselves out to the bottom of the Great Lake, however.
Abraxas peered through the open bag, half expecting something else to fly at his face.
There were a couple of text books, his set of ink and parchment and... his leader little notebook he used for drawing.
The blond boy pulled it out of the bag with shaking hands, already dreading it's contents.
Abraxas walked back and sat back down at his desk, noting distantly that no water had damaged his belongings before setting the book open on the first page on the weathered wood.
He leafed through drawings and writtings and what seemed to be letters for no one in particular, left between small doodles and half finished in their contents. Some flowers had been pressed between the pages at some point, blue and purple bleeding on the white parchment with no care for it's holdings.
Half way through, a portrait of Tom made him stop.
It was not the first drawing of his he had encountered, and not the weirdest one either.
He was however, looking rather like he had been in the last 18 hours. Manic and angry, magic blazing like an inferno beneath his skin and half a step away from burning down their government to the ground for their inefficiency.
The page had been filled over from cover to cover in some type of thick red paint, and had been carefully painted over in various shades of blue and orange and grey, even if the red still shone through in some places.
His body was turned away from the viewer, stood before a familiar intricately carved desk, leaning forward on his hands. He had turned his head to one side, looking over one shoulder as he seemed to listen to however was speaking with half divided attention, mouth pulled tight and jaw clenching. His curls looked like a right mess, like he had run his hands constantly and consistently without stopping for quite a few minutes. The only source of light in the room was a lit fireplace, coming from the other side of the room and casting long shadows on his friend's face. Something shimmered beneath his pale skin. Magic seeming to pull up to the surface through his veins, running hot and angry and blazing white.
Abraxas took a deep breath before turning the page.
He ran to Tom before he could begin to decipher the contents of the map.
Tom pulled from his mind with a snap, as quickly as he could without causing any permanent damage or pain.
It still made his head throb painfully somewhere in the back of his skull.
"Have you looked through the whole notebook?" Tom asked, long fingers spreading a map on top of the opened letters and news clippings and cut outs that only made sense to him. He leaned forward on his hands, curls falling over his eyes.
"You know I haven't." He replied, hands trembling as they held onto the black book. "I came as quickly as I could."
Tom clenched his jaw and closed his eyes for a brief moment, thinking. Abraxas' breath caught on his throat. He looked exactly as he did in Harry's little painting.
The noise seemed to snap his friend back to the ground. He looked over one shoulder at Abraxas, and suddenly he knew without needing to open the notebook that Harry had only, somehow possibly looked right at this moment from his very own eyes and painted it on his book.
"What?"
In response, Abraxas handed over the notebook, even if he knew his friend had seen the painting in his memory.
Tom looked at his own painting with intent focus, looking through each detail as he moved a long finger through the page. He turned the page and was met with the same nonsense lines and crosses Abraxas had been met with. It was undeniably a map, but of what place exactly was entirely lost to him. Tom turned his head, then turned the notebook, trying to make sense of what seemed to be a half complete map of some sort, before comparing it to the map on the table, eyes scanning the parchment from top to bottom.
Then, frustrated, he threw the first map on the floor with a wave of his hand as he levitated another map over to the desk with the other.
Minutes passed like this, Abraxas too afraid to move from his spot near the door for fear it would distract his friend from his task and Tom frantically looking each parchment from top to bottom.
Maps flew in and out of his line of vision, all from different cities, big and small, magical and not as they spread on the desk before being thrown out.
Then Tom stopped. The pull of his magic became suffocating, heavy in his frustration and the smell of ozone permeated every corner of the room.
He grabbed the notebook again from where he had placed it on the table with careful hands. He furrowed his brows and opened his mouth, finger stuck somewhere in the middle of the painting as he looked back up at Abraxas.
"Lower your shields." And Abraxas did without protesting, the feeling of Tom's heavy magic spreading like webs through his senses as he looked through whatever it was that had caught his attention. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but could have only been a few moments, he pulled out, manic blue eyes looking back at him and predatory smile pulling at his lips. "It's wrong."
He carefully set the black notebook open on top of the desk as he ruffled through the rolled up maps off to one side of the desk. He didn't give an explanation, but as he looked through the big pieces of parchment Abraxas approached the oak table.
Right where Tom's finger had stopped on the painting, was a map.
Suddenly he understood.
The map of Austria looked back at him from it's place on the drawing like a bad omen.
Dumbledore was a fucking nightmare come alive.
Tom wanted to murder him on the spot each time words left his mouth.
His nerves were already frayed as they were, without the crooked nosed professor butting his head in his business, sagely sprouting whatever nonsense he thought would make Tom any less radical than he already was, explaining to him what he should feel in Harry's absence, the fucking gall of the man.
To stand there, and do nothing.
To stand there and let a boy be lost behind the grips of a Dark Lord.
He could do it, he thought. All it would take was a cleverly conjured venomous snake slithering in the night and... and Harry's disappointed green eyes gazing from the sidelines made the boiling hot spill of lava rising through his veins calm, like a lake.
He left Professor Dumbledore speaking alone in the middle of the hallway, appearances be dammed.
Cassiopeia Black was a smart witch. She had to be, for such a position she had decided to take in, in life.
And she was part of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. A Lady, at that.
There were advantages to such titles.
And Tom Riddle knew exactly how to use them.
Cassiopeia had sat with his baby cousin, elbows deep in books pulled from the Black library, courtesy of her uncle, Lord Arcturus Black. If the Headmaster, or Merlin forbid, Dumbledore caught a glimpse of any of the Dark tittles they had pulled down from the depths of their own archives and to Hogwarts no less, Orion would be expelled faster than he could blink and Cassiopeia without a job for approximately the next century.
It was a necessary evil.
As it was, Professor Slughorn stood watch, to all who entered the Infirmary he was simply consulting medical texts to better his potions, often enough found by Mirabel's side, stirring a potion or another on a table far from the beds, close to the office. If one were to look closer, they would notice the potion set up was a farce, and Horace was all but pulling all his contacts, writting letters faster than one could process and sending them out through the open fireplace, conveniently connected to Malfoy Manor.
Mirabel braided and unbraided her hair, looking anxiously from the fireplace to her wife's closed Office door, waiting for news.
The first day after Harry was taken had weighted on everyones mind. No one had dared to call it a night.
On the second day, Tom Riddle burst through the Infirmary door, forgoing using the little Malfoy House Elf cleverly disguised as a Hogwarts Elf that kept running notes between his Head of House and himself.
"I know where he is." Was all he needed to whisper as he breezed through the long hall towards the closed Office door. Horace and Mirabel could do nothing but follow.
The door was firmly shut behind wards upon wards of magic, enough to give him a pause and look back at his professors.
Mirabel shrugged one shoulder.
"They brought more books through the Floo this morning." Was all she said in explanation as she grazed the tip of her wand against the wood.
The door opened to reveal chaos inside.
Papers had been scattered on every possible surface, from the ceiling to the floor, and piles upon piles of books rested on top of one another.
Orion and Cassiopeia themselves stood somewhere in the middle of the room, arguing in what could only be rapid spit fire french, pointing at a book open between them, hovering in the air. They looked back once the door opened fully, twin expressions of discontent.
Finally, Cassiopeia snapped out.
"What? We were in the middle of something—"
"Something that won't work, I keep telling you it's impossible—" Orion interrupted, hands raised. His hair was tied back from his face, for once, and the normally pressed and proper chemise he wore was crinkled and open at the chest.
"What are the odds? Have you seen him?" The Matron shot back, turning away from Tom towards her cousin.
"It's one chance in a hundred, Cass—"
And they fell back to french, arguing in raised voices and paying no mind to the expectators by the door.
Tom could feel the irritation like something alive lick at his skin. He strode through the room, taking the book in hand as he read it's contents.
French, as it was, was not his best language. But he did understand the basics of the ritual.
It was a locating ritual of sorts, meant for Black family heirlooms but which could be easily modified for people, and it would be truly great if only for a minor detail.
Alas, Orion was right.
Harry Evans was not a Black.
But no matter. He knew where Harry was. Or would be. Approximately.
(Possibly).
It narrowed their search from all of Europe to a single country. It was something. It had to be.
And he needed Cassiopeia's name to stamp it out.
He threw the book to the ground, carelessly, ignoring twin looks of horror passing through both Orion and Cassiopeia.
"Enough of that. I know where he is."
And so he told them.
Cassiopeia Black came from a Dark Family, a Legacy as ancient as the oldest Dynasties in Europe could be traced back by her blood alone.
Her magic sang now, shimmering beneath her skin, pumping through her veins and begging to be let out.
Her child had been taken.
Nothing short of Death would stop her from getting him back.
Mirabel watched with concerned green eyes as the edges of her wife's silhouette blurred more and more often, shadows curling at the bottom of her robes like a particularly cozy cat, the yellow of her cat like eyes paling and turning more and more stormy by the hours that went by.
A tropical storm waiting to take everything from the land, to uproot everything and everyone in it's path with it's high winds and biting cold waters. The smell of ozone accompanied them every minute of the day, now.
As more and more time went by, she started to look more and more like her cousins, almost a carbon copy of both the twins. Orion and Lucretia and Cass, with their loose curls and their gray gazes, with dark circles pulling down at their eyes and their pale complexion, almost glowing from within with barely suppressed magic.
Cassiopeia had a few good years on them, but right now, with the blazing of their fury and their laser focus on their tasks they looked like one, a three headed monster ready to spit hellfire in every which way, to destroy everything in their path to reach their beloved.
Mirabel knew the monster that dozed beneath her wife's skin like the back of her hand. The barely tamed beast that lurked in the corners of her eyes and bared it's teeth when provoked.
This was not a provocation.
It was a cry of war.
Mirabel was a gentle Witch by nature by contrast, the pull of Life strong enough to spill magic at her fingertips, to make flowers bloom at a grace and revive barely hanging on plants that could have been dead otherwise. She knew the pull of the sun, the life that drummed beneath the earth and the lines of magic that spread like spiderwebs around the world, more dense in magically populated areas, more polluted, and clearer, more pure in magical forests where magical beasts lingered, soaking the very earth with their magic and pulling just as much from the ground during their life time.
She knew the pull of life, the unforgiving circle of life and death, and the scorching blazing heat of the sun.
Because life was hard, and every creature, every insignificant speck of organisms had a fire lit within themselves, a flame she could gaze into whenever she approached.
She knew rage, and she knew the white hot feeling of walking in blind, feeling out every living thing under her fingertips.
She blazed with fury now, even as she watched from afar as the Black Family converged and mingled, their dark magic flowing from one another at every touch, every brush of hands.
She wished she could do more to help.
But her magic, her talents, resided elsewhere. She would wait her turn, patiently, and she would watch over them, she would not let them loose themselves to their search, in the madness of their desperation.
She would be a light they could follow, a warmth they could come back to.
Until the time she would blaze and rage and destroy, as the fire is wont to do.
The sun had almost set by the time she noticed the warmth in the air was not coming from the sun, or the combined heat of her very, very alive and very agitated plants.
It was coming from the very edge of the woods surrounding the Castle. Waiting.
So still had it been all afternoon she had mistaken it for something else.
Now she knew better.
The fire called to her, alive and blazing, even if it stood dimmer than it should.
She gazed into the forest from her place by the greenhouses, unsure of how to proceed.
She turned. Perhaps Tom Riddle would like to hear about the Phoenix waiting by the very edges of Hogwarts.
Harry sat on one end of a ridiculously long table, dining.
Or he would have, if not for the verasaterum. The truth serum was deeply seeped in the food present before him.
He sat, stubbornly wrapped in his splotched blanket, candlestick digging on his back and stared at the Dark Lord, sitting pompously at the other edge of the table.
A shaking Acolyte in blood red robes stood like a servant at their side, his lip wobbled from time to time, trying (and failing) to discreetly look back where Harry and his Lord had come from, bloodstained footsteps leading out the door towards the hallway where the bodies of his comrades must still lay in wait to be taken away.
Grindewald had no such qualms of sensitivity. Or tact.
He dined before the bodies of his soldiers, eating like a pig half starved in the winter, and drank like a man who had not had wine for far too long stretches of time.
He looked at Harry, expectant. As if Harry had not been raised in the fallen scraps of food at his relative's feet, accustomed to not eating for periods at a time. His stay at Hogwarts had been peaceful this year so far, with nutrient potions and vitamins shoved down his throat opening up his appetite more than it ever had before.
And yet his body had not forgotten the bitter feel of hunger.
It was not constant. It came and it went.
Two days it had been, by his count.
Three days.
Almost three days and now a Phoenix sat on his Ancestor's door with a message.
Mirabel had sent a Patronus in search of Tom, asking to meet him by the greenhouses.
By the time he had arrived, night had taken it's grip and the full moon shone on the sky.
He walked by the herbology professor down the slope of a hill, snow crunching beneath their boots as they made their way towards the forest.
Tom startled once he caught sight of the sickly bird, sitting on a low branch of a tree and singing a mournful tune to the stars. It's feathers were dull and almost black on the low light of the moon. If Tom didn't know better he would have mistaken the creature for an Augurey.
A small bit of parchment had been tied around it's leg, and the Phoenix patiently waited while it was freed from it's cargo.
Aurelius Dumbledore seemingly knew where Grindewald could be hiding now, trying to lay low and safeguard his new possession.
If he didn't want other people to know where his Castle was nestled he shouldn't have let Credence leave.
A man's loss was another's gain.
Their search narrowed to the Austrian Alps, where Nurmengard, the stone Castle, sat proudly on the face of a mountain.
Aurelius didn't know it's exact location, as he had never apparated on his own before. But his Phoenix had.
They had one opportunity. A one way trip for two people, the maximum his fragile bird could manage as it was.
It was more than they had before.
Now they needed a miracle to align with their plans.
Hopefully his own web of wizards came through.
They went back to the Infirmary, where they had wordlessly agreed to meet, as Cassiopeia was unable to move from her post without rising a few eyebrows her way.
Letters kept coming to and from the fireplace, and Slughorn moved his metal spoon with his wand with a distracted air as he gazed into the flames, waiting.
"Has there been word?" Tom said as soon as the Infirmary doors closed behind them, privacy wards placed around the room settling around his skin.
He sat by one of the stools that had been transfigured by the potion masters makeshift desk, away from the door and close to the hearth. His head felt heavy in his hands, tired in a way he hadn't been since the early days of the War at the Orphanage.
"It should come any minute now." Slughorns voice was strained, tired. They all were.
The black parchment sitting on the flames caught fire, leaving behind a smoking white paper in it's place. Tom summoned it with a wave of his wrist, and it sailed through the air to his hands.
He opened the magical seal with a drop of his blood and read it's contents.
A manic smile stretched at his lips. Slughorn started bad enough to tip the cauldron sideways.
"A raid. Grindewald is calling for his followers to Austria."
"Now we need to know where exactly this Castle of his is." Cassiopeia chimed in from the door to her office. Her face was grim. "We have the spell and the map. We have a way in, now we need a way out. A couple hours more and we'll know."
Tom nodded.
"When, Tom?"
"Two days from now." He said from behind gritted teeth. The thought of leaving Harry alone, with a manic Dark Lord all on his own for even a second more was excruciating. But they had an opening.
So they would have to wait, for said opening to appear.
He could feel the effects of not having slept for more than two hours in three days pulling him down, making his magic work overtime for his body not to collapse in exhaustion. He could feel the relief too, of knowing that there was no force on earth that would keep him away from Harry.
He turned to leave, but before he could, the Matron's voice stopped him in his tracks.
"There is something I don't understand." Cassiopeia said, eyes an icy silver as she gazed into the flames. Curls fell in and over her eyes, banishing the tiredness behind shadows and making her appear more manacing, colder. "How is it" she spat "that Harry Evans was taken rather like a stray dog from the street, easily and without care, when I know full well that boy is at the top of your class in Defence?" She turned her eyes on Tom, piercing and unforgivable. "How is it that every time I look at you, I know you will somehow have the answer?"
Tom pushed the edge of Dark Magic down where it had settled against his throat, a curse almost at the tip of his tongue. It would not do to fight right now, no matter how much his pride begged for it.
"We find Harry, Cassiopeia. Then you'll have all the answers you want." He turned on his heel and walked towards the door, the feel of both Phoenix cores against the skin of his wrist. "Now is not the time."
"Is the food not to your liking, boy?"
Harry didn't answer. He was looking at the trembling Acolyte by the table from the corner of his eye.
Darkness crept up the man's shadow, pulling at his robes like unseeing wind and making his tremors more noticeable.
His chin kept wobbling from time to time, even if no tears left his eyes.
He would try to kill Harry at some point tonight.
"Harry Evans, yes? A terribly common name, in my opinion—" Grindewald kept going on and on about the British and their customs, their old ways rooted in pureblooded families, some older than the Crown itself. Harry paid him half mind as he looked around the room.
Two entrences. Two doors, each one on an opposite side of the room. From one they had come from, the other remained closed.
He looked down at the table.
How much longer?
Grindewald kept going, seemly unaware and unperturbed his guest could not utter a single word himself.
'He likes hearing himself talk', he couldn't help but think.
The dragon tightened around his finger, bringing a bitter smile to his face.
"Am I boring you, my esteemed guest?" The questiom finally cut through the background noiseand Harry snapped back to reality.
Guest?
"Guest? You make it sound like you didn't drag me here by my hair, tied my magic and poisoned my food." He spat, teeth clenching as he tried and failed to summon his magic.
Perhaps he should take the knife?
Something unhinged passed through the man's mismatched eyes. Something dangerous.
Thin ice, now.
"We'll get to the main course, then, least I bore you to an early grave."
The man stood from his chair and stalked towards Harry with long strides, long wand already on his hand.
He stopped short of tilting Harry's chair back and grabbed his hair, forcing them to lock eyes.
Harry cringed back. He could not look directly at the man. Images of other people kept overlapping over him, the touch of death much too strong to ignore.
"What do you see, hmm?"
"I already told you. I see Death."
A slap greeted his answer, and it surprised Harry both in it's force and it's— normalcy.
"Try again. Concentrate."
Harry only glared in response, refusing to even begin to untangle the mess that was Grindewald's frayed threads.
He received another slap for his troubles.
The Dark Lord snarled in his face.
"Would you like me to kill your little boy toy? Should I order your Divinations Professor to snap and stab the boy? Perhaps maim him a little?" Harry's breath caught on his throat, even as he forced himself to relax. But it was enough.
Grindewald grinned in triumph.
Unconsciously, he looked beyond the man before him, looking for Tom.
But there was no Professor stabbing any student at Hogwarts in the immediate future, nor did the Dark Lord actually meet Tom. Not that he could see, at least.
His racing heart calmed somewhat, knowing Tom was safe.
Logically.
Logically, he knew Tom Riddle was capable of defending himself.
Logically, also, he knew that if Grindewald tortured him Harry would be unable to even gaze into the future, as pain often clouded the mind and the senses.
He relaxed further.
The candlestick digged into his back.
Harry grabbed it with his hand, and waited. He would have his opportunity.
Perhaps he should have taken the knife, too.
If Grindewald was frustrated by his lack of response, he didn't show it.
He supposed the Dark Lord thought he would have time to break in his new toy.
Only one day more.
He was let go after that, and escorted to his room with the promise of no dinner, since he hadn't touched any of his food.
He wrapped himself up in his blanket and followed behind the trembling Acolyte.
The hallway had been cleaned at long last, and no stain remained to tell the story of it's fallen.
Harry gripped the candlestick with both hands and braced himself.
As soon as the door to his cell closed, the Acolyte was on him.
The man might've thought he had the element of surprise, but he really should have known better.
The metal gave a satisfying bonk against the man's skull, before he could even finish drawing out his wand.
He fell on the carpeted ground, unconscious. The sound of his body hitting the floor muffled.
Harry took his wand and pocketed it, even if it was useless to him at the moment. He searched the man for anything else that might be of use, and found what could only be a token, keyed in to allow it's holder to pass through a set of wards. It would not serve Harry, but it could definitely serve someone.
By the grace of Morgana.
By the third day, Grindewald changed tactics.
He was dragged out of his chair by the arm, forced to kneel even before his bad leg gave out underneath him and tied with magical threads up to his chin.
It seemed his patience had worn thin, and had decided torture first, recovery second and getting something out of Harry third and far last into the future.
It probably had something to do with the missing Acolyte.
Or the fact that Harry had stopped mouthing off at him and had simply decided to ignore each and every little thing that came out of his disgusting mouth.
Well.
Supposed visions be dammed, Harry was getting tortured by a Dark Lord tied up and screaming.
Again.
Harry, it seems, was destined to be trapped by upstarts wannabe Dark Lords.
The calling of his followers wasn't anything unusual for Grindewald as of late.
He often amassed his Acolytes, introduced new ones into the fold and rather seemed to enjoy the attention it brought.
And the panic.
He would strike, both from the shadows and up front, political parties of different countries, cross borders and repeat it again. His chosen rose to power, and held themselves in place for the time votes of no confidence came through each Ministry of Magic.
He seemed to be gaining favour once more, as the muggles continued to war and raze against each other in arms, with contraptions meant to maim and kill as many as their brothers as possible. It left the Wizarding World horrified at their brutality.
Tom feared they could come to that, if the Dark Lord gained any more power.
But now, it was to their benefit.
He called for his followers, and he called for new blood.
And what easiest way to slip through the crowd, than to go with a metamorphmagus posing as an Acolyte, guiding a new boy in, and Tom himself as an aspirant?