I want to thank everyone for the warm reception for Triumvirate's beginning on Portkey! I can't let this chapter go up without a shout out to Victor (muddgutts). He's shown me the sketch he's been working on for the story that includes our "new villain" and I'm absolutely in LOVE with his depiction of the character!
You meet that character in this chapter and I hope you will take a look at Muddy's poster when he's finished with it….I literally squealed when I saw it - it's that good!
Thanks to all those who read and reviews…I read every single one of them!
As always - a big thanks to Melissa for being the best beta-and honest judge of when I've lost my mind - that any writer could have! You are the best
Enjoy!
Vleigh
Chapter 2-Evil Personified
Ron cursed himself in the hallway for having slapped the extendable ear into the kitchen door while trying to scratch his back. He knew his secret was out. He made to retrieve the old surveillance device before anyone could discover where he'd been hiding it. Truth be told, he'd been eavesdropping on the Order meetings since he returned from Hogwarts for the summer. He scampered back to his room and replaced the extendable ears in the bottom of a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. There would be no more information tonight. He could hear various members of the Order talking in conversational voices and disapparating back to their homes. However, he had gotten more than usual tonight.
He'd gotten a name.
He sat on his bed thinking about the latest meeting in the context of all the previous ones. For all the eavesdropping he'd done this summer, he still didn't have much information that seemed logical to him.
Logic, he sighed as he thought of the word, it always reminded him of her.
He glanced up at his writing desk, scattered with several owls he'd received from both of them over the summer. Harry's latest owl lie on top of the pile, unopened. Feeling the same familiar guilt he'd wallowed in since the summer began, he moved to the writing table and opened Harry's letter.
***
Hi Ron!
I've been reading the Daily Prophet's special report on the Cannons. I was thinking, when we get back to Hogwarts, we could try working on some of those moves the keeper was talking about in last week's article. It seems like that strategy would work well against Ravenclaw's chasers.
Well, I've now sat, staring that this parchment for twenty minutes, not knowing what to write. I haven't heard from you much this summer and I feel like something is wrong. I know I must sound worse than your mother, nagging you about this, but I really hope you decide to talk to me about it. We're best friends aren't we? You can tell me anything, and I hope that you do…soon.
Your friend,
Harry
***
"Friend," Ron repeated quietly.
Ron knew Harry was right. Something was wrong. He wasn't even sure he knew what it was. All he knew is, lately, when he thought about Harry and Hermione together, something deep inside of him hurt. He had watched their relationship grow during the course of the last year. He even tried to play the `best friend' and be as supportive as possible. Harry and Hermione finally gave into the feelings they'd been fighting while Ron was away on the Christmas holiday. Ron knew what it was they were fighting.
He'd done the same thing.
For once in his life he put up a better fight than the great Harry Potter. When summer came, he returned to the Burrow alone. Ginny's surprise internship at Witch Weekly meant Ron spent nearly everyday alone. That provided him with a lot of time to think. He didn't have that luxury last term in the midst of thwarting evil again as the sidekick to the `dream team.'
He tossed the letter on the desk. It landed atop the five previous letters from Harry, all requesting the same information. Not wanting to let on too much, Ron had written to both Harry and Hermione over the summer. But he'd intentionally kept the letters short and devoid of any real conversation that might betray his true feelings.
In part, he wrote such banal chat because he wasn't sure what those feelings were. He didn't know if he loved Hermione. Well, yes he did. He did love her. He always had, but he didn't know if he was in love with her or not. He'd fought that battle in his head all summer. What's more, he loved Harry too. He also loved the fact they were so blissfully happy together. Especially for Harry, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt Harry had never truly been happy in his life, until now.
That's where the guilt came from.
He was uneasy about the fact Harry and Hermione were dating. He didn't know whether he should feel betrayed or overjoyed. But he knew he was not as happy for them as a `best friend' should be. The worst part was the realization either of his best friends could easily help him work through this. The problem was Harry and Hermione were his best friends and for the first time in their collective life he didn't feel like he could talk to them. The guilt overwhelmed him.
At first the guilt over not being happy for them manifested itself as depression. However, with each passing owl from Harry and Hermione, that conveniently neglected to mention anything about each other to him, that depression turned to anger.
What were they keeping from him? Did they know he was having issues with their relationship? Did they know he felt betrayed? His incessant rocking in the chair quickened with his thoughts and he finally snatched up a quill to write the same scathing owl to Harry he'd started a hundred times this summer. He finished it the same way as always, crumpled in a pile at the bottom of his wastebasket. He felt betrayed, but why?
He glanced over to his wall and looked at the time. It was late. He was tired. Actually, he was completely exhausted from having thought about this all summer. What was worse, he found himself no father along in the answers than when he started. Plus, he had listened to Order meetings for weeks and knew only one thing, something had changed.
They talked longer, and more heatedly than ever before. They were constantly talking about `them,' which Ron assumed meant Death Eaters. Aurors seemed to grace the house more frequently than before, almost as if keeping guard on the headquarters, and he knew that Harry was in far more danger than ever before. But he still didn't know why. He also didn't know why Lupin was so convinced Harry was going to leave the Dursley's house. Aside from their hospitality ranking just shy of a herd of mountain trolls, why should this summer be different?
It had to have something to do with Hermione. He'd heard Lupin mention her name. It all got back to what Harry hadn't been telling him. He'd had enough. He was writing the letter.
***
Dear Harry,
I got your last owl. We'll work on the Cannon's thing, you're right, it sounds like it might be useful against Ravenclaw.
You're right about something else too. Something is wrong. Maybe now I understand how you felt the summer between 4th and 5th year when you felt like no one was telling you anything. That's how I feel. I've written you about a hundred owls and thrown each one in the trash. I don't want this to get between our friendship. But, I can't stay quiet anymore.
You want to know what's wrong; then fine, here goes. I hate the idea of you and Hermione together. Don't ask me why, I can't tell you. I don't know. Everything seemed to happen so fast last year; I guess I didn't have time to think about it all. It just seemed to me like the two of you were "playing." I never really saw you together in any way I hadn't before, so it never sunk in for me. It didn't even sink in when you screamed out in front of everyone that you were in love with her. I thought that was more funny than anything else at the time. You don't really act like you're dating, no snogging in front of others, no hanging all over each other etc. I always knew you loved her, so do I, so I guess it never hit me that something between you changed.
That was until King's Cross.
Aside from the fact you hardly said ten words on the way back to London, I was trying to catch up with you after we got off the platform. I stopped rather abruptly when I saw you both outside. There were my two best friends, the other two thirds of me…clearly not interested in anyone else in the world. I don't think they write fairy tales that could summarize what I saw happen between you at her parent's car. Ever since then, something has hurt inside. I don't know what it is and what's worse, I feel damn guilty about it.
I feel guilty that I'm not happy for you. I feel guilty that I don't know myself enough to know why I'm not happy for you. I feel guilty that you finally have something that does bring you love and joy and I'm not shouting from the top of rooftops that `Harry Potter finally caught a break!' I feel guilty because I think I love Hermione too, which makes me feel the most guilty that I'm infuriated that it always seems to be you.
You're the one with all the fame and fortune (neither in short supply), you're the youngest seeker in a century, you're the one who gets chosen from the Goblet of Fire (and wins!), you're the one with magical ability I don't ever seem to be able to match, and now you're the one who gets the `girl.' You're the hero and I'm the sidekick. And I hate myself for feeling that way.
Please don't owl me to tell me all the horrible things that went along with the list I just mentioned. I know them all already. If I need to refresh my memory I'll pull out a book about great witches and wizards, you're in nearly all of them. I just don't know what's wrong with me. I'm not sure when I turned into such a selfish prat. But I can't help how I feel right now, and I don't know how to make it go away. I'm just having a hard time seeing you both as a couple.
I know I'm being silly about all this. It's not like you're getting married or anything. I just need some time to figure out why I feel like I do. I hope your reply doesn't come in the form of a howler; if I get a reply from you at all. I know you must be angry with me, but I needed to get this out. Sorry, if it wasn't what you wanted to hear.
Ron.
P.S. I don't know what's going on to be able to tell you anything detailed, certainly not in an owl, but don't leave the Dursley's house. Please trust me.
***
Pidwigeon ducked his beak into the water bowl again and again to parch the thirst from his trip. Hedwig hooted dolefully and returned her head to its resting place under her left wing. Harry Potter slumped on his bed, head in one hand, and a long scroll of parchment hanging loosely in the other.
He hadn't expected this.
He didn't know how to feel. He loved Hermione. He loved her with every ounce of being he had. He also loved Ron. He had watched the two of them for years. He knew, at one time, especially during fourth year, that Ron seemed to have more than a passing interest in Hermione. But they fight like mercenaries! He nearly had more scars from stepping between the two of them than he had facing Voldemort. They had been best friends for seven years and Ron never confided in him that he loved Hermione in that way. Of course, Harry never confided his feelings for her to Ron…maybe guys don't do that. More importantly, does Ron feel the same way?
Harry flopped backwards onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. How could he have been so short-sighted? How could he have been so selfish? He never once considered Ron's feelings when he fell in love with Hermione. He never had that conversation with him about her. He has two best friends he loves dearly. Because of him, one cannot close her eyes without succumbing to hideous nightmares, and the other is guilt-ridden and angry with him. Why does this all have to be so incredibly complicated? He was nearly 17 years old and felt like he was 45.
In Ron's entire owl, two sentences haunted Harry. "It's not like you two are getting married or anything," and "don't leave the Dursley's house." He tried desperately to collect his thoughts, to make some semblance of order out of his world that was continuing to spin out of control. He buried his eyes in the crook of his arm, still clutching Ron's letter, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
***
If pictures accompanied definitions in the dictionary, this man would appear right next to the word "sinister." It wasn't just what he looked like, although that was disconcerting enough. It was how he walked, how he carried himself, how the world seemed to shrink away from his approach. More than anything it was how he made her feel.
He was evil.
She watched him again, as she had on many occasions previously. He strode down a rather nondescript street. His shoes were made of the finest Italian leather. They echoed his confident and determined footsteps as he walked with purpose to some unknown destination. He wore a sleek pair of black trousers that had obviously been tailored to suit his frame. He wasn't an overweight man, nor was he slim. He was built. He looked as though he spent hours before a mirror willing his muscles to just the right tension and shape. He wore a fitting black turtleneck under his equally midnight robes. His cloak billowed behind him even though the wind seemed to gasp, and cease all together, as he walked. The street grew dim as he advanced. He carried only a long, slim wand lazily in his hand, yet the streetlights popped out as he approached without the aid of a putter-outer.
She continued to, somewhat unwillingly, raise her eyes higher. She noticed his long, sleek black hair was dancing ominously in the breeze and the pale white skin of his neck nearly glowed in contrast to his threatening dark wardrobe. The street sounded like it was suddenly enveloped in a black vacuum. Every noise, excepting that of his footsteps, was extinguished and an icy chill slipped through her stomach. She felt herself shivering as she studied his mouth. It was pursed thin, yet was slightly upturned on the right side. It was a dark smirk, the look of a man who was mere footsteps away from some personal victory. Her mind shouted to look away, look somewhere, don't look into his eyes, you know better.
She couldn't stop the compulsion. His eye sockets were inset in his head so that his brows nearly cast shadows over where they should be positioned. But his eyes were unmistakable. They were a piercing gray. They seemed to contain the seven levels of hell in one glance.
While muggle researchers had worked for years to achieve absolute zero, their efforts were wasted. This man's glare was the coldest things known to muggle or wizarding physics. He was evil, and every bit of it was contained in those intense gray eyes.
She knew he was evil incarnate, she could feel it surge through every cell in her body. She knew what he was feeling. He was elated, happy, and ready to take on the world. He was ready to complete his latest mission and kill the next innocent victim in whatever game he chose to play today. He loved his job. He loved his life. He loved to kill.
He didn't just kill quickly and quietly. That didn't carry enough style for him. He wanted his victims to see him, understand his mission, and know they were about to die. What's more, he wanted them to know he didn't care. He took his time when he killed an individual. He took more time when he killed a family. He invariably chose the weakest one to torment. He chose them as the witness to the family's collective death before finally turning his wand on his final prey.
She knew all of this implicitly from one glance of his sinister eyes. It was more than she wanted to know, but less than she needed to know. She never got any additional information before he was gone.
It was always that way.
***
Elizabeth Granger worked in her kitchen, cleaning the dishes she'd let sit entirely too long from the evening meal. Truth be told, she wasn't sleeping much these days anyway, so hovering over a sink full of dirty dishes in the middle of the night meant nothing to her. She was as worried as the mother of a teenage daughter could be. Well, perhaps more so. Most mothers had "normal" teenage daughters.
Those girls were rebellious and rarely listened to the wisdom of their parents. They tended to be less mature than they needed to be and seemed to make decisions for the sole purpose of tormenting their parents. Their parents worried incessantly about their daughters meeting the "wrong" boy and all the baggage that came along with a boyfriend with impure intentions. That was the life of a "normal" teenage mother.
Elizabeth Granger was not among their ranks. Her daughter was not "normal."
She shook her head and swept the last thought from her mind. There was nothing wrong with her daughter Hermione. She never wanted her to think she was anything less than proud of her. She never wanted Hermione to think she thought of her as "abnormal." However, some things were hard to deny. Hermione was a witch. She attended a school of witchcraft and wizardry and was an integral part of a world that Elizabeth would never understand. What was worse, is that Hermione was the picture of perfection to Elizabeth's friends.
She had grown to be quite attractive. She was exceptionally intelligent and headed her class in academics. She seemed to have loads of the "right" friends, and managed to return from school, nearly a woman, with a handsome, charming, and respectful fiancé. Hermione was never anything less than helpful and loving to her parents. That was the hardest part for Elizabeth. Hermione may appear to be that picture of perfection, but she was not. Certainly not this summer, and there was no one Elizabeth could speak to about it. There was no one she could confide in. She did not dare tell her friends of Hermione's special gifts, and even if she had, they would be as lost to help her as Elizabeth was lost to help her own daughter.
Something was dreadfully wrong with Hermione.
She continued scrubbing the same dish she'd been cleaning for the last ten minutes, lost in her own thoughts. What was wrong? How could she help? No matter how many times she asked the question, the answer never became any clearer.
She knew things were not well in Hermione's world. She knew there was someone evil, although Hermione never mentioned his name, which seemed to lurk over her and her friends. She knew something dreadful had happened to her daughter at the end of last year. However, she could never get Hermione to tell her the story. She knew this boy Harry was very important to wizards and witches, if not just important to Hermione.
The only thing she did know is that her daughter was in love with Harry Potter. Not that it was a surprise. Every holiday they ever spent together it seemed Hermione had either developed schizophrenia or an invisible playmate. She talked about him incessantly. It had been obvious to both her parents that she was in love with him for at least three years. Wizards, witches, or "muggles," as Hermione called her, the monikers of love seemed to transcend all barriers. She was not the least bit surprised when they appeared at King's Cross together, ring gleaming on Hermione's left hand. She didn't mind, for what she knew of Harry Potter, and she knew him well from Hermione's endless chattering, he was a wonderful young man. Elizabeth was elated over her engagement. Chronologically, Hermione and Harry may've been 17 but they were matured well-beyond their "age." She never thought of either of them as merely 17, and surely didn't think of them as children.
The slight smile faded from her face. None of this was helping Hermione. She needed to know what was wrong. However, for all the times she sat with Hermione as she cried, screamed, or laughed herself to tears, her daughter couldn't give her the answer. She didn't appear to know what was wrong with her own self. And Elizabeth knew she was scared.
Hermione wrote Harry so frequently the neighbors had begun to make comments about white owls flying around in the daytime. Some of the times when her daughter seemed most like herself, she indicated that Harry somehow or another he was with her. Elizabeth assumed that was a figure of speech. The days were okay, excepting for Hermione's wildly unpredictable mood swings, but the nights were far worse.
Hermione rarely slept at all. When she did lie down to close her eyes, only in the strictest sense of the word could you actually refer to her activity as sleep. Rarely did a night pass without a bad dream. Some of the nights Elizabeth classified them as nightmares. Lately, she'd thought of them as night "terrors." That was the reason Elizabeth had lost so much sleep as well. Even on the nights Hermione didn't scream herself awake, Elizabeth could hear her tossing and moaning in the next room. She felt completely useless to help her daughter, except to do what any loving mother would; hold her until she stopped shaking.
Elizabeth was so lost in thought about Hermione's dreams it didn't quite register that there was a familiar noise issuing from the room over the kitchen. She nearly threw the plate down on the countertop and ran for the stairs.
This one was bad.
***
Elizabeth burst into Hermione's room and flipped on the light. For the hundredth time this summer her heart broke. Her daughter was thrashing in her bed, sweat dripping from her forehead, screaming as if she was being tortured. She did the only thing she could do.
"Hermione," Elizabeth said trying to hold her still. "Hermione, wake up darling, wake up," her voice was quaking. It had grown more difficult to wake her from these dreams over the past several days and tonight proved no different. Hermione wasn't responding.
"Hermione!" Elizabeth said with renewed concern, "wake up."
Hermione startled awake and nearly threw herself to the other side of the bed as if Elizabeth's hands had jolted her with an electric shock. Her eyes were wide and she was clearly terrified.
"It's okay dear, it's just me. It's mum," Elizabeth said quietly, reaching out for her daughter. It took a second to register in Hermione's mind that her mother had woken her from yet another bad dream and she collapsed into her waiting arms.
"Shhh. It's okay Hermione. Everything is okay," her mother tried to reassure her. A nearly inaudible voice responded.
"No. It's not okay mum. He's going to kill someone I just know it," Hermione squeaked between sobs. Taking full advantage of Hermione's willingness to talk about what she seems doomed to watch every evening; Elizabeth tried to push her for details.
"Who's going to kill someone dear?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know who he is. But those eyes, those terrible gray eyes, and everything about him mum, he's pure evil. I know he's planning to kill someone, I can't explain how I know that, I just do." It seemed once Hermione began talking about her dream it got easier.
"Is it that same evil wizard you've talked about for years?" Elizabeth prodded.
"No. It's not him. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. For as evil as they are, Voldemort has motives, this man does not. He kills for the glory of the hunt. He has no agenda. He has no soul mum," she sobbed.
"What is the dream sweetie?" Elizabeth asked, praying this question would not bring the conversation to an abrupt halt.
"It's just him, walking down this street. I get a very good look at him and when I meet his eyes, I'm just purely terrified. Every night it seems a bit more detailed. At first I just saw him, then I saw the street. Now I'm seeing the streetlights and things around him, I even saw the small path he was walking on. It looked like a footpath to a house." Talking about the dream seemed to be cathartic for her and Hermione's shaking assuaged while her mother rocked her in her arms.
"Do you know whose house?" Elizabeth asked feeling a bit silly to be talking about this dream as if it were reality. But, for once she actually felt like she was helping her daughter.
"No. That's just it. I want to know whose house it is. Someone is in real danger and I feel like I'm the only one who knows about it." Hermione burst into tears again.
Elizabeth truly felt out of her league. She didn't know how to deal with any of this, but she knew someone who might be able to help her. "Why don't you talk to Harry? Would that help?" she added kindly.
"Trust me when I say that he already knows." Hermione said dryly.
Not really understanding her tone, Elizabeth merely rocked Hermione quietly until she fell back asleep