Hidden Fears

Harry rubbed harshly at his neck, hoping that it would go away. “That can’t be,” he muttered under his breath.

“Can’t be what?” Ron asked, his face still red with shock. “That looks like a hex to me, and a bloody strong one at that. What happened? Was someone up here? I thought th-”

Harry cut him off in mid sentence. He wished this was just some horrible dream he would wake up from. “This isn’t a hex Ron! It isn’t a curse or spell either. Don’t you remember at the Quidditch World Cup a few years back? Remember when the Death Eaters sent that mark up in the air? THIS IS THAT MARK! It’s the sign that your a Death Eater, and that you’re connected to Voldemort!”

Ron’s mouth gapped even lower, and he took a few moments to get his breath. “But you’re not a Death Eater!”

“Gee Ron, thanks for the info! I KNOW I’m not a Death Eater, but I had this dream, although it might not really be a dream, and, OH, I don’t know! What the hell happened?” Harry stepped back from the mirror and slumped against the wall, his head making a loud thump. He didn’t even flinch, he was numb inside. Everything was so messed up. He needed to tell someone who could help him figure this out logically, not stare at him bugged eyed. He turned to Ron, his voice even and distant, almost cold, “Get Hermione.”

“What?” Ron questioned, clearly puzzled.

“I said, GET HERMIONE! Do you need a bloody hearing aide?”

Ron’s eyes narrowed slightly but he turned and walked towards the staircase, muttering under his breath. “Keep your knickers on will you?”

The door slammed downstairs, and Harry hit his head against the wall again, disgusted with himself. Great going genius. You find out you might be a Death Eater, and what do you do? Blow up at your best friend who only wanted to help! He sat for a few moments in silence, before the door opened and two sets of feet were heard quietly winding their way up the stairs. A quick locking spell was muttered before Hermione rushed over to him with a concerned face. Ron just stood a few feet away, still unsure about Harry’s temper.

“Harry what happened? You have to explain everything! Ron just told me something about a dark mark and Death Eaters. You weren’t attacked were you?”

“In a way yes, I guess I was,” he said to both Hermione and Ron watching their eyes go wide. He then proceeded to tell them everything he knew, even detailing for Hermione what had happened with Ron. She seemed entranced through the whole thing, as if half listening. Ron by now had come to sit next to Hermione on the edge of the bed. When he finished, Hermione stayed silent for a while without moving or blinking, or what from Harry could tell, breathing. When she finally jerked her head up to meet his eyes, she only muttered one word, “Wow.”

Harry snorted despite himself. “That’d be a bit of an understatement.”

“No! No I didn’t mean it like that,” Hermione went on quickly. “It’s just that this all makes sense in a weird sort of way.”

Ron cocked his head slightly, “I’m not following.”

“Well,” Hermione began matter-of-factly, “You know how when you have a very deep emotion, V- Voldemort can feel it through your scar Harry, and vice versa? And how your thoughts can sometimes get mixed up, and you’ll feel like your in his body and he’s in yours?”

“Well yeah...,”Harry said, not quite catching on.

“Death Eaters communicate through just a simple touch of the arm. When he touches his mark, he can instantly know what’s going on in all his members minds, and communicate with them. Now he doesn’t need to wait for a strong emotion to know what’s going on in your mind, he could be listening right now, and we’d have no way of knowing.”

“Well that’s very comforting! Now he not only know how I feel about everything, but all the thoughts that flicker through my head, and all the words that come out of my mouth?!”

“Now wait Harry! You’re not fully understanding what I‘m getting at. While yes, it is bad that he can do that, it‘s not going to be easy. You‘re lessons with Snape have been paying off. He‘s going to have a hard time finding very specific details that your brain guards. Things like dreams and pondering thoughts are a lot less guarded, and more easy for him to get to. It would still be better for him to find those out then, say, your number one fear, or the last conversation you had with members of the Order of the Phoenix. You’re just going to have to be more careful with what kinds of things you say and such. But what I’m really trying to get at, is that you could use this to your advantage! You could make it a two way thing, and find out what he’s thinking! I’m sure it could be done after the proper preparation!”

“Oh yes Hermione, I’m just going to break into one of the most powerful wizard minds in history and see what he’s having for dinner! Who could I even ask to teach me something like that?”

Ron who had been rather detached from the conversation, suddenly chimed in, “Dumbledore! Harry, you said it yourself, V-, You Know Who is one of the most powerful wizards in history, but there’s still more powerful, and one of them is Dumbledore! If anyone could teach you, it’d be him.”

Hermione nodded her head, proud that someone else was following where she was going with this. Her head froze for a minute, and she opened her mouth slightly. “There’s only one problem; Dumbledore’s not going to be back in England for another week. Remember how yesterday during breakfast he told us how he got called to that meeting in Spain? Something about allowing the Dark Arts in schools.”

“Great, so now I’m a Death Eater, the one person who can kill Voldemort. The only person he’s afraid of is sitting in a school board meeting thousands of miles away, and none of us have a single clue what to do. Voldemort could be getting ready to attack Hogwarts as we speak!”

They all sank into a gloomy silence, none of them sure what to say. Harry replayed their whole conversation, searching for anything that could lead him to an idea. He was just at the part about Voldemort communicating through simply pressing his arm, when he stopped, and turned towards Hermione.

“Wait, Hermione, you said that when Voldemort communicates with his Death Eaters, everyone’s contacted through the mark on their arm. Mine isn’t on my arm though, it’s on my neck.”

Hermione looked at him wide-eyed. Obviously realizing this for the first time. Her eyes scanned quickly back and forth on the floor as if she was searching in her head for something. “I know I read something about this before, I know I did.” It was silent for a few minutes as both Ron and Harry stared at Hermione questioningly. She finally got up and started searching the room, before turning to Ron.

“You remember the book I gave you a few Christmas’s ago? The one on creatures of the night? You didn’t happen to read it did you?”

Ron looked up slightly, and blushed. “I never really got around to it, although I will one day. It’s still in my trunk.”

Hermione rushed over to the trunk, and grabbed the things off the top. She opened it, and quickly shuffled through the clothes and unused objects. At last she grasped the book, and turned to look at them. “It figures you wouldn’t read it, but I did before I gave it to you. There’s a very useful chapter in here on Death Eaters and how to tell by their sleeping habits whether or not their very powerful. That won’t help us, but I remember something else being in here, it might just be what we’re looking for.” She ended briskly and flipped through the pages, them flying as they turned. She suddenly found the chapter, and her eyes darted quickly from side to side, growing bigger by the moment. She looked up at Harry, and as their eyes met he knew something was not right. She began to read in a shaky voice that didn’t belong to her at all.

“Death Eaters, while all are powerful, vary in degrees. Some carry out little jobs here and there, while others go on dangerous, and oftentimes, extreme missions. No matter what level of power they are at, they are all striving for one thing. When Voldemort feels his time is slowly ending, he will choose to pass on not only his title, but his wealth and greatest secrets to a select person. That person will then become like a family member, even having some of the same genetic make-up. They will be rigorously trained and sculpted into an almost mirror like image of the real Voldemort himself. Although it has not happened yet, many feel it may begin soon. When the time does arrive, that person will be marked with the Death Eater symbol not on his arm, as customary, but on his neck to show, power, strength, and overall domination.

Hermione slowly and quietly closed the book, before turning to Harry’s pale cold face and whispering, “Harry, your Voldemort’s heir.”