disclaimer:
Voldemort and pets are the property of JK Rowling. If you don't believe me, I shall sick the Barons Black onto you. Dumbledore and his pets are also the property of JK. (But he'll be dead soon…)
They arrived together into the same room they'd departed from.
Draco stared at both of them intently.
"I hate you Potter, I'll make that much clear; but I'll give credit where due and say that facing Voldemort like that took guts. We'll see if you have the guts to steal from Dumbledore though"
He turned to leave. "See ya Potter, mud-"
"Draco," Hermione started. "Do you think for a second I wasn't serious when I said I'd take your finger, you've got another thing coming."
"Whatever," Draco replied carelessly as he walked out.
"How hard do you think it would be to have Draco framed for something as soon as we poison those lemon drops?" Hermione asked Harry.
"Now now baroness," Harry replied sourly. "I'm kind of hoping that it would be Snape."
"I'm sorry about that Harry, I said it without thinking it through."
"As soon as word gets back to Dumbledore, he'll know what we're up to immediately."
"They're a code-name Harry. We'll do everything we can to give an image contrary to a baron and baroness."
"Torn Muggle clothes, bad English accents and missing teeth?"
"Well, we'll stick with Muggle clothes, but personally, I think we should make the name 'Black' something to fear." She replied.
"Oh, they'll fear the name alright, Malfoy went totally pale when you made Karkaroff gouge his eyes out. I can't help but think you enjoyed yourself a bit too much."
Hermione smirked. "And you didn't take your frustrations out on Percy I'm sure."
"Hmph."
Hermione sighed. "I should do some research. We have three days in which I have to make myself a potent poison that won't be blatantly obvious, and preferably, hard to cure."
"That's your department." Harry replied. "If you're going to do that, I'm going to hang around Dumbledore's office for a bit tomorrow."
Hermione frowned. "Do it on the second night love. Tomorrow night you should spend looking up some detection spells and how to circumvent them, we both know that Dumbledore can't detect us when we're invisible, but what's to say he doesn't have better defences on his office?"
Harry nodded and they parted for the night with a kiss.
Harry's research lead him to find detection charms that would both be of great use to himself as well as give him stuff to look out for.
It worked out well for him that the past week, Professor Flitwick had been explaining the basics of setting wards. 'Quite an interesting coincidence'
Harry had spent his evening before curfew invisibly watching Dumbledore's office.
It sucked being invisible because he couldn't read a book without the book being visible. He watched as the unmistakable aura of Dumbledore approached him and the statue.
"Candy Canetoads."
Harry smiled to himself and walked away to make an appearance before the Gryffindors.
"Hey Harry," A red-headed fifth year called to him as he entered the room.
"Ginny? Hey."
"Umm Harry, I was wonder if perhaps"
'If perhaps what?'
"Would you go out with me some time?"
Harry frowned. This was probably one of Dumbledore's schemes to ensure he stayed away from Hermione.
"I err I'm pretty far behind in my school work," He told her. "Let me think about it"
Ginny nodded. "But that's not a 'no' right?"
Harry desperately wanted to say that there wasn't a chance in hell, but it sounded to him like she was intended to talk about it with someone, and it wouldn't be a good idea to reject her if she were going to answer to Dumbledore.
"Let me get some assignments done, and I'll think about it in the meantime." He repeated.
She smiled broadly and traipsed off to where a couple of Gryffindors her age were sitting.
Harry shook his head as he went to his room to rest until it was time for him to attempt Dumbledore's office.
He looked at the map before leaving his dorm, ensuring that Dumbledore was nowhere in the school before he laid down his charms and left for his office.
Harry moved as quickly as he could without making a sound towards the office, uttering the password as he moved past quickly.
As he approached the door into Dumbledore's office, Harry muttered the spell that would reveal any wards for a short period of time and opened the door. The wards appeared as either domes around objects or paper-thin walls around various objects. Each ward had runes written on them which described what the ward was.
Harry's knowledge of runes was limited at best as it was one of Hermione's strengths, but Harry knew the ones he was looking for.
Much to his surprise, there were no wards to notify access to the office, only individual wards on certain items.
As he quietly closed the door, he started taking inventory of the different items scattered around the room, the sorting hat was exactly where it always was and the lemon drops were on the guest table Dumbledore was so often sitting them at. Harry started walking through the room looking for the scales which Voldemort had spoken of.
He found them sitting on the opposite side of the room, close to Dumbledore's pensive. He stared at the pensive for a moment and wondered to himself what would happen if he cast 'obliviate' at the pensive.
There were charms cast on the scales and the sorting hat which showed up as wards, both had tracking charms, the scales had some runes which Harry could not identify, but did his best to commit them to memory. If he didn't know them, there was a high possibility that Hermione would.
Having located each of the objects he was after, he used 'finite' to cancel the ward visibility and was about to exit when he saw a brief movement.
He wondered if he had been busted casting the spell and as he looked where the movement had come from, realised that it was Fawkes, sleeping. As he watched the bird, an idea came to him and he exited the room, heading straight to the chamber where Hermione was brewing the poison they'd use.
"Hey sweety," He called.
She looked up and smiled. "How'd it go?"
"Got any way to enchant a stasis?"
"Sure, but it's rather exhausting. Why? What did you find?"
"Oh nothing." Harry grinned mischievously. "There's nothing special about the room, no wards protecting access. There are individual wards around selected objects including the scales. Tracking charms on both scales and the sorting hat. Nothing out of the ordinary about the drops, but that's expected.
"The only thing we need to worry about is a ward on the scales. Do you have any idea what this ward might be?" He asked, sketching the runes on a book.
"It looks like runes of disinterest. I'd imagine that if you went to look at it you'd be forced to look somewhere else instead. Easy to circumvent." She replied. "Careful, don't drop that anywhere near my potion, last thing I want is to give them a slight gut-ache instead of death."
Harry chuckled to himself. "How long before you're done?"
"Almost finished mixing, then it's got to brew for an hour."
"That will be cutting it close" Harry mused.
"We're running out of time. Tomorrow is the last day for this."
Harry nodded. "It will be fine. I hope Voldemort won't mind if I borrow something of Dumbledore's for myself."
Hermione added a pinch of leaves of some kind. "I don't care, just make sure that it doesn't point to us at all."
"Morsmordre?"
Hermione gaped at him, and then grinned quite evilly. "If we got busted doing that--"
"The consequences would be as bad as if Dumbledore caught us together."
"Let's do it!"
Harry and Hermione waited until Dumbledore had been gone for half an hour before they snuck up on his room.
Just to be cautious, Harry cast the ward detection spell a second time to make sure nothing had changed, cancelling it before they did any work on the room.
"I'll do the lemon drops first, then you destroy the scales while I get the hat."
"While you're doing the lemon drops I'll--"
The fireplace lit up and McGongall stepped into the room. "Honestly, a man his age shouldn't have any problems remembering the minutes." She marched to his desk and grabbed the piece of paper in question and looked around the room as if she felt someone there. Not seeing anyone, she walked away and to the fireplace. "Grimmauld Place" and was gone.
"Fawkes." Harry whispered as he moved to the bird.
He had no idea where Hermione was, but was pretty sure that she was taking care of the lemon drops.
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry poured his intent into his hand and Fawkes was caught completely off guard as the spell hit the bird and he exploded into flames.
Harry pulled out the pot he'd stolen off of Professor Sprout and banished all that was left of the bird into the pot and cast the stasis spell that Hermione had taught him on the pot, preventing the phoenix from being reborn from it's ashes.
"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "I can't believe you just did that!"
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth I say" He panted. "Get the Hat."
Harry moved to the scales and very quickly stabbed the ward with his wand and poured his magic into it, shattering the ward.
With the ward out of the way it was purely trivial to destroy the scales.
"Done."
"I've got the hat." Hermione replied. "Let's get out of here."
Harry was about to leave when something else caught his eye. 'The sword of Gryffindor' He checked it as quickly as he could and failing to find anything on it, liberated it.
"Lets go!" Harry disillusioned the sword and ran to the door, swinging around to cast "Morsmordre" and carefully closed the door.
Together, they quietly moved to their meeting place with Draco.
"You both wanna keep me waiting any longer?" Draco sneered as they appeared.
"We were having a bit of fun." Harry replied. "Lets get this done, I'd like to make a show of being in bed when Dumbledore comes back."
The snake behaved itself as they put their hand on it and a little later, found themselves in the graveyard once more.
Voldemort was waiting when Harry and Hermione arrived, Hat, sword and pot in hand.
"There's a few more things there than I asked for." Voldemort hissed.
Harry shrugged. "Dumbledore killed my familiar, so I killed his." He replied nonplussed. "But I will apologize for the sword. I hope you don't mind, but I blamed the damages on the Death Eaters."
"The Dark Mark?"
They both nodded.
"Perfect. You have exceeded my expectations." Voldemort grinned nastily. "You have earned my help with Azkaban."
Voldemort pulled out a couple of black cloaks from his robe, they were horribly torn and looked almost slimy. "You said you wanted to leave your own mark." He threw them at their feet.
"These look like Dementor cloaks." Hermione mused.
"I had a minor disagreement with them during our last negotiations." To which Bellatrix giggled.
Lucius moved forward and placed a couple of black masks on top of the cloaks.
"These will be the mark of the Barons Black." Voldemort announced. "Assuming you are satisfied."
They each picked up the cloaks, they felt very light, and despite their holes, the cape itself seemed to emit a darkness of its own.
"They'll do nicely." Hermione told them.
"Yes, this will give people something to fear."
Voldemort looked at them expectedly. "Well? Put them on. You will wear these before me from now on, you will be known as Baron Black and Baroness Black, or Barons Black from now on amongst the Death Eaters."
Harry swung his cloak over his shoulders and felt himself enveloped in darkness. He had expected his hands to suddenly shrivel up and develop scabs and a grey tinge, but they stayed the same.
The cloak was warmer than he expected, not an ounce of the coldness that he'd expected.
He reached down and placed the mask on his face, it had no way of staying on, short of the weak sticking charm applied to it.
Harry looked around, surprised to find that the mask did nothing to hinder his sight.
Harry looked at Hermione to find that she was wearing her cloak, it did indeed envelop her in an unnatural darkness, the only way that you could tell that she was female was from the curve of her breasts against the cloak. The mask had glowing red eyes which was very different from the image of a dementor.
It would take some time to get used to being dressed as the one thing he once feared most, despite the obvious differences.
Voldemort nodded. "If you wish to stay in my good books, you will ensure that you perform well, do not slip up and will follow my orders without hesitation or question.
"I do not bargain with my Death Eaters Barons Black, I have made special allowance for the both of you, consider it the greatest honour and understand that with special allowances, I expect the very best from you.
"You will call me 'My Lord' from now on."
Voldemort beckoned to Bellatrix to come forward and held out his hand where she put the magical contract they had devised.
When he unrolled it and handed them a quill, Hermione hesitated for a brief moment and waved her wand over the top of the paper, checking for invisible clauses and hard to see fine print.
A very fine print appeared under the last item, detailing Hermione's added condition. She had passed another test from the Dark Lord.
"Very cute." She snatched the quill from his hand. "I'd assume you want blood for this?" She queried.
When Voldemort nodded, Hermione stabbed the quill into her hand, wincing in pain when she drew it out and signed her name on one of the spots and then handed it to Harry who did the same.
They were officially subordinates to Voldemort now. Both a thrilling and terrifying prospect for anybody with any sense.
Voldemort took the contract from them and held his hand out to each of them.
The thought of kissing someone's hand as he seemed to be expecting of them seemed revolting to Harry, but he was passed that. He lowered his mask down to the dark wizards hand and found that it didn't feel like the mask was even there which gave Harry the creeps.
"My Lord, I would like to ask of you one thing if I may." Hermione was asking him. "The Baron and I need a location untrackable by Dumbledore. At the very least, somewhere we can keep our disguises between tasks."
Voldemort turned his nose up at them. "You take up too much of my time as it is. I will grant you this last request. Bellatrix! Have Wormtail find a cave for these two and have him lay down some untrackable charms and make a re-usable portkey. Draco will deliver it to you both."
He looked down at them. "I am not here to cater to your every whim. If you want anything more than me, you had better prove you're worth the effort. You will be at the training exercises run over the upcoming holidays."
Harry wondered if he could escape Dumbledore's eyes for that length of time easily. It didn't matter, they'd stay in the cave that Wormtail was going to find for them.
Wormtail, there was someone near the top of Harry's hitlist as well. Once he had enough training, he would ask the Dark Lord to notify him when he had outlived his usefulness.
There was a lot of conflicting emotions with being an ally of the Death Eaters. Harry mused. So many people he wanted to kill from his own comrades. He decided that he wouldn't try killing them out of accidents as he knew they were slowly making Voldemort lose his patience.
"Don't worry my lord," Hermione told him. "We'll be there."
They took off the disguise and handed them to Bellatrix to have Wormtail put them in the cave along with the sword of Gryffindor. "Don't steal that sword Bellatrix, I intend to cut off Dumbledore's head with it."
She snorted. "Who would want this piece of crap?"
With that, they took hold of Draco's portkey and left back to Hogwarts.
They wasted no time on Draco's snide remarks as Hermione moved back to her dorm as quickly as she could muster.
Harry however stopped by the chamber of secrets to place the ashes of Fawkes. He did not trust phoenix ashes with Voldemort. He had no doubt that they would be very useful in a potion of some kind, but the ashes were Harry's reminder of Hedwig.
Harry had slept for two hours before the alarm was sounded and a very angry headmaster had every student up at 5am standing against the walls of the great hall.
Harry yawned. His rest had been more invigorating than he had expected. It gave him the mental awareness he needed to act surprised and appropriately outraged that Dumbledore's office had been broken into by Death Eaters and that someone had somehow kidnapped his prize phoenix, the school sorting hat, the sword of Gryffindor and destroyed a priceless antique.
One by one, Dumbledore moved through the students, using prior incantato to check their wands.
Harry wondered for a moment if using his wand to break the ward on the scales would show up. Technically he hadn't cast a spell; he'd just overfilled the ward until it became unstable.
When Dumbledore approached him he looked into Harry's eyes and assaulted him mentally once more with more power than Harry had ever had to bear.
Despite his shields holding, they bent under the pressure. He could sense Dumbledore's thought that said. "Was it you? I don't care if you're the chosen one, I will kill you if you did this!"
He roughly raised Harry's wand and cast the spell. Much to Harry's relief the image that displayed itself was the transfiguration he had cast much earlier the previous day.
Harry continued his act of innocence and watched the man move through the Gryffindors onto the Hufflepuffs. Thirty students past him, the Headmaster collapsed, rasping for breath.
Someone screamed and Madam Pomfrey rushed forward. "He's been poisoned!" She gasped. "Help me get him up to the hospital wing!"
"Children! Back to your dorms!" Professor McGonagall announced.
Harry stared in disbelief. He hadn't thought they'd catch the headmaster himself with the lemon drops.
It was bedlam as the students filed up to the dorms. Everybody was talking about who might have done it and why. Gryffindors in particular were rather fond of the headmaster.
'Gryffindors are all brave and courageous, but for all that, unable to see the truth in front of them.' He thought to himself. 'We'll be quite fortunate if he doesn't survive.'
"It's horrible isn't it?" Ginny said as she approached him. "Who would do such a thing? He is such a nice man."
'No he isn't.' Harry thought to himself. "I hope he'll be ok," He said while simultaneously thinking 'I hope he dies.'
"Are you alright?" Ginny asked. "If you want to talk, I'm here."
"I'm ok, just a little shaken up." Harry told her.
"I think we all are. Us Weasleys are having a hard time too. It seems that Percy hasn't turned up at work for the last week. Mum's starting to get pretty worried."
"I'm sorry." Harry replied, trying his best to sound sincere. "Look I'm going to go to bed and think for a bit."
Ginny nodded.
"Madam Pomfrey has informed us that the Headmaster is out of immediate danger and has been moved to the intensive care unit at St. Mungos. He will be alright." Professor McGonagall announced the following night.
Harry had planned to go up to the hospital wing to finish him off before breakfast only to find that it was guarded by no less than eighteen aurors. There was no way he could let off a spell without his aura flaring enough to be detectable.
He was sure that the news would reach the Dark Lord quite quickly. Perhaps he would finish the old man off before he became strong enough to fight again. He doubted that would be a smart idea however, as with eighteen aurors specifically for the hospital wing at Hogwarts, they'd have double that at St. Mungos.
He kept a scowl from appearing on his face.
"In the meantime, if you have any problems which would normally require the headmaster's attention, please come to me instead."
The Christmas break loomed overhead. The last anybody had heard, Dumbledore was expected to be in the hospital for another two months as they worked the last of the poisons out of his system.
Hermione had been completely furious that he survived, wondering if she had somehow made a mistake in making the poison. Harry had comforted her by suggesting that perhaps Dumbledore was far too attached to his power to give it up that easily.
Despite Dumbledore being missing from the school for an extended length of time, the couple worked exceptionally hard to keep from relaxing or allowing their stories to change at all.
Their night time wanders down to the chamber continued unabated and remained unknown to the staff.
Harry had asked Hermione for advice about what to do with Ginerva Weasley as he really wasn't sure. Hermione had suggested that once he ran out of excuses for homework that he let her know he just wasn't ready for a relationship.
She admitted then that she was being constantly approached herself by Michael Corner which annoyed Harry. He pointed out to his girlfriend that Dumbledore was probably trying to drive a bigger wedge between them. Hermione however felt that it was genuine interest, but admitted that even if she weren't together with Harry, she wouldn't have even considered him.
With Dumbledore gone, Harry was able to focus a lot better on his schoolwork which helped him improve his grades, if only a little. If not for a small run-in with Draco towards the school holiday which was a ruse to deliver the two portkeys assigned to them, Harry would think life had improved.
The feeling was shortlived however, for as the Christmas holidays loomed closer to them, Hermione was confronted by Professor McGonagall about staying at the school over Christmas as her parents had been arrested.
Hermione had quite tartly refused, she was quoted as saying "I'll make my own decisions about my own life. As it so happens I intend to go and stay with an aunt."
Harry himself had decided he was going to move to Grimmauld place before going back to school after Christmas.
And so, he waited for the train's arrival at Kings Cross station. They were separated by a number of carriages and Harry was being forced to participate in conversations he wasn't even interested in.
When they disembarked, Harry made a beeline straight for Grimmauld Place.
They had planned it prior that Hermione would make her way invisibly to Harry's home and from there, they'd portkey to their cave to live in for a length of time.
With nobody in the house when Harry got home, he decided to drop off the Dark Arts books that he had been reading at school and pick out another few.
Hermione was a lot later than Harry had expected. She had recognised two order members, Mundungus Fletcher and Bill Weasley tailing her on the way to her aunt's place. It took her a long time to get far enough ahead to duck around a corner and disillusion herself so she could get away from them.
Harry had grabbed his set of books and the pot of ashes as soon as she finished her explanation so they could portkey over to their new residence for the holidays.
The cave was, just that. A cave. It went back about twenty metres into a mountain range. They assessed it together, finding that the only thing in the place was a single piece of rock which had been planed flat for use as a bed. The only things on the rock were their coats and masks, the sword of Gryffindor and a piece of paper that said "Training begins at 8am, here is your location" with a map of Norway.
There was no natural light in the cave which was to be expected. This cave was not part of the original negotiations and was no doubt the first cave Wormtail could find.
As Hermione worked over the unplottable charm with a much more effective fidelius for the cave, Harry did a few household chores including cushioning charms on the bed-stone, cutting holsters for enchanted lights into the walls and cutting a recess for the books that Hermione would no doubt procure while the cave was in use.
By the time that Hermione had finally finished casting the very complex charm, Harry had moved onto expanding the place to have a training room.
Harry wiped his brow.
"Wow, that's a rather large area. For extra training?"
Harry turned to see Hermione in a nightdress. "Is it that late already?"
He couldn't help but stare at her. If someone had told him when he was on the train to Hogwarts for the first time that the bushy haired, know-it-all Hermione Granger was going to one day be standing before him in nothing but her nightdress, smiling happily in a way that only he could, he wouldn't have believed them. Nor would he have understood exactly what it meant back then either.
"Like what you see Baron Black?" She asked him with an amused grin.
Harry snapped out of his reverie and coughed. "Yes, well I'm thinking another couple of metres in the back might do."
"Don't punch a wall in the back of the mountain." Hermione joked.
"I'm pretty sure there's a fair distance further before I'd do that" Harry replied, shaking his head. "I suppose we should get some sleep, who knows what we're up against tomorrow."
When Harry was back into the main chamber, Harry found that Hermione had managed to solidify a bit of the rubble that Harry had dug up into a second bed and had transfigured some clothes into sheets they could use.
When they had both gotten into bed, they talked about inconsequential things like their current arrangements were like camping and how Harry decided he would go and get something to eat before they trained and eventually fell asleep.
Harry rose at six in the morning and immediately threw on some clothes and scouted the area outside. It did not take him too long to realise that there were a few reindeer around the mountains. Harry learned that he was going to need to be a lot quieter when tracking them if he were to make a kill easily.
He fluked his first reindeer by firing off random shots once it had run and one shot managed to hit it on the hind leg severing it completely.
Harry was quite proud of himself as he levitated the animal corpse back to the cave where he used the sword he had procured to gut and prepare the meat for cooking with the help of Hermione's vast repository of knowledge.
At half past seven, they put on their cloaks and masks for the second time. Today would be their first day to make a good impression and make use of the training that the Dark Lord was providing them.
They each placed their hands on the coin that he had provided them with and felt a familiar tug at their navels.
When they arrived, they could see they were in a meadow with a variety of animals in a pen ahead of them and forest all around.
"Ah, the Dark Lord told me that you two would be unmistakable." A stereotypical Death Eater approached them in black garb, much better condition than their own, plus the standard skull mask. "I'm the training instructor assigned to you both. I hope you're worth my time as I take a lot of pride in the Death Eaters I turn out."
The man took his mask off and showed his scarred, once handsome face. "They call me The Silent Knight, but for now, you can call me Knight."
Neither of them returned the favour of showing their faces, but introduced each other as politely as they could.
"Not much for curtesy are you?" The man asked them.
"While our dress may be distinguishing, we have a lot to lose by showing our faces to people that cannot be trusted."
The man sneered. "I guess we'll never see your faces around here then.
"I'm told you're self-taught, so how often will I have to use the imperious on you to get you to kill those cows?" He gestured to a set of animals in a field.
Hermione flicked her wand level with her shoulder and a stream of yellow light streamed across the field.
Knight whistled as the top half of a cow slid off its legs and crumpled to the floor.
"Would you like me to give a better demonstration on a person instead?"
The Knight whistled. "That's a nice cutting curse. Wordless magic of decent power. Looks like we can skip a few months of training then. I don't suppose either of you are capable of wandless magic?"
"No." Harry lied. "But we have tried."
"Shame We need more wandless users." He sniffed, disapproving. "Parkinson! Get your arse over here."
Pug-faced Pansy Parkinson approached the instructor and visibly shivered.
"Duel with the Baroness."
"Duel with a dementor sir?"
Hermione knocked the girl back a few feet with a weakly powered tergum compello.
Pansy yelped and switched to the defensive. She lasted for 30 seconds against the ferocity of Hermione's brutal onslaught when her shield crumbled and she was hit by a bone-crusher to her upper-right arm.
"That was disgraceful Pansy!" Pansy's trainer barked. "If you want to be one of his elite you'll have to do a LOT better than that."
"Perhaps I should have you both duel each other to get a feel for your abilities."
The Barons stared with traditional duelling manners, 10 paces, turn and fire. Hermione again started on a very quick round of seemingly random spells which were specifically selected to break Harry's shield.
It was a tactic that Harry hadn't actually caught on with, but was fast enough with his spells to completely drop his shield, fire off a couple of shots and raise it again, rendering her strategy ineffective against the constant renewal.
When Hermione realised this, she switched to a more careful shielding tactic. After an hour, Knight called it a draw.
"Impressive speed, magical strength and stamina. Baron, your accuracy is crap. Your stances are full of holes which neither of you are exploiting and you both rely entirely too much on your wands. You've also become too familiar with each other. You need to learn how to handle unpredictable opponents can be.
"Let's see how you do as a team against Flint! Malfoy! Here!"
Draco grinned evilly as he approached the couple. "The mudblood baroness thinks she can win in a duel against me? There's different rules here Barons. You're about to learn them very painfully."
By the time that Harry and Hermione returned to their cave that night, they learned one thing above all else. Their skills as fighters were very much honed towards each other. They had not lost to Flint and Malfoy, but they hadn't walked away undamaged.
Not only that but although they knew each other's most common tactics, they were unable to synchronise with each other to effectively launch an attack.
Not that it stopped Hermione from building herself a shelf to put her finger collection. Draco had been sporting so many cuts, bruises and broken bones that he hadn't even realise that the Baroness had collected his finger, despite Draco's taunts to say she couldn't.
Harry chuckled to himself at hearing Hermione humming happily while perfecting the rear corners shelf.
The Silent Knight, second best assassin of the Dark Lord watched over the teenagers brawling.
He didn't even turn to see who was approaching him from behind. Dark Lord Voldemort's Aura had a feel of it's own that he could recognise from fifty metres away.
"Well?" He asked.
"I'll be honest with you my lord. Half of them are useful as cannon fodder. The Malfoy kid is good, but too cocky."
"And what of my two young protégés?" He asked, spotting them both sitting down.
"Vicious." The man replied. "God know where they get their spells from, nobody has been willing to duel them for the last two days since the Baron cast a charm that ripped one of the Durmstrang kid's skin off; third fatality in two weeks. Plus it seems the female one has a collection of twenty fingers so far since Malfoy suggested she was a mudblood."
"So they're cruel. It makes them perfect in sentiment, but how are their skills."
"Well, they came with wordless magic. They told me they've tried for wandless but aren't able to. Having said that, they can duel for three hours without breaking a sweat and the level of magic they use isn't kids stuff. I get the impression they've either been using that kind of magic for a long time or they're used to playing with much higher powered stuff."
"Interesting." Voldemort replied.
"I've gotten them working very well together now. They'll make a good assassination team as you wanted, when they want to be hidden, not even I can find them."
"Summon them to me."
The man nodded and whistled ear-piercingly. "Blacks! Front and centre!"
Harry was brought out of his meditation by the sound and on seeing the Dark Lord's presence, gently brought Hermione out of her trance.
"He wants us."
They joined their trainer at the crest of the hill.
"I have a job for you both."
"As you wish." They both replied.
"You are to bring me the head of Augusta Longbottom." The dark lord pulled a scroll out of his robes and handed it to them. "I had this collected, make good use of it."
"We'll need a portkey." They replied.
Voldemort grumbled. "Knight, see about having them trained in apparating and remove the tracking on them.
"I'll be expecting you tonight. Knight will bring you before me."
Voldemort disappeared with a crack.
"Take the rest of the day off to go over that material." Knight told them. "You'll start at 9pm tonight, be here half an hour before then."
Harry left his girlfriend in study mode while he had bathed in the oversized bathtub they'd installed.
It would have looked very odd to see a 17 year old boy floating bubbles of water, a metre in diameter up to a cave to put in a rock bathtub.
The cave had evolved a lot in the two weeks they were there, With the help of some powerful and some well focused magic, they'd managed to change the cave from a dingy caveman's abode to a much more comfortable area with a large library space (with a whole seventeen books), adjacent study area, duelling hall and made a new bedroom with a divider between them.
It was cosy with just the two of them as they spent their nights discussing new spells or Hermione making up her own which was something that Harry dearly loved to watch.
Yet, their relationship had not moved forward from friendly embraces and chaste kisses. For all the changes that had occurred in their lives since Dumbledore's identity came to the surface, they were too scared of destroying what they had.
Harry stepped into the study where Hermione was making notes.
"Everything alright?"
"It's a training run Harry, Augusta Longbottom is a wealthy pureblood witch, but she had no political stance except that she's against the Dark Lord.
"The report here says that she is suspected in transferring funds to the Order of the Phoenix. That is why we're hitting her."
Harry nodded. "Neville said that he's staying at Hogwarts this year, so we shouldn't have to kill him too. I can kill people I don't care for, but I don't think I'm emotionally ready to take the life of an old friend, even if he isn't who he used to be."
Hermione gave him a sympathetic look. "Harry, Voldemort only wanted us to kill Augusta, there's no reason why we should kill anybody else in the house."
Harry nodded.
"Besides, there was a reason deep down why we said we wouldn't take the Death Eater garb wasn't there?"
"I guess I just didn't like what it stood for."
"Well we sure as hell weren't going to apparate into the Longbottom mansion to kill someone without some kind of a disguise were we? That would just prove that the Daily Prophet was right and that you do have a screw loose." She smiled simply. "Going in there as ourselves, it would look to anybody under Dumbledore's thumb that we've lost it. It's going to be rather ironic if it comes out that we are the Barons Black."
Harry laughed. "You know that I wouldn't have even considered that. I'm not entirely comfortable with the image that we're projecting, but it's better than sitting back and pretending like everything is okay."
"We'll make sure that nobody says our codename lightly."
Harry grinned. "Great, so we become You-Know-Who-Two and You-Know-Who-Three."
Hermione playfully slapped him. "You prat!"
She sighed. "They probably will won't they? It will probably seem to them that we've gone dark."
Harry lost his smile and sadly shook his head. "We went dark the minute we tried casting a spell from that book."
"But we're doing it for the right reasons aren't we? We need Voldemort's help to take Dumbledore down!"
Harry sighed. "Well, I think we are, but there will be a lot of people out there who won't. We're killing innocent people as a way of getting to him."
"That's the thing Harry." Hermione told him. "Dumbledore threatened to use Luna to kill me! Luna! I have no doubt that he'd do it either, One obliviate and the man makes you a murderer, another obliviate and she's back to normal, a few more on top of that and nobody is aware you even existed!"
"So you're saying we should kill them on the off chance they have murdered in the past?"
"Harry, what I'm saying is that we're not killing people as such, we're removing the strings from puppets. Dumbledore can't control puppets with no strings. They're free."
Harry nodded. He could understand where Hermione was coming from, and it did make sense, he knew for a fact that when you died, you lived on elsewhere. It had to be a better life than not knowing who you really were.
"Then when we get a chance we should kill Neville too, and his parents I hope that if we do that, they'll get their sanity back and Neville and Augusta can have them back."
Hermione smiled. "That's really sweet of you Harry. We'll do that."
"So, show me how we're going to do this." Harry said leaning over to look at the map.
The Barons black portkeyed to the grounds around the Longbottom Mansion and Hermione disillusioned herself immediately to start placing the anti-apparation ward which involved her going for a hike all the way around the sandstone walls, pouring out magic as she moved.
When she finally reached Harry again, she pulled out her wand and etched some runes into the air above the slightly glowing line. When she was done, she waved her arms in the familiar arc that he had witnessed in the graveyard the night they killed Percy and Igor.
Harry chuckled to which Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"I never realised you were just activating the wards that the Dark Lord already had in place."
Hermione smirked. "In the event of a fight, he wouldn't have wanted us apparating away if we knew how to. Come on."
They disillusioned themselves and skirted the wall and passed through the gate to the house.
The Longbottom Mansion itself was the same sandstone as the walls and seemed to be made of many cylindrical rooms joined together. The only square object to be found around the place was a greenhouse which was just visible from where they were walking up the large driveway.
Harry found it rather odd that a wizarding home should have a stone path driveway wide enough for a car given that they had probably never even had a car in the driveway in the history of the home.
They approached the front door and Hermione quietly cast Alohamora on the door.
As they slipped inside, it occurred to Harry exactly how cumbersome it was to be truly invisible as he could neither tell where Hermione was, nor could she know where he was.
Harry saw a flicker of an aura, enough for him to grab Hermione's outstretched hand as she lead him up the stairs.
Augusta Longbottom spent Thursday nights in the study reading a novel which worked out well for them as they stepped into the study and closed the door.
The elderly Augusta Longbottom looked up from her book. "Neville? Is that you? You know I don't like the door closed!"
'Neville is here?' Harry wondered.
Hermione removed her disillusionment charm, revealing her dementor like gaze upon the lady.
"Oh Merlin!" The oldest Longbottom exclaimed as Harry appeared beside her.
She fumbled for her wand beside her, but Hermione had already cast a frozen-heart curse which cooled her blood and stopped the heart from being able to beat.
The lady clenched her chest as Harry severed her head from her body.
"Was that really necessary?" The Baroness asked her.
"He asked us to bring back her head."
The door swung open and the pair swung around to see Neville staring at them. "Dementors!" He raised his wand. "Expecto--" Neville caught sight of his grandmother's head on the floor beside her arm chair. "Expecto-- Expe-- Expect--" He spluttered, unable to maintain a happy thought in his head for a brief moment.
His eyes flashed and his head snapped towards the would-be dementors. "Expecto Patronum!" An eagle flew from his wand towards the Barons Black.
"finite" Neville stared as his first corporeal patronus disappeared.
"Join your grandmother and be free." Harry told him as he fired an ethereal stake through his room-mate's neck.
Harry turned his head as Neville fell to the head. Nobody could see the tears that leaked from his eyes behind his mask.
Hermione put her hand on his shoulder. "Come on Harry, he's free now. Let's leave the bodies outside."
Harry nodded. "How about we leave Neville in the greenhouse. I think he'd appreciate that."
It was nine fifty when the Longbottom house collapsed to the ground with the much feared morsmordre floating above the rubble and the Barons Black portkeyed away from the scene.
"I have seen little to suggest that you are actively doing anything at all. You ask us to join you, but we cannot see that there is benefit in joining you. It is easy for you to say that you'll promise us free reign to feed as we wish, but in what way are you moving to take down the Ministry or the venerable Chief Warlock Dumbledore?"
"Dumbledore will soon be dust." Voldemort replied. "I have two assassins--"
There was a bang on the door and it opened to show The Silent Knight enter. "Pardon my lord, but you asked me to bring the Barons Black to see you immediately."
"Speak of the devils." The Dark Lord said. "Show them in."
The Baron and Baroness going by the name of Black entered the room, carrying a serving tray between them. "We took the liberty of bring you some tea my lord." Hermione's voice rang.
The vampires stared at the tray between them, housing a teapot, tea cup, sugar, milk and the head of Augusta Longbottom.
Even the Death Eaters present bar Bellatrix Lestrange looked a bit off colour at the sight as the tray was taken to the head of the table and placed in front of Voldemort.
"Milk and sugar my lord?" The Baron asked.
Voldemort laughed, his voice rang through the hall. "Milk, no sugar." He replied.
Harry made the tea and wondered for a moment if he was going a bit over the top with the whole 'Bring me her head' thing. But then he looked at Lucius staring at him as if he had grown a second third arm.
"Aren't they adorable!" Bellatrix said, breaking the silence as Harry put the cup in front of her lord.
Voldemort beckoned Hermione closer and whispered into her ear.
She disappeared from view.
"There is no lack of resolve in these two. They will kill anybody I set them to, including ministry officials."
There was a strangled scream at the far end of the table and one of the vampires collapsed with a large wooden spike protruding from his back.
"You may both go now. I am pleased."
The Barons bowed and left the Dark Lord's presence.
Author's note:
I've had a number of very generous reviews. You guys have given me a drive to make sure that I put a bit more effort into making the storyline as good as I can. (This was going to be a quick story with no real storyline, but it kind of evolved since then ^_^)
Morty M pointed out that Harry and Hermione were a little too OOC (Out of Character) when torturing at Voldemort's request. I have to admit, I agree wholeheartedly, but I will hopefully make their actions seem a little less abnormal when I start describing Dark Arts in detail. Still, I'll strive further to make them as in-character as I can.
Oh, and in case you're thinking, no the sorting hat is not a horcrux.
--Steven