Unofficial Portkey Archive

Prince of the Dark Triangle

Details, descriptions, items and characters of the Harry Potter series are the sole property of J.K.Rowling, et al and used only within the context of this story and my not be otherwise reprinted, sold, or used for any other purpose. Original characters and plot are mine and my not be used in any other {for profit} form without permission…

Chapter 1

Byron Humbolt walked into the rear or the Merchant's International bank through the service entrance holding his I.D. badge up to Maxwell Smyth as he passed.

"Morning Byron," Maxwell said with a smile looking up through the bullet-proof, bomb-proof glass of the rear security office, "Looks like it's going to be a fine day today!"

"For a change," Byron smirked, "Morning Max. I swear I don't know how you Brits stand it, seems like it's raining, foggy or bitterly cold all the time."

"Sometimes all three at once my good lad," Maxwell chuckled, "It's all a part of the charm."

"Right," Byron replied giving his colleague a deadpan look, "Have a good day Max. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"Cheer up old chum," Maxwell threw back at Byron as he made his way into the bank, "nicer weather's almost upon us. You'll see."

Byron just waved without looking back. With his other hand he slid his time card into the clock and heard the loud clack of the printer.

6:45:21

He slipped his card back in the slot and looked at the others. No-one else on his shift had arrived yet.

Typical!

Most of the other blokes he worked with on the security detail at Merchant's International seemed friendly enough. They constantly poked fun at him for being what they always referred to as a `Yank' but he didn't take it personal.

Chelsea Lyman was another story. She was the only female on his shift and while he had never said a single untoward word to the woman she seemed to regard him as about the same shape, consistency and intelligence of pond scum.

What made it even worse was that the woman was a total hottie but, of course, she knew that.

He hung his jacket on one of the hooks next to the time clock and made his way to the front of the main floor.

He greeted the usual service personnel as he made his way through the maze of halls and corridors of the administration offices.

He inspected and scrutinized every face, took in what they were doing and kept himself alert for any possible signs of something amiss as he did every day but he realized, with a rather heavy sigh, today was going to be just like any other day.

When he reached the lobby he made his way to the front security desk and checked in. An old man named Howard, (who looked like he had escaped from the morgue after the embalming process had been started) and a freaky-looking little Gothic chick nicknamed Benny had night watch.

He had heard the Goth chick had been warned repeatedly by management about the piercings, fingernail polish and lipstick but apparently, from what he gathered as he approached, she really didn't take them all that serious.

The girl looked completely out of place in her starched white uniform shirt, crisp blue uniform pants with creases you could slice fruit with and her guard hat over her jet black hair highlighted with a rainbow of bright colors.

Byron thought she wasn't exactly unattractive but when she opened her mouth to speak he realized he had about as much in common with her as he did with a drunken circus chimp. She was good at her job though and took it serious enough.

She definitely had a reputation as being a hard-ass. He was told she had single-handedly taken down two thugs trying to rob a service station when she had inadvertently walked in on them after using the restroom while off duty. He couldn't help but have a rather healthy respect for that so he played nice with the girl.

She barely even realized he was in the room most of the time.

After the usual pointless greetings and farewells he took his place at the entrance desk and started his daily paper shuffle. Fill out this log and complete that check list. Scan the digital displays, yatta, yatta, yatta.

Even though the bank did not open until 9:00 a.m. he was required to remain at the front security desk until at least one other guard on his shift was on duty. It was company policy and it made the early birds in accounting feel safer.

The main vault was not opened until the branch manager arrived and then two guards were required to be present when that was done.

By that time Byron was usually making rounds. He left the vault to the others.

The next to arrive, much to his dismay, as he watched her stomp across the lobby floor like a pissed-off rhino, was none other than the cheerful and ever sunny Chelsea Lyman.

When she dumped herself into the other seat next to him he chanced a glance up at her.

The woman looked like she had a dark storm cloud hovering over her head throwing miniature lightning bolts so Byron decided chatting was probably not in his best interest.

Trouble was…she always looked like that.

"Good morning Ms. Lyman," he mumbled without looking up.

She completely ignored him so he continued to watch the monitors as she filled out her parts of the logs.

After what seemed like an excruciating ten minutes of uncomfortable silence he decided to start making rounds. He snatched up a radio from the charger and stuffed it in his utility belt that held a can of mace, handcuffs, flashlight, nightstick and his Sig Saur P226 40 Caliber Semi-Automatic with two extra clips.

Chelsea looked up at him like he had insulted her. He turned without a word and walked away.

Most of his fellow security officers didn't go quite so heavily armed but Byron was nothing if not thorough.

He had realized long ago he would probably never need most of the crap he carried but after four years in the military and his stint at trying to get into law enforcement had driven home two solid facts…never leave anything to chance and always be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

Even after two years it still irked him to no end Scotland Yard thought him unfit to become an officer of the law. It was all due to one stupid answer on his entrance application.

Byron Humbolt suffered from blinding headaches. They made migraines feel like a stubbed toe. Since he was about 12 years old the headaches had plagued him. They were completely random in nature and were totally debilitating.

Constant trips to the doctors and several visits with neurologists yielded absolutely no results. He was completely physically healthy, healthier than most as a matter of fact. They could find absolutely nothing wrong with him but the headaches were relentless.

They seemed to get worse the older he got, the pressure at times seemed as if his head would simply explode.

He had joined the United States Marine Corps just out of high school because that's what his father had done and as far as Bryon was concerned, his father was his hero.

During his four years the headaches seemed to lessen to a minor degree. He attributed that to all the physical hard work he was subjected to constantly so he threw himself into his duties with relish. He climbed to the rank of First Lieutenant and was relatively content with his roll. He was even tossing around the idea of staying in for a while.

But as fate and his perceived constant bad luck would have it things didn't turn out like he had expected.

On routine petrol just outside a camp while in Afghanistan, his convoy was hit by several nasty road-side bombs that fragged several of the lesser armored vehicles. His lead Hum-Vee had been one of them.

He had taken a two and a half inch bolt through the mid-section and it took out one of his kidneys. Another sharp piece of metal went right through his Kevlar into his left shoulder severing some major tendons.

A fraction of an inch one way or the other and it would have severed a major artery and he would be wearing a pair of big white wings and a halo…or at least he liked to think he would have been anyway.

At that point, his military career was pretty much over.

After some painful rehabilitation his life was hit with another major tragedy. His father died of sudden and completely unexpected heart failure. It had devastated him and his mother.

His father had met her during his own time in the Marines. She had grown up and spent most her life in Reading, England but decided to move to the states after she had fallen head-over-heels in love with her `Yank.'

Byron loved his mother and father and his youth was a relatively normal one…with the exception of his stupid headaches.

He had visited England several times to visit his mother's family. There wasn't much left. Only his grandmother and a few Aunts, Uncles and cousins were left even when he was young but he loved visiting his Grandmother in the Old Country, as his father had once called it.

After his father's death his mother didn't want to stay in America any longer. Her mother was aging and she really didn't have that many friends to speak of. She let Byron choose. She would have stayed for him but he saw how unhappy she was without his father so he retuned with her.

After he was discharged with honors from the Marines he returned to England and had been there ever since.

Now, as he turned a corner of a hallway on his rounds in the high-brow and very well-respected financial institutions in all of the United Kingdom, Byron Humbolt felt his life had fallen into a deep rut of solitude and mundane self-inflicted isolation.

He didn't have any friends to speak of, he never had. The whole male bonding thing had never really worked for him. He had been rather shy as a child and the problems with his headaches just exacerbated the situation so he was never really able to make any lasting connections.

He wasn't ugly. At 5' 10" tall with a solid athletic build, as a result of a long rehabilitation and constant weight training after he got out of the military, he had been told by more than a few girls they had thought him rather handsome, he just never seemed to be able to connect with any of them for some reason.

At 29 years old he could count his relationships with the opposite sex on one hand and his physical encounters with them on two fingers. It wasn't that he didn't like women - He loved them. He considered women who were attractive and slender like fine works of art but he never seemed to be able to open up and be himself around them.

He found most of the women he encountered on a daily basis rather…intimidating. He knew it was stupid but…

He also had a very dark and deep fear that he didn't really belong. He simply didn't fit into the everyday world he was constantly a part of.

It was something he had never told anyone because it made him feel foolish. He had no idea where it came from but he knew, deep inside, it was true. There was something about him that was different…something terribly wrong with him.

Things happened to him…strange things he could not explain. It always seemed to happen around the time he would get his brain-bending headaches.

He would find items had been moved around in his room or missing altogether. He would find himself in a completely different location without ever knowing how he got there.

One of his worst memories was when he was fifteen, not long after his father died. It was his birthday.

He had been in bed shaking, burning up with fever from the effects of his headache. His mother had just left his room after putting a cold cloth on his head.

He remembered feeling horrible watching his mother's tears knowing there was nothing she could do for her son's unendurable condition.

He wanted so badly to make it stop, to make the pain go away so it wouldn't hurt her any more. He hated to see her cry more than anything in the world.

When he closed his eyes he felt a sudden but unmistakable shift and felt like a human tube of toothpaste someone was squeezing way too hard. When he opened his eyes he was lying on the roof of their house starring up at a night sky full of stars.

He freaked out as he tried to scramble to his feet but realized he was still very weak. He looked down at himself and saw he was still wearing his sweat-soaked pajamas but as he stood there, the cool night air chilling him to the bone he suddenly realized the pain in his head had eased…it had eased a lot!

He put his hand to his forehead and marveled at the change but he was still horribly confused.

After finally finding a way to get down off the roof he snuck back inside the house and up to his room without his mother being the wiser to what had just transpired. Bryon was stunned speechless for days after.

There had been other things as well, things that had not been so remarkable, things that made him loath himself at times.

He had gotten into a fight at with some kids at school one time. One of the older punks was selling drugs to some of the other students. Byron hated the kid but didn't want to be branded a snitch either so he just tried to ignore it.

One day in the lunchroom the punk decided to turn his nasty attitude on Byron for no apparent reason. This guy always seemed to be surrounded by a gang of dopy kids just like him but that afternoon Byron had snapped. He had been fighting the intense pressure building in his head and he knew he was just a day or so away from another blinding headache.

Standing in front of the kid Byron remembered feeling like something was building up inside him. He knew it was probably just his anger but it had felt almost like a living thing coming to life. His head suddenly felt like it would just split open right there in the middle of the lunchroom. He had clamped his eyes shut gritting his teeth against the blinding pain.

It was as if he was suddenly surrounded by a hurricane of wind. It howled loudly in his ears in a deafening roar. When he opened his eyes the three boys menacing him had been thrown like rag dolls and were literally stuffed under a lunch table in a tangle of arms and legs moaning like they had been beaten to a pulp.

The tables on either side of him had been moved sideways like they had been physically picked up and shoved aside away from him.

All the students, the ones who hadn't fled in terror, were now standing around the outer perimeter of the lunchroom gawking, starring and whispering to one another behind their hands.

When the Assistant Principal showed up all fingers pointed to Byron standing quite alone in the midst of the carnage. After a brief interrogation his mother was summoned and Byron had been suspended for three days. She was not happy with him at all and grounded him for a month. He really didn't care all that much. It wasn't like he had a social life.

What amazed him was that after what had happened in the lunchroom he had no pain in his head at all for over two weeks after. It was the best he had felt in years…and he had no idea why.

The word had spread very quickly that Byron Humbolt was a total freak! The few friends he did have shunned him like the plague after that so he wasn't at all disappointed when his mother wanted to move back to the U.K.

Byron couldn't get on the plane fast enough.

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