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Chapter Seventeen—Dark Wings

“Should you be going in there, Minerva?”

Minerva paused for one moment to turn a withering glance on Irma. Irma cleared her throat and shuffled her feet. She was one of the people who had taken well to Headmistress Carrow’s reign, if only because she cared so little about people in comparison to books that she wouldn’t notice a dozen restrictive new laws as long as they didn’t close libraries.

“Ah. Yes, of course. You’re a professor. Do carry on, Minerva.”

Minerva gave Irma a curt nod back and continued walking into the Restricted Section.

The smell of the books around her was abruptly dustier and thicker than it had been before, and Minerva didn’t think it was her imagination that some of the tomes leaned off the shelves, looming over her like vultures. Minerva ignored them and continued walking. So many pureblood upper-years came here that there was no dust on the floor the way there had been when she was a student.

She rounded a corner and stood before the section she had come seeking. Minerva took a slow, difficult breath. She remembered reading something about children like Victoria Weasley before, but not exactly where, so it would take a lot of searching.

Well, it was the Christmas holiday, so she had time.

Minerva pulled the first book, A History of Dark Transfiguration, from the shelf, and began to read.

*

“Minerva?”

Severus knocked on the door to his colleague’s office, and then again, more firmly, when she didn’t respond. He hadn’t thought she would back out from their bargain this soon. Indeed, the main problem so far had been making sure that she didn’t show too much of how their alliance had renewed their spirit. Carrow had noticed the extra spring in Minerva’s step and how her eyes shone as she went about her days, Severus was sure.

“Come in.”

Severus exhaled his relief at her voice, despite how broken and despairing it sounded. He creaked open her door and stepped into her office, glancing around. Minerva was slumped over what looked a large book on her desk.

Has she been drinking? Severus sniffed subtly for the smell of Firewhisky, but the suspicion vanished when Minerva lifted her head and shook it silently at him.

“I am sober, Severus. I have merely discovered…” Her voice trailed off. “Will you sit?”

Severus nodded, while trying to get a look at the tome under Minerva’s hand. Something from the Restricted Section? The gleam of a small red symbol on the spine, which usually triggered the book to scream if someone unauthorized opened it, said so. Severus wondered why she had needed to access it, and what she had found there.

“What did you find?” he asked, when Minerva seemed disinclined to go on.

“Read, please.” Minerva turned the book on her desk towards him, and Severus bent over the ancient, wrinkled pages, smoothing the nearest one down a little in hopes that would help him better read the cramped handwriting.

There is one aspect of the art of Dark Transfiguration that is not practiced on humans, by international agreement, although it happens often with animals. This is the sort that Transfigures a fetus in the womb so as to bring it forth with the traits desired by the caster. This may be a sheep with sturdier wool, a cat with desired colors or sharper claws, or a Crup without the forked tail that would reveal them to Muggles. The art is still considered Dark because of the extent of fetal manipulation required, the overriding of nature and will—so far as animals have it—required by the spell, and because of the possible consequences for the mother.

Severus was about to ask what that had to do with anything, and then he choked as he remembered the potion that Lucius Malfoy had distributed to the Weasleys and others that allowed them to have more children than should be possible.

“Yes.” Minerva’s eyes were glittering savagely when Severus turned back to her. “In this case, Transfiguration has been combined with a potion, I’m sure, or otherwise it wouldn’t work. But…”

Severus slowly inclined his head. “It is—what are the consequences that you fear?” He knew Minerva had a stronger stomach than merely to be upset that Transfiguration had created the children she was talking about, especially if the mothers had taken the potion willingly, which they had in all the cases Severus was aware of.

Minerva flipped a few more pages, some of them past illustrations that Severus was glad she wasn’t requiring him to look at in more detail, and then shoved the book at him again.

There is a reason that this type of Dark Transfiguration is not more practiced, useful as it would seem to be in creating guardian beasts and animals that could be sold at a handsome profit or easily manipulated to the caster’s whim. These animals revert to their basic components in time, and have shorter lives than many of their kind. Assuming that the caster is skilled and at times looks in on their creations to renew their shapes or feed them magic, this may not be enough of a drawback to mandate dropping the practice. A cat that lives ten years instead of twelve or fifteen is not necessarily a burden to its owner. But when it comes to longer-lived animals like horses, the practice of Dark Transfiguration has fallen under disfavor, as the same caster may not be available to prevent the creature from reverting to its basic components.

Severus gagged. Reverting to its basic components…

“The children…” he whispered.

“Yes.” Minerva shut the book with a snap and stared at Severus with haunted eyes. “And did you notice that bit about how the caster must renew the spells? And feed the creations magic?”

Severus’s hands clenched under the table. Harvested children. The bodies of Transfigured creations like the Weasleys’ daughters are being renewed with the magic of harvested children. And they must know. That must be the cure for the illnesses that plague the children like the one that was keeping the Weasleys’ youngest daughter in hospital…

“This is evil,” he whispered.

“Yes. I would call very few things evil, but this.” Minerva didn’t finish the sentence. She clenched her hand on the side of the book, and then visibly made herself lay it aside. “What are we going to do, Severus?”

“I do not know what we can do,” Severus said, blankly. His mind was whirling, wondering who among his students had been created using this kind of magic and what would happen when their shapes hit the limit of what could sustain them and they reverted. He stared at Minerva.

She managed to sense what he wanted to ask without his voicing it. Her throat moved as she swallowed, the expression on her face compound of distaste and despair. “Blood, most likely. Dissipating Transfiguration magic that would be hard to detect. Perhaps some ingredients of the potion.” She hesitated. “A fetus, often.”

Yes, Severus wanted to be sick, but that would help nothing. He leaned slowly back in his chair, one fist tucked beneath his chin. “I will—think about this. And perhaps it will come clearer at the end.”

Minerva nodded. They were speaking more openly in her office, which Minerva swept daily for listening and eavesdropping charms, than they would elsewhere, but it was still a good idea to use code some of the time. Any reference to clearness or transparency meant Severus was going to communicate with Riddle, a reference to the crystal orbs that the man liked to use in his magic.

“Very well.” Minerva closed her eyes. “I thought I would learn some of what I was looking for, not so much. I only retained a vague memory of reading something like this once. Not the actual explanation.”

“We must live in this world as it is,” Severus murmured. “We will continue forwards, no matter what is necessary.”

After a moment, Minerva nodded.

*

Lucius sighed as he looked over the letter he had received from Arthur. The man had written politely, but his nervousness was clear in every scratch and line. His first daughter was suffering from the same sickness that had plagued his third, although with different symptoms and not severe enough to put her in hospital. He was wondering when Lucius could get the cure to him, and asking for it as soon as possible.

Lucius paused. Of course. He had been wondering what to do about some of the politically inconvenient Yaxleys, the ones who had survived the slaughter and were distancing themselves from him because of an absurd belief that Lucius should have protected them better. They might as well serve for this purpose as anything else. And Lucius could harvest enough magic to keep the cure for other allies whose children might begin suffering, and to make himself stronger.

Lucius smiled, and went to begin preparing for the Hunt.

*

The blast of uncoordinated fear tore through Tom’s mind as he was marking the private essay he had set Harry on the history of war wizards.

Tom was on his feet in seconds, pacing over to one of the crystals in the corner of his room that connected him to the Yaxleys who had been affected by the mist Black had released. He turned the crystal over, closed his hand around it, and shut his eyes.

He was instantly inside the mind of the Yaxley whose fear he had felt, a young woman named Miranda, as she ran. She was running through the vast forest that surrounded the Yaxley estates, and she knew what pursued her.

Tom began to smile, and couldn’t stop himself.

He had rarely had the opportunity to stop a Hunt in progress, and then, most of the time, it had been with something like the Hounds that had pursued Black or because he had happened to be in the area. But this time…

It was time for one of his plans that had long lain dreaming in the back of his mind to become reality.

Tom kept the crystal in hand, so as to maintain the connection with Miranda Yaxley, and reached for a potion that he had kept under a stasis charm for almost a decade.

*

Lucius smiled as he drew closer and closer to the inconveniently loud Yaxley he had chosen as his target. He rode a Granian, the slender grey winged horse darting above the trees like a hawk and heading straight for Miranda Yaxley. Lucius could have taken her down at least a mile back, but he enjoyed the Hunt, and the ceremony would prime her magic like nothing else.

Now, though, he was growing a little bored, and Miranda was stumbling and panting in a way that made him sure she couldn’t muster the sort of desperate strength that sometimes made a witch or wizard capable of wandless magic. Lucius set his hand on the Granian’s neck and swooped to the earth.

Miranda staggered around to face him at the far end of a clearing. Her dark eyes were wide and glossy, her blonde hair flying loose. Lucius curled his lip a little at the undignified display.

“St-stay away from me,” she panted, one arm clamped over what had to be the stitch in her side.

“I will be away from you shortly,” Lucius murmured, and drew his wand. “Believe me, the contact between us is no more pleasant for me than for you.”

Miranda shrank back further. Her eyes were wide and glistening with panic. Lucius closed his eyes and reached out for his magic. If he simply slit her throat the way some of the participants in the Hunts liked to do, her magic would drain away and dissipate like most witches’ and wizards’ did upon death. He had to make sure that the ritual was exactly right—

A sharp cry cut through the silence.

Lucius wheeled around, and stared when he saw that his Granian was down, pawing uselessly at the air with its hooves and crying out. Over it crouched a small swarm of bright green serpents with even brighter silvery wings. As he watched, one of the snakes lifted its head and eyed him, tongue darting out.

“What?” Lucius whispered. He had never heard that that kind of creature haunted the Yaxley woods, or Britain for that matter. He didn’t recognize these snakes. Certainly they weren’t Occamies.

“If you could see yourself, Malfoy.”

Lucius jumped again, but turned to face the figure that was stepping out from behind a tree. At least that made sense of the swarm of serpents, he thought. Someone conjuring them explained their presence.

Of course, the kind of enemy who could do such a thing was no one Lucius had expected to face, either. The Yaxleys would have been better able to defend themselves from the attack of their insane relative if that was so.

“I have claimed this Hunt,” Lucius replied softly, while his eyes scanned this new enemy. “That means that you should be able to depart, unless you intend to challenge me for her.”

The figure was tall, although draped in billowing green robes and with a hood over his face that meant Lucius couldn’t tell much about him. The voice was male, however, and the face became visible a moment later as the man pushed his hood back. He was older, with entirely silver hair, but his eyes were a brilliant, piercing green that seemed to shine like light through the darkness. His skin was pale and seamed with silver scars.

“I do not intend to claim it at all,” the man said mildly. “I intend to stop you from harvesting this unfortunate woman.”

Lucius nearly choked on laughter. The man sounded British, but he couldn’t be, not if he didn’t grasp how they did things here. “That is not possible. Do you know who I am? The Minister for—”

The man gestured with one hand. One of the winged serpents glided to within a meter of Lucius and hovered there, eyeing him. Lucius stared back, fascinated despite himself with the gleam of venom, clear as Veritaserum, on its fangs.

“I know exactly who you are,” the man murmured. “And that is why I am here to prevent you from harvesting her. I challenge you to a duel.”

Lucius narrowed his eyes. It wouldn’t be honorable to try and get out of that if the stranger was a pureblood, but Lucius had no way of telling that. ‘And your name?”

“Roland Peverell.”

Lucius choked. That name—there had been no one of that name in Britain in a very long time. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t have survived. Lucius had heard the story of the Deathly Hallows, like probably every child of his generation, but there had also been rumors that a family who had kept the name had emigrated to France centuries ago.

“How can I know that you speak the truth?”

For a moment, Peverell stood there as if thinking about how to respond. Then he sighed and gestured with his wand in a silent spell Lucius had never seen the movement for.

The air around them tightened and shone. And then the magic that Lucius had felt when he’d Apparated to the clearing where the Hounds had failed to kill Sirius Black roared into the night, and Lucius nearly fell to his knees much as he had then.

He controlled it, barely. He stared at the man, who stared back with small crinkles around the corners of his unnaturally bright green eyes. Lucius shuddered with something that he hoped was not fear.

Yes, the man had to be a pureblood. Only purebloods were that powerful. And whether his name really was Peverell or whether he had reached back into a maternal lineage or the like to find it, Lucius had to accept his challenge.

Lucius straightened and flicked his wand to show that he was ready to fight. Peverell nodded slowly to him, one hand moving back and forth as if caressing the magic that thickened the air around him.

I am going to lose this battle.

Lucius pressed back against that conviction, and ignored the fact that Miranda Yaxley had apparently bolted from the clearing, if the lack of panting sounds was any indication. It didn’t matter. Just because Peverell was powerful didn’t mean that he was good at dueling in the way Lucius was, in the way he’d had to be to claim a prominent place in the chaotic magical world of two decades ago.

But you haven’t fought often since then, either, have you?

Lucius wondered for a moment if Peverell had hexed him, something that would arm Lucius’s own thoughts against him.

And then the duel started, and he had no more time to think.

The winged serpents dived straight at Lucius. Lucius created a shield that surrounded him in a shimmering half-arc, and the serpents slammed into it and fell to the earth with sizzles. But it didn’t matter much, because Peverell was already conjuring or summoning others, and a bright swarm of them backed Peverell like a corona.

Lucius narrowed his eyes. It seemed that Peverell was reluctant to close wand to wand. That could easily be a weakness that he could exploit.

When the next wave of winged serpents pressed forwards, Lucius dropped his shield and surged towards Peverell. He was using magic to strengthen his muscles and increase his speed, and he closed so fast that he thought he saw a look of surprise pass across Peverell’s face.

But if that was so, it again didn’t matter much, because Peverell gave Lucius a cold smile and lifted his wand.

The spell that hit Lucius was one that he had never seen before, and because Peverell cast silently and held his wand in place, Lucius had no chance to recognize it by gesture or incantation, either. He found himself on his back, ears ringing, as if someone had slammed a rock wall into him. Lucius gasped and tilted his head to the side, convinced he would see Peverell looming over him with either wand or blade. Perhaps with other people behind him, to harvest Lucius’s magic.

Instead, Peverell simply looked down at Lucius, his expression thoughtful.

“I was considering killing you,” he murmured. His voice seemed to drift and ripple in and out of Lucius’s ears in odd ways, perhaps because of the dizzying spell Lucius had been hit with. “But while that would solve some problems, it would create new ones. I don’t know how much blackmail material you have that would be released, for one thing.”

Lucius tried to bare his teeth, but his lips were numb and felt broken.

“But I can do something that will be better for other people, certainly,” Peverell said, and began to pass his wand over Lucius’s body in a crisscross pattern, chanting under his breath. Lucius’s ears were still ringing to the point that he couldn’t hear if it was Latin or some other language.

Peverell’s magic manifested as a glowing cloud of apricot-colored light that settled over Lucius and made him feel as if he was wrapped in a warm blanket. Lucius tried to laugh. Was Peverell intending to change his personality? Such spells never held in the long run and were far easier to resist than the Imperius Curse.

“Of course you would laugh,” Peverell murmured with a small smile. “You don’t recognize it.”

Lucius opened his mouth to ask what was supposed to be recognizable or scary about a personality-altering spell—

And screamed.

If he had thought the spell that had inflicted the invisible blow on him was painful, that was nothing compared to this. The tendrils of the spell sank into him, reaching for something, winding around invisible things Lucius couldn’t identify. Then the spell began to move backwards, ripping those things out of him, whatever they were.

Lucius screamed again, this time less from pain and more from a sense of loss, as the spell slid free and crouched next to him, offering something stretched and blue-black to its master. Lucius gave a harsh sob and began to extend his senses inside himself, terrified that Peverell might have turned him into a Squib.

But no, no. Lucius could still feel the warmth in the center of his chest that he associated with being able to cast a spell. He sobbed in relief this time.

Peverell stood looking down at him with a twisted smile. Lucius rolled his head towards his opponent and spat. It came nowhere near even the hem of Peverell’s robes, and he didn’t react.

“You—should have made me a Squib when you had the chance,” Lucius said thickly.

“I don’t use the same disgusting tactics that you do,” Peverell said simply. “And I don’t need to, when I can do something more.” His smile widened.

“What—what did you take from me?”

“Your ability to harvest others’ magic.”

Lucius didn’t know if he snarled or screamed then, but he knew that he tried to force himself to his knees to go after Peverell. His body was trembling with pain, but it didn’t matter, not when he needed, he needed, to kill Peverell.

Peverell smiled at him and shook his head, and the winged serpents that remained clustered around him. “Do try to remember what you were like before you started this harvesting program, Lucius,” he called lightly. “It will make you a more interesting enemy.”

The serpents swirled in close around the man, their wings covering him, and when they faded away, Peverell was gone, too. Lucius had heard no crack of Apparition.

He searched and found his wand on the ground a short distance away. A tremble of fury struck him. Peverell had not considered him interesting enough to merit having his wand snapped, apparently.

Lucius would need to rest before he could walk back to the edge of the forest and Apparate, he knew. He sat down near the shattered, half-chewed remains of his Granian and tried to plan for the future, for the magic that he knew must be harvested, for the enemy he would have to face…

All he could feel was fear.

*

Tom laughed exultantly as he stepped into his office and shed the Peverell disguise that the potion had given him with a twist of his wand and a shake of his shoulders. He flicked his fingers lightly, and the glowing blue-black ball of magic that represented Lucius’s ability to harvest the power of others flew through the air and into a waiting crystal paperweight.

He had had to leave Lucius Malfoy alive, much though he regretted it. But Tom had too many political plans at the moment that hinged on Lucius’s predictable reactions, or could be tweaked easily to follow the rising paranoia that Lucius would feel now that he had confronted his “true enemy.” If Tom had killed Lucius, pureblood Britain would have exploded into chaos, and Tom had neither the numbers necessary to take advantage of that nor the ability to maneuver his own chosen leader into the void that the Minister for Magic dying would have left.

Yet.

With Lucius distracted running about after a Peverell that did not exist, Tom thought he could see about beginning to fill that void.

Tom was sitting down, pleased, when a silvery shape abruptly manifested in front of him. Tom snatched his wand. It was obviously a Patronus, and the sprightly doe didn’t look threatening, but he also didn’t know whose it was, and he disliked strangers finding their way inside Fortius.

“Mr. Nott is being called home by his father,” said the doe briefly in Severus’s voice. “I need you now.”

Tom sprang to his feet with a curse and ran for the bag of weapons he had prepared for this moment. He had not expected to have to move so fast, nor to do it on an evening when he had already fought one duel.

Then again, it wasn’t as if he planned to duel Theodosius Nott. He and Severus would be bringing down the wards, and rescuing the boy’s sisters, and killing Theodosius, but it didn’t have to be in a mockery of an honorable duel like the one Lucius had obviously believed he was fighting.

Tom chuckled again at the thought of the shadows he had set Lucius to chasing, and then bent his thoughts to business.

*

“You won’t let him take me with him?”

“No.” Riddle briefly gripped Mr. Nott’s shoulder, making Severus stare a little. But the boy leaned into Riddle’s hold as if the man was comforting, and Severus supposed that someone with terrifying magical power might be, as long as you knew that power was on your side. “Severus’s pretense that he couldn’t find you right away was a good one. Your father knows how big Hogwarts is, since he attended school here himself. It should not be enough to make him suspicious.”

“He’s suspicious all the time,” Theodore whispered. “Even when he has no cause to be.” One hand went to his shoulder. Severus was sure that he would find either a scar or an old break there, if he had the chance to ask all the questions he wanted to.

“After tonight, he will be dead.”

Severus let himself believe the iron truth in Riddle’s words. Certainly Riddle would have no reason to spare Theodore’s father, and he would know how dangerous an opponent Theodosius Nott could be if they left him alive.

Theodore nodded slowly. Then he sat back down and watched them quietly as they prepared, or rather as Severus did, gathering up the potions that he thought might be of use to them once they entered the house. There was a draught whose fumes would put house-elves to sleep, and one that would turn the pieces of the shattered glass vial itself into weapons, and several others.

“And if you don’t come back?”

Severus knelt down in front of Theodore and pressed the flat black stone Riddle had brought with him into the boy’s hand. “Then you will take this Portkey to Fortius. Say the name of the school, and it will take you there.”

“Sophia and Constance…”

“If we cannot come back, they will not be able to, either.”

Theodore’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. But he had survived this long for a reason, in Severus’s eyes. He simply nodded.

Severus touched the boy’s shoulder where Theodore’s own hand had fallen for a moment, and then turned to follow Riddle through the Floo.

*

Tom came to a stop outside the Nott wards, eyeing them carefully. It was hard to see them; only the knowledge Theodore had armed them with and his own familiarity with warding theory let him see the shifting, crackling lines of silver and darkness that traced through the night. But the patterns were as Theodore had said they were, which meant no surprises waited for them.

He glanced at Severus, who nodded. He would keep watch and alert Tom if there was a problem that Tom might not be able to sense for himself once he was in the midst of destroying the wards. Tom drew his wand.

It was a dance, nearly, patterning his mind after the wards, reaching out and snagging them with those thoughts, and then bending his thoughts down towards images of destruction, of dissolution, of fading. But at the same time, he had to trace his wand in counter-patterns, threading his magic through his body and brain so that neither he nor Severus were sensed by the wards or destroyed by the forces about to be unleashed.

It was delicate work, and one reason that Lupin and Black hadn’t bothered with it when they went after the Yaxley wards, quite apart from the fact that Lupin could pass through them. Lupin and Black preferred the sledgehammer kind of work, Tom thought, lips thinning in amusement as he worked.

In time, the wards nearest them wore away. Tom sighed and lowered his wand to his side. The cracks would spread further away from them, but slowly, not alerting Theodosius until it was too late—

“Riddle.”

Severus’s voice made Tom look up. Severus was staring towards the house, and Tom looked, too, wondering for a moment if they had been betrayed and a weapon of some kind was coming for them.

Tom saw nothing. But a second later, he felt it.

Lazy, invisible wings of Dark power were unfolding from the center of Theodosius’s house, stretching as wide as the wings of a dragon, of some great, devouring beast.

Tom stared, as three thoughts passed through his head in succession.

First, that of course he was not the only wizard in Britain who might have hidden the true extent of his power.

Second, that a wizard who had leeched the magic of as many others as Theodosius had might have kept much of that magic for himself, rather than giving it to others as Lucius Malfoy typically did.

Third, that it would have been wiser, indeed, not to have already worked the powerful spell on Malfoy and the stronger one on the wards on the same day that he was to face Theodosius Nott in battle.