Blood-Soaked Succession Chapter 30 (Patreon)

Chapter 30:

***

With his warning sent, Harry let the Galleon fall back beneath his robes and raised his wand once more, mirroring Albus and Grindelwald beside him. The two unfinished men remained perfectly still at the woman's flanks.

Harry expected the battle to begin at any moment and was ready to spring as backup to the offensive spells of Grindelwald and defensive spells of Dumbledore. Instead, the two dead men lowered their wands.

Harry frowned as Albus calmly stepped forward before dropping to one knee. Grindelwald followed a heartbeat later, lowering his own head in the same gesture.

"Madame Perenelle," Albus said. "Forgive the intrusion. We did not know to expect you."

"Had we known you were here, we would not have selected Nurmengard as a target." Grindelwald added.

Harry's wand remained fixed upon the woman.

Madame Perenelle?

The name rang exactly zero bells, which only deepened his confusion. He had watched Albus Dumbledore stand before Voldemort himself without yielding an inch. Now both he and the previous dark lord knelt before a seemingly unarmed woman quietly minding her laboratory?

Perenelle regarded the two men with open bewilderment. Of course she would. They wore the bodies of two anonymous Aurors she had almost certainly never met. Her attention drifted from one to the other before finally settling upon Harry.

"Mr Potter," she asked pleasantly, "who are these wonderfully well-mannered gentlemen you've brought to visit me?"

Harry hesitated.

He had no intention of explaining the Resurrection Stone, nor that Voldemort's Horcruxes had already been discovered. Every month Voldemort remained ignorant of both facts made the coming confrontation that much easier to shape. Unfortunately Albus spared him the decision.

"We look rather younger than when we last met," he said with an amused smile. "Though, if I may say so, you appear considerably younger yourself. Perhaps a hint is in order. Your husband once assisted me with my research into the twelve uses of dragon's blood."

Recognition spread across her face almost instantly.

"Albus!"

She crossed the room with surprising speed before stopping in front of Grindelwald. Her smile broadened even further.

"And you must be little Gellert? Come home after a short vacation in hell?"

For perhaps the first time since Harry had resurrected him, Grindelwald looked genuinely sheepish.

"It certainly explains how the three of you bypassed my wards," Perenelle continued, glancing briefly towards the ruined doorway and the destruction left in their wake. "And then bulldozed your way through all of my minders."

Her gaze returned to Harry's left hand.

"Which means you must have acquired that little pebble Cadmus made. And judging from your companions, you've already discovered its rather fascinating interaction with the Imperius Curse. I must say, that's impressive. Nicholas and I always suspected the Hallows possessed little synergies with their sister spells, though neither of us ever managed to gather more than one at a time."

Harry stared at her for several long seconds.

She spoke of Cadmus Peverell as though recalling an old acquaintance. She recognized the Resurrection Stone immediately despite its disguise as an ordinary ring. She knew exactly how Harry had brought Albus and Grindelwald here, and she had called the latter "little" without the slightest trace of humor.

She had to be nearly a thousand years old.

He lowered his wand and bowed his head.

"Mrs Flamel," Harry said at last, mirroring the dead men's respect. He stopped short of kneeling, though. "I apologize for my rather rude entrance. I failed to recognize you."

"Well of course you did," she replied with a warm laugh. "You were unconscious when we met. Nicholas and I visited you in the hospital wing after you saved our precious Stone. Such a brave little boy."

Her smile faded as she looked him over more carefully. Her eyes lingered on the dead flesh creeping along his hand and up his neck, the brittle joints beneath his skin and the unnatural stillness with which he held himself. The respirator made her hum.

"My dear," she said quietly, the amusement disappearing from her voice altogether. "You somehow appear to be in considerably worse health now than you did then."

Perenelle waved one hand towards the two kneeling men as though dismissing an unnecessary formality.

"Oh, do stand up, both of you. You're making the poor boy feel completely out of his social depth."

Albus smiled politely before rising to his feet. Grindelwald followed a moment later, dusting one knee with the absent-minded irritation of somebody who had once considered kneeling beneath anyone beneath him.

"I've been in considerably worse shape than this before," Harry said, answering her earlier observation. "Usually around the same time of year as when we met, oddly enough. These are merely the scars from the latest attempt."

Perenelle hummed noncommittally, her eyes wandering across the dead flesh climbing Harry's neck before lingering briefly upon the respirator. If anything, she looked like a healer examining a patient with an especially interesting illness.

"So they are."

She offered nothing further.

Harry noticed Albus and Grindelwald drift towards the two unfinished men standing patiently beside her workbench, examining them with the sort of academic curiosity only the two of them could muster after cutting their way through an entire fortress. He decided to ask the question that had been bothering him since entering the room.

"So it really was you and Mr Flamel who created the flesh boggart that chased me this spring?"

Perenelle blinked before her entire face lit up.

"Flesh boggart!" she repeated delightedly, clapping her hands together once. "Nicholas is going to love that. It's much better than the dreadful name we settled upon."

She laughed quietly to herself before looking back towards Harry.

"Would you terribly mind if we borrowed it? Researchers do try to respect one another's work, however tedious all the legal nonsense surrounding intellectual property tends to become."

Harry answered with a shrug.

"Take it. I can't claim credit for the name anyway."

His expression remained cautious despite her friendliness.

"But I do have to ask something impertinent"

Perenelle gestured for him to continue.

"Are we enemies?" Harry glanced briefly towards the two artificial men before looking back at her. "Even with Albus and Grindelwald beside me, I'd rather avoid fighting you and another pair of those things."

Albus looked quietly towards Harry at the admission. Harry met his eyes for only a moment before giving the slightest shake of his head.

He remembered the old Headmaster's warning well enough. The Flamels possessed the knowledge and resources to become enemies nobody wanted.

Perenelle, however, simply laughed.

"Oh, goodness no." She waved the concern away as though it were the most natural misunderstanding imaginable. "Nicholas and I are researchers before we're anything else. Tom merely provides a wonderfully convenient arrangement. Nurmengard became my laboratory because he had no particular use for it, while I needed somewhere spacious enough to indulge myself."

She spread one arm across the enormous laboratory surrounding them.

"I really had ranked it among the least likely places for you to attack."

Harry inclined his head towards Grindelwald.

"That was his suggestion."

Perenelle nodded thoughtfully before smiling towards the former Dark Lord.

"Yes... that would explain it. Usually, when Nicholas and I fake our deaths for a few decades and disappear into obscurity, people react with considerably more surprise when we eventually return. You seem rather nonplussed."

Harry shrugged again.

"You created the first stone centuries ago. I always assumed you made more."

"A superior Stone, it seems," Grindelwald observed. "The original never restored youth."

She smiled knowingly.

"Nor does the new one." Before anybody could ask the inevitable question, she raised one finger.

She returned to her workbench, climbed onto its edge with surprising grace and crossed one leg over the other, leaving the chair behind the desk conspicuously empty. The gesture transformed the laboratory into something almost domestic, as though three armed intruders had arrived for afternoon tea rather than stormed a fortress.

"You've come here intending to claim Nurmengard," she said matter-of-factly. "As it happens, I find myself rather inclined to let you have it."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"In return, I'd like something of yours. Nothing terribly unreasonable. A trade for the castle, along with a modest exchange of information."

She folded her hands neatly across her lap and smiled at the three men before her. Before frowning at the suspicious glare Harry was giving her.

"I assure you, Mr Potter, all parties involved shall leave considerably happier than when they arrived."

Everyone in the laboratory was looking at Harry now. Albus and Grindelwald waited patiently beside Perenelle while the two unfinished men remained as motionless as statues. Harry, meanwhile, felt the same gentle pressure against the edge of his mind he had sensed upstairs.

It felt more like a phone call than an attack. He answered it exactly as before, snapping every layer of Occlumency closed around his thoughts until the presence withdrew once more. Whether it belonged to Perenelle, one of the two legendary wizards beside him or somebody else entirely, Harry still couldn't tell.

His attention returned to the woman before him.

There was very little Perenelle Flamel could possibly want. Wealth meant nothing to somebody who had lived for centuries and could apparently create Philosopher's Stones at will. Seven hundred years of investing, after creating a rock that can turn lead to gold, seemed like a respectable nest egg Political influence likewise seemed unnecessary. Voldemort had already granted her an entire fortress simply to continue her research. Whatever she wanted from Harry had to be something only he could provide. His first thought was resurrection. Perhaps she wished to speak with some ancient researcher, or bring back a colleague whose knowledge had been lost to history. Harry found himself quietly hoping that was the answer.

"What would you have of me, Mrs Flamel?"

"I should very much like Number Twelve Grimmauld Place." almost before he finished his question.

Harry thought he'd misheard.

Of every possibility he had considered during the last few seconds, Sirius' old house had not been one of them. Grimmauld Place no longer even stood in London. Months earlier they had uprooted the entire building and relocated it behind his home in Godric's Hollow. They concealed it after reconnecting the utilities. It now served primarily as a discreet safehouse for people they wished to keep close to Hogwarts. Losing it would barely inconvenience them.

The only real problem was the sentimental value. It had belonged to Sirius.

Why, of all the things Harry possessed, would Perenelle Flamel want his inheritance? Then he realized what was inside Grimmauld place that she wanted.

"You don't actually want Grimmauld Place," Harry said, watching her expression carefully. "You want Walburga Black's laboratory."

For the first time since they'd met, Perenelle completely lost her composure. Her mouth opened before she caught herself and closed it again, though the surprise remained plainly written across her face.

"Albus was right," she admitted after a moment with a quiet laugh. "You and your two little friends really are remarkably good at uncovering secrets."

She shook her head to herself.

"I had hoped you wouldn't know why I wanted the house. Now that you do, my offer suddenly seems rather inadequate. Now you're the one negotiating from a position of strength." She looked back towards Harry with the same frank honesty he had shown her. "Very well. Name your price. I'd much rather this exchange remain equitable."

Harry couldn't make heads or tails of how to handle this woman.

She hadn't tried to bluff. She hadn't pretended the laboratory held no particular value. She had simply admitted the imbalance and asked him to correct it. More importantly, she had confirmed what Harry had only suspected until now. Walburga's hidden laboratory, the untranslated notes, the woman in suspended animation beneath Grimmauld Place and the unfinished flesh boggarts standing beside her all belonged to the same chain of research. Perenelle herself had helped create it.

"Just the laboratory?" Harry clarified. "Not the house itself?"

Perenelle nodded.

"Just the laboratory. You can keep the building for all I care."

Harry considered the request for another few moments before answering.

"In that case, I'd like to know whether the other Unspeakables were also granted private facilities by Voldemort, and if so, where they are. And who are they."

A broad smile spread across Perenelle's face. Harry had the distinct impression he had impressed her again.

"The first question is easy enough," she replied. "Yes. Every departmental head was gifted a private research facility suitable for their particular work. The final question is... more complicated. I cannot tell you who occupies them. Even I cannot violate the oath that protects the identities of my fellow Unspeakables."

She paused only long enough to let that disappointment settle before offering the compromise.

"I can, however, tell you where the facilities are, what they study and who leads each department in title, if not by name. There are eleven departments within the Department of Mysteries: Life, Death, Love, Truth, Time, Space, Mind, Soul, Prophecy, Faith and Chance. Each has its own Head Unspeakable. Nicholas and I jointly oversee the Department of Life."

That was twelve of the greatest magical researchers alive. Twelve people Voldemort had seen fit to cultivate, protect and indulge. And that wasn't counting their subordinates. Ten, Harry reminded himself, if today's conversation continued as pleasantly as it had begun.

"And where," Harry asked, "are they stationed?"

***

Harry sprinted back down through the fortress with Albus and Grindelwald only a few strides behind him.

Their boots hammered against the iron staircases as they descended floor after floor, passing shattered doors, overturned furniture and the lingering smell of burnt flesh left behind by the battle. Ash still drifted lazily through several corridors where Albus had reduced the defenders to little more than grey dust. Neither of the old men asked why Harry had suddenly abandoned negotiations. They simply matched his pace while waiting for him to speak.

"Which one are you going after?" Grindelwald called after him. "And where are you sending us?"

Harry reached the ground floor without slowing.

"You aren't going anywhere."

Both men frowned.

"You're staying here," Harry said as he pushed through the ruined entrance hall. "Secure Nurmengard. Re-establish the wards and start digging in. I'll send reinforcements as soon as I can spare them."

"And you?" Albus asked.

Harry crossed the courtyard at a run.

"St. Mungo's."

Neither man questioned the destination.

Harry had accepted months ago that commanding an army meant sending people to their deaths. Every plan Ron devised, every mission he approved and every order he gave carried that possibility. It had become another burden of leadership, one he had long since decided to bear.

That was very different from knowingly sending Neville, Ginny, Cho and the others against the Head Unspeakable of DEATH!

He reached the outer wards surrounding Nurmengard and crossed their boundary in a single stride.

Without breaking pace, Harry turned on the spot and disappeared with a crack of Apparition.

***

Hermione seized Lucius by the back of his robes and hurled both of them sideways. The spell passed through the space they had occupied a heartbeat earlier.

A perfectly straight trench carved itself across the island from shoreline to shoreline as everything within it dissolved into brilliant sparks. Stone, earth and bedrock vanished together, each reduced to glittering motes of light and an ethereal mist that hung briefly in the air before fading away. Heat washed over the battlefield a moment later, followed by a gust of wind rushing to fill the empty channel now splitting Azkaban in two.

Hermione stared at it for only a fraction of a second before identifying the spell as some form of molecular disintegration. The sparks, mist and heat gave it away.

Matter itself had been broken down into its smallest components. She had only ever read theories describing such magic. Looking towards the figure responsible, she spotted the embroidered clock adorning the Unspeakable's cloak.

An Unspeakable of the Department of Time. So that had been chronomancy.

If the spell had truly accelerated time upon everything caught within it, the stone might simply have weathered into dust before continuing onward until even that disappeared. Reversed instead, perhaps the molecules themselves had been forced apart before they had ever fully formed. Based on the fact she hadn't been obliterated by the beta particles and gamma rays of radioactive decay, she guessed the latter was the case.

Either way, standing inside the spell when it struck seemed a remarkably poor idea.

The Galleon hanging around her neck suddenly became uncomfortably warm.

She pulled it free and glanced down before scoffing at Harry's far too-late warning.

"Looks like Harry and the others are dealing with the same problem." she yelled out to any of the others within earshot.

Beside the fresh trench, a translucent figure climbed calmly up through the empty channel before dusting imaginary dirt from equally imaginary robes.

Regulus. Apparently he had been caught in that. His borrowed body was gone, and she can't imagine that would have felt very good.

"Well," he said with characteristic dry amusement, "it's always comforting to know you're not suffering alone."