A Much Deadlier Tournament: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Chapter 17:

Title Pending

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry, Kingsley, Sirius and Fleur took their seats at the table in the Hog's head as they finally completed the long trek to Hogsmeade from Hogwarts. During the entire walk they studiously ignored the presence of Fleur as she followed them in a manner not too dissimilar to a kicked puppy. They continued to ignore her even now.

"Three butterbeers, please." Sirius asked when the ancient barkeep came around.

The barkeep nodded and turned to fleur.

"Oh! A glass of mulled wine sil-vous-plait." Fleur asked meekly.

He nodded and left to get them their orders. As soon as he did so the front door opened with a chime and in walked Harry's favorite werewolf in the whole wide world. Sirius waved to him.

"Over here Remus!" Sirius called.

"No! Really?! I thought I'd sit at one of the other tables housing a Sirius Black and Harry Potter at them." Remus retorted.

The rest of the pub was empty.

Remus put his coat on the rack and walked over to them, taking a seat on the other side of Harry, opposite Sirius. He noticed Fleur with a frown.

"Who's this little ball of sunshine?" He asked of the dour girl.

"Eh she's just moping because we all rejected her invitation to the ball." Harry explained.

Remus found this, understandably, hilarious.

"Asking out a convict on house arrest, an on-duty and obviously homosexual Auror and Harry's scrawny behind?" Remus asked. "Somebody must be desperate."

She then did something none of them expected. She started to cry. Soundlessly, but with a very expressive face and a whole lot of tears.

"Fleur No!" Harry said, trying to console her. "You'll ruin your makeup."

"I do not wear makeup!" She hissed at him as the tears came out harder.

Wow, really? Well damn, was she pretty or what?

"Is it too much to ask to have a date with a boy who can actually hold a conversation?" She pleaded.

"Speaking from my own experience dating boys and men, I can answer that in the affirmative." Said Kingsley. "Yes, it is too much to ask. All the good ones are either straight or spoken for. Usually both, as you have learned today."

Harry pitied her. He really did. So he offered an olive branch, and a lie.

"Fleur, honestly, if I hadn't already said yes to that girl, I would have happily gone with you." He lied.

"That girl?!" Fleur repeated angrily. "Do you even know her name?"

Harry stalled at the question and looked thoughtfully to the ceiling, finger to his chin.

"It started with an A, I think." He said. "Or maybe a K?"

Fleur glared at him as if he were the worst of cads, but before she could say anything venemous the door chimed open again and in walked, of all people, Severus SNape.

"Good afternoon Aberforth." He called out as he removed his coat and put it on the rack beside Remus'. "I'll have the usual."

He made towards an empty table when he spotted them and changed course to sit with them, his eyes snapped straight to the face of the crying girl before he could.

"What did Harry and/or Black do?" He asked, immediately identifying one or both of them as the cause of the girl's distress

Harry would have pointed at his discomfort with Snape being so familiar as to be on a first name basis with him, and last name basis with Sirius. But decided to let it go.

"I asked them to the ball." She said while wiping her face clean. "Because zey are all immune to Veela."

"And Potter said no?" He asked, giving Harry a pointed and slightly angry glare.

Oh good, back to last names. He recalled conversation about courting the friendships of his fellow champions and the doors that could open for him. Naturally, he jumped to his own defense.

"I already have a date for the ball." Harry said.

"Oh really?" Said Snape, pulling out the last free chair for himself and taking a seat. "And who, pray tell, is a better catch than the brilliant young woman who is so charming as to sing a dragon to sleep?"

Fleur brightened up and honestly blushed at the praise, and Harry tried to sputter an answer.

"Well, it's not a matter of who's a better catch, and I honestly couldn't tell you who is because I barely know my date. But she asked me to the ball, I was too chicken shit to say no, and I'm a man of my word. So, I'm going with her." Harry explained.

"And who is this her?" Snape asked.

Fleur laughed in something between a snort and a hiccup.

"He does not even know her name." She explained.

"It's true." Said Harry. "But I know she asked, and I said yes, so that's that."

"Describe her." Snape demanded.

"Slytherin." Snape raised an eyebrow. "Black Hair. Pale, petite and with a very higher-than-thou demeanor." Harry explained.

Snape shrugged and shook his head in a manner as if to say "barely narrows it down." That did pretty much describe every Slytherin girl who wasn't blonde, didn't it? Harry scoured his mind for any other information on her.

"Oh! And she's the head girl." Harry recalled.

Snape's reaction was instantaneous. Pure, fiery rage leapt from his eyeballs into Harry's skull. Was that the legilimancy stuff he'd heard about? It was kinda painful. Well Snape if you're listening to this you should know that if mental warfare is the name of the game, I'll happily learn to play it like I did these other games people chose to play with me.

"Sorry!" Snape said, raising his hands in surrender.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.

"I am sorry Harry, I did not mean to attack you, it was purely accidental magic. Such an outburst will not happen again." Snape apologized more sincerely than the mental threat Harry had given him would dictate.

"Apology accepted, Professor." Harry said. "But who is this girl and why were you so upset at my going with her? Don't tell me she's your daughter."

Snape sighed. Kingsley, somehow knowing he needed it, passed him his half drunken butterbeer, which he accepted. He began his answer before taking a sip though.

"Her name is Arianne Cauderdale. She is like a daughter I suppose, the best portioner to come out of this school since I've been teaching here. I am equal parts proud of her and protective of her." He admitted before taking a sip. "It is my intention to take her as my first apprentice for her potions mastery. And I am not happy to see her going on a date with you Harry."

"Do I have a reputation for womanizing?" Harry asked.

"No, but your father certainly did, and though you are so much more like your mother it concerns me." Snape told him in a bombshell that left Harry dripping butterbeer down his chin. "But moreso I am worried with your recent antagonistic and manic behavior, and how it might harm her or bring her harm. Either directly from you or from others thinking she's your mystery girlfriend."

"What makes you think she isn't?" Harry asked.

Snape gave him a look.

"Because I know her well enough to know she wouldn't have "made you a man." Harry." Snape said.

Fleur, now long past her self-pitying cry, giggled at the reference to Harry's trial. That one had been a nice piece of meat to throw towards the gossip columns, keep them distracted for a while. Harry still didn't regret it, but he knew damaging a pureblood girl's reputation as a cradle robber, or as somebody who takes part in extramarital sex in general, would be a terrible thing to do to her. Even ignoring the danger to life and limb being associated with him would bring her, a danger Arabella Killerwhale clearly hadn't planned on.

"It sounds to me..." Remus interjected. "Like this goody two-shoes bookworm decided to ask Harry out in the hopes of squeezing out just a little bit of excitement and drama before her time at Hogwarts was over, only to wind up biting off a lot more than she could chew."

That about summed it up, yeah.

"So, Harry, I must politely request that you get her OUT of this bit of drama she has, honestly, earned for herself." Snape asked. "And that you do not cause her any permanent physical, financial or social harm."

"What about psychological?" Harry clarified.

"Oh no, by all means. Traumatize the girl against ever doing something so dunderheaded as to ask out a Gryffindor ever again." Snape advised, finishing off the butterbeer.

"Good, because you should know I'll just be doing the opening dance with her then ditching to do whatever the hell I want." Harry said, causing Snape to choke on the last of said butterbeer.

"Oui." Said Fleur. " I am in ze same boat. We are required to open the dance, and nuzzing more."

Snape wiped himself clean of the little spill as she spoke and turned on the other men present.

"And none of you could sacrifice the first dance to make her time at least that less unenjoyable?" Snape asked, pointedly staring at Sirius.

"I have a date with Arikawa." Sirius said.

"I won't even be in the country." Remus said. "And she never asked me."

"Girls are icky." Said Kingsley.

That time it was Harry's turn to choke on his butterbeer. Something about the juxtaposition of the utterly sophomoric sentence and Kingsley's deep voice was the epitome of comedy. He was starting to suspect that he was beginning to court a group of companions that were the EXACT level of madness to match his own.

"In that case, I shall make the horrible sacrifice of dancing with the brilliant Veela myself." Snape said, turning on Fleur. "Miss Delacour, would you do me the honor of performing the opening dance for the Yule Ball, and promptly ditching me for a much more enjoyable evening without my meloncholic company?"

Harry, and more surprisingly Fleur, somehow managed to keep a straight face as Snape took her hand and made the good humored yet somehow still monotone proposal.

"Oh Professor, it would make me the happiest woman in ze world. Oui, a thousand times, oui." Fleur said, this time in mock tears.

Yes. They were all indeed his kind of crazy.

"I'm guessing you're only going to be there for the opening dance anyways?" Remus asked as his and Snape's drinks were finally delivered.

"That is correct." Snape said.

"Blue Ball duty?" Sirius clarified.

"Also correct." Snape answered in disappointment. "I drew the short straw on that one."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lucius knelt beside the fireplace, keeping his eyes glue to the floor so as not to stare at the thing in the armchair opposite him.

The twisted, emaciated and rotting homonculus of his master sat - as comfortably as it was possible while in a rotting artificial body - reading a pamphlet of some kind and using the corpse of the retired Ogden senior as a foot stool. The presence of said corpse was the only evidence, aside from his vague familiarity with the room, to indicate he was in Ogden mansion. How his master and the rat animagi had broken in, killed the owner and set up shop was a mystery for another day.

"Ohohoho, that's quite good." Voldemort commented on to himself on the dragon-slaying pamphlet he must have taken from Ogden's corpse.

Lucius felt his stomach churning at the way his master's feet paddled through the air as he tapped them to the tune he was humming.

"Does my form disgust you so, Lucius?" Voldemort asked, finally.

"My lord." Lucius simpered at being addressed. "It is... disconcerting."

"Ah, how I've missed your aristocratic honesty." Voldemort said, putting the pamphlet away. "And I agree, I have suffered it for long enough. And so have you. Which is why tonight, I will be regaining my body. With your help."

He knelt deeper. Grateful at the forgiveness and opportunity to serve. Both far superior than Azkaban

"Are you certain my lord?" The animagi said from the side in a tone that would get most Death Eaters disciplined. "He's been nothing but a family man and businessman for thirteen years now. I think he may have... lost his edge."

"Indeed." Said Voldemort, in something approaching malice. "You do seem... softer, Lucius. Not quite the man who led armies into battle against the enemies of wizardkind. Who plundered so much of the wealth that had been stolen and regifted it to the people like a moder-day Robin Hood. What happened to that man? Is he still in there?"

Lucius shivered, fear long-forgotten returning to his body with ease.

"I do not know, my lord." He answered honestly, as he knew his life depended on said hoensty.

"And what has this new life brought you?" Voldemort asked. "What have all these business ventures and politicking given you compared to the life of a warrior you once had?"

Lucius thought on that. Really thought on that. And the words just spilled out.

"A wife who does not respect me." Lucius began, then just started counting off the fruits of his labor. "A pusillanimous and spoilt son who dishonors my name. Business partners striving to stab me in the back in an order of magnitude more insidious and dishonest ways than the worst of my fellow Death Eaters once had. And intolerable, unending parties with politicians and their false smiles and backroom deals."

By the end of it he was snarling at his own words and Voldemort was chuckling.

"And what were the rewards you once earned at my side so long ago?"

"Fear." Lucius answered instantly, snapping his head up to look his master in the eyes. "Respect. The longing and agreeableness of women. The friendship and support of competent and honest men. Criminals of the worst kind, all of them, but each men, true men, and leaps and bounds more honest and trustworthy than the entirety of the political or business class of this or any other nation. The constant taste of blood and ash in my mouth, red in my vision and clashing of spells ringing in my ears."

Voldemort was clapping at this point, truly pleased at the Lucius of old somehow coming back out.

'Good, Lucius, good." Voldemort said. "And of these two worlds which is yours? Which do you belong in? Which do you forsake."

"I belong with you." Lucius whispered, returning to his deep kneeling. "I belong fighting by your side and the side of your allies. I belong in war."

"Gooooood." Voldemort purred. "Good. Because there is a battlefield waiting for you now, and an army for you to lead."

Lucius looked back up as Voldemort proffered him back his wand. He took it gladly, his fate sealed.

"Wormtail will provide you a portkey back to where he picked you up. There you will meet with Fenrir, and lay waste to the pathetic servants of the bureaucrats who dare to hunt you, in an unacceptable reversal of the natural order." Voldemort ordered. "Your mission is to wipe out most, but capture one enemy alive."

"Who, my lore?" Lucius asked.

"Technically, any will do so long as they very much are opposed to me." Voldemort informed him. "But the ideal candidate will be young and in excellent health, preferably with unique talents or abilities, and not of nonhuman heritage. Wormtail?"

The animagi, Wormtail, stepped forward and offered Lucius the same medallion from before along with a sheet of paper.

"We originally planned to capture Harry Potter for the ritual that would return me to my body, due to the sacrificial protections in his blood and his status as a parselmouth, but that option is no longer available." Voldemort told him. "On that sheet of parchment is a list of all secondary and tertiary candidates that are the most ideal. My new body will incorporate their blood, as such my power will be heightened or reduced depending on who you capture tonight. Seek out the magically powerful or gifted by blood. Bring them alive and whole, uncursed and unpoisoned. Can you do this for me Lucius?"

Lucius stood to his full height, at attention, and accepted his Dark Lord's mission.

"It shall be done, master." Lucius said.

That phrase, as in times of old, was the key phrase to activate his mission portkey, and it rushed him away back to where he had been just moments before, but now with a change in perspective necessary to reap due judgement upon these heathens and blood traitors.