Virtue begets success, and vice sires failure. Or so they say. Don't believe them. They're just spreading enemy propaganda. It just goes that in select circumstances with select individuals, the opposite is true. How?

Say, if a certain Goblin Nation is quite Fed Up with a certain Minister of Magic, wouldn't you call this Wrath? Realizing their Wrath, they made discreet inquiries to a certain honorary Goblin called Mammon about the price of a certain head. Mammon, seeing a buisiness opportunity, helpfully dropped some hints about other potential hits, including one for Tom Marvolo Riddle, alias Voldemort.

Naturally, Goblins being Goblins, they were quite miserly about their money, and would most certainly refuse to spend one Knut more than necessary. That's Greed. Motivated by avarice, the Goblin Nation decided to seek alternative methods of achieving their aims, namely, offloading the matter of payment onto wizards.

What wizard?

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, of course.

And Dumbledore, being just slightly more Slothful in this universe than any other, accepted. He was an old man, and rather appreciated only having to sacrifice money for the Greater Good instead of having to fail one boy to clean up a previous failure-he wanted to be good rather than Good, though he recognized that the former could only exist if the latter was upheld.

He was in for quite a shock. (We all know that this is the best thing that could ever happen to the wizarding world, but he doesn't.)

A barely teenage boy with a tiara on a head of blond, eye-obscuring hair was using an even younger boy's lap as a pillow, and idly playing with a handful of gleaming silver knives. He wore the uniform of the assassins over a black-and-purple striped shirt and oozed the lazy malice of a cat, while his companion, dressed in the formal suits favored by the mafia sat with posture that could put most purebloods to shame, not even flinching as the tip of a knife brushed his throat, drawing blood, instead opening the monstrous binder at his side for both children's perusal.

Both were so young-the younger was barely Hogwarts age.

"Surely you don't mean for these children to conduct murder!" He knew that hiring contracted assassins was already morally unacceptable, but at least that would be the delegation of the task to professionals who were aware of the risks and who, Atheris-who now used the name Mammon-had assured him, were more than capable. But these were children. Younger than Harry, not much older than Ariana. And Atheris' organization would be sending them against the greatest dark lord of the time.

The white-haired man snorted and yelled, "VOI! Intel states that Potter's a trouble magnet! Given that we can't track the target by conventional means, we'll have to wait for him to come to us, and psych analysis, both independent and the one you provided shows that the trash will come after Potter-trash. Potter-trash is going to school, so a student will blend in better than a teacher, and we can spare the knife-brat far more easily than we can anyone else. 'sides, there's bound to be a Horcrux or two in the school, so they can explore without having to train trash on the side!"

"They are children!" Dumbledore emphasized again, "And, you only spoke about the older one. What of the younger boy?"

Xanxus-Atheris' superior, jerked a thumb towards the younger boy, "Other brat's not ours, but he'll be coming anyways unless you want a massacre. You want an assassination, you give us the name, we send the trash for the job. You want a specific someone, you tell us at the start and pay extra. Contract's done, we're just introducing you to the executors. Transfer us the gold via Mammon, then we'll arrange the covers and send you the finalized intel next week."

Dumbledore gathered himself. It was a unpleasant thing to be forced to let go of a alternative path, but even having Harry be the one to strike the final blow would be better than this. "I can not countenance the making of children into weapons." He said calmly, "Or do you think I haven't noticed that you still haven't called them by any names?"

Xanxus grunted, "Our brat's Belphegor, the Storm Prince, Prince the Ripper. He's here because he's Quality enough to be an Officer. Not a weapon, old man. Other brat talks like an idiot but is also Quality. Don't bother with asking names, only one person knows and it certainly is not me. Just use the name of his cover."

What is Basil's alias? Bael or Mephistopheles?

Also, Atheris is a genus of viper.