Disclaimer: There is no good and evil. There is only rights on HP, and those who don't have them. Like me.

A/N: So, ignoring my five-month absence. Thanks for the reviews, favs and alerts! It warms my heart, truly. narutoDkurosaki: What about Sirius and Remus, you ask? Actually, I kinda forgot about them. Thanks for reminding me! If anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

In an unrelated note, I went to Germany this summer. Ah, Germany. Land of cyclists, blondes and people who go around in Lederhosen and Dirndl dresses...

Chapter 6: In which Bobette plots, Draco loses his innocence, and everyone is a bit oblivious

The first step, she told herself, was to create an atmosphere of trepidation and restlessness. Then they would've had the perfect environment for what followed.

Bobette smirked (mentally, for she had no discernible mouth), and set to action. The first phase of the plan rested heavily on her, and she would have hated to disappoint her comrades of the as of yet unnamed Association that purported to overthrow the humans, or at least to make them compromise and acknowledge the Inferi.

Mostly though, she thought blushing (or at least achieving a slight darkening of her mostly inexistent cheeks), she didn't want to disappoint the Boss. But anyway, it wasn't the time to think of such inconsequential matters, for she felt on her putrefying shoulders the weight of responsibility as the one responsible of The Plan's first phase. Indeed, as she eyed a man, one of Voldemort's minions, who was carelessly offering his back at her and writing something on a notebook, she felt her rotting flesh tremble in trepidation and pride. She was surprised at the easiness of her task, at the defenselessness of her target, who was absorbed in taking notes, apparently, and at the lightness of the scimitar in her hand. He was strangely weak-looking and wore thick glasses, but it didn't matter.

She took a step towards him, but it may as well have been a declaration to the world. A message thrown loud and clear to masses of prejudiced, complacent humans. The enormity of what it meant was staggering.

It was a small, very slow step for an Inferius, but a giant leap for Inferius-kind.

Harry was at school. Boring school with boring teacher who looked at him like he was covered in rainbows, or something equally disgusting. But today something was different.

Today, one thing filled him with awe and fear, apart from Pansy's yellow dress. And that was Draco's tale. The young Malfoy heir had undergone a change people only saw when comparing soldiers before and after war. He had an air, a look, that was as different from the boy Harry had know just a day prior as night was from day.

"It happened in his study," the blond boy said gravely, looking around at the classmates staring at him unsettled but intrigued.

"Father said to me 'You're almost ten, and it is time to have a talk, father and son, about reponsibility and nature, honor and necessity, and first and foremost, life. Do you know where babies come from?'"

His audience collectively sucked in a breath, Blaise starting to turn green, Crabbe and Goyle looking at each other, primal fear etched in their eyes, even Astoria Greengrass, usually the very epitome of haughtiness and aristocracy, was swallowing and sweating, steadying herself by holding onto a desk. Somehow, the horrifying sight of Pansy's yellow dress made everything even worse. Honestly, she dressed like that and she was surprised when Harry threw tarantulas at her?

In any event, the only one seemingly unaffected was Theo, but his apprehension showed in the way he was sitting: a bit too straight, a bit too immobile.

Harry, for his part, felt intense pity for Draco, whose eyes truly looked old and tired like those of a man who'd seen and heard unspeakable things.

"He was smiling, you know," the Malfoy scion added, hollow-eyed and deprived of the will to live. "I won't tell you what he said, because every single one of you will experience that on his own, sooner or later, but I will tell you this: beware of the words 'we have to talk', or 'it is time we talked', because your very life won't be the same again!"

Harry was still pitying his classmates, but was not he himself frightened. Because, come on. It was Voldemort they were talking about. As if he'd ever say something like that. At most he'd throw a book his way and flee, something like 'Analysis And Scientific Consequences of Life Creation, Vol. III'.

Heart light and whistling a tune, Harry went home.

Bobette was very satisfied with her work, and she allowed herself a victory dance. More than a dance it resembled the slow yet steady flutter of branches in the wind, but that was beside the point. She'd set the stage for the first phase of The Plan, and now she only had to wait, standing unobtrusively in a corner of the kitchen, for the players to arrive.

Really, she'd been lucky to have been hired by such an upstanding, wealthy, normal family. Doubtlessly, once they saw it, they would call the authorities, and everything would become official. It was obvious the Heavens had given her a chance to prove herself. And she would certainly take it.

But there came the first two players, Avery and Dolohov it seemed, bringing groceries and angry muttering.

"-and of course I had to kill him. I don't know why he thought he could slander the Dark Lord inside his very Ministry, but there you have it," Dolohov was saying.

"Shouldn't you have tortured him for informations first? He might've been a spy,"

"Nah, he spilled everything on his own, very loudly. Even the Dark Lord was getting annoyed,"

It was amusing how they used that code, that strange slang between them. 'I had to kill him', 'Torture him', 'might be a spy'. They really were a bit paranoid with their secrets.

"Ah well, good for you, a bit of action at least," Avery was complaining in the meanwhile, channeling his frustration by throwing violent cutting curses at the vegetables, "I've been drowning in paperwork ever since we took the Ministry"

They'd entered too quickly, and immediately faced the counter, opposite to the table. That was the only explanation for them not seeing the cadaver. Still, they were but the first two, and a greater audience was better anyway.

"Ah, those were the days," Dolohov agreed, hovering over the kitchen counter and muttering spells to start cooking his trademark stew. The fact that he had trademark stew in the first place and that he wore and apron that made him look like an efficient, if strangely muscular matron, was renowned among the Death Eaters, but nobody mentioned it because they were all rather satisfied with their vertebrae and small intestines where they were.

"Oh, yes," Avery viciously slashed an onion, using a spell that contained latin for 'agony', "I remember it vividly...Harry was still a baby, and provided a wonderful distraction. Because when there's a beautiful, giggling little baby around, who notices the thirty-odd Death Eater enter the building and kill everybody?"

"It took them almost two hours to realize Fudge and the Heads of Departments that opposed us were dead," Dolohov said fondly.

Then more people started to enter the kitchen, helping to cook and set the table, and, in Mulciber's case, watering cacti.

Nobody noticed the dead body. No one.

Bobette was about to very slowly bang her head on the wall, but luckily Harry arrived, accompanied by Nott, senior and junior both.

He looked straight at it and yelled "Everybody, look!"

Bobette's heart made an imaginary leap of joy as Harry pointed at the corpse, ran towards it, stretched out his arms –

"Kristin has bloomed!"

– And grabbed the cactus behind it.

Choosing not to comment, even inside her mind, she watched as everybody took a sit around the table – some of them even in front of the bloody cadaver. Soon, the Dark Lord made his appereance, gliding regally to the seat at the head of the table, and only when the words "Eat, my loyal minions," left his nonexistent lips did everyone start on Dolohov's delicious stew.

"-so I threw a tarantula at her and ran away,"

Ah, children, Bobette thought tenderly, cildren and their far-fetched, imaginary tales.

"Good boy Harry, way to go!" Several death eaters shouted approvingly. Lucius who looked extremely proud, was thanking Merlin that he'd managed to instill some fashion sense in Harry, while Dolohov patted the boy on the shoulder, hiding a tear. It was no secret that he was a big mama. A big mama who could remove your spinal cord from your body in less than ten seconds and hang you with it, but a big mama nonetheless.

"Hey Mulciber," Macnair said, waving a hand towards him, "Would you pass me the salt? I can't reach it with this corpse sprawled here"

"Ah, yes, here" he said, leaning over the dead body in the middle of the table.

"Thank you, Mulcy,"

"Don't call me Mulcy!"

"Sure, Mulcy, whatever you want. By the way," he added looking around himself, "Don't you all think there's something wrong in the air? Something amiss?" Come on, guys, the corpse!

"Yes, I was thinking that too," Nott replied, "Then I realized it was Bellatrix. Haven't seen her for some time now,"

Bobette wanted to gape, but as a good half of her jaw muscles was missing or unusable, she was not even allowed that small manifestation of disbelief. Instead, she tried one last ditch-attempt at making them notice the damn dead body of one of their own group. She walked to the Dark Lord, and half a dozen minutes later, when she got there, she tapped him on the shoulder and slowly pointed a decaying finger at the corpse.

Voldemort looked at her, then at the corpse. All of a sudden he stopped eating and stood commandingly, causing everybody to drop their forks as well and turn terrified eyes on him.

"A corpse on the table," He said slowly, looking each of them in the eye and causing a flare of hope to rise in Bobette's chest. "You understand, I hope, that that is samething that is not allowed to happen, under any circumstances,"

Yes, Bobette thought, wanting to hug the guy, go on. 'Someone is behind this, and they are powerful', come on, say it, say i-

"Because it is a serious danger to our health. Dead bodies are full of germs and deseases. Be sure to dispatch the corpses from now on,"

And...there her hope went, ruthlessly crushed again. Why were these people so absent-minded? Did they not even notice the dead man was one of theirs?

"Hey!" Avery said suddely, looking at the deceased man's face and showing yet again his knack for pointing out things that should be left unspoken, "I know this guy!" Don'thope-don'thope-don'thope- "It's Edwin McKinnon – how did he know about this place? – I saw his face in the paper, he's the guy who wrote that article in the Quibbler, about, about the Dark Lord's nose– um,"

There was a moment of silence, in which Bobette contemplated life's meaning, or unlife's as it were, the death eaters looked anywhere but at their Lord, and Harry watched the proceedings curiously, lovingly hugging the Skull under the table.

Then Voldemort pulled out his wand, set the corpse on fire and in a smooth motion went back to eat as if nothing had happened.

Everyone slowly did the same, and nobody ever uttered a word about the whole situation again.

Boss, Bobette wrote, I failed. Maybe we underestimated the humans afterall. In any case, don't contact me for a few weeks, because I'll be in Morocco, reflecting on my mistakes as I cross the deserts under the scorching sun...

Voldemort reahearsed the talk in his mind. He thought it was perfect, but it may have been effort wasted. Did he really have to do it? Couldn't he order a death eater to do it in his place?

But then it would look as he'd chickened out. Couldn't he wait another five years? But Harry was already ten...

Maybe I should just say 'deception', he pondered. But then it isn't as solemn.

"What is it, daddy?" Harry asked curiously, as the Dark Lord flinched. Sometimes it looked as if – but no. If it wasn't for Harry's bright, innocent expression, he'd think the brat was doing it on purpose...

"Harry," Voldemort's hissing voice said, echoing in the sudden silence. "I have called you here because I need to convey an important information. I feel you are of the appropriate age, and as I don't want you to accuse me of mendacity in a few years, I think it is time you knew the truth."

Harry's face paled considerably, and his eyes bulged out and darted towards the door.

"We need to talk about something. Your birth-"

'We need to talk', Draco had said, and advised anybody who heard that to run away screaming immediately.

And run away screaming Harry did, leaving a very perplexed Dark Lord behind.

"Was it 'mendacity'? Did 'mendacity' scare him off?" he mused aloud, "Maybe 'deception' was better afterall..."