Chapter 4: The biter bit!

For disclaimers please see chapter 1.

A couple of months later

Voldemort was tired of sitting on his "throne", and was now pacing in his "throne room", in Malfoy Manor. Only the wards he had laid on top of the building's own wards were letting him stay on - he knew that ownership of the manor had passed from Malfoy a few days ago.

It had started with Snape's disappearance, more than three months ago. The Malfoy brat had told his father what Dumbledore had announced, but that did not convey much information. He had tried to call him through the mark, to no avail. He had suspected his loyalties, when - one fine day - Snape had apparently come back, but with his magic, his nerves, and his occlumency shot to hell. (He had not even been able to resist the mildest questioning from the Malfoy lad). Lucius had tried to contact him in Hogwarts but Dumbledore had rebuffed him. Oh how I would love to read his mind now..., thought Voldemort with some glee.

After that, it was Draco Malfoy disappearing from Hogwarts, though no one actually knew about it for a while. By the time they had found out, Lucius and Narcissa had left the country, most of the Malfoy wealth had become inaccessible, and the Malfoy wards on the manor had fallen (indicating a change of owner). I should have put it under the Fidelius, he thought to himself, but it was too late. You had to place the charm with the consent of the owner to begin with, though it did not require that the owner continue to consent - once placed, it would stay, so that would have been perfect protection.

Very soon after - bare days later, in fact - a whole bunch of children disappeared from Hogwarts, all together. Every single child whose parent, grand-parent, uncle, or aunt, was one of his faithful, had been spirited away on a Hogsmeade weekend, according to Nott.

Nott had come to him for help (how quaint!, thought Voldemort) in retrieving his son from whoever had kidnapped him. At that time he had mentioned that several other parents were in the same boat.

Voldemort knew immediately what this was - it was exactly what happened to Draco - and he had threatened his death-eaters with a painful death if they abandoned him. Nott (the foolish man!) was left writhing on the carpet from a crucio held for almost two minutes, while Voldemort demonstrated what would happen to death-eaters who put their children before their lord and master.

When he started to extract magical oaths from the others that they would not abandon him in order to find their children, he found out exactly how much power he had. Apparently, men who had no qualms about murdering and raping muggles and muggleborn to please their master, were suddenly very skittish when it came to the safety of their own children. It only took one - Bulstrode, of all people - standing at the edge of the room, to blast open the door behind him (on the 3rd attempt - so panic-stricken was he), run out of the anti-apparition ward, and apparate out.

In his haste, one of his wild blasts had hit a corner of a rune-engraved stone, hidden cunningly just above the door frame, disguised as a painting. This stone kept the wards powered, and with its partial destruction, they just fell apart. Everyone could feel the anti-apparition ward go down.

Every single one of his death-eaters who had a child at Hogwarts - even if it was a niece or nephew or or grand-niece or grand-nephew or grand-child - then disapparated. It was probably the single biggest mass apparation in the ranks that was not ordered by Voldemort.

This left only the ones who did not have anyone at Hogwarts - and there were quite a few of them. The situation looked to be salvageable, and could be made much better if he could release his faithful from Azkaban (that plan had been delayed due to events with Snape, then the Malfoy kidnapping).

But things hadn't gotten any better.

At the next day's meeting, Avery, Jugson, Selwyn, and Travers had failed to show. He found he was unable to call for them, so - in all likelihood - they were dead. He sent Runcorn to investigate.

Runcorn came back saying that all four houses were burnt down. Someone had been using their own tactics from the first war - seal the house, disable the floo, put up anti-apparation and broom charms, then use magical fire to burn the whole thing down.

He had even gone to the ministry to check if Edgecombe had defected, but she swore she was still on their side. She even showed them her work order sheets.

Voldemort resisted the impulse to torture Runcorn. "Shoot the messenger" was suddenly out of fashion.

The next night, he had lost five more of his faithful. Exactly the same way. Three were not very well-known, but something needed to be done, so he personally visited Gibbon's house, taking Nagini with him.

"Tell me what you smell, my dear", he hissed at her. She spent a few minutes running around the burnt shell of the large house, then came back with a half-burnt piece of paper in her jaws. Dropping it at his feet, she hissed, "I smell a werewolf, master".

Voldemort picked up the paper. It was clearly a list, and in Lucius's hand.

He sat for a long time, thinking about this. This had all started with Malfoy. Malfoy knew every single thing about his, Voldemort's, plans - primaries, backups, and contingencies. He knew his funding sources, names of potential supporters, what kinds of support they could provide (their money, their wand in his service, or both). He knew all sorts of other details, so many that even Voldemort himself had found himself missing his right hand man over the last month or so.

Malfoy had to be the leak. Oh he would not have leaked in willingly - they must have used the truth serum on him. He was confident Lucius would not break under mere torture - after all, what could be worse than his, Voldemort's, own torture curse? And Malfoy had suffered that quite often.

It was clear though, that, however it had happened, Malfoy had indeed given up details.

Because, once the sentimental fools who had children (even grand-children! How dare they consider a grand-child more important than their Lord?, he fumed to himself) in Hogwarts were dealt with - and he had yet to hear how that had happened - his attackers, whoever they were, had started with his most able and/or affluent supporters. No one even knew Selwyn was so important to him, and Travers had mostly lain low all through the first war. Hell, Dolohov was much more high profile, as far as anyone knew, yet they had unerringly targeted the most dangerous ones first.

Curse Malfoy for not having taken precautions against truth serum!

Anyway, the next target was apparently Rookwood. Time to set a trap.

Werewolf, huh?, he thought. He knew just whom to call.

The next morning, he got word that Greyback had been killed, along with Dolohov, Rookwood and Yaxley. Greyback was not killed magically - a muggle shotgun with silver bullets had got him - too fast and too wide for him to dodge. The other three had apparently put up a valiant fight, judging from the damage to Rookwood's house, but had succumbed in the end.

The house was not burnt down this time - either they had been surprised by the ambush and changed their plans, or - since the occupants were dead anyway - saw no reason to bother.

Or... they had left a note for him. Curious, he picked it up and read.

Thanks for putting all your best eggs in one basket, you moron, it said.

He couldn't even bring himself to rant and rave. Who would he curse? Himself? There was no one around.

He was all alone.

And then, suddenly, he was not. Ranged around him were Black, Lupin, Bones, and Moody.

Within a split second, his wand was launching killing curses in wild abandon, although with only four targets, spaced that far apart, even his prodigious speed could not hope to cover all of them adequately.

He felt a bone breaker hit his elbow, just where his wand was a fraction of a second ago. "Are you targeting my wand? Do you think I cannot do wandless magic?" he shouted at the implied insult.

A loud, mirthful laugh came from behind him. He turned around in anger, a dark curse on his lips, but wanting first to confirm who it was.

The distraction cost him dear.

When he next woke up, he was tied hand and foot, his body weak from blood loss. He could not explain how he had lost so much blood - bone breakers do not cause bleeding.

His puzzled look got him an answer from someone he could not see.

"We drained you of the blood you stole from my godson".

Aah, Black then. Bastard, he seethed.

"I still appear to have some", he said nonchalantly. He wasn't feeling so nonchalant but appearances had to be maintained.

"Oh we don't want you dead yet. In fact we bled you too much, so now we need to waste some perfectly good blood replenishing potion on you. Open wide".

Surprised, he opened wide.

Only to find more than a few teaspoons of veritaserum go down his throat.

"Oops sorry; I didn't realise this was not the blood replenishing potion", smirked Black. As if... one was red, the other was clear.

A few weeks later, in Grimmauld

It was the Christmas holidays, and Harry and Hermione, along with Hermione's parents, were at Grimmauld. Kreacher had been sent off with the Malfoys back when this whole thing had started, and Dobby had taken his place. A happier elf there never was!

"So, spill...", said Hermione.

"Umm no, dearie. The less you know, the less you will be at risk."

Hermione just looked at him, as if to say "try the other one".

"I've learned occlumency, and so has Hermione", said Harry. "You already tested us".

Point.

"OK I'll be brief. Let's start with boarding up the bad guys floos. I did not go to the ministry and bribe someone. So here's a hint: our floo here does not actually serve as a fireplace, it is only a floo. Most wizarding households have floos that do double duty."

"Actually, I was wondering why all the rooms here that have a floo, also have a separate fireplace". That was Hermione. Harry hadn't even noticed!

"Blacks are paranoid as hell", smirked Sirius.

"The thing about the floo is", he continued in a drawl, "that when you use a fireplace for both purposes, there's no security from the chimney side of things. The floo runes create the security on the room side, but the rest of the stuff behind the front face of the fireplace - which includes the grate and the chimney - needs to be open in order to for the floo mechanism to work at all. So, even with the best warding, the chimney is a weak spot".

"And only the Blacks knew about this?"

"Only the Blacks remember this", he smirked again.

"OK, fair enough. What did you do then?"

"The rest was mostly me and Remus. You really don't want to know, and I worry that you'll think less of us, but there was a lot of killing. The only thing that saves us from the gallows is that no one can prove it was us. I assume you two won't rat me out, even if you feel disgusted at what we have done?"

Harry and Hermione both ran up and engulfed him in a huge hug.

"Dumbledore told me there was a prophecy and only I could defeat Voldemort. So I'm very happy that you took care of that for me, so why would I think less of you?"

"Same here", said Hermione. "If it affects Harry, it affects me", she said with a slight blush, while tightening her hold on his arm and leaning ever so slightly toward him.

Sirius grinned, happy that they were not judging him. But...

"But there's still something to be cautious about", he said. "We put Riddle under truth serum - the moron was cursing Malfoy for not taking antidotes, but in his arrogance, he never thought he would need to do the same - and he gave us a lot of information."

"Such as...?"

Sirius sighed.

It took a while but he explained the whole concept of horcruxes. How many he had made. That he could not die while even one was still in existence. And then...

"We found all the horcruxes he told us about, and we eliminated all of them, then we killed him. Or tried to, anyway. Because he didn't die. His spirit - pretty much like what you saw leave Quirrell's body in your first year - tried to escape."

"It was a good thing we were doing it in one of the dungeons on Black Island, one of the lesser known Shetland Islands, and this dungeon was warded to high heaven. So he couldn't escape - we managed to snare him and have now kept him imprisoned in a half-empty bottle of fire-whiskey that I happened to have with me."

"Half-empty?"

Sirius shrugged.

"Can he escape?"

"Not unless someone lets him out. And we've taken precautions against that happening while you are alive", said Sirius, nodding to Harry.

Harry looked puzzled at being singled out.

Hermione looked as if she was working something out.

"What happens after I die?" asked Harry.

"The spirit in the bottle will die", said Sirius. Then, just to introduce a bit of levity, "not the fire-whiskey, the other one".

Harry chuckled, but then noticed Hermione was not even acknowledging the joke with an eye-roll or something.

"Sirius, are you telling us Harry's scar is a horcrux?" Wisely, she had already laid hold of Harry in a tight sideways hug before she asked.

"Yes. And we will try and get it out, but even if we don't, as long as the bottle stays on Black Island, we're safe. I've warded the whole place even more than it was, and it was already pretty heavily warded".

Remus jumped in again. "We've got the best people working on it. We've also spread the word quietly, so that no one attempts to take their revenge on you - if you die, their master dies. So you just live your life like a normal teenage boy, Harry".

Harry sat down heavily on the sofa behind him, Hermione saying soothing things to him until he calmed down.

When he did, he suddenly realised something he was missing. "How did you grab Draco?", he asked Sirius. The other kids were easy - Hogsmeade - but Draco was inside the school.

Sirius just grinned. "Sorry, not my secret", he said.

Hermione just hoped her blush wasn't showing too much!

END