A/N: This story flirts with canon, but they're just too different to ever form a real relationship. Don't waste words asking why things are different. It's an AU.


Subversion

Chapter 1: Disaster at the World Cup

25 August 1994

Late Morning

When the World Cup Disaster began, I was sitting in the Top Box with the Minister for Magic shrieking in the seat beside me.

On my left, Draco Malfoy followed the game with an intensity and enthusiasm that he rarely allowed himself to display. Beyond him, Theodore Nott had barely taken his Omnioculars from his head since the game began, though he seemed to divide his attention between the players and the crowd, enjoying the opportunity for unrestricted people-watching. Theo was never as into Quidditch as most boys our age seemed to be, and I had worried beforehand that he might get bored. When I noticed the amusement on Theo's face, a part of me relaxed.

In the lowest seats of the Top Box, my twin brother Jim was screaming up a storm, and the Weasleys and Uncle Padfoot were cheering right along with him. I liked the Weasleys well enough, and I loved Uncle Padfoot, but four years after being Sorted into Slytherin, I knew my crowd. They understood.

I wasn't the first person in the Top Box to notice something was wrong, but I believe I was the first to realise the true danger.

Theo pulled his Omnioculars away from his face, drawing my attention. He shivered, though the whole Top Box was within the aegis of a pleasant Warming Charm.

"Do you feel that, Harry?" he asked, leaning back to talk behind Draco's head, a task made simple by the fact the blonde was sitting on the edge of his seat.

I cautiously unveiled my psychic senses. In a crowd as large as this, the background noise of so many magical consciousness functioning in close proximity could drive an unwary practitioner insane, so I had kept my extra senses carefully contained. Now, free once more, I immediately felt what Theo was talking about.

On the opposite side of the stadium, terror was brewing, spreading from person to person, infecting hundreds at once. The magnitude of the emotion, coupled with the empathic links created between people feeling the same thing, meant that the rising panic could not be ignored by anyone with even the slightest psychic ability. Theo was naturally sensitive, but now even Draco was blinking in confusion. A few rows down, Arthur Weasley jerked his head up and started looking around urgently. The oldest two Weasley sons did the same a moment later. Jim and his friends were undistracted by such things, their skills undeveloped.

I pushed my senses outwards urgently, looking for a source. Theo winced at my aggressiveness, hunching his shoulders from the sudden pressure on his mind. Draco looked at me questioningly, his own senses too dull to decipher the sensation completely. Minister Fudge was clapping delightedly at a play made by the Irish.

I stood up, turning slowly from left to right. Some official sitting behind us told me to sit down, but I ignored them. There was something off, something I was missing… it wasn't just about the terror itself, it was about where the terror had begun.

Specifically, it had begun directly across from us, where the crowd would have a clear view of the Top Box.

Some twist of luck or fate made me look upwards, and what I saw took my breath away.

The stadium rose in an enormous, long, bowl shape, with the high rim actually leaning over the seats below. The noise from the crowd was so all-encompassing that I didn't hear the grinding of failing support spells until the cascade failure was already underway. Only the massed sensation of terror, broadcast instinctively by those with the best view of the approaching danger, warned us in time.

The lip of the stadium reached over us and had begun to sag inwards, lurching towards the pitch and showing every sign of crushing everyone below.

A flurry of panic rose in the Top Box as others followed my gaze and alerted neighbours with their screams. Theo, Draco, and the Malfoy parents were standing too by that point. I had my wand out, and without a second thought I pointed it up at the chunk of stadium just as it snapped free and began to fall in earnest.

"Arresto Momentum!" I yelled.

If my spell had any effect on the immense bolide, it didn't show. I felt the strain of the spell hitting its target and trying to enact its effect, only for it to snap in less than a second, my single wand nothing in the face of sheer mass and momentum. Beside me, Theo and Draco cast in unison, following my example. Unfortunately, they followed my example in its entirety by having no visible effect.

What happened next occurred within the span of four seconds, as the screams were rising to ear-piercing death knells and people rushed to do something, anything to get away.

I glanced at Jim, who was frowning up at me. Being at the front of the Top Box meant he was among the very last to see the incoming danger. I seized the eye contact, green merging with green, and slid a strong thought into his head.

Cast Arresto Momentum upwards immediately.

The sensation of directly touching his mind felt distinctly greasy and sickening, but I believed it was our only chance for survival. Blood spurted from Jim's nostrils and rolled over his lips, a consequence of my reckless mental invasion.

Jim's wand was out and casting before he even seemed to register the movement. Indeed, I was the only one to notice how utterly surprised Jim was at his moment of heroism.

The stadium had taken five-hundred wizards to build, and that was when they were working from the ground up, with layers of support spells combined with actual support to comply with safety standards. It would take at least five wizards to stop the broken stadium wall from crushing everyone below it. The chances of organising a simultaneous casting in the fifteen seconds or so since I first became aware of the danger were low – and doing so in the five seconds before impact was simply laughable.

Instead, I decided to use the one wizard who possessed more raw magical power than anyone else present.

Jim Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.

I saw death in the brief second before Jim's spell took hold. Three people splinched themselves trying to Disapparate on instinct alone, one of them fatally so. Two more threw themselves off the sides of the Top Box, perhaps hoping that Cushioning Charms had been placed at the bottom of the stands (there weren't any).

I cast again, this time with Theo and the Malfoy family casting alongside me, reinforcing Jim's spell. The Weasleys followed suit, right down to the youngest, Ginny. Officials and Aurors; journalists and foreign dignitaries, they all rose their wands to the sky and fought to rob Death of his momentum.

In the midst of such a triumphant scene, I heard Ron Weasley cursing loudly, unable to find his wand.


25 August 1994

Early Afternoon

Potter Manor was an H-shaped villa nestled in the ruggedly beautiful Scottish Highlands. Constructed of cream-coloured limestone and topped by blue-grey tiles, the chateau was within walking distance of the final peak of an august mountain range. The grassy, sharply sloping bluff was capped with stark black rock split with veins of erosion that channelled meltwater down into a narrow river which terminated in a small lake beside the manor.

I waited comfortably in the north-eastern courtyard, facing the lake. Bordered on three sides by the house, the fourth gave the courtyard an uninterrupted view of the mountain, along with the range it belonged to: a staggered line of titanic, craggy silhouettes that broke the distant horizon.

Three comfy sofas sat in the courtyard, shielded from the sun's wintry glare by brilliant crimson parasols. It was comfortably cool outside, at least from the perspective of someone who had grown up here.

I had claimed the centre sofa for myself, reclining with my eyes closed as a charmed book read itself to me in a soft, female voice.

I sensed rather than saw the moment Jim arrived home. As keyed in to the wards as I was, the flare of energy indicative of someone arriving by Floo was impossible to miss. Barely a minute passed between his arrival and the door to the courtyard bursting open.

I stood up to face my brother, sparing a moment to pause my book.

Like reflections in a mirror, we were the same, but different. Our basic features were alike – black hair, green eyes, glasses. The details were where we differed. My hair was short and neat – not to the point of vanity, just enough to keep it out of my face – while Jim's was wild and windswept, beyond any mortal attempt to contain it. My glasses had large, square lenses and a dark, fashionable frame, while Jim favoured small, circular lenses on a wireframe body, in imitation of our late father.

"Keep your mind to yourself," Jim hissed angrily, marching over so he could get in my face. "You're lucky I haven't told anyone what you did."

He looked exhausted from the media circus, so I tempered my response accordingly. "You just saved the Minister for Magic and a whole bunch of Wizengamot members," I reminded him quietly. "Not to mention my life and the lives of my friends. Are you sure you want to throw away that kind of goodwill?"

Jim snarled and shoved past me, heading to the other side of the manor where his room was located.

It has to be said, my brother was my mirror in more than just appearance. While others frequently remarked on my predilection towards remaining calm under any circumstances, so too did they comment, often with amusement, on Jim's propensity for blowing things out of proportion. It wasn't uncommon for my brother to have a public shouting match with one of his friends or housemates over some frivolous disagreement or another (though perhaps that was the puberty more than the person).

Contrarily, to my knowledge Jim had never held a grudge longer than a month, and more often than not he was laughing with the subjects of his ire the day after an argument. Myself, I confess to a certain amount of pettiness; I've never been one to allow an insult to go forgotten except in the most trivial of circumstances. In our own ways, we had afforded ourselves some respect from our peers; I, because the consequences for crossing me were known and I was far more useful as a friend than an enemy, and Jim because would-be detractors were forced to seriously ask themselves if they were prepared for an extended exchange of slander that could last well into the next week.

Sirius, or Uncle Padfoot as we knew him, came out after Jim, wandering over to my sofa with the kind of casual elegance that had broken so many teenage hearts back in the day, if his stories were to be believed. There were a few more lines on his face than there had been back then, but on the whole, our godfather was in his prime.

He smiled at me as he leaned against the sofa. I smiled back. He was one of the few people in the world who knew what I could do, and was okay with it.

"Looks like you got off fairly lightly," Sirius said mildly.

I shrugged one shoulder. "I'm sure being called a hero and being personally thanked by over a hundred people for the past four hours took some of the sting out of what I did."

Sirius snorted. "In case you were wondering, I'm not mad. You did what you did to save everyone. That's fine by me."

A knot of tension that I hadn't even noticed loosened inside me. I sank back into the sofa.

"Mind telling me exactly what you did, though?" Sirius went on. "Jim's been tight-lipped, but I could tell he was upset. And my senses aren't as refined as yours, but I felt you do something to him."

"All I did was send a very strong thought – instructions on how to save us – that his brain interpreted as an urgent, internal impulse. I only managed it because he made eye contact with me, and I'm not sure if I could do it to anyone else. It may have only worked at all because our bodies are so similar, so it was more like telling myself what to do rather than enforcing my will on someone."

Sirius nodded thoughtfully. "Well, let's test it." He knelt in front of the sofa, bringing himself to my eye level. His grey eyes were calm and, dare I say it, serious. "Go on, see if you can make me do something."

I cringed away. "I'd rather not. It wasn't a pleasant sensation."

Sirius accepted that after a moment, standing upright once more before ruffling my hair. Uncle Padfoot was accepting of my differences, but he wasn't above teasing me about them. I tolerated the noogie for precisely three seconds before swatting his hand away. He chuckled.

"I'd better go talk to Jim," said Sirius, glancing at the northern wing of the house where their bedrooms were. "Know anything I could say that might cheer him up?"

I considered the question carefully.

"Try telling him that the impulse I sent him wouldn't have done anything if he wasn't already about to leap into action," I suggested. "That way, it's more like I just showed him the target and he did the rest. With luck, over the next few weeks his memory will adjust the details so that he thinks that's what happened."

"Whatever keeps us from having to deal with Cyclone Jim every moment we're not in public," Sirius said with a shrug. "You did good, Harry. I know you're going to get introspective and end up making yourself feel guilty, but when you do, I want you to remember what I'm saying right now. You did good."

I grinned and gave in to the urge to get up and hug Sirius, who accepted my embrace with quickly-concealed surprise. I generally wasn't one for open displays of affection, but sometimes words weren't enough.


1 September 1994

Early Afternoon

The Hogwarts Express rolled over the countryside, bending around hills and ducking through the occasional tunnel.

I peered intently at my copy of the Daily Prophet, holding it with my left hand while taking notes with my right.

"This is getting interesting," I murmured.

"What's new?" asked Theo. He sat beside me with his legs crossed, flicking through a copy of Witch Weekly. Once upon a time, people had teased him for reading a magazine for women. That had been before I started tutoring him in the Mind Arts. His love of people-watching and natural psychic sensitivity made him deadly in a duel of words. He had an uncanny ability to feel out other people's insecurities.

Draco Malfoy lounged across from us, staring disinterestedly out the window while his girlfriend Pansy told him at length about her summer holidays. Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and Tracey Davis made up the rest of our compartment.

"The Aurors suspect foul play," I told Theo. There was no need to clarify what I was referring to. The Disaster was still at the forefront of everyone's minds. Memorial services had been scheduled for next week to honour the four people who died at the World Cup. I only witnessed three of the deaths – the splinching and the two jumpers – but apparently there had been a fourth at one of the entrances to the stadium. A guard had been standing alone, abandoned by the rest of his squad who had shirked their duty to go and watch the game, and had suffered a heart attack with nobody around to help him. The squad of guards had been fired and were undergoing a public sandblasting by the media, but not as brutally as the regulation monitors who had declared the stadium safe.

Now in the wake of all that, the Aurors had announced their intention to treat the Disaster as a criminal investigation. They didn't provide any reason why, which the columnists took as an excuse to speculate wildly.

"Perhaps they'll cancel it," Draco said idly, interrupting Pansy's exposition. She glared at me for seemingly drawing Draco's attention away from her.

"Cancel what?" I replied, setting the Prophet aside and closing my notebook. It was small enough to fit into a pocket on the inside of my robes.

"Oh, you still haven't been told?" Draco said in mock surprise, turning to face me. His arm automatically went around Pansy's shoulders, an unconscious gesture of apology for interrupting her. She seemed mollified. I sometimes wondered how the hell their relationship worked when he was so rude and she was so annoying, but I rarely wondered it for long in fear of getting a migraine.

Draco smirked. "Well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you."

I gave him a flat look. He was enjoying having something over me for once. I knew he was still smarting from our first year, when he had expected to rule over Slytherin house due to his father's influence. I had ingratiated myself with his group and spent the first term serving as one of his lackeys, the second term as his second-in-command, and the final term removing any illusions as to who was actually in charge. It had been a fun year.

Our rivalry had turned friendly since then, but Draco still never missed a chance to hold something over my head.

"I know there's a major event happening at Hogwarts this year," I said, refusing to rise to his bait. "I know that the school Quidditch tournament has been cancelled. I know that both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons have spoken of an 'exciting year full of travel and drama'. History denotes these things as signs that a Triwizard Tournament is imminent, but since the Ministry can't possibly be stupid enough to bring that back, I confess to being completely lost."

Draco's smirk faded. Theo laughed lightly, though whether at us or his magazine it was hard to tell.

"So you won't be entering, then?" Draco said, sulking slightly now that his game was over. He drew Pansy close to him like a comfort blanket. Or a stress toy. She seemed pleased either way.

"I've already hit my near-death experience quota for the year," I said dryly.

"Your brother will probably feel differently," said Daphne Greengrass, breaking off a hushed conversation with Tracey Davis.

I eyed Daphne with amusement. She was widely considered to be the most attractive girl in Slytherin, much to the annoyance of older girls. With her midnight-black hair, high cheekbones, and ice-blue eyes, I was a believer. I didn't often let myself fall into fantasies of dalliance, but when I did, Daphne tended to play a leading role.

"My brother," I replied, "is a very brave, very powerful idiot. I guarantee he'll be the first to put his name in the Goblet."

Daphne's lips quirked up in a little smile before Tracey tugged at her sleeve and they resumed their quiet discussion.

"Goblet?" said Draco, frowning.

"Oh, you haven't heard?" I replied. Theo laughed again.

Later in the journey, as the sun sank towards the horizon, I tore my eyes away from the flaming landscape to announce that it was probably time to get changed.

Theo, who had dozed off, blinked awake at my words before stretching languidly and getting to his feet. Draco extricated himself from Pansy's arms, having found a more interesting way to spend a few hours, and started digging through his trunk for his robes. I noticed that Blaise Zabini took a second to register my words, and when he moved it was sluggish and distracted.

We stepped outside into the narrow corridor and waited for the girls to change first, as per tradition. I looked into the compartment across from us. Vince Crabbe and Greg Goyle were comparing notes on something, an open reference book lying between them. I smiled at the sight. Back in their first year, nobody would have believed the two burly boys would become quietly skilled in Charms and Transfiguration, respectively. Once I had supplanted Draco as the leader, it had proven difficult but ultimately rewarding to tutor the pair until they caught up with their studies. The fact that they played along with the 'dumb brute' act even after getting solid grades for the past three years belied a cunning that even I hadn't expected from them.

Blaise leaned against the compartment door, his body angled away from the rest of us, staring pensively at nothing. I made a note to talk to him alone later. Blaise disliked being the centre of attention, preferring to speak only when he had something to say. Or a particularly witty remark to share.

When the girls emerged in their fitted, green-trimmed robes, Daphne touched my arm and kept me from entering with the rest of the boys. Tracey was at her side, as always, but Pansy was always a little separate from the other girls, so she wisely drifted down the corridor a bit to give us room to talk.

"I suppose this has to do with whatever you two have been whispering about all day," I said, folding my arms like a professor about to lecture a couple of troublemakers.

"Perhaps," Daphne said, as though she couldn't care less.

"It's about Daph's little sister," Tracey said, fidgeting with the hem of her robes.

Tracey was so different from Daphne in terms of mannerisms that I sometimes wondered how on earth they became such close friends. While Daphne's eyes were half-lidded and imperious, Tracey's earnest, bright blue gaze and open expression set her apart as easily as if she were a different species. Few Slytherins dared to show the kind of cheer Tracey radiated on a daily basis. In her own way, she was as fascinating as Daphne. I had a niggling suspicion that they both overplayed their public personas a bit, both to distinguish themselves from each other and to throw other people off-balance when they worked together. It was the sort of truly cunning thinking that I had been trying to instil in the group for years, after all.

"Astoria?" I said in surprise. "She's only a year below us, isn't she? I thought she was doing well."

"She is, and she was," Daphne confirmed. "Even after befriending that Weasley girl to the point where they both ended up in Slytherin just so they could continue their friendship."

I smiled at the memory. The rest of the Weasley family had been gobsmacked at their little Ginny wearing green-trimmed robes. I didn't know her personally, but I liked to think my stabilising influence on Slytherin house was one of the reasons she had managed to fit in here without too much drama. The older years were wary of me and generally tried to ignore me, which I was fine with, but the younger years looked up to our group for examples on how to behave, and I hoped what they saw was a group of rational, calm students who exemplified Slytherin virtues without making a caricature of them.

"Was?" I repeated, my smile fading.

Daphne exchanged a look with Tracey.

"She's been acting strange over the last couple of weeks of the holidays," Daphne said slowly. "At times, it seems as though nothing's wrong, but when I try to sit her down for her nightly Occlumency exercises, she avoids me or just pretends to do them. She used to love the challenge, and I'm not sure what's happened to make her hate them."

"Have you asked her?"

Daphne gave me a flat look. "Of course I have. She just says she doesn't want to and makes up excuses to weasel out of the conversation."

"And she seems normal otherwise?"

"Yeah," said Tracey. "I stayed with them for a week and I didn't notice anything was wrong before Daph told me."

"Can you pin down roughly when this behaviour began?" I said, scratching my chin in thought.

"A few days before Trace came over, I think," Daphne said with a little shrug.

"It's possible Astoria delved a little too deeply into her own psyche while doing her exercises that she hit a nerve or a bad memory or something, and that made her fear doing Occlumency again," I suggested. "But just in case, I want you to go through your diary and your memories and make a timeline of everything Astoria was doing back when her behaviour began. Where she went, what she ate, anything you remember."

Daphne nodded.

My head whirled with worst-case possibilities as I entered the compartment and finally got changed. Anything from a psychic parasite to a purely non-magical brain aneurism could be responsible for her aversion to Occlumency. It was, after all, a method of organising one's mind, and if one's mind was being strongly affected by something, organisation would be impossible because one wouldn't have complete dominion.

Statistically, it was probably something small and not at all dangerous, but I tended to get protective when it came to my people, and even though I knew Astoria about as well as I knew Ginny, she was still one of my Slytherins.


Evening at Hogwarts

I remembered my plan to talk to Blaise as we were getting ready for bed. Draco and Theo finished brushing their teeth before us, and Vince and Greg were in a separate dorm with the other fourth-year boys.

Theo gave me a questioning glance as he left the bathroom, his freshly-washed black locks hanging over his eyes. He was intuitive enough to know that I was deliberately taking my time with my evening ritual. I watched him in the mirror as his eyes flicked over to Blaise and made the connection. He left without a word, trusting me to either tell him later or not at all, depending on the subject matter.

I spat a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, rinsed my mouth and brush, and turned to look directly at Blaise. He was leaning on his sink, staring at the drain. There was toothpaste on the tip of his toothbrush, but he seemed to have forgotten about it.

"Something on your mind?" I asked quietly.

"My brother died at the World Cup," he replied listlessly.

I blinked. In four years, Blaise had never mentioned having siblings. He noticed my surprise in the mirror. His eyes were uncharacteristically dull.

"Half-brother," he said. "From one of mother's… previous marriages."

I decided not to say anything to that. There was an unspoken agreement in the group not to discuss Blaise's mother's romantic history.

"His name was Graham Stone," Blaise continued after a moment. "He was the guard that had a heart attack outside the stadium while the Disaster was happening." Blaise swallowed. "He was also an Unspeakable."

A cold chill slid down my spine, making icy sparks dance across my nervous system.

My brother Jim and I were two sides of the same coin. We laid next to each other in the same crib thirteen years ago when the next best thing to the Antichrist broke down our door and killed our parents. But something went wrong when he tried to add infanticide to his list of accomplishments, and the Dark Lord exploded along with most of the house. It became apparent soon after that Jim and I had been marked, and those marks reflected an aspect of the Dark Lord that had been cast loose in his destruction… or something. There was still no satisfying explanation for what had occurred that night, but the fact remained that Jim was marked physically, and I was marked… mentally.

Naturally, Sirius took us to St Mungo's right after retrieving us from Godric's Hollow, where we quickly drew the attention of the Department of Mysteries. Since then, Unspeakables had popped up in our lives every so often to test Jim's magical strength and my psychic prowess. Sirius had sworn the first ones to secrecy (by bringing them to their knees in what he described as a 'cathartic duel', considering it wasn't long after he'd lost two of his best friends) and the Department had been our secret observers ever since.

Blaise and Theo were the only friends who were deep enough in my confidence to know these things, so for Blaise to mention that he was related to an Unspeakable was… concerning, to say the least.

Blaise wasn't meeting my gaze anymore, even in the reflection. He turned to the side so I couldn't see his face.

"I didn't meet Graham often, but he was a good man," Blaise said softly. "And more than that, he was young, and fit, and healthy. He shouldn't have had a heart attack in his twenties."

"Is that why the Aurors have decided to treat the Disaster as a criminal act?" I asked.

"It's why the Unspeakables leaned on the DMLE to get the Aurors to make that change, yes. They may be tied up in all sorts of unsavoury problems, but the Unspeakables still look out for their own. They don't like that such a promising young operative was killed in such a blatantly staged way."

Finally, Blaise looked at me head-on, his expression sombre. "It's why they asked me to ask you, on their behalf, to assist them with the investigation."

I blanched. "Are they kidding? I thought they were watching me to make sure I don't adopt the Dark Lord's thought processes. In fact, I thought they'd known for years now that I'm not going down that path – what I've done for Slytherin's reputation should be evidence enough."

Blaise grimaced and went to rub his eyes, only to realise he was still holding his loaded toothbrush.

"Maybe that's why they're asking you," he said. "If you're not going to be the next Dark Lord, then they might as well put your brain to use doing helpful things."

"And are they completely unaware of how manipulative and Dark Lord-ish it is to use your relationship with your brother as emotional bait for me? Why didn't they just ask me upfront?" I bristled.

Blaise held up his hands calmingly. "I don't know. Maybe they wanted to see how you'd react. You know how they are."

I began to pace furiously around the bathroom while Blaise brushed his teeth to give me time to think. My profound annoyance manifested as psychic frost beneath my feet, so that I left a trail of crackling snowflakes in the shape of footsteps. In the dorm, I heard Theo gasp and drop something on the carpet. With a mild effort of will, I reigned in my flaring emotions and reclaimed my inner calm.

Calming exercises had been a part of my life since I was very young, when my tantrums would leave rooms in Potter Manor looking like a miniature blizzard had rolled through. Uncontrolled psychic manifestation could upend furniture, cause localised drops in temperature, and be all-round bothersome to deal with. Over time, my personality developed a desire to remain calm and collected just to avoid making a mess that Sirius would have to clean up. Jim thought I acted aloof because that's what most Slytherins tried to do. He didn't realise I did it to make life easier for everyone else.

Even among friends, I tried not to let my emotions get the best of me. Theo could sense my determination to stay in control every second we spent together, which was one of the reasons he was my closest confidant. Blaise was psychically dull despite his intellect, so when he noticed my frosted footprints, he shrugged it off.

"What form would my assistance take?" I asked, my voice steady.

"They want you to examine the body for trace mental activity," said Blaise. "Personally, I don't see how you'd be able to do that when he died over a week ago, but I guess they know something I don't."

"Magical consciousnesses leave imprints behind. Most of them don't last long, but in a well-trained, organised, disciplined mind? One versed in Occlumency, as Graham was sure to have been?" I smiled grimly. "There might still be something to find."

Blaise looked uncomfortable. "I know this is exactly what they're hoping I'll say to you, but… Harry, if you can find out who killed him and why, I'll… be very grateful."

I nodded. "Looks like we're both dancing on the Unspeakables' strings, because I'll do my best."


The Next Day

After lunch

I was collected from Hogwarts during a free period after lunch and conveyed by Floo to a temporary operations centre outside the Trillenium Stadium.

Aurors buzzed around the area, and in the distance I saw some journalists taking outside pictures of the collapsed part of the stadium. The air was cold and bitter, and so were most of the people I passed. I was being escorted by Unspeakable Kane, whom I had known since childhood. He was one of the Unspeakables Sirius had beaten into the ground in order to secure a secrecy oath and prevent them from simply carting Jim and I off to be analysed.

Kane was a short man with a hard, lined face and cold grey eyes. His steps carried the impression of grace, like a dancer, or a lion patrolling his territory. Not for the first time, I wondered if he carried a grudge against Sirius after all these years. There was no point asking. I knew the Unspeakables well enough not to take anything at face value.

Kane led me into a large blue pavilion with the flaps folded down to conceal the interior. Inside, in the centre, a corpse lay on a white table. As we neared it, I felt the tingle of preservation charms at work. The body was as fresh as it had been the moment they had gotten a hold of it.

My emotions were so firmly under control that I didn't even blink at the sight of a corpse. The last thing I wanted was for the Unspeakables to see me losing my composure.

"How many Occlumency functions did he possess?" I asked quietly, staring down at the relaxed face of Blaise's half-brother. There wasn't much resemblance.

"Three," Kane replied tersely. "Protection, Memory, and Backup."

Graham's mind had been protected from psychic intrusion, had the ability to selectively memorise information, and could preserve his personality in the event of a catastrophic injury. The first would make my job harder, while the second and third meant that this was very possibly not a waste of time.

I nodded, still looking at Graham Stone's face. I wondered if he had served as a mentor to Blaise, or at least someone to look up to.

"We might as well begin," I said. Kane nodded and ordered the pavilion cleared.

I peeled open Graham's eyelids with cold fingers and stared deeply into them. I found the resemblance to Blaise in the colour of his irises, and it didn't make it any easier.

I fell into Graham's eyes and landed in a dying world.

Endless dunes of black sand shifted beneath my feet. The air was stale and dry. Thousands of bloated flies buzzed through the sky, which was a flickering, sickly yellow, like a failing Lumos spell. Vultures the size of dragons wheeled overhead, their laughing screeches echoing weirdly through the dunes. Rats, mice, and other vermin darted across the sand, their feet leaving tiny tracks that were quickly erased by the transient nature of the desert.

Nearby, I saw the roof of a house that had been nearly completely swallowed in the sand. Dark wood was all that remained above ground, and it was brittle and riddled with fungus.

Flies. Vultures. Vermin. Fungus. This was the magical imprint of a dead human's mind, so it drew from the human concept of decay and ending. A religious person's imprint might look like a white place that slowly grew brighter until it was gone. A bad religious person might have an oncoming firestorm, scorching away the remnants of their personality until it was gone. It seemed Graham Stone had a very grounded view on what awaited after death. Or a very morbid one, depending on the beliefs of the observer.

I walked over to the sunken house. The wooden beams sunk and cracked under my feet as I climbed onto the roof.

"Graham Stone?" I asked, my voice strangely resonant in this mental realm.

A shiver went across the sands, a simultaneous sandfall across thousands of dunes that made a terrible thrumming sound. Scratching noises came from beneath the roof, inside the sunken attic.

"Who's out there?" called a man's voice. "Can you help me? My Backup is working, but my other functions are dead. I've got no way to take control of my body again."

"My name is Harry Potter," I replied.

Silence, then…

"Fuck."

I let him absorb the knowledge and process the implications. His Backup seemed lucid and well-preserved, which made his situation all the more horrifying.

"They got the Alpha Case to come in here to talk to me?" he asked. "Are they kidding?"

"That's what I said." Alpha Case was the codename the Unspeakables had given me, or rather, my situation. Jim was the Omega Case.

"I'm dead, then. No wonder I can't see outside this function." He was very matter-of-fact about his own demise.

"Yes. They think it was foul play."

"It was murder. Let's be clear on that." Graham's voice was firm.

"Murder," I confirmed. "Can you show me what your murderer looked like? Or show me your last memories? Here, such things are possible without the use of a Pensieve."

"I'm aware of that," Graham said dryly. "I'm also aware that to show you anything, I'd have to emerge from my Backup function."

"There's not much point in staying in there," I said plainly, if a little insensitively. "Backup functions work in case of injury or psychic obliteration, so that your personality can be restored when your body and mind are healed by outside sources. You're dead. There's no amount of healing that can change that. I'm looking at your mind right now, and there's not much here to rebuild."

With a heavy sigh that seemed entirely synchronised with the whispering desert, a man appeared in front of me. Alive, Graham Stone seemed completely different to the corpse I'd met a few minutes ago. Animation gave him an undefinable quality that, well, brought him to life. He had a long face topped by scruffy brown hair. His hook-like nose caused him to shift between handsome and ugly depending on the angle the light hit him.

He didn't seem surprised about the surrounding environment, but then, I suppose he wouldn't. This was his conception of death.

I remained silent. Neither of us had much time, but it seemed wrong to interrupt his thoughts at a time like this.

"They want to know who killed me, do they?" said Graham. "Have a look."

A patch of sand beside the roof rose up suddenly into the shape of a man. Grains merged together, melting into fabrics and skin, revealing a wizard with a mop of fair hair and a dash of freckles across his face. His eyes were alight with pleasure as he jabbed his wand forward.

I called up my own Memory function and committed the killer's appearance to my long-term memory. The sensation felt like an unpleasant weight was stuck in the middle of my head, like an indigestion of the mind, but I wanted to be absolutely certain I would be able to recreate the image. The uncomfortable feeling would fade the next time I entered a deep sleep.

"Don't ask what spell he used," Graham said mildly. "It was non-verbal. I felt a tightness in my chest and turned to see him like that. I barely got inside my Backup in time."

"Can you show me the scene in its entirety?" I asked.

Graham frowned. The sand around the killer rippled and rose up into lumps that fell apart. He sighed. "Guess I can't. This is all I can manage. You weren't kidding about there not being much left of this place."

"Can you tell me why an Unspeakable was serving as a door guard?"

"The boys in Divination warned of a non-trivial chance of something big happening at the World Cup. I was inserted into a guard detail, and a few others were scattered in the crowd. What happened, anyway? I doubt my death was big enough to register."

"Part of the stadium collapsed and almost took out the Top Box, which included the Minister for Magic and a few powerful Wizengamot members. And me, I suppose."

Graham laughed bitterly. "It's never what you expect, is it? Did anyone die?"

"Four, including you. But not from the collapse. Two jumped off the Top Box and one guy splinched himself to death."

Graham winced. "I got off lucky."

I looked around at the barren landscape. "That's one way to look at it. Can you remember anything else that might be useful?"

Graham started to shake his head, then paused. "He was… powerful. Magically and mentally. When I sensed someone coming up behind me, for a moment I thought it was you and your brother."

My eyebrows hit my hairline. "Really?"

"Yeah." Graham turned away and stared into the distance. He seemed to be in a reflective mood.

"I… have some questions of my own, if that's okay," I said reluctantly.

Graham sighed, looking over his shoulder at me. "Is this where you reveal to me that you've been playing us for fools this whole time, and you really are planning to be the new Dark Lord?"

"Since there's no chance of anyone overhearing this conversation, and really no chance of you sharing it with another Unspeakable, I feel confident I can tell you the truth." I leaned closer menacingly. "You want to know of my plans?" I whispered.

Graham nodded, eyeing me warily.

I smiled wickedly and began to circle him, adding a bit of cocky swagger to my step.

"You fools," I murmured. "All this time, all these years, and none of you even saw a glimpse of my true plan."

Graham turned with me, not letting me out of his sight.

"Not the Unspeakables, not my professors, not my brother, not even dear Uncle Padfoot have any idea what's coming." I let a breathy excitement inflect my voice. "In all your wildest nightmares, did you ever imagine that I would one day… take my O. one year early?!"

I threw my arms out to my sides and let loose a howling laugh that echoed across the black desert around us. The sound bounced around and became distorted due to the strange properties of this place, until I was part of a chorus of madmen proclaiming their genius to the heavens.

My arms flopped back down, and my glorious laughter became a more natural sniggering. I didn't get to cut loose like that in the real world very often, so it felt good to let some of my inner silliness out. We Slytherins could be so serious all the time, and I had a reputation to maintain. Some might argue that venting in another man's dying mindscape was tactless, but I believed there was no time like the present.

Graham looked shocked at my outburst.

"W-What?" he said. "You… In all the files I've read on you – the Alpha Case – I've never seen one that mentioned you being anything other than mild-mannered."

"Yeah?" I laughed. "Well here's my deep, Dark secret, Graham: I'm just a goddamn kid. I grew up with constant love and support from my godfather, and sometimes even my brother. I've got friends I'd give the world for, and if another Dark Lord rises, I'll rally them behind me and put him in the fucking ground." I clasped my hands behind my back. "Graham, I'm the good guy."

Graham stared at me, slack jawed. He wiped a hand over his face. "God, if the other guys in the Department saw you like this, they'd lose their minds. Do you have any idea how scared they are of what you can do?"

"I do now," I said cheerfully.

Graham let out an involuntary snort of laughter.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "Alright. Ask your questions."

I paused to think for a few seconds. The lightened mood faded as quickly as vermin tracks in the sand.

"Unspeakable Kane," I said.

Graham nodded. "My boss." He frowned. "Former boss, I guess."

"Does he want revenge against Sirius for what went down all those years ago?" I asked.

"I don't know," Graham replied slowly. "I don't think things like 'revenge' matter to him. From what I've heard from older Unspeakables, he's basically… well, we call him the Djinn."

"Djinn? As in, genie?"

"Yeah. Because he doesn't hold grudges, doesn't get emotional, and never breaks his word."

I raised an eyebrow. "Djinn are supposed to do all of those things. They're the least trustworthy beings in the world. That's why wizards have to stuff them into lamps or bottles to get them to do what they want."

Graham smiled weakly. "That's the joke. Unspeakable codenames are always the opposite of the person they're assigned to."

"What was yours?"

Graham coughed. "Elder Dragon."

I whistled softly in sympathy. "Ancient, powerful, and unfathomably intelligent."

"Young, untested, and maybe a little naïve," Graham translated, but he was smiling as he did. It was odd to think of the Unspeakables as people who were capable of teasing each other like any other coworkers.

I decided to capitalise on the good feelings I had accidentally inspired.

"May I ask you about your brother, Blaise? You have the same mother, don't you?"

It backfired.

"I don't want to talk about that whore," Graham spat. "Or her latest brat."

I was taken aback by the vehemence in his voice. "Why?"

"Why don't I want to talk about my mother who has gone through seven husbands like you go through pairs of glasses? Why don't I want to talk about the seven children she had, one for each husband, each one abandoned when they turned out below her expectations? Take a fucking guess, Potter!"

I licked my lips. I had to be careful here. Dying, he might be, but I didn't want to find out how much power he still had in this place by riling him up.

"Blaise is your half-brother, no matter what you think of your shared mother," I said quietly. "He was saddened by your death. He described you as fit, powerful, capable. I think he looked up to you."

Graham was silent for almost a minute.

"Blaise," said Graham. There was a sadness in his voice that weighed as much as a planet. "He seemed bright, the few times we met. I taught him a few tricks they don't teach you in school. I felt sorry for him. He's the success, you see. Our mother's finest work, after six failed attempts."

"Attempts to do what?"

"To create a wizard who cannot be touched by the Mind Arts. You've noticed, haven't you? You're the Alpha Case, the kid with the potential to be the most powerful known practitioner in the world. But you can't touch Blaise's mind, can you? And I bet he doesn't even notice when you try."

I hesitated. I'd known that Blaise was psychically dull, but I'd never imagined it was by design.

"But why would she want a child who can't be touched by the Mind Arts? For that matter, how did she create one?"

"A never-ending supply of willing dupes, some old magic, and a hatred for the Mind Arts that could eclipse the sun if it manifested," Graham said plainly.

"Why does she hate them?"

"How should I know? I'm just a failed prototype!" Graham roared, the intensity knocking me back a few steps. A brief sandstorm rose around the sinking house, which I noticed had dropped by half a metre during our conversation.

Something broke in Graham's composure and he clutched at the back of his neck, fidgeting and trembling. "Fuck, man. God, I don't want this. I haven't even done anything. I was going to – I was planning on… God! Fuck!" He covered his head with his arms to block out the sight of the desert.

I hesitantly walked over to Graham and touched his shoulder. He shrugged my hand off and uncovered his face. Angry tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Goddamn it, I'm not going out begging for comfort from the fucking Alpha Case!" he snarled.

"I won't think any less of you," I promised.

"No, fuck that, I refuse." Graham pushed away from me and paced around the rotting rooftop. He was blustering. I knew it, and so did he. I couldn't blame him. I'd rather be angry than scared if I were in his position.

"What about the other way, then," I suggested softly. "Once I leave, they won't have any reason to maintain the preservation spells. Your imprint won't last long when decomposition begins. But you'll be alone the whole time. I could… put a timer on it. One millisecond after I leave, for example. There won't be any time to dwell. There won't be any waiting."

Graham stared at me, his expression pained. He shook his head in a sudden, jerking motion.

"No. No, I'll… wait it out. I want to see what happens," Graham said.

He was, if not lying, then not entirely sure in his answer. I didn't call him on it. Here, at the end of a man, the end of a mind, I would have granted him anything within my power. Never before had I felt so humbled by the nature of mortality.

Graham's shoulders shook as he turned away from me. "Fuck off," he whispered hoarsely.

"You'll be remembered, Graham. When we find your killer, we'll –"

"I said FUCK OFF!" Graham roared, spinning to glare at me with bloodshot eyes, spittle hanging from his lips.

I withdrew myself immediately. I hoped he would hang on to that defiance, that fury. I couldn't imagine what the end would look like from his perspective, but I hoped it was quick.

Kane was waiting for me as I collected myself. My back ached from leaning over the table, and I felt hungry despite my surroundings.

"Phial?" I said. Small talk was pointless with Kane, and I didn't want to show weakness.

Kane passed one over, a tiny thing made of crystal. I pressed my wand to my head and withdrew a copy of the perfectly-preserved memory of Graham's killer.

"Spell was non-verbal," I said, passing the phial back. "Graham said the killer was so magically and mentally potent that he thought it was my brother and I for a moment."

Kane's eyebrows twitched. It was the same as another man gasping in shock.

"Yeah, that was my reaction too," I said.

"Anything else?"

"Nothing you don't already know."

Kane snorted. "Meaning you asked your own questions."

"What Slytherin wouldn't?" I said simply. "I'm not your tool, Djinn. Keep me updated, and next time, ask nicely if you want my help."

I turned my back on Kane and left the pavilion.


Evening in the Common Room

I was late getting back to the castle so I missed the final class of the day. Fortunately, it was History of Magic, so nothing of value was lost.

I could tell my friends, bar Blaise, were curious as to where I'd been all afternoon, but I decided to keep things vague for Blaise's sake. I knew he was still feeling guilty over being manipulated into asking me to help the Unspeakables, and doubly so about concealing his Unspeakable half-brother from me. I had my own questions to ask him, mainly about his mother, but after today's events, I didn't feel like getting into it.

We sat comfortably in our corner of the common room, a selection of four sofas in an alcove with its own small hearth. I leaned on the armrest, staring into the flames. Theo sat beside me, occasionally glancing in my direction. Blaise was alone on the opposite sofa, his untouchable mind as distant and unreadable as his expression. Draco and Pansy were sprawled on a third sofa, the former dozing while the latter carried on a soft, one-sided conversation. Daphne and Tracey sat on the final sofa beside Greg and Vince, both inseparable pairs quietly discussing their manifold plans and secrets. I wondered how I could feel so comfortable among people with such secretive, careful natures, but then I reminded myself that I was part of the reason they possessed those natures in the first place.

"For God's sake, Harry, stop being so mopey," said Daphne, glancing away from Tracey for a moment.

"It's called being deep in thought," I replied.

"Well, you've spent all evening deep in thought. Are you planning to share any of those thoughts with us?"

"Let's go for a walk, Daphne," I said impulsively. I got to my feet and held out my hand.

She blinked at my hand and I enjoyed the fact I had caught her by surprise. Wordlessly, she allowed me to help her up and lead her out of the common room.

With my senses being what they were, there was no fear of running into patrolling teachers, prefects, or ghosts, so once we had climbed out of the dungeons and into the castle proper, we settled into a leisurely stroll. At some point, without my urging, Daphne let go of my hand and slid her arm through mine in the traditional way.

"This isn't a romantic walk," I clarified quietly.

"Is it ever?" Daphne replied, her smooth voice echoing a little in the darkened corridors.

I glanced tiredly at her. She met my eyes challengingly. After a moment, I faced forward again. I could have sensed Daphne's satisfaction even if I had as little mental ability as Jim.

"I assume whatever is bothering you is related to your mysterious excursion after lunch?" she went on.

"You assume correctly."

"And I also assume it involves the secrets of multiple people, which is why you're having so much trouble figuring out how much to tell us?"

I nodded reluctantly.

"Well, pardon me if I wander past my status as your presumed concubine, but it seems as though you should keep all of it secret until it becomes relevant to us." Daphne's tone was laced with needles that almost made me wince. Just as Vince and Greg were presumed to be dolts, so too was Daphne's loyalty to me presumed to be something more. The fact that I wasn't opposed to the idea only muddied the waters.

"How's Astoria?" I said.

Daphne smirked at the obvious change of subject, but she let it slide. "The same as always. Like I told you on the train yesterday, she seems completely normal until you try to get her to practice her Occlumency."

"I'm concerned, Daphne."

We stopped walking in one of the outer corridors. A nearby window cast a blade of moonlight between us. Daphne watched me, her head tilted, her eyes sparkling.

"Concerned about what?" she asked.

"There are things happening that I can't explain. There are actors moving that I can't detect. There are factors changing that I can't predict."

"You're not omniscient, Harry."

"No," I agreed. "But you can't deny I have a good sense for knowing when things are about to go completely awry."

Daphne smiled. "I'll grant you that." She turned to look out the window at the rippling forest below. "So how long do we have before the next calamity?"

"Well," I sighed, leaning against the stone window frame. "Filch will be here in eight minutes. Beyond that, I have no idea."


subvert

1.

to overthrow (something established or existing).

2.

to cause the downfall, ruin, or destruction of.

3.

to undermine the principles of; corrupt.


A/N: Please let me know if you want to read more!