Chapter 12 - Merlin, Help Us All
Voldemort was furious.
The support of the Blacks had disappeared overnight. And with them, so had the rest of his prospects. Somehow his true heritage had been thrown into question. Any of his followers who had or had not yet taken his mark had fled.
None of the pureblood lines followed him willingly, and the half-bloods, though useful, were not enough to convert others.
The worst had somehow happened, Albus Dumbledore was onto him.
He had no spy in his circle, only a few of the older Slytherin students.
"Gibbon, speak," Voldemort ordered, knowing that his son and daughter were both at Hogwarts.
The man stuttered, and it was by force of will alone that Voldemort did not smite him where he grovelled. Gibbon's son had a better head on his shoulders.
"We had one lead, my Lord," the man blubbered.
"Speak."
The man gulped, "Dumbledore's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Peverell-"
"The Peverell line is dead," Voldemort said, "I saw to that, personally."
They had been odd people, a quiet couple. So quiet he had thought them deaf or mutes when he first interrogated them. But in the end, they both died screaming. It wasn't often he used torture to kill, it took too long.
But he had needed information. Mr. Peverell had broken first, but unfortunately, he had nothing of substance to say. His body had given out like a limp puppet, his dark hair had blended in with the drying blood on the basement floor.
His wife, Mrs. Peverell, had lasted a long, long time. Long enough that Voldemort had been able to get creative. With her flaming hair and vivid green eyes, it had been a pleasure to watch her resist, fighting the pain. But like her husband, she too had broken.
Only she knew more of the family secrets than her dearly departed husband. Lord Voldemort had not left her to miss him.
"They must have had a son," Gibbon interrupted Voldemort's fond memories.
"There was no child in that house," he stated, though now that he thought about it, he hadn't really checked. No one else in that house had made a sound, but he supposed it wasn't impossible that a child could have hidden from him. He shook his head, the information had been worth it, but that had -even by wizard standards, been a strange house.
Gibbon bowed his head, "That's what he calls himself, Professor Peverell."
"What is his first name?" Voldemort asked.
"I don't know, M'Lord, only that some call him Rell, for short."
What was it with this family? Surely, they did have first names, didn't they?
"He must be weak, if I have never heard of him before."
"He was muggle raised, M'lord he didn't go to Hogwarts."
Voldemort raised his brows at this, "A hedgewitch has never taught at Hogwarts before. Was he educated in a different country?"
"I don't know," he said before continuing, "The rumour is that his wife was murdered by 'a dark lord.'"
This caught his interest. No one could tie the Peverells' deaths back to him. There were very few deaths that could be directedly tied to Lord Voldemort at all, which meant one of three things. One, it was someone on his short list of public examples, two, that someone had betrayed him, or three, there was another dark lord on the rise.
"Who?" Voldemort purred.
"His wife was Naomi Lupin, sister of Lyall Lupin."
A hush fell over the room, as everyone held their collective breaths, except for Greyback who let out a low trickling growl.
Voldemort leaned back in his seat. "Naomi Lupin," he said softly. The little whore who had nearly ruined everything. Her brother, Lyall, had been troublesome with the werewolves, but Greyback had taught them their lesson.
But Naomi Lupin; she had learned too much, hadn't turned when bitten, and had slipped through every net and trap he laid for her.
It had been less than three years ago, when he had finally found her, and stomped her out. She had hidden in the muggle world, but not well enough. "The little runt married a Peverell."
Two people that should never have existed to begin with, he thought to himself. It explained how Dumbledore knew of his actions, if this Peverell had been old enough to remember his parents' demise, he might know more than he ought.
"No one could have married that bitch," Greyback growled, then bared his teeth, "I ruined her."
Gibbon shrunk backwards, "They had a son, Teddy Peverell. He's young and a metamorphmagus."
"May I go hunting, my Lord?" Greyback asked, near salivating.
Voldemort shook his head, "No, no. That's what Dumbledore wants. We cannot attack his staff directly. This Peverell," he tasted the name and hated its lineage, "will never be our friend. Not with our apparent history. But perhaps he will remain neutral. This is the first I've ever heard of him, and he has yet to prove a nuisance." He smiled then, his red eyes shining, "Besides, Professor Peverell is already cursed."
Harry had never liked Percy much in his own time, but the boy as a baby? Harry was enthralled by the little fussy child.
He had scoped the babe out of Molly's arms the moment she offered.
Teddy, very used to his father's reaction around the small ones, ducked off to play with Bill and Charlie's toys. Not, Bill or Charlie, but their toys.
Teddy liked most adults, but he was wary of other children, especially new children.
Charlie, who was four, was fascinated by this new playmate with changing hair colour. Bill, who was six, was much more suspicious, so followed his brother and the newcomer with a shrewd eye on his favourite toys.
"Are you sure you got this?" Molly asked him for the fifth time.
Harry smiled, "Yes, Mrs. Weasley. I raised my son all on my own, and I worked in a daycare. I will keep them all safe, I promise."
She smiled, though he could still see the worry in her eyes. He was a stranger after all.
She laughed to herself, "I'm being silly, but I haven't even been able to leave the babies alone with Arthur."
Arthur was already in his office that had been converted into a meeting room -which had been a bedroom in Harry's time, along with Dumbledore, Minerva, and several others who Harry knew were Order of the Pheonix members.
"They are fine, if something truly does go wrong, you will be the first I call. And you will be just upstairs."
Only partially mollified, she gave him a small smile, kissed Percy on his soft brow, and ascended the stairs.
One part of Harry felt bad about not sharing the information he had about the future, another -larger- part of him was completely delighted by knowing more than Dumbledore and his Bird Order.
Yeah, it was petty, bloody hell, it might mean the life and death for some. But whatever Harry felt for Dumbledore, he didn't trust the Great Wizard, not with the future, not with his son's future.
Perhaps it was selfish, but Harry had been selfless once.
Lots of people had still ended up dead.
Until Harry knew what his actions would reap, he would lie low. Voldemort had been a menace to kill because he had played cat and mouse with Dumbledore. Harry, on the other hand, had had plenty of personal time with the Dark Lord. Granted, Harry was no longer a child. But that was sort of the point, Harry did not want Voldemort to be afraid of him.
Afraid, Voldemort had done unspeakable things. Harry had no doubts Teddy would become his first target, the damned baby killer.
But unafraid, Voldemort had been careless. So self-assured in his own powers, if Harry had just been more powerful…
As for now? Harry thought he might be the kind of power the Dark Lord should fear. So he would wait. And the Horcruxes? They weren't hurting anyone, and they could be destroyed after Voldemort had lost his body.
"Professor Pev-rell," Charlie wined, "How come Teddy can change hair colours?"
Harry rocked from foot to foot as Percy fussed. The fussing was likely due to the absence of his mother, but he had been assured that the baby was well fed, and as he wasn't crying, just making those little baby 'er, uhm,' sounds, Harry was not concerned. He just rocked trying to find the rhythm that would best please the babe.
"Rell is fine. And Teddy was born that way, he's a metamorphmagus. When he's older he will be able to transform himself into other people."
Teddy smiled but didn't look up from the block castle he was building.
Bill frowned at the stranger playing with his toys, it was bad enough he had to share with Charlie, and with the other one once it got bigger. No one told Bill he would have to share his toys with metamorphs too.
Charlie was more interested in the magic than his boring blocks. "Could I be born as a metameg?"
Harry shook his head, "Sadly no."
Charlie pouted and plopped to the ground 'accidentally' scattering Teddy's blocks.
Teddy froze, then looked slowly up at the other boy, his hair which had been Weasley orange and eyes brown flipped to black hair and green eyes.
"Bill," Harry said, "why don't you help Teddy and Charlie build a tall tower? I bet you know how to make one that is hard to tip over."
Bill, ever the big brother, squared his shoulders, sat, crossed his legs, and began to order Charlie and Teddy about.
Charlie argued with his bother about details of a fictional realm of kings and dragons but generally followed the instruction as to be a united front against the Outsider. Teddy, for his part, stayed pretty quiet, though far from a willing subservient, he changed blocks around when the Weasley boys were too busy bickering with one another to notice.
Harry's part in this was to act as a supervisor. Percy had fallen asleep in his arms. He sat watching the three older boys build their kingdom, ensuring that any unrest between them didn't break out into a squabble.
For the Weasley boys, Harry was a scary unknown, a professor from Hogwarts, they wouldn't risk misbehaving under his nose, not right before his eyes.
And that was the thing most people didn't understand. Watching little children was not all that difficult when you were watching them. It was when you weren't watching that the trouble began. Thus the expression of teachers having eyes on the back of their heads.
They didn't really have eyes on the back of their heads, or at least Harry didn't. But what he did know, as every good daycare employee knows, that it was the moment you turned your back that they were up to something.
How did one know this?
Children were always up to something.
But, alas, the evening passed without reason for Harry to take his eyes off them. Percy stayed asleep and the other three were pulled into a fantasy realm of their own design. As Harry was following their little epic, he helped the blocks burst into illusionary flames, then helped restack the block when the Good Wizard from the East came to save the day.
They used the restroom a few times, and Bill went to go get juice for everyone because 'it was his house and the Rells were guests.'
Teddy was, as always, discernably quieter than the others -aside from little Percy, but still, Teddy nearly laughed himself sick when Charlie 'released the dragons' and Harry set the whole block castle ablaze with sparkles.
Bill tried to be angry at his laughing guest and brother, but when the flaming sparkles reformed into blocks that looked like the grand ruins of a block castle, Bill decided to wage war on the imaginary dragons instead.
When Molly and Arthur emerged from their 'meeting' to tell it would be time for dinner soon, Bill and Charlie bemoaned the stop to their game so loudly that they woke Percy.
Which considering all the 'roaring' and castles tumbling to the ground was pretty remarkable.
Molly smiled at Harry as he rocked the baby back to a restful state. Although Percy's fussing renewed, hungry and stinky, he was set to cry again.
"Where's his changing room?" Harry asked.
"Oh, you don't have to-" Molly protested.
"Nonsense, you're getting dinner ready."
And Arthur said, "Third door on the left." Obviously, he didn't want to be the one to change him.
Harry turned on the other three boys, "You three be good, we can stay a bit after dinner, but then I want no whining when it is time for us to leave. Everyone needs to sleep at night."
"Not vampires," Teddy told him.
Harry mock scowled at his son who giggled even as Bill and Charlie promised they wouldn't whine.
"Who is he?" Molly asked Albus as she waved her wand and brought food to the table.
"He wonderful, isn't he?" Minerva said. "Of all the professors we've had to fill that position since after Albus left it, Professor Peverell has been my favourite."
"Shame about his wife, Lyall's sister," Arthur said sadly.
Molly laid a plate down in front of her husband, "I know, she was lucky to have someone like him. Not many fathers would have been able to raise a child on their own."
Arthur stiffened.
Molly had been near frantic at the idea that war really was coming, and not to pleased with her spouse that another man had offered to help her with the baby care when Arthur had just stood there.
Molly liked being a mother, but this afternoon had been the first break she had from her sons since Bill was born.
Everyone needed a break sometimes, preferably not at the expense of crying children and unchanged baby diapers. When she had heard nothing but quiet from her youngest sons and only laughter from her older sons, she had felt-
Well, some part of her had breathed a bit.
Molly didn't say anything else to Arthur about it as she called in the three boys, and Professor Peverell joined them with a clean but fussy Percy.
Dinner served, she took her baby back to feed him, sitting back from the table as people began to load their plates.
Her twin brothers began to rib Professor Peverell- or Rell as he prefered to be called, with questions that were more setups to jokes than true information seeking.
Rell smiled and joked back with an ease that made her wonder if he knew other harassing twins.
After dinner, the boys went off to play, and then, the weirdest thing Molly had ever seen a wizard do in her entire existence happened.
He helped with the dishes.
"So, let me test my understanding here," Remus asked, "You want me to- what? I'm sorry, I lost you once Padfoot started listing magical artefacts."
Prongs sighed dramatically, "Well, we can't prank the other houses at the moment."
"Yeah, because Professor Rell would skin us," Padfoot grumbled.
Remus gave him a look, "I thought you said my uncle's detention was 'dreadfully boring' and the worst part was Snape."
Padfoot waved it away, "It's an expression. But no one wants to see that wizard mad."
"He's crazier than Dumbledore," Prongs said morosely.
"Your presentation wasn't bad," Remus said, "I mean you stumbled over a few words but it was a decent- urm, explanation."
Prongs' cheeks flushed, "Can we not talk about detention? We are avoiding the Wizard. McGonagall will get us for this one, but it will be fun and no one's going to get hurt."
"Except for Wormtail's feelings," Remus countered.
"Pish-posh," Padfoot said in a high falsetto, then let his voice drop. "He's been weird lately. Haven't you noticed?"
"And you think this will help?" Remus asked in the same sceptical tone.
"Well, maybe it shakes him out of it," Prongs said, "Now, shush, you need to pay attention, we have to time it just right."
"How do we know where he'll go?" Remus asked, because he had been listening, even to Padfoot's ramblings.
"That's the brilliance, he'll find us."
Remus looked at him suspiciously, "I don't know…"
Padfoot snorted, "We'll put a tracking charm on him, there, done, happy?"
Remus said nothing.
"Are you in or not?" Prongs pushed.
Remus sighed, "Fine, I'm in. But for the record, I still think it's a bad idea. He's our friend."
"Yeah, well," Prongs said offhandedly, "he's a pretty useless friend. And ever since we helped him become an animagus, he's been a bit of a-"
"Rat," Padfoot supplied.
Remus sighed again. He couldn't argue with him, Peter was hapless to the point of annoyance at times. And ever since he had become an animagus he had become… meaner, slippier.
But Peter was still their friend, and harmless prank or no, this still felt like a bad idea.
Merlin, help us all.