Chapter 1
"Long day?" Abbot asked when Harry entered the office to the Secretary for the DMLE.
Harry grunted in acknowledgement. All he wanted to do was go home, eat whatever Kreacher had made for dinner, and collapse into bed. His shift was supposed to be over, and he wanted to rest before heading to the Weasleys for his birthday the next day.
He always referred to the end of his shift as "supposed to be," because Harry's luck always made it a much longer day.
Sure enough, when Harry opened the door to his boss' office, Head Auror Robards had an apologetic look on his face.
Harry groaned. "What is it now, and why can't you send Auror Malfoy?"
"Death Eaters," Robards replied.
"Fuck."
Robards snorted.
The ex-Death Eaters had been lying low since Voldemort's death, or most of them. Lucius Malfoy had successfully bribed his way out of prison again (although with a lot more restrictions, and he wasn't allowed to step foot in either the Ministry or Hogwarts) Draco Malfoy was forced to become an Auror as reparations, and Severus Snape was still teaching potions at Hogwarts -- although he was only teaching sixth and seventh years now.
"Someone spotted Rabastan Lestrange near Hogsmeade, along with a few masked Death Eaters," Robards told Harry.
"A few?" Harry asked.
"More than three, didn't get an exact number."
"I'll take Malfoy anyway, he can glamour himself," Harry decided. "Who else is coming?"
There were twenty Death Eaters.
"There shouldn't be this many!" Harry yelled to Malfoy as he shot a Stunner at a masked figure.
"Don't look at me, Potter," Malfoy said irritably, "I only knew half of the Inner Circle!"
"You know that's not what I meant!" Harry snapped back, dodging a cutting curse.
"I'm not used to you being-" Malfoy ducked, and a Killing Curse narrowly missed him "-nice to me, Potter! Incendio!"
A jet of fire caused several of the Death Eaters to shoot to the ground, and Malfoy quickly Disarmed them.
Harry ignored him and cast a Patronus in Parseltongue.
His instructor at the Auror academy had been very interested in whether there was a difference between regular spells and spells cast in Parseltongue. Harry had also been curious, so he'd tried the most harmless spell he knew -- a Patronus.
Instead of a white, transparent stag bursting from his wand, it was a huge, eerie green Basilisk. This sent nearly every student in the room into hysterics, until they realized the snake wasn't hurting them. In fact, like a regular Patronus, it felt peaceful, but even more so.
Apparently, any magic cast in Parseltongue was a lot more powerful, and sometimes more deadly, and it was so much easier to control. Harry gave his instructor a heart attack when he was able to cast a Parseltongue Fiendfyre without it burning anything down.
The Basilisk soared over the battle, causing shrieks from most of the Death Eaters and two from Anderson and Pike, who apparently didn't know about his Parseltongue Patronus. Malfoy and Harry used this distraction to Disarm most of the enemy, leaving only Rabastan Lestrange armed.
"Potter!" he snapped. "You're not supposed to speak Parseltongue! You're just a filthy half-blood!"
"Voldemort was a half-blood, idiot," Harry sneered back, causing gasps, even from his own side. "His mother was a Gaunt, and his father was a Muggle."
"Liar!" Lestrange cried.
"It's true," Malfoy drawled, and the man startled when he saw the blond. "Although the Dark Lord only told Severus and my father."
Harry tried to Disarm Lestrange while he was distracted, but the man managed to hang onto his wand. "Still using that spell, Potter?" he sneered. "I suppose they only made you a full Auror because you're the Boy-Who-Lived."
Harry snorted. "I just cast a Parseltongue Patronus, bitch." Malfoy choked, and Lestrange looked wildly offended. "And I can do more than that.
"~Expelliarmus.~"
Lestrange's wand was yanked forcefully out of his hand, and it shot immediately into Harry's grasp. The regular Disarming charm didn't do that; you had to retrieve the wand yourself.
Harry was distracted, however, by every single Death Eater gasping and grabbing their left arms, including Malfoy.
"Potter, what the fuck?" Malfoy said indignantly.
Lestrange stared at Harry, expression wary.
"What did I do?" Harry asked cautiously, feeling annoyed at the sudden suspicious looks from the other Aurors, minus his ex-rival, who was frowning at him.
"Only the Dark Lord is supposed to affect our Marks," Malfoy said slowly.
Harry groaned and rubbed his face. "Fucking shite, the fuck."
"Who taught you to swear so much?"
"Remus," Harry said with a sigh. "Why does everything happen to me?"
"You're special," Malfoy drawled.
"Shut up." His frustration at everything caused Harry's words to become borderline Parseltongue. Judging by the ex-Death Eater's reactions, that caused the same reaction as regular Parseltongue.
Malfoy twitched, glaring at his arm. "Merlin, Potter."
"I need to start wording everything as a suggestion and not an order whenever I'm around you now, don't I?" Harry grumbled. He was met with the same stare Malfoy had given him many times once the war had ended, the one that said Malfoy was still very much not used to Harry being nice to him.
Harry glared at the other Aurors, who were now pointing their wands at him, but the glare had very little heat. "I know this is protocol, but seriously-"
"The Dark Lord is never nice," Lestrange snarked. "It really is Potter."
"We don't believe Death Eaters," Magolian snapped.
"Ex-Death Eaters," Malfoy retorted. "The Dark Lord's dead, Magolian. The wands aren't necessary."
Harry handed his wand over to Malfoy, resigned. "They're not going to listen to you, either."
"Bastards," Malfoy muttered, then looked horrified. "I still don't like you, Potter!"
Harry snickered, and someone cast a Stunner at him.
"Oh, for the love of-"
When Harry woke up, he was in Robards' office. The head Auror was yelling at Magolian, who was apparently the one who had Stunned Harry. Gornuk, Harry's Accountant, was sitting next to Harry, looking bored and amused at the same time, and Malfoy was on his other side, scowling.
"Fair eve," Harry grumbled to the goblin.
"Is it?" Gornuk asked wryly.
"Fuck no," Harry complained. "I thought I was done having Dark shite happen to me."
"Potter, you're awake," Robards said gruffly, pausing mid-rant. "Get out, Magolian," he snapped, and the Auror fled immediately. "What happened?" Robards barked at Malfoy.
"Potter can influence the Dark Mark with Parseltongue, sir," Malfoy responded in a snarky tone.
"Do you take lessons from Snape?" Harry muttered out of the side of his mouth. Gornuk coughed.
"Shut up," Malfoy responded under his breath.
"Would you two act like adults for two seconds?" Robards snapped irritably. Gornuk coughed again.
"Sorry, sir," the two responded, Malfoy shooting Harry a dirty look.
Robards nodded jerkily to Gornuk, who pulled a silver piece of parchment and a needle out of his briefcase. "You know the drill," he told Harry, setting the paper on the desk and handing the needle to him.
"Bloody fucking..." Harry shut up when he saw Robards' frustrated expression and quickly pricked his finger.
"Drill?" Malfoy asked Gornuk.
"Muggle expression. You pick it up when you're associated with Harry."
"Friends," Harry corrected absently, squeezing three drops onto the parchment. He missed Malfoy's shocked look and the slight widening of Gornuk's eyes.
Magical Blood Test for Harrison James Potter:
Name: Harrison James Potter
Date of Birth: 31 July, 1980
Date of Death: 31 October, 1981
Date of Rebirth: 1 November, 1981
Date of Death: 29 May, 1993
Date of Rebirth: 29 May, 1993
Date of Death: 3 May, 1998
Date of Rebirth: 3 May, 1998
Parents: James Fleamont Potter, alias(es) Prongs (father, deceased); Lily Potter Nee Evans (mother, deceased)
Godparent(s): Sirius Orion Lupin-Black, alias(es) Lord Black, Padfoot (living); Severus Tobias Snape, alias(es), Lord Ravenclaw-Prince, the Half-Blood Prince (living); Alice Longbottom Nee Selwin (living)
Lord to:
Merlin (through J. F. P.)
Pendragon (through J. F. P.)
Peverell (through conquest)
Gryffindor (through J. F. P.)
Hufflepuff (through L. P. Nee E.)
Slytherin (through conquest)
Gaunt (through conquest)
Heir to:
Ravenclaw (through S. T. S.)
Prince (through S. T. S.)
Black (through S. O. L.-B.)
Harry had seen that at the end of the battle, when the goblins summoned him to take his Lordships and Heirships -- apparently he'd had a mail ward cast on him, so none of their letters were getting through. It still surprised him that he'd died three times, not just one.
"What the fuck?" Malfoy exclaimed.
"You've died three times," Robards said quietly. Harry jerked his head up to stare at the man; he'd never seen him so shocked.
"Yeah," he said slowly. "You know about the first time. The second was Basilisk venom-"
"What!"
"-and Fawkes, Dumbledore's Pheonix, healed me," Harry continued, ignoring Malfoy, "and the third time was Voldemort. Honestly, Malfoy-"
"The Marks were cursed to burn whenever someone said his title in front of us," Malfoy snapped.
Harry blinked. "Bastard," he said finally, earning another choked noise from Gornuk.
"I want to know the extent of your control over the Marks, and I want to know why," Robards ordered, still looking a little haunted.
"I'm not going to-" Malfoy paused. "What was that phrase you used, Potter?" he asked. "'I'm not going to be a guinea pig?'"
"You heard about that?" Harry asked, embarrassed. The first time his instructor had asked to see Parselmagic, his wording had implied that it was more of an experiment.
"Still don't know what a guinea pig is-"
"It's like a pygmy puff, but more annoying and fragile," Harry offered.
"-and I don't care," Malfoy said, ignoring Harry.
"It's an order, Auror Malfoy," Robards said sharply.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Harry complained.
"I know that," Malfoy drawled. "You're a sappy Gryffindor."
"Oi! True, but oi!"
"You're a pair of blasted toddlers," Robards said in exasperation. "Get out of my office. Potter, no more jobs until you know more about this."
"Yes, sir."