Chapter 8
August 5, 1996
Rita Skeeter was a woman on a mission. The Snape-Potters and the Malfoys had been bitter thorns in her side, thwarting every effort she made to try and establish herself as a serious journalist. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get a leg up on the competition because of her close affiliation with Albus Dumbledore and his Order of the Dragon. So, in a secret meeting between the headmaster and the reporter, they created a plan that would destabilize the Snape-Potter family by breaking their son’s mind. In order to gather intelligence against the youth, Skeeter used her unregistered animagus form of a beetle to catch a ride beyond the wards at Malfoy Manor with James Snape-Potter. Since he was a frequent visitor to the Ministry, it was nothing for the woman to attach herself to the collar of his robes and move into the manor with him. The wards weren’t able to pick up the foreign magic, since it was so small and easily masked by James’ greater power.
Once inside, she flitted from room to room, staying in her beetle form, and gaining sustenance when she could while she continued to spy. It was in this way that she was able to overhear the many conversations about Harcourt’s annual recurring nightmare, and the effect it was having on the teen. Armed with ammunition against the Chosen One, Skeeter escaped, by latching onto Narcissa's hair as she left the Manor, and returned to her office, where she wrote up a report to give to Dumbledore. In fact, checking her watch she noted that she would be late for her conference with the Dark Lord if she didn’t leave right now.
It was a full meeting being held in Grimmauld Place. Sirius Black was generous enough to give his well-appointed town home to the headmaster for their weekly get-togethers and planning sessions; happy enough to be helping to protect their way of life. A small part of him mourned the loss of his friends and his cub, but the bigger picture was important, and he’d do anything to ensure Dumbledore’s success. After all, the old man had managed to keep the last Black lord out of Azkaban and the animagus felt he owed Albus his life. “Ah,” the Dark Lord sighed as the last of his sycophants entered the room. “I’m glad to see that everyone could make it. Now, let us start with dear Rita. What news have you brought us?”
“I was able to get past the Malfoy wards by riding in on Potter’s robe collar,” she said excitedly. “Potter’s magic masked mine, since I was in my animagus form, and I was able to hear some rather interesting information. It seems that Potter junior is having a recurring nightmare that troubles him greatly. He’s living an alternate life where he’s your puppet martyr and is friends with all the Weasleys. He hates the Slytherins, and near the end, when he kills Tom Riddle, he was able to convince the snakes to switch sides. It didn’t help, however, because the Gryffindors executed all of the denizens of the snakepit, including Malfoy and Snape.”
“We have a way to cripple them,” Dumbledore hissed gleefully. “I’ll teach you a nightmare curse, my dear, that you will cast on the Snape-Potter brat whilst he’s sleeping. It will magnify the dream and make him relive it every night. Left alone long enough, it will drive the boy to despair, then suicide, and we’ll be able to mop up the leftovers.”
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August 6, eleven thirty p.m.
Skeeter was exhausted. She’d shadowed Harcourt Snape-Potter all day as the boy finalized his bonding plans and went over their house plans again with the builders. Only now was she able to follow the boy to his room, landing on the window sill and waiting until he fell asleep before reverting to her human form. She had practiced the spell and wand movement for a couple of hours with the old man, to make sure that she had the incantation perfect. Now, she pulled her wand and pointed it at the sleeping youth. “Aeterna visio nocturna,” she hissed, corkscrewing her wand tightly before flicking it hard at the end of the incantation. The virulent yellow light left the end of the stick and surrounded the teen’s head before sinking in deeply into his subconscious, the anchor for the curse his engagement ring. It brought forth the horrifying images of the deaths of all he loved, and the boy began to toss and turn on the bed, pleading whimpers escaping his lips.
Rita reverted back to her animagus form and quickly left the bedroom, fluttering through the house until she found an open window through which she could make good her escape. She flew madly for the edge of the wards, not realizing that, without James Snape-Potter’s concealing magic, the protections would prevent her from moving past the boundaries of the manor. With a resounding crack that startled awake the owners of those wards, she fell to the ground, burnt and smoking. A few minutes later, Lucius Malfoy strode to the very spot where the protections had been activated, staring down at the corpse of the reporter who had made their lives miserable for a very long time. “Serves you right, you pest,” the Lord of the manor hissed as he spat upon her face. “ DOBBY!” he barked loudly, smiling maliciously when the elf popped immediately to his side. “I want you to get rid of this trash,” he growled. “Return it to whomever it belongs.”
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August 7, dawn
Remus stumbled slowly into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place to make some coffee and toast. He pulled down his favorite mug and started the magical coffee maker percolating as he leaned a hip against the counter. His eyes scanned the room absently, skating over the dead body sprawled out on the kitchen table. Frowning in consternation and not believing what he’d just seen, his gaze tracked back to the tabletop and stared at the fried corpse of Rita Skeeter. “Sirius,” he whimpered weakly before he swallowed and tried again. “Sirius!” Still not satisfied, Lupin inhaled a gigantic lungful of air and bellowed, “SIRIUS!”
Footsteps could be heard pelting down the front stairs before the animagus skidded into the room, eyes wide with panic. “What is it Remy?” he asked desperately as he charged up to the werewolf. “What happened?” No words were coming from the lycanthrope’s moving mouth, so the Black lord followed the pointing finger to the macabre centerpiece on the kitchen table. “Oh, Merlin,” he squeaked breathlessly as he stared at the flies that had started gathering around the dead woman’s eyes and mouth. Skirting the table, he flew to the fireplace and tossed powder into the floo. When the flames turned green, Sirius stuck his head into the firebox and barked, “Hogwarts Headmaster’s office, Albus Dumbledore!”
“Sirius, my boy?” the old man asked, concerned at the appearance of the animagus. “What has you in such a bother?”
“You need to get here right away, Albus,” the doglike man barked urgently. “We have a situation.”
“I’m on my way,” Dumbledore intoned gravely. As soon as Sirius’ head cleared the floo, the headmaster threw the powder in and stepped through, shedding the ash on the kitchen floor in Grimmauld Place moments later. “Now, what seems to be the trouble?” Sirius didn’t say a word; he just pointed to the table. Following the other man’s finger, watery blue eyes widened in shock at the sight that met them. “What in Merlin’s name happened?” he queried querulously.
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Remus finally spoke, eyes still trained on the dead body. “I came down to make myself some coffee and toast, and I found her there, just like that.”
“You didn’t touch anything, did you?” Dumbledore barked out. Amber eyes wide, Lupin shook his head rapidly in the negative. “Good. I’ll have Alistor and Kingsley come over and investigate what happened. When we have answers, we’ll go from there.”
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September 21, 1996
“Two more days until we’re bonded,” Harry said tiredly. He was curled up on the couch, his head in Draco’s lap and the blond’s fingers carding gently through ebon locks.
“I know,” Malfoy whispered quietly, watching as his beloved’s eyes drifted closed. The Snape-Potter heir’s sleep was still being violently disrupted, and he had taken to catching naps wherever and whenever he could. He was staving off the worst of the exhaustion, but any longer and the boy would become a danger to himself. He’d gotten to the point where he couldn’t even apparate or floo safely, so it was left to Draco and his parents to pick up the robes and supplies for their ceremony. Since they were bonding in the Olde ways, it was hoped that once the binding was sealed, the nightmares would cease. Checks by a Healer had told them that the dreams were not naturally occurring; that they were spell-induced and only the caster could release the teen from his torment.
Since they couldn’t find out who had done it by magical signature, they were left working frantically to get everything just perfect for the ceremony in the hopes that the magic of the guardians would break the curse’s hold over Harry. Narcissa wandered into the sun room, smiling gently at the picture the two boys made, cuddled together on the couch. Draco had carefully slid himself out from under his fiancé’s head and enlarged the couch, curling up against his betrothed and snuggling in, falling asleep himself moments later. Lady Malfoy summoned a soft cashmere blanket from one of the bedrooms and draped it gently over the teens, brushing a gentle kiss to each boy’s forehead before quietly exiting the room.
“We have to hope that the binding spells will break whatever curse is torturing Harry,” she said as she went into the kitchen. Lucius, James, Lily and Severus were all there, enjoying a glass of wine and some hors d'ouvres that were prepared for the engagement party. “The poor lamb’s utterly exhausted, and Draco hasn’t been sleeping well either, worrying about Harry so much.”
“Will they even be awake enough for the party tonight?” Lily asked, concerned.
“It’s too late to cancel now,” Lucius said reasonably. “Everyone will be here in just under two hours. The boys should be well-rested enough to greet their guests then. We’ll just have Dobby wake them fifteen minutes before the start of the party so that they can freshen up.”
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“Merlin, Harry, you look like shite!” Fred gasped as soon as he reached his best friend and co-owner of Longbottoms’ Absurd Buffoonery, which now had three locations. Harry had given the twins his Triwizard winnings, and as soon as they started working toward their goals in earnest, the Weasley clan had disinherited them. Not missing a step, Harry had a meeting with Dowager Longbottom, and Frank, Alice and Neville Longbottom, and spoke to them about adopting the twins into the family line. Once the rituals were complete, the boys became Frederic Harfang Longbottom and George Algernon Longbottom, and they never looked back. Since uncle Algie had no spouse or children, George was happy to become the man's heir.
“Blondie keeping you up late?” George quipped, his own spring green eyes worried. One of the side effects of the ritual was that the twins’ eyes blended blue with amber and resulted in a vibrant spring green color.
“Nah,” the raven haired teen said with a shrug. “Just this Dumbledore mess has me a little worried. I’m fine.”
“Well, congratulations, you two,” Angelina said. “Can I see the engagement rings?” Both Harry and Draco held out their left hands, which were oohed and aahed over as the girls turned the boys’ hands this way and that to catch the sparkle of the gems in the low light. Draco’s was a platinum band embedded with perfect diamonds, with a large perfectly polished colorless moonstone, with a floating blue schiller above the stone, in the center. Harry’s was also a platinum band embedded with perfect emerald cut emeralds and a perfect pigeons blood ruby in the center.
“They’re so beautiful,” Alicia whispered reverently. She turned her head and glared at Fred, who gulped in genuine fear. “Where’s my engagement ring?” she growled, causing a fair few of the girls surrounding the couple to giggle at the look of abject terror on the elder twin’s face.
“Yeah,” Angelina added, her own glare on George, “where’s mine, too?”
“See what you’ve done, mates?” Neville said as he stepped in between the engaged couple. “Can’t take you anywhere.”