FIC: Inevitable 33: Smarter Than He Looks
Oct. 11th, 2005 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mhalachaiInevitable 33: Smarter Than He Looks is up!
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Inevitable Thirty-three: Smarter Than He Look
by Mhalachai
Note: You wanted action, I give you action. That's the kind of writer I am.
~~~~~~~
"Damn it!" Harry pulled his wand up, frustrated beyond belief. "This is never going to work!"
Anita raised her eyebrows at his outburst. "You can levitate cars and turn teaspoons into chickens, and you're frustrated because you can't raise a zombie?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Harry snapped, straightening his glasses. It was the third night in a row that he had accompanied Anita in an attempt to learn some of her zombie magic. So far, he was an utter failure.
Anita shook her head and rounded the tombstone. "We weren't sure it would work, anyway," she said. "It was worth a try."
"Was it?" Harry demanded, whirling on his heel. He had been so convinced that he might be able to get a grasp on death magic with practice, just like he'd finally gotten the hang of transfiguration.
Anita waited until he was a few paces away. "I think it was," she said reasonably. "Don't think of what you can't do, think about what you can do."
Harry took a deep breath, circling a few of the tombstones in the dark. "I can tell when someone's raising a zombie nearby," he said, trying to get a hold on his emotions. Anita nodded. "I can tell who is in control of the zombie, if there's more than one person who might be doing it."
"Yeah, I'm not sure Jamison's ever going to figure out how you pulled that one off," Anita said, smiling wickedly at the recollection. The previous night, Harry and Anita had joined Anita's colleague, Jamison Clarke, while he had a zombie to raise in the same cemetery as Anita.
"It was easy, once I got a good look at the zombie," Harry said, not entirely comfortable with the praise. "Well, not look."
"Sort of a feel, right?" Anita asked, kneeling in the grass to put things back into her bag. "Wasn't that what you told Nathaniel this morning?"
"Yes..." Harry said slowly. "But I'm not sure anymore."
Anita paused, a jar of faintly glowing ointment in her hand. "More like a smell?"
Harry shook his head. "It's like... when I knew that Micah cut himself shaving this morning, even though I was on the floor above him. It was like a taste on the back of my tongue."
"Have you ever experienced anything like that before?"
"No. Not since the beginning of the month." Harry swallowed hard. The thought of 'tasting' who was raising a zombie seemed a bit repellent to the human part of his mind, but the growing part that wasn't entirely human felt that it was just right.
"Could you sense magic before the attack?" Anita asked as she stood up. Harry joined her as they walked down the grassy slope to the jeep.
"No."
"There's no need to sound so depressed," Anita told him. She unlocked the jeep and put the bag containing all of her zombie gear into the back seat. "You heard what Dumbledore said, you can go back to your school even if you're a werewolf."
"It's not that," Harry said. "It just changes... well, everything."
Anita put her hand on his sleeve, making him look at her. The faint moonlight drained the colour from her face, and her eyes were huge dark pools in her face. "Being a lycanthrope doesn't end your life, Harry, it just changes it." She squeezed his arm reassuringly, then stepped back. Harry was glad for the dark; she couldn't see the flush in his cheeks at her closeness.
"That's what Nathaniel keeps saying," he said, going around the car. Once he had a little space from Anita, he breathed a little easier.
"See?" Anita said, climbing into the car beside Harry. "He's the smart one." She turned on the overhead light and consulted the slip of paper tucked into a small day planner. "My appointment is about half an hour away, we should just make it in time."
"I didn't mean to keep you from your work," Harry said as Anita started the jeep's engine.
She gave him a look. "You're not," she said. "If you were inconveniencing me, I'd tell you."
"Oh." Harry didn't really believe that she enjoyed carting him around the city, waiting patiently while he waved his wand fruitlessly at dead bodies, but he was learning so much about zombies and necromancy and voodoo magic that he didn't want to say anything to make her stop. Spending time with Anita was only a very small part of his enjoyment, he tried to tell himself.
He settled back in for the drive, rather enjoying watching the night lights from the front seat. It was very different from being squished in the backseat of Uncle Vernon's car, with everyone annoyed at him. Anita didn't like to talk much, but that was all right by Harry. Being quiet with Anita was calming.
About ten minutes into the drive, Harry became aware that Anita was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. After a minute of that, Harry turned in his seat to face her. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Do I have something on my face?"
"No."
"Is there a zombie behind me?"
Anita broke into surprised laughter. "What? No," she said.
"Then was is it?" Harry asked, pleased that he got her to smile like that.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, smile fading slightly. "I'm just wondering some stuff, that's all."
"Like what?" Harry wasn't sure he liked where this conversation was headed.
"Werewolf stuff." Anita drew in a deep breath. "Do you remember on that first day, how Richard said that you were welcome to stay in St. Louis if you became a werewolf?"
"Yes... But we don't know if I'm going to change. And Professor Dumbledore said I could go home."
"I know." Anita concentrated very hard on the road, not looking at Harry. "And it's probably best for you to go back to England, learn all that magic stuff you don't know yet. But the offer's still open."
Harry flopped back in his seat. "I can handle myself, you don't need to baby me," he said petulantly.
Anita hit the side of the steering wheel with her hand, hard. "Damn it, this isn't about babying you!" she exclaimed. "I'm thinking about the pack! Do you have any idea how useful a real witch would be in helping to protect the pack?"
Harry swallowed his initial irrelevant desire to correct her on his gender, and said instead, "But you guys do a good job anyway, without a witch to help you, right? Richard and Sylvie and you?"
"Sort of," Anita said. "But it's not a game you can ever win. We're treading water, and the best we can hope for is to not be pulled under."
The anger in her voice wasn't doing a very good job at masking her apprehension. Harry wondered if she was just talking about Bellatrix, or if there were other dangers to being a werewolf that she hadn't mentioned. "I'm not--"
"No, I'm sorry," Anita interrupted. "You need to do what's right for you, and I'm not being fair." She glanced over at him. "It's just that if you do change, then the offer of being vargamour is open. You should talk to Richard, just to see what it is."
Harry frowned. "This isn't just a way of making me feel useful?"
"Don't be stupid," Anita said. "Sylvie and Richard aren't going to put the pack in danger by offering the position of vargamour to someone who wasn't able to do it."
"Sylvie wanted it too?" Harry said. From what he'd seen in the petite Freki, she wasn't one to put an individual's feeling over the well-being of the pack. He could be wrong, he didn't know her that well, but he suspected it would have been very out of character.
Anita remained silent, and Harry spent the rest of the trip staring out the window, thinking hard. He had to go back to England, he knew, to learn how to kill Voldemort once and for all. It was highly likely that Harry would die doing it, one way or the other.
But... what if he lived? He'd need to do something with his life after he wrote his NEWTs. He hadn't given much thought to life after school. Somehow, the impending threat of Voldemort overshadowed any hope for his future.
I could come back here, he realized. I could be their wizard. Maybe I could learn werewolf healing magic or something, or figure out the Wolfsbane potion, something to help. Something that only I can do. Maybe I can help people, instead of being expected to just kill.
~*~
Harry watched from the front step of a nearby mausoleum as Anita laid the zombie to rest. The family members and lawyers milled about the grave, very careful to not step inside the magical circle, leaving Anita to finish the ceremony.
The magic doesn't taste bad, Harry decided. It's just different than Jamison last night. His magic was a bit like bitter rosemary, but Anita's is smoother. It tastes more like copper. Like blood. It was probably because she had used her own blood to raise this zombie, rather than a chicken like Jamison had.
The family members began to leave. One girl, maybe about eleven, stood by the edge of the circle and stared at the grave. She raised her eyes from her silent contemplation and looked at Harry. He was slightly surprised to see that she didn't appear scared, or overwhelmed. She looked curious, sort of like Hermione when challenged with a particularly interesting arithmancy problem.
A woman came up to the child and urged her away from the grave. With a final look at Harry, the girl followed the woman down the hill.
Anita picked up her machete and began to unwalk the circle. "Child that age shouldn't be brought out here like that," she said as soon as the last car drove away.
"Why not?" Harry asked. "I was that age when I faced off against Voldemort the first time."
"It's not safe," Anita insisted. "It's never one hundred percent safe, raising a zombie. The zombie could get loose."
"Or vampires could attack the car on the way home, or she could get too close to a werewolf next full moon, or she could get hit by a car tomorrow on the way to school," Harry retorted. "Life's dangerous."
Anita glared at him, and Harry suddenly wondered if he had said something he shouldn't have. "Just because life's dangerous is no reason to increase that potential risk," she said after a long, tense moment. "As for you fighting Voldemort in your first year, I'm still pissed about that, so please don't use that as an example of necessary danger."
"Why do you insist on believing that me facing Voldemort was so horrible?" Harry demanded, hopping up off his mausoleum. "No one had a choice! If someone didn't do something, Quirrell would have gotten the Philosopher's Stone, bringing Voldemort back to life! There wasn't time to get an adult!"
"Yeah, and we all know how well that turned out," Anita said, voice heavy with sarcasm.
"What does that mean?" Harry could feel the anger in him running hot, hotter than anything he'd felt before.
Anita pointed with her machete into the darkness. "Dumbledore told me that you had to kill Quirrell," she said, her voice low. "It may have been in self-defence, but that doesn't take away the fact that the adults made it so you had to kill someone."
Harry's anger faded with the memory of the pain in his hands and in his scar as Quirrell had tried to take the Philosopher's Stone when Harry was eleven, Quirrell burning wherever he touched Harry's skin. Harry hadn't thought about that in years. It had always just seemed like the thing he had to do, to stop Voldemort. Dumbledore hadn't brought it up again, after that visit in the infirmary after the incident with the Mirror of Erised.
A foul taste collected in the back of Harry's throat, and he gagged. Stumbling back against Anita, he took a deep breath, but nothing got rid of the horrible taste.
"What's wrong?" Anita asked, instantly alert. She dropped her machete and pulled her gun out of its holster.
"Don't know," Harry said, trying to breathe around the... magic? It was a bit like the magic Anita had used to call the zombie, but this was foul. Evil. He looked up, squinting in the faint moonlight as he whipped his wand out of his pocket. "It's like death magic, but really bad."
Anita turned slowly, gun held out in front of her with both hands. "Can you tell me..." Her voice trailed off. Harry looked in the direction she was facing, and gripped his wand tighter.
Something large and human-shaped crouched on top of a tombstone. Its eyes glowed red in the dark, and as it moved slowly, Harry could see long curved talons on its hands and feet.
"Ghoul," Anita breathed.
"More than one," Harry murmured, the initial shock of the creature wearing off as he looked around. More of the creatures were ranged in a circle around him and Anita, watching.
Anita swore under her breath. "Ghouls don't normally attack healthy humans, not unless they have the advantage, they're scavengers."
"Then maybe they think they have the advantage here, " Harry said.
He felt Anita take a step back against him, so their backs were touching. "We could try and scare them off," Anita said.
"And what happens if that doesn't work?" Harry asked. It was the ghouls that he was tasting, he knew now. It was horrible. His mind crowed with questions about what ghouls were and how they were created, but he'd ask those when they got out of here. If they got out of here.
Another ghoul scampered up on top of the mausoleum, talons scrabbling over the marble. There had to be at least twenty of the things surrounding Harry and Anita.
"Bullets won't stop them, and we can't outrun them," Anita said. So close to her, Harry fancied he could hear her rapid heartbeat. "They're afraid of fire, but I'm afraid I've left my flamethrower in my other jacket."
Suddenly, a ghoul howled and leaped toward Harry. He ducked, and a moment later Anita fired her gun over him into the rushing ghoul. It screamed like a enormous wounded rabbit, but got right back up again.
There was no time to think. Harry pointed his wand at the ghoul and shouted, "Incindiare!"
The ghoul burst into flames, screaming. A moment later, the flames consumed it entirely and it stopped moving.
The night erupted in howls and screams. The ghouls ran about, and a few rushed Harry and Anita. Sickened by what he had just done, Harry held his wand up. He couldn't burn another one alive, he just couldn't. But if he didn't act, he'd never get to go home, never get to see Ron and Hermione again, never see Remus or the Weasleys or Ginny again...
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry shouted. A huge silvery stag erupted from the tip of Harry's wand, and the ghouls scattered in front of it. The Patronus galloped in a tight circle around Harry and Anita, keeping the ghouls away.
"What did you do?" Anita demanded, taking her left hand away from her gun and reaching out to touch the silvery side of the Patronus. It remained just out of her reach.
"It's my Patronus," Harry said, trying to take shallow breaths as the stench of burning ghoul filled the night air. "It's supposed to keep Dementors away. I don't know how long it will work on the ghouls."
Beyond the Patronus's circle, Harry could see the ghouls crouched behind tombstones, waiting.
"I called Jean-Claude, ghouls are supposed to be afraid of vampires, but I don't know how long it'll take him to get here," Anita said. She fired her gun over the Patronus, cutting down a ghoul that had ventured beyond the protection of the gravestones.
"I..." Harry felt the bile rising in his throat at the thought of burning another ghoul alive. "I can't..."
"Do you have another way?" Anita asked, no blame or condescension in her voice. It helped Harry to centre himself, and he started thinking.
Finally, a glimmer of an idea came to him. Straining to remember the spell, out of an obscure defence against the dark arts book he'd only glanced through in fifth year, Harry raised his wand. "Stay close to me, in case this doesn't work," he said grimly. As he spoke the words of the spell, a thick rope of fire emanated from the tip of his wand, like a flaming lasso. It circled the ghouls, all of the, pulling them together with its ever-closing strands.
Harry poured all his magic into that rope of fire, circling around the ghouls again and again, until it was almost like a cage. One of the ghouls tried to jump over the flames, but fell back into the circle, squealing in pain.
Anita slowly lowered her gun. "Will that hold them?" she asked, voice a little wobbly.
"It had better," Harry said, never taking his eyes off the flames. He muttered another incantation, and then lowered his wand. The flames stayed in place, burning silently in the air over the howls of the ghouls.
The night was suddenly broken by a rush of wind from above, and out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Anita whirl around and raise her gun. He hoped she could deal with whatever it was; he worried that if he took his eyes off the ghouls, he'd lose the cage of flames.
"Jean-Claude?" Anita said, lowering her gun. "Asher?"
"We are here, ma petite," Jean-Claude said, walking across the grass to stand beside Anita. "We came as fast as we could, but I see that you do not need our assistance as much as you indicated."
"We almost did!" Anita snapped, taking a step away from Jean-Claude. "Those things almost attacked us, and if Harry hadn't--"
"I apologize, ma petite," Jean-Claude said, interrupting Anita's tirade. "I let words get the better of me."
Anita put her gun in her left hand and shook her right wrist. "You never do that."
"He was worried, Anita," Asher's voice floated through the air. "He said that the last time you faced ghouls, you almost died?"
"Something like that," Anita muttered. She put her gun into its holster. "You two need to watch for more ghouls, I think Harry's busy."
"That's one way of putting it," Harry muttered. He wished they would all just shut up, so he could concentrate on the fire cage. A fine tremble was beginning to run through his hands, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep this up.
"What are you going to do, ma petite?" Jean-Claude asked.
Anita walked over to the grave where she had left her bag, picking up the machete on her way. "Someone needs to call the cops, call in some exterminators to get rid of these things," she said.
Asher slowly walked around the blacked remains of the ghoul Harry had set on fire. "Can not your young vargamour take care of the rest of these vermin?" he asked.
Harry risked taking his eyes off the fire cage to glare at Asher. The blond vampire's hair glowed in the flames, casting his face in shadows. Harry was about to say something, but then felt Anita's hand on his shoulder.
"Harry's done more than enough to save our lives tonight," she said quietly.
~*~
Harry stared down into the cup of coffee one of the police officers had given him. Soon after Anita's phone call, cars and vans containing police and a bunch of people in silver spaceman-like suits descended on the cemetery. They were exterminators, Anita explained, and once they were in place, all thirty of them, Harry had let down the ropes of flame. The flamethrowers of the exterminators soon took care of the ghouls.
He hadn't thrown up, he had at least that, Harry thought glumly. He took a swig of the tepid coffee. It didn't wash the aftertaste of burning ghoul out of his mouth.
Anita sat down beside Harry on the curb. "Coffee any good?" she asked.
"No," Harry mumbled. He desperately wanted to go home, to shower and fall into bed, to try and let sleep erase the vividness of the images from his mind.
Anita was quiet for a minute. "There wasn't anything else you could have done," she said after a minute. "They would have attacked if you had hesitated."
"It's not that." Harry poured the rest of his coffee out onto the pavement, watched as the dark liquid spattered on the ground. "I'd do it again." He set the cup beside him and stared at his hands. He didn't even have any dirt under his nails. "It was just... it screamed."
"They used to be human, ghouls," Anita said. She smiled wryly at Harry's startled expression. "No one's completely sure of how they came to be. Sometimes, in a graveyard that has been used for satanic rituals, you'll get some. There's other reasons, too, but no one's sure."
Harry shook his head. "Do we know why they attacked us tonight?"
Anita put her head into her hands, letting her shoulders slump for just a moment. "No."
"Blake!" One of the detectives who arrived with the exterminators waved at Anita. She sighed.
"I'll be right back," she said, hauling herself to her feet.
As Anita made her way over the grass to the detective, someone else settled into her spot on the curb next to Harry. "I must thank you," Jean-Claude said as he rested his wrists on his knees.
Harry was too busy trying to comprehend that the Master was sitting on the curb, like just another person, to immediately clue in to his words. "Why?" Harry blurted after the words sank in.
Jean-Claude raised an eyebrow at him, midnight blue eyes dark in the yellow light from the police car headlights. "For standing with Anita tonight."
"Don't thank me for that," Harry said immediately. "She'd do it for me, with no thanks. It's not-- Just don't thank me."
Jean-Claude looked at him for a long moment, no power in his eyes. "As you wish," he said.
"What are you two talking about?" Anita asked curiously, coming back toward them.
Jean-Claude looked up at her, and for the briefest of moments, Harry saw something unguarded in the vampire's face, something soft and determined at the same time. "Events, ma petite."
"Ah," Anita said. She held her hand out to Jean-Claude, and he stood. "Merloni said we can go home, as long as we come in tomorrow to fill out paperwork about what we were doing and so on."
"Brilliant," Harry muttered. Yet again, he'd used magic in front of the muggles. If he kept this up, they'd toss him in Azkaban for sure, or whatever the American equivalent was.
"It's not that bad," Anita said.
"Because the last time we went to the police station, it was a bloody cake walk?" Harry shot back, standing up.
"Good point," Anita said.
Jean-Claude put his arm around Anita's shoulders. "Might I accompany you home, ma petite?"
She looked up at Jean-Claude, a relived expression on her face. "I was hoping you'd ask," she admitted.
"If you are all well, I will take my leave," Asher said from the shadows, startling Harry. There was a rush of air, and he was gone.
Anita took two steps away from Jean-Claude to where Asher had stood. "What's his problem?" she asked, staring up at the sky.
Harry didn't miss the look Jean-Claude cast his way. "You will have to ask him." Jean-Claude gently guided Anita toward her jeep. "In the meantime, I suggest that we get you both home."
Harry glanced back at the mess of ghouls. The exterminators had lit the entire area up with large lights on stands, and were combing through the blackened carcasses. Swallowing hard, Harry hurried after Anita and Jean-Claude. He'd done what he had to, that night, to protect himself and Anita.
That didn't mean he had to be happy with what necessity had made him do.
...tbc
At TTH
At Pomme de Sang
At Skyehawke
And for your interactive commenting pleasure, it's also behind the cut here!
Inevitable Thirty-three: Smarter Than He Look
by Mhalachai
Note: You wanted action, I give you action. That's the kind of writer I am.
"Damn it!" Harry pulled his wand up, frustrated beyond belief. "This is never going to work!"
Anita raised her eyebrows at his outburst. "You can levitate cars and turn teaspoons into chickens, and you're frustrated because you can't raise a zombie?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Harry snapped, straightening his glasses. It was the third night in a row that he had accompanied Anita in an attempt to learn some of her zombie magic. So far, he was an utter failure.
Anita shook her head and rounded the tombstone. "We weren't sure it would work, anyway," she said. "It was worth a try."
"Was it?" Harry demanded, whirling on his heel. He had been so convinced that he might be able to get a grasp on death magic with practice, just like he'd finally gotten the hang of transfiguration.
Anita waited until he was a few paces away. "I think it was," she said reasonably. "Don't think of what you can't do, think about what you can do."
Harry took a deep breath, circling a few of the tombstones in the dark. "I can tell when someone's raising a zombie nearby," he said, trying to get a hold on his emotions. Anita nodded. "I can tell who is in control of the zombie, if there's more than one person who might be doing it."
"Yeah, I'm not sure Jamison's ever going to figure out how you pulled that one off," Anita said, smiling wickedly at the recollection. The previous night, Harry and Anita had joined Anita's colleague, Jamison Clarke, while he had a zombie to raise in the same cemetery as Anita.
"It was easy, once I got a good look at the zombie," Harry said, not entirely comfortable with the praise. "Well, not look."
"Sort of a feel, right?" Anita asked, kneeling in the grass to put things back into her bag. "Wasn't that what you told Nathaniel this morning?"
"Yes..." Harry said slowly. "But I'm not sure anymore."
Anita paused, a jar of faintly glowing ointment in her hand. "More like a smell?"
Harry shook his head. "It's like... when I knew that Micah cut himself shaving this morning, even though I was on the floor above him. It was like a taste on the back of my tongue."
"Have you ever experienced anything like that before?"
"No. Not since the beginning of the month." Harry swallowed hard. The thought of 'tasting' who was raising a zombie seemed a bit repellent to the human part of his mind, but the growing part that wasn't entirely human felt that it was just right.
"Could you sense magic before the attack?" Anita asked as she stood up. Harry joined her as they walked down the grassy slope to the jeep.
"No."
"There's no need to sound so depressed," Anita told him. She unlocked the jeep and put the bag containing all of her zombie gear into the back seat. "You heard what Dumbledore said, you can go back to your school even if you're a werewolf."
"It's not that," Harry said. "It just changes... well, everything."
Anita put her hand on his sleeve, making him look at her. The faint moonlight drained the colour from her face, and her eyes were huge dark pools in her face. "Being a lycanthrope doesn't end your life, Harry, it just changes it." She squeezed his arm reassuringly, then stepped back. Harry was glad for the dark; she couldn't see the flush in his cheeks at her closeness.
"That's what Nathaniel keeps saying," he said, going around the car. Once he had a little space from Anita, he breathed a little easier.
"See?" Anita said, climbing into the car beside Harry. "He's the smart one." She turned on the overhead light and consulted the slip of paper tucked into a small day planner. "My appointment is about half an hour away, we should just make it in time."
"I didn't mean to keep you from your work," Harry said as Anita started the jeep's engine.
She gave him a look. "You're not," she said. "If you were inconveniencing me, I'd tell you."
"Oh." Harry didn't really believe that she enjoyed carting him around the city, waiting patiently while he waved his wand fruitlessly at dead bodies, but he was learning so much about zombies and necromancy and voodoo magic that he didn't want to say anything to make her stop. Spending time with Anita was only a very small part of his enjoyment, he tried to tell himself.
He settled back in for the drive, rather enjoying watching the night lights from the front seat. It was very different from being squished in the backseat of Uncle Vernon's car, with everyone annoyed at him. Anita didn't like to talk much, but that was all right by Harry. Being quiet with Anita was calming.
About ten minutes into the drive, Harry became aware that Anita was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. After a minute of that, Harry turned in his seat to face her. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Do I have something on my face?"
"No."
"Is there a zombie behind me?"
Anita broke into surprised laughter. "What? No," she said.
"Then was is it?" Harry asked, pleased that he got her to smile like that.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, smile fading slightly. "I'm just wondering some stuff, that's all."
"Like what?" Harry wasn't sure he liked where this conversation was headed.
"Werewolf stuff." Anita drew in a deep breath. "Do you remember on that first day, how Richard said that you were welcome to stay in St. Louis if you became a werewolf?"
"Yes... But we don't know if I'm going to change. And Professor Dumbledore said I could go home."
"I know." Anita concentrated very hard on the road, not looking at Harry. "And it's probably best for you to go back to England, learn all that magic stuff you don't know yet. But the offer's still open."
Harry flopped back in his seat. "I can handle myself, you don't need to baby me," he said petulantly.
Anita hit the side of the steering wheel with her hand, hard. "Damn it, this isn't about babying you!" she exclaimed. "I'm thinking about the pack! Do you have any idea how useful a real witch would be in helping to protect the pack?"
Harry swallowed his initial irrelevant desire to correct her on his gender, and said instead, "But you guys do a good job anyway, without a witch to help you, right? Richard and Sylvie and you?"
"Sort of," Anita said. "But it's not a game you can ever win. We're treading water, and the best we can hope for is to not be pulled under."
The anger in her voice wasn't doing a very good job at masking her apprehension. Harry wondered if she was just talking about Bellatrix, or if there were other dangers to being a werewolf that she hadn't mentioned. "I'm not--"
"No, I'm sorry," Anita interrupted. "You need to do what's right for you, and I'm not being fair." She glanced over at him. "It's just that if you do change, then the offer of being vargamour is open. You should talk to Richard, just to see what it is."
Harry frowned. "This isn't just a way of making me feel useful?"
"Don't be stupid," Anita said. "Sylvie and Richard aren't going to put the pack in danger by offering the position of vargamour to someone who wasn't able to do it."
"Sylvie wanted it too?" Harry said. From what he'd seen in the petite Freki, she wasn't one to put an individual's feeling over the well-being of the pack. He could be wrong, he didn't know her that well, but he suspected it would have been very out of character.
Anita remained silent, and Harry spent the rest of the trip staring out the window, thinking hard. He had to go back to England, he knew, to learn how to kill Voldemort once and for all. It was highly likely that Harry would die doing it, one way or the other.
But... what if he lived? He'd need to do something with his life after he wrote his NEWTs. He hadn't given much thought to life after school. Somehow, the impending threat of Voldemort overshadowed any hope for his future.
I could come back here, he realized. I could be their wizard. Maybe I could learn werewolf healing magic or something, or figure out the Wolfsbane potion, something to help. Something that only I can do. Maybe I can help people, instead of being expected to just kill.
Harry watched from the front step of a nearby mausoleum as Anita laid the zombie to rest. The family members and lawyers milled about the grave, very careful to not step inside the magical circle, leaving Anita to finish the ceremony.
The magic doesn't taste bad, Harry decided. It's just different than Jamison last night. His magic was a bit like bitter rosemary, but Anita's is smoother. It tastes more like copper. Like blood. It was probably because she had used her own blood to raise this zombie, rather than a chicken like Jamison had.
The family members began to leave. One girl, maybe about eleven, stood by the edge of the circle and stared at the grave. She raised her eyes from her silent contemplation and looked at Harry. He was slightly surprised to see that she didn't appear scared, or overwhelmed. She looked curious, sort of like Hermione when challenged with a particularly interesting arithmancy problem.
A woman came up to the child and urged her away from the grave. With a final look at Harry, the girl followed the woman down the hill.
Anita picked up her machete and began to unwalk the circle. "Child that age shouldn't be brought out here like that," she said as soon as the last car drove away.
"Why not?" Harry asked. "I was that age when I faced off against Voldemort the first time."
"It's not safe," Anita insisted. "It's never one hundred percent safe, raising a zombie. The zombie could get loose."
"Or vampires could attack the car on the way home, or she could get too close to a werewolf next full moon, or she could get hit by a car tomorrow on the way to school," Harry retorted. "Life's dangerous."
Anita glared at him, and Harry suddenly wondered if he had said something he shouldn't have. "Just because life's dangerous is no reason to increase that potential risk," she said after a long, tense moment. "As for you fighting Voldemort in your first year, I'm still pissed about that, so please don't use that as an example of necessary danger."
"Why do you insist on believing that me facing Voldemort was so horrible?" Harry demanded, hopping up off his mausoleum. "No one had a choice! If someone didn't do something, Quirrell would have gotten the Philosopher's Stone, bringing Voldemort back to life! There wasn't time to get an adult!"
"Yeah, and we all know how well that turned out," Anita said, voice heavy with sarcasm.
"What does that mean?" Harry could feel the anger in him running hot, hotter than anything he'd felt before.
Anita pointed with her machete into the darkness. "Dumbledore told me that you had to kill Quirrell," she said, her voice low. "It may have been in self-defence, but that doesn't take away the fact that the adults made it so you had to kill someone."
Harry's anger faded with the memory of the pain in his hands and in his scar as Quirrell had tried to take the Philosopher's Stone when Harry was eleven, Quirrell burning wherever he touched Harry's skin. Harry hadn't thought about that in years. It had always just seemed like the thing he had to do, to stop Voldemort. Dumbledore hadn't brought it up again, after that visit in the infirmary after the incident with the Mirror of Erised.
A foul taste collected in the back of Harry's throat, and he gagged. Stumbling back against Anita, he took a deep breath, but nothing got rid of the horrible taste.
"What's wrong?" Anita asked, instantly alert. She dropped her machete and pulled her gun out of its holster.
"Don't know," Harry said, trying to breathe around the... magic? It was a bit like the magic Anita had used to call the zombie, but this was foul. Evil. He looked up, squinting in the faint moonlight as he whipped his wand out of his pocket. "It's like death magic, but really bad."
Anita turned slowly, gun held out in front of her with both hands. "Can you tell me..." Her voice trailed off. Harry looked in the direction she was facing, and gripped his wand tighter.
Something large and human-shaped crouched on top of a tombstone. Its eyes glowed red in the dark, and as it moved slowly, Harry could see long curved talons on its hands and feet.
"Ghoul," Anita breathed.
"More than one," Harry murmured, the initial shock of the creature wearing off as he looked around. More of the creatures were ranged in a circle around him and Anita, watching.
Anita swore under her breath. "Ghouls don't normally attack healthy humans, not unless they have the advantage, they're scavengers."
"Then maybe they think they have the advantage here, " Harry said.
He felt Anita take a step back against him, so their backs were touching. "We could try and scare them off," Anita said.
"And what happens if that doesn't work?" Harry asked. It was the ghouls that he was tasting, he knew now. It was horrible. His mind crowed with questions about what ghouls were and how they were created, but he'd ask those when they got out of here. If they got out of here.
Another ghoul scampered up on top of the mausoleum, talons scrabbling over the marble. There had to be at least twenty of the things surrounding Harry and Anita.
"Bullets won't stop them, and we can't outrun them," Anita said. So close to her, Harry fancied he could hear her rapid heartbeat. "They're afraid of fire, but I'm afraid I've left my flamethrower in my other jacket."
Suddenly, a ghoul howled and leaped toward Harry. He ducked, and a moment later Anita fired her gun over him into the rushing ghoul. It screamed like a enormous wounded rabbit, but got right back up again.
There was no time to think. Harry pointed his wand at the ghoul and shouted, "Incindiare!"
The ghoul burst into flames, screaming. A moment later, the flames consumed it entirely and it stopped moving.
The night erupted in howls and screams. The ghouls ran about, and a few rushed Harry and Anita. Sickened by what he had just done, Harry held his wand up. He couldn't burn another one alive, he just couldn't. But if he didn't act, he'd never get to go home, never get to see Ron and Hermione again, never see Remus or the Weasleys or Ginny again...
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry shouted. A huge silvery stag erupted from the tip of Harry's wand, and the ghouls scattered in front of it. The Patronus galloped in a tight circle around Harry and Anita, keeping the ghouls away.
"What did you do?" Anita demanded, taking her left hand away from her gun and reaching out to touch the silvery side of the Patronus. It remained just out of her reach.
"It's my Patronus," Harry said, trying to take shallow breaths as the stench of burning ghoul filled the night air. "It's supposed to keep Dementors away. I don't know how long it will work on the ghouls."
Beyond the Patronus's circle, Harry could see the ghouls crouched behind tombstones, waiting.
"I called Jean-Claude, ghouls are supposed to be afraid of vampires, but I don't know how long it'll take him to get here," Anita said. She fired her gun over the Patronus, cutting down a ghoul that had ventured beyond the protection of the gravestones.
"I..." Harry felt the bile rising in his throat at the thought of burning another ghoul alive. "I can't..."
"Do you have another way?" Anita asked, no blame or condescension in her voice. It helped Harry to centre himself, and he started thinking.
Finally, a glimmer of an idea came to him. Straining to remember the spell, out of an obscure defence against the dark arts book he'd only glanced through in fifth year, Harry raised his wand. "Stay close to me, in case this doesn't work," he said grimly. As he spoke the words of the spell, a thick rope of fire emanated from the tip of his wand, like a flaming lasso. It circled the ghouls, all of the, pulling them together with its ever-closing strands.
Harry poured all his magic into that rope of fire, circling around the ghouls again and again, until it was almost like a cage. One of the ghouls tried to jump over the flames, but fell back into the circle, squealing in pain.
Anita slowly lowered her gun. "Will that hold them?" she asked, voice a little wobbly.
"It had better," Harry said, never taking his eyes off the flames. He muttered another incantation, and then lowered his wand. The flames stayed in place, burning silently in the air over the howls of the ghouls.
The night was suddenly broken by a rush of wind from above, and out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Anita whirl around and raise her gun. He hoped she could deal with whatever it was; he worried that if he took his eyes off the ghouls, he'd lose the cage of flames.
"Jean-Claude?" Anita said, lowering her gun. "Asher?"
"We are here, ma petite," Jean-Claude said, walking across the grass to stand beside Anita. "We came as fast as we could, but I see that you do not need our assistance as much as you indicated."
"We almost did!" Anita snapped, taking a step away from Jean-Claude. "Those things almost attacked us, and if Harry hadn't--"
"I apologize, ma petite," Jean-Claude said, interrupting Anita's tirade. "I let words get the better of me."
Anita put her gun in her left hand and shook her right wrist. "You never do that."
"He was worried, Anita," Asher's voice floated through the air. "He said that the last time you faced ghouls, you almost died?"
"Something like that," Anita muttered. She put her gun into its holster. "You two need to watch for more ghouls, I think Harry's busy."
"That's one way of putting it," Harry muttered. He wished they would all just shut up, so he could concentrate on the fire cage. A fine tremble was beginning to run through his hands, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep this up.
"What are you going to do, ma petite?" Jean-Claude asked.
Anita walked over to the grave where she had left her bag, picking up the machete on her way. "Someone needs to call the cops, call in some exterminators to get rid of these things," she said.
Asher slowly walked around the blacked remains of the ghoul Harry had set on fire. "Can not your young vargamour take care of the rest of these vermin?" he asked.
Harry risked taking his eyes off the fire cage to glare at Asher. The blond vampire's hair glowed in the flames, casting his face in shadows. Harry was about to say something, but then felt Anita's hand on his shoulder.
"Harry's done more than enough to save our lives tonight," she said quietly.
Harry stared down into the cup of coffee one of the police officers had given him. Soon after Anita's phone call, cars and vans containing police and a bunch of people in silver spaceman-like suits descended on the cemetery. They were exterminators, Anita explained, and once they were in place, all thirty of them, Harry had let down the ropes of flame. The flamethrowers of the exterminators soon took care of the ghouls.
He hadn't thrown up, he had at least that, Harry thought glumly. He took a swig of the tepid coffee. It didn't wash the aftertaste of burning ghoul out of his mouth.
Anita sat down beside Harry on the curb. "Coffee any good?" she asked.
"No," Harry mumbled. He desperately wanted to go home, to shower and fall into bed, to try and let sleep erase the vividness of the images from his mind.
Anita was quiet for a minute. "There wasn't anything else you could have done," she said after a minute. "They would have attacked if you had hesitated."
"It's not that." Harry poured the rest of his coffee out onto the pavement, watched as the dark liquid spattered on the ground. "I'd do it again." He set the cup beside him and stared at his hands. He didn't even have any dirt under his nails. "It was just... it screamed."
"They used to be human, ghouls," Anita said. She smiled wryly at Harry's startled expression. "No one's completely sure of how they came to be. Sometimes, in a graveyard that has been used for satanic rituals, you'll get some. There's other reasons, too, but no one's sure."
Harry shook his head. "Do we know why they attacked us tonight?"
Anita put her head into her hands, letting her shoulders slump for just a moment. "No."
"Blake!" One of the detectives who arrived with the exterminators waved at Anita. She sighed.
"I'll be right back," she said, hauling herself to her feet.
As Anita made her way over the grass to the detective, someone else settled into her spot on the curb next to Harry. "I must thank you," Jean-Claude said as he rested his wrists on his knees.
Harry was too busy trying to comprehend that the Master was sitting on the curb, like just another person, to immediately clue in to his words. "Why?" Harry blurted after the words sank in.
Jean-Claude raised an eyebrow at him, midnight blue eyes dark in the yellow light from the police car headlights. "For standing with Anita tonight."
"Don't thank me for that," Harry said immediately. "She'd do it for me, with no thanks. It's not-- Just don't thank me."
Jean-Claude looked at him for a long moment, no power in his eyes. "As you wish," he said.
"What are you two talking about?" Anita asked curiously, coming back toward them.
Jean-Claude looked up at her, and for the briefest of moments, Harry saw something unguarded in the vampire's face, something soft and determined at the same time. "Events, ma petite."
"Ah," Anita said. She held her hand out to Jean-Claude, and he stood. "Merloni said we can go home, as long as we come in tomorrow to fill out paperwork about what we were doing and so on."
"Brilliant," Harry muttered. Yet again, he'd used magic in front of the muggles. If he kept this up, they'd toss him in Azkaban for sure, or whatever the American equivalent was.
"It's not that bad," Anita said.
"Because the last time we went to the police station, it was a bloody cake walk?" Harry shot back, standing up.
"Good point," Anita said.
Jean-Claude put his arm around Anita's shoulders. "Might I accompany you home, ma petite?"
She looked up at Jean-Claude, a relived expression on her face. "I was hoping you'd ask," she admitted.
"If you are all well, I will take my leave," Asher said from the shadows, startling Harry. There was a rush of air, and he was gone.
Anita took two steps away from Jean-Claude to where Asher had stood. "What's his problem?" she asked, staring up at the sky.
Harry didn't miss the look Jean-Claude cast his way. "You will have to ask him." Jean-Claude gently guided Anita toward her jeep. "In the meantime, I suggest that we get you both home."
Harry glanced back at the mess of ghouls. The exterminators had lit the entire area up with large lights on stands, and were combing through the blackened carcasses. Swallowing hard, Harry hurried after Anita and Jean-Claude. He'd done what he had to, that night, to protect himself and Anita.
That didn't mean he had to be happy with what necessity had made him do.
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Date: 2005-10-12 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:00 pm (UTC)