Work Text:
Kiss for Good Luck
“Harry Potter, for breaking the Statute of Secrecy, we hereby find you guilty and have revoked your placement at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You will submit your wand for destruction in the anterior chamber. Goodbye and good riddance.”
“I’m… I’m not going back?” Harry blinked at Dumbledore, feeling as if the world was spinning beneath his feet and Dumbledore could make it stop.
He didn’t.
He actually made it spin faster, somehow.
“Dear boy… let’s have a conversation we should have had years ago…”
*****
“Tell us again what he said,” George said slowly, his eyes uncharacteristically intense as they stared Harry down. Harry glanced at Fred and saw he was receiving the same intense look, which was making Harry feel both very hot and very cold and very confused and it wasn’t the time to think about it.
And it didn’t matter anyway.
“Er…” Harry tried to swallow and remember Dumbledore’s exact words in the meeting they had just before Dumbledore dropped Harry off at Grimmauld ‘for the time being’. It was a bit of a blur, because why Dumbledore thought dumping a load of frankly terrifying information on Harry in that moment had been a good idea, Harry had no idea.
“He said… it didn’t matter if I didn’t get to graduate Hogwarts because I’ve got a bit of Voldemorts soul in me,” which made Harry feel violently sick to think about, “and I’m going to die anyway,” Harry said. He was paraphrasing, but not by much.
Sirius growled, actually growled, like a bloody dog, and thumped his fist on the coffee table.
"He didn't tell me any of this!" Sirius roared, apparently feeling rather safe to be loud within the confines of his and the twins' privacy charms. "He only said you'd be staying here for a while until he figured out what to do with you now."
Harry gave Sirius a genuinely hurt look.
“Siri, you’re my godfather, why does Dumbledore get to make any decisions? If- if I’ve got to die soon, I don’t want to spend the rest of my time with the Dursley’s.”
Harry fought hard against the tears threatening to expose him as a weak coward. He just…
It was a lot to be expelled, see your wand be snapped, get told the wizard who killed your parents also stored his soul in your forehead, and be told you had to die to save ‘countless’ lives all in the same day.
Harry hoped Fred and George, who’d snuck right in the room when Sirius pulled Harry away from the fuss happening in the kitchen currently, wouldn’t hold it against him if he wasn’t successful in ‘staying strong’ as Dumbledore advised him to do.
“Kiddo, no…” Sirius jumped up from where he sat in an instant and shoved George off the sofa so he could take his spot beside Harry. He wrapped his arms around Harry, enveloping Harry in the scent of smoke, whiskey, and… and wet dog, it seemed like. Harry pushed his face as hard against Sirius’ chest as he could, trying to force himself to not fall apart.
He had Sirius, his godfather, who was hugging him and stroking Harry’s hair just like… like a parent might do, actually. Which triggered a crack in Harry’s chest that went so deep he didn’t think it could ever be repaired.
How could Harry lose Sirius? How could Sirius lose Harry? They were all the family they each had left.
Harry also had Ron and Hermione, who were in the kitchen creating an absolute riot on Harry’s behalf with Molly who had hugged Harry so kindly in June when he’d been falling apart.
You fall apart a lot, a snarky little voice in Harry’s head whispered.
Piss off, Harry told it firmly, ignoring the insanity that arguing with oneself implied. I’ve got plenty of bloody reasons, don’t I?
Plenty of reasons to fall apart, plenty of reasons to not die.
Harry also had Fred and George, who… who were his ex-teammates and Harry wasn’t even really sure why they were in there, watching Sirius hold Harry together.
“Nobody’s making you do anything,” Sirius assured Harry in a thick whisper. “Nobody’s killing you or making you leave. If you leave, we go together.”
“I can’t,” Harry said, his voice muffled by Sirius’ bony and damn t-shirt covered chest. Why was Sirius damp? Harry pulled back just enough to see that Sirius’ grey shirt was blotched and wet where Harry’s face had been. But nobody knew Harry was crying if he just smushed his face against the evidence...
“I- I have to get it out of my head, and- if I don’t then… then other people are going to die, and who cares if it’s just me who dies, right?” Harry let out a semi-hysterical laugh mid-rant. “I’m not even a wizard anymore! Dumbledore probably wants me to just march up to Voldemort and- and DIE!”
“He’s hysterical,” George whispered to Fred behind Harry’s back, panicked.
“You bloody think?” Fred hissed, shaking his head.
Sirius made ‘a face’ at them, but as Harry was occupying his arms and his thoughts, he couldn’t say anything to them.
“You’re always a wizard,” Sirius told Harry. “And you are not going to die,” he added firmly. James and Lily did not die for Harry to have fourteen more years of life, they died to give him an entire life.
Harry made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh.
“‘Destroyed’, Dumbledore said,” Harry told them. “H-horcruxes have to be destroyed.”
“There’s no other way to get it out?” Fred asked, his voice pained.
Harry shook his head and pulled away from Sirius, keeping his head ducked from embarrassment at the swelling and snot his meltdown surely covered him in.
“They either have to be destroyed,” Harry’s voice broke on the word, “or he ‘has to feel remorse for it’.”
But basically, Harry had to die.
“Feel remorse?” Sirius grabbed Harry’s shoulders and waited until Harry glanced up at him. Harry was once more under three intense gazes, one steely grey, two bright blue. “What do you mean, Harry?”
Harry shrugged and grimaced at Sirius’ tight grip, something Sirius fixed immediately.
“Dunno,” Harry admitted. “Dumbledore said the only way to ‘safely’ remove a horcrux was for the maker to feel ‘intense remorse’ and- and that would reabsorb it, but it might kill him.”
Which Harry would prefer, obviously.
Sirius looked past Harry, his eyes meeting the twins’ suddenly thoughtful ones.
“Harry, kiddo, love, if there is anything I understand, it’s remorse,” Sirius said, his voice suspiciously hopeful.
“And if there’s anything we understand,” George waved a hand toward himself and his brother.
“It’s causing others to regret knowing us,” Fred added with a wicked grin.
It wasn’t like Harry didn’t have plenty of other problems to terrify him, but, suddenly, sitting surrounded by the three biggest pranksters he knew sent a shiver of terror down his spine.
“Does it make a difference?” Harry asked dully, more focused on his imminent death than his fear or even expulsion. “I doubt we can make him feel enough remorse for making me a horcrux if it means it’ll kill him.”
Fred and George, in some of their worst timing ever, laughed merrily behind Harry and both put a hand on his shoulders, practically on Harry’s suddenly burning neck and Sirius still held Harry by the upper arms.
“It’s the difference between life and death,” Sirius said with the first sparkle of life in his eyes that Harry had ever seen. Sirius looked from Harry, to Fred, to George, and smiled widely.
“Boys, it’s time to bring back the Marauders.”
Fred and George cheered.
Harry started crying anew at the reminder of his dead dad.
It took a while for any true planning to start.
And when it did, Harry wondered if dying was worse than being targeted by Sirius and the twins because… because they were vicious.
*****
“Kiss me for luck?”
Harry gave Fred a bewildered look when Hedwig delivered the Daily Prophet to them at breakfast. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had returned to Hogwarts three days ago, and Molly had returned to the Burrow the same day after a giant row with the twins over their refusal to return.
Harry wasn’t happy that there was a feud between his friends and their mum, but a very selfish part of him was thrilled the twins refused to go back. Especially since Dumbledore sent Sirius a letter saying Harry was to stay at Grimmauld ‘until further notice’.
Sirius said he was only listening because it worked to their advantage. Professor Remus said Sirius had Oppositional Defiance Disorder.
Harry was just trying to forget that he was a wandless half-wizard with a horcrux in his head and a half arsed plan to live to see sixteen.
None of which explained why Fred just arrived to breakfast dressed in nothing aside from a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and looking at Harry as if he were waiting a response.
“Are you talking to me?” Harry asked him after looking around the gloomy kitchen and seeing only Kreacher lurking in the corner. Fred could have been talking to Kreacher, but it didn’t seem like Fred had ever fancied a kiss from Kreacher. Not that Harry thought Fred really fancied a kiss from Harry, but… but it was a peculiar joke to make.
“Obviously,” Fred drawled with a grin. He sat in the chair directly next to Harry and pointed at the paper. “Step one went live today, I’ll need luck for Mum to not connect me to the prank.”
“You guys went without me?” Harry demanded, narrowing his eyes when George joined them not a moment later, also shirtless with just pajama bottoms on.
“That’s not fair, Harrikins,” George yawned and began making tea, something Harry had meant to do before he got distracted by Fred. Harry averted his eyes when George’s back muscles rippled as he stretched for the tea kettle above the stove. “You have to get better at the whole ‘inner chi’ or whatever spiel Lupin has before we go dragging you all over the place.” He turned and winked at Harry over his shoulder, “In public that is.”
Harry turned a horrible shade of red and promptly hid his face behind the paper while he looked for evidence of the ‘Marauders 2.0’ plan.
Which he found.
On the front page.
“Oh my God.” Harry actually took his glasses off, cleaned them with his shirt, then put them back on to make sure he was looking at the neon colored photograph correctly. “You vandalized the Ministry?!”
There, spread across the front page, was graffiti so detailed that Harry knew it had to have been done magically.
And it all depicted Voldemort in various lewd positions with Professor Dumbledore. Voldemort, or a neon pink, bald, noseless, wizard with a snake wrapped around his shoulders, on his knees in front of a bright blue, sparkling, wizard with glitter for eyes and a beard flipped over his own shoulder.
Voldemort, bright orange this time, on his back with a violently purple Dumbledore straddling his lap.
Dumbledore with…
“Is that Nagini?” Harry whispered, his eyes bulging.
Fred grinned and traced what Harry thought was a neon green snake from Dumbledore’s mouth back to…
“Oh, god.” Harry didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or puke. “You guys did all this?!”
“I helped,” Sirius chirped as he joined them in the kitchen. He stopped just inside the doorway, looking quickly between Fred and George with a suspicious look on his face that quickly cleared away to laughter.
“I told you boys, it’ll never work,” he said. He ruffled Harry’s hair and then plopped down in the chair across from Fred, leaving the chair across from Harry open for George to take when he brought over the kettle and tea glasses.
“What won't work?" Harry asked absently as he continued to look over the photos. “Not— what the hell?!” Harry jabbed a finger at the golden painted signature beneath each act of vandalism on the Ministry atrium walls. “ART BY HARRY JAMES POTTER?!”
Sirius, Fred, and George all began laughing so hard and so loud that Kreacher scowled and slunk away, offended by their cheer.
Harry was also offended as he read the article that speculated on why the ‘Boy-Who-Lied’ had continued his ‘crime spree’ with vandalism.
“How dare you guys make the Dursleys seem right about me?!” Harry demanded. “I’m not a criminal!”
Technically.
Sirius wiped away actual tears of laughter from his eyes and smiled at Harry.
“Kiddo, you’re not a criminal,” he agreed. “But I bet Voldemorts starting to think you’re a real pest, eh?”
“Very regretful in knowing you,” Fred added.
“Perhaps even remorseful,” George stressed.
“Or he’s going to kill me even harder,” Harry scowled.
Sirius didn’t seem very concerned. He just jumped up and began making breakfast by hand and whistling a jaunty tune.
“We’ll have you horcrux free by Christmas,” Fred said. He slung an arm over Harry’s shoulder and smiled brightly. “And then you can come help us open the shop before New Years.”
Harry’s chest warmed at the reminder that Fred and George didn’t care that Harry didn’t have a wand, they still wanted him to come work for them. And Harry… well, he wouldn’t mind having a job and he certainly wouldn’t mind hanging out with the twins every day and getting paid for it.
And then Harry’s scar warmed.
Burned.
“Argh!” Harry bent over the table, clutching his forehead, his eyes screwed up against the pain coursing from his scar. As soon as his eyes were closed, Harry had flashes of an image—
A dark room.
A screaming man knelt on the ground.
“WHAT IS THIS?!” Voldemort shrieked. He pointed his pale handled wand at the man on the floor once more. “CRUCIO!”
“Harry!” A sharp slap to Harry’s cheek that sent him reeling backwards, landing on a hard wooden floor harshly, his head bouncing back.
“Don’t bloody slap him, you damn morons!”
“He was crying!”
“He was seizing!”
“Harry?”
Harry took the hand Sirius offered him and tried to breathe slowly and evenly, willing away the pain. Sirius gave him a worried look and summoned a potion, offering it to Harry quickly.
“For pain,” he said.
Harry nodded and threw it back then surveyed the three wizards who were all giving him looks with various levels of worry on them.
“I… I reckon it might just work,” Harry said. He rubbed his forehead and thought of the anger and embarrassment Voldemort had been flooding through to Harry. “He- he’s really unhappy with me just now.”
Fred and George exchanged surprised looks. Fred’s eyebrows were high and George’s were low. Sirius cocked his head curiously to the side.
“I think it means it’s time for step two,” Sirius declared. He grabbed Harry by his armpits and hauled him to his feet, holding on for an extra moment when Harry’s legs shook with the residual pain from Voldemorts vision.
“What’s step two?” Harry asked.
“Pranks,” George said with a wink.
*****
Operation: Pranks was actually the best month of Harry’s life.
Sure, he was getting almost daily headaches from the furious visions he got from Voldemort, but Sirius had a whole stock of potions to relieve them when they came.
And the joy that came every time Harry got to witness Voldemort opening one of the pranks they continued to mail to him? It was priceless.
Snakes that leapt from envelopes, hissing and snapping their jaws before exploding in poofs of glitter.
Howlers that sang annoying pop songs that increased in tempo and pitch when they were hit with spells.
Harry’s favorite had been the parcel that exploded and sprayed the room in neon pink stink sap. He’d gotten to witness that one almost as it happened and the sight of Voldemort and Draco’s dad both covered in such a concoction would fuel Harry’s patronus forever.
… if he were allowed to ever cast a patronus again.
“Meeting of the Marauders 2.0 is called to session!” Sirius declared. The Order had just finished a meeting, which Harry had been banned from and the twins had officially joined.
As a joke, supposedly. Harry believed them only because he’d seen Snape leave Grimmauld with a cartoon of a stick figure with their head stuck in a cauldron on the back of his robes last week and George was quick to take credit.
Sirius handed each of them a glass of firewhisky. He said that if Harry could be tried as an adult legally, he’d earned the right to drink, and he didn’t cave on that stance even when Molly and Arthur were at Grimmauld. Something they rarely did, thankfully. Harry loved them, but it was much easier to think he was just hanging out with Sirius and the twins, acting ridiculous and having a blast, when nobody was around to give poor expelled Harry pitiful looks.
Fred and George each had an arm around Harry’s shoulder, crossing freckled limbs across one another where the three of them sat on the sofa, and raised their drinks simultaneously to Sirius with their free hands.
“The better meeting,” George stated firmly.
“Better members too,” Fred winked directly at Harry.
Harry quickly took a sip of his drink, planning on blaming his blush with the heat from the firewhisky. The twins were… always flirting with Harry, lately. He chalked it up to becoming bored and restless, locked in the same house together. Of course, they could go to Hogwarts any time they wanted, but Harry selfishly hoped they didn’t go.
After so much time together, Harry knew he’d miss them if they left.
“Yeah, yeah, hit on Harry later,” Sirius said, smirking at Harry when he choked on his drink. “We need to step up the next phase of the plan.”
“What’s the next phase?” Harry asked once he could speak properly again.
“Oh you’ll love this bit, Harry,” George said with a grin. “We’re going to start haunting You-Know-Who.”
“Who?” Fred asked his brother.
George wiggled his eyebrows. “You know.”
Harry laughed at their ridiculous act. “No, really, what’s the next phase?”
Apparently they were actually haunting Voldemort.
Sirius helped the twins perfect ‘Polyjuice Poltergeists’. Tiny spirits that took on a specific appearance once a hair was added to the potion before it was poured over the canister the poltergeist came from. For an hour, it would fly around, wreck things, and spew ridiculous rhymes in the original persons voice.
And it was brilliant.
Having established where Voldemort lived, based on the visions Harry kept getting, the four of them apparated together, Harry under the cloak, Sirius as Padfoot, the twins brazenly as themselves, to Malfoy Manor and then began the assault.
Sirius and George carefully levitated the two dozen canisters to every window ledge while Harry have Fred stands of his own hair to place in the potions. Sirius set the potions to levitate just above the canisters, timed to drop at hourly intervals so it would be an all day assault, then they disappeared after setting off the first one.
“You’re up, kiddo,” Sirius said once they returned back to the empty Black family home. “Let us know when it starts working.”
Harry would have preferred to not be on Voldemort-watch with his mind, but he was mollified slightly by the twins dragging pillows and blankets in the drawing room and laying on the couch with Harry while they waited. Sirius took the recliner, Harry leaned on George’s shoulder, and they all waited silently.
It took almost three hours, roughly after the third Polyjuice Poltergeist would have appeared, before Harry’s scar began prickling and roused him from the dozing sleep he’d been surrendering to.
“KILL IT!” Voldemort screamed. He sent endless streams of green lights toward the ghost Harry that bounced off chandeliers, ripped paintings off the wall, and shattered a vase. “KILL IT!”
“I am rubber, you are glue, anything you say bounces off me and STINKS LIKE POO!” Poltergeist Harry cackled before throwing conjured confetti in the air. “Happy Birthday!”
For the first time ever, Harry pulled himself out a vision with a manic smile in spite of the searing pain.
“You didn’t scream,” Fred whispered. He handed Harry a pain potion and nodded toward where Sirius was snoring in his chair with his legs dangling over one side and his head over the opposite. “Didn’t even wake up Sirius yet.”
Harry’s smile softened when he looked at his godfather, then became eager again when the twins reclaimed his attention.
“So?” George asked. He nudged Harry’s knee with his leg. “Did they work?”
“He’s furious,” Harry said happily. “They’re wrecking everything.”
George beamed and pulled Harry’s head over to relax on his shoulder.
“I’m telling you, I think we could skip to the finale,” he said quietly. His fingers found Harry’s hair and he began carding them through the messy waves in an absent gesture that Harry tried to not actually purr at. It just felt really bloody nice though, so he closed his eyes contentedly.
“Mm, I dunno,” Fred said, just as quiet as his brother. He put his hand under Harry’s knees and swung them up on his lap before he began just tracing random patterns on Harry’s leg. “Might backfire if we show our hand too early.”
George chuckled, the sound echoing through Harry as he started to slip back to sleep, warm and content as he laid there with, on, the twins.
“We’ve got plenty of time, eh?” George said vaguely. He smoothed Harry’s hair down and a small part of Harry that was still conscious swore he felt a featherlight pair of lips briefly press on the top of his head. “No rush at all.”
*****
“Timelines been moved up,” Sirius said three days before Halloween, just after another Order meeting. He looked frantic, his eyes were wild and he’d been tugging on his hair, evidenced by the scraggly strands that looked as rough as they did on the nights he didn’t sleep.
Harry had been relaxing in the drawing room, his feet propped up on the coffee table, and a book on wandless magic open in his lap.
“Yeah, we need to pull the finale pronto,” Fred said, bursting in the room just behind Sirius with George behind him.
“Pronto tonto,” George echoed. The twins looked nearly as frantic as Sirius, which immediately twisted Harry’s stomach in knots.
Harry put the book down and straightened up, trying to catch his godfathers flickering gaze.
“What happened?” he asked slowly.
Sirius held his hand up, interrupting George when he immediately opened his mouth to answer.
“Hold up,” he ordered with uncharacteristic solemnity in his tone. He pulled his wand out and began casting such a variety of privacy spells that Harry couldn’t track them all. The twins moved to sit by Harry, Fred on the sofa beside him and George on the floor, leaning against Harry’s legs. It was hard to be as reassured by their presence as he had grown to become when they still looked frantic.
“Dumbledore wants to take you to for private meetings,” Sirius told Harry the instant he finished. “I… I don’t like it, kiddo. I think he’s seeing a finish line.”
Harry closed his eyes and let Fred pull him in his side. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out. He’d let their mad plans distract him, give him hope, but how could there be hope if Dumbledore saw a finish line that didn’t include Harry crossing the line?
“Don’t worry,” Fred laid his head on top of Harry’s head and held him tight in his side, physically holding Harry together as Harry couldn’t do it himself in that moment. “We aren’t going to let this fail. We aren’t going to let you die.”
“Nobody is taking you away,” George swore hotly as he tipped his head back on Harry’s lap. “We’ve got you.”
Harry opened his eyes and found Sirius’ face directly across from where he was buried in fit red-headed twins.
“Siri, will it work?” Harry asked desperately.
Sirius forced a smile and reached out to grab Harry’s hand tightly.
“If it doesn’t, then I hope you like Majorca because that’s our next stop.”
*****
Halloween night they were ready.
Harry stood on a hill behind Malfoy Manor, Fred and George on either side of him, and felt every nerve inside of his body light up with anxiety as Sirius set up their final attack.
“Hey, Harry?”
Harry looked up to his right at Fred and saw a reflection of his own worry in his bright blue eyes. They all knew if it didn’t work tonight, that Harry would either have to run, like Sirius wanted, or die to bring down Voldemort, like Dumbledore wanted.
“Yeah?” Harry whispered, unable to truly make his voice work.
“Can I kiss you for luck now?” Fred asked.
Harry looked up at his perfectly serious face and figured either he’d be truly marked for death after tonight or he’d be free for the first time in… fourteen years to the date.
“Yeah,” Harry said. He felt a brief flash of misplaced guilt for George, who he knew he was as attached to as he was Fred, but he couldn’t even focus on that guilt before Fred pulled Harry close to him and kissed him so softly, so sweetly, that Harry felt his heart flutter and his skin melt.
When Fred pulled away, he smiled so affectionately that Harry hardly recognized him as the chaotic wizard he was.
“This is going to work,” Fred insisted. He leaned forward and kissed Harry once more. “And then we can celebrate.”
Harry nodded and turned back to face the manor they were hidden behind, the flutter from Fred turning in to a hurricane of worry once more. His lips curled up in a smile when Fred took Harry’s right hand and George took his left, but it was a forced smile for their benefit.
“Done,” Sirius said. He moved over to where Harry and the twins waited. He glanced down at their interlocked hands and raised a brow, but didn’t say anything about the oddity of it. “You boys ready?”
“Wait!” George pulled on Harry’s hand and gave him a searching look when Harry turned to him. “Who do you fancy more, Fred or me?”
Harry was so caught off-guard by the abrupt question in some pretty damn peculiar timing that he wound up blurting the truth before he could stop himself.
“Both of you,” he said. He fought down the blush that wanted to burn his face and decided if his idiotic brain wanted to be honest, no reason not to go full force with it. “I like you both,” he said, much more calmly with a quick glance behind him to where Fred stood, still holding one of his hands.
“Perfect,” George smiled, a flash of white in the quickly darkening night, and leaned over, kissing Harry firmly for too brief of a moment. He winked at Harry’s gobsmacked face before turning an unrepentant smirk on Sirius. “Light ‘em up, Padfoot! We’ve got a celebration to plan!”
Sirius waited until Harry nodded to lean forward, hug him briefly, then ran back off to the stand he had set up.
“Ready, Harry?” Sirius called once more when he was in place.
Harry nodded and felt a sense of peace wash over him. It would be over with, one way or another, after this.
“Ready.”
I don’t want to die. Not now. Not yet. Please, let this work.
Sirius touched a metal box with his wand then levitated it up and flung it as far as he could.
Harry barely had time to blink before the box hit the manor and the explosions started.
Fred wanted to use fire bombs, George thought glitter bombs were the most effective, and it had been Harry’s idea to combine them all in the brilliant new assault product they’d add to their shop in just a couple of months.
A circle of fire spread from the box to surround the house while pink sparkly paint began spraying from the nozzles that popped out. The paint flew to dramatic heights, coating the entire front of the house.
“NEXT ONE!” George yelled. “Go!”
Sirius grabbed an innocent looking ball, tiny and red, hardly larger than a snitch, and threw it at the manor.
The ball hit the door and blew it open.
The twins began running backward with Harry, pulling him along to hide further in the trees beneath the charms and spells they’d placed after arriving. Harry dutifully pulled his cloak out and tossed it over the three of them, though the twins had to duck and crowd closer to Harry for it to actually cover them all.
Fred pulled omnioculars from his bag and gave Harry and George each a pair so they could watch how everything played out.
Harry also pressed record on his, a function he was glad for later when everything happened too quickly to fully relish in the combined brilliance of the Weasley Twins and Sirius Black.
Lucius Malfoy came running from the manor and was promptly sprayed by another blast of glitter paint, triggered by motion.
“Who dares?!” he screamed, his face pale as he took in the circle of fire around his house and the glitter paint coating everything.
Sirius began tapping out the fireworks in order, sending their message flying in the sky in glittering green stars.
I HAVE A RIDDLE FOR YOU, TOM.
That had actually been Harry’s idea.
Lucius stared at the stars and even Harry could see as he blanched at the purposefully disrespectful message.
“Get our Master,” he snarled at a man who joined him a moment later, shoving him when he only stared at the message burning in the sky just in the distance from the manor. “Now!”
“Be ready,” Fred whispered to Harry. The twins both squeezed Harry’s hands tightly, knowing what was surely coming.
Harry’s forehead felt as if it were being split open only moments later when Lord Voldemort himself came gliding out of the manor, enraged by the message in the sky. The twins let Harry squeeze their hands, surely breaking their fingers, as he tried to stay in his moment and out of Voldemort’s head.
“Find him,” Voldemort hissed to Lucius, no doubt suspecting Harry to be behind the message as he’d suspected from the prior attacks.
Sirius tapped the next firework before anyone moved.
YOU GAVE ME SOME OF YOUR POWER FOURTEEN YEARS AGO TODAY.
Sirius continued sending the fireworks out, each blasting loudly enough to echo around the forest and mask his location. As soon as one message faded, Sirius sent the next one.
THANKS TO YOU, I WILL LIVE FOREVER.
I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU IN PEACE.
I WILL HAUNT YOUR EVERY MOMENT.
I WILL PUBLISH THE PHOTOS OF YOU AND ALBUS TO THE WORLD.
“THERE ARE NO PHOTOS OF THAT FOOL AND MYSELF! CRUCIO!!”
Lucius dropped to the ground, his screams of pain ignored as the messages continued to flow.
DO YOU REGRET IT?
MAKING ME? GIVING ME MY STRENGTH?
YOU SHOULD.
HERE’S THE RIDDLE, TOMMY BOY—
Sirius’ idea, brilliant, of course.
TRY FOR SOME REMORSE OR YOU WILL WISH THAT YOU NEVER BECAME THE ENEMY OF THE MARAUDERS 2.0
LONG LIVE MISCHIEF.
With one more thrown ball, an innocently shining golden one, Lord Voldemort, so distracted by the message in the sky, was struck and doused in a potion that shined in the night as brightly as the stars before turning in to a coating of bright red feathers from head to foot in a quick and quiet poof.
“Now, Harry,” Sirius whispered, having bolted back to their safe zone.
Harry closed his eyes and slipped in Voldemort’s mind easily, their link wide open by their proximity and Voldemort’s absolute burning rage.
I SHOULD HAVE CHOSEN LONGBOTTOM was the only repetitive echoing sentiment Harry felt before he was abruptly ejected from his mind with a pain so intense in one of their minds- his mind? Voldemort’s mind? They were one and the same, interlocked in the pain -and everything went black-
black-
black.
Sirius, Fred, and George watched as Harry felt to the ground and began thrashing in pain, screaming at a pitch nearly as high as the one coming from Voldemort in front of the manor.
Sirius didn’t know if it was working or not, and he was seconds away from insisting the twins take Harry to St Mungo’s, when steam began pouring from Harry’s scar. A thin stream of grey steam at first that quickly became a gust of thick black smoke.
“It’s working!” Sirius cried. He whipped around to look down toward the manor and he snatched George’s omnioculars just in time to see Voldemort fall to his knees, his head held in a tight grip with his hands and his entire body putting off clouds of the same smoke pouring from Harry’s scar.
“SIRIUS! It’s working!!” Fred screamed. He grabbed Harry’s body and heaved him in his arms, holding him tightly as Harry continued thrashing. “IT WORKED!”
Lord Voldemort, full of remorse for having chosen such an immature, mischievous, and foolish boy to target fourteen years ago, filled with pain so horrible, so intense and consuming, that the body he had for only months began disintegrating and blowing away in the wind as only ash.
As the ashes blew away on the wind, as Lucius Malfoy’s screams ended as the caster of the spell decomposed into nothing, Harry’s scar let out a final puff of screaming black smoke before Harry went limp in Fred’s arms and the Marauders 2.0 shared shocked looks.
“I’m going to say what we’re all thinking,” George whispered, “I didn’t actually think it would work.”
*****
YOU-KNOW-WHO: PRANKED TO DEATH?!
In a shocking set of memories sent to the Ministry of Magic by a vigilante group self-titled as ‘Marauders 2.0’, it seems as if You-Know-Who had indeed risen to life recently only to find his downfall in a series of pranks led by recent convict Harry J Potter, escaped prisoner Sirius O Black, and Fred and George Weasley.
The Department for Magical Law Enforcement continues to investigate these memories, along with the memories of Peter A Pettigrew, a wizard long believed to be dead who was delivered along with the bottled memories.
For a full account of the end of You-Know-Who, visit Mischief Managed, the hottest new store in Diagon Alley, ran by the vigilante team themselves.
-For a history on You-Know-Who: page 2
-History on Harry J Potter, crimes and pardons: page 3
-Transcript from the recent retrial of Sirius O Black: page 4