A Dark Time For The Light

42

Harry met Seamus and Dean in the usual spot and filled them both in on the news from Manchester. Dean let out a long breath. “We need to scatter, disperse, integrate, just like you and Draco. Keep in touch by Muggle methods, keep the phone lines undetectable, use e-mail”. Harry nodded, “Yes. We need to fully integrate, leave nothing behind, but we can still gather if we need to. It’s a bugger that we cannot practice Magic anymore. We need to split the cadres, disappear into the big wide world. While we are gathered into only a few units we make ourselves vulnerable. It was a brilliant idea of Ron’s to gather us all together, but we realise now how vulnerable a cadre is to attack. We should make contact then be dispersed, to safe houses until we can move, then out into the real world, hiding in plain sight, so to speak”.

Thus was the second stage of the Underground born. Over lunch Harry, Seamus and Dean concocted the next plan. Harry felt a tiny twinge for Ron, who’d helped start all of this. But Ron had moved on. Harry had moved on, plus others. That night, with Hermione and Ibrahim’s help, they made all of the accounts more secret. In the Bunker canteen that night, everyone listened to what Harry had to say about breaking up the cadres. Harry felt awful delivering the message, but knew it to be true. “The Manchester cadre has had to move, and if we stay together, it’s only a matter of time until this cadre is busted. The Muggle Police hate squatters and know fuck all about Magicals. We have to split up, integrate into the Muggle world, then all keep in touch by totally Muggle methods that He can’t detect, then regroup and kill the bastard and get our own world back from his clutches”.

The room fell silent, but each acknowledged the truth of Harry’s words. “We do it by pledging 10 per cent of our earnings into central funds. Draco and I do it, even though we live away now. We will need to have a pot of cash to work with. Revolutions are fought best with a reasonably full purse”. By the end of the meeting, the last mixed-bloods who didn’t work promised to increase their search, whilst the purebloods in their midst promised to try harder to obtain work. At the end of Harry’s impassioned speech, there wasn’t a soul who disagreed with him.

Harry made his way back to the flat as the dusk deepened. He let himself in, then slumped halfway up the stairs. In a trice, Draco sat beside him, throwing his arms around him. then led him upstairs into their home, drawing the curtain at the top of the stairs, keeping the draughts out, pressing him into the landing wall, then kissing him. A murmured sigh between them. Draco took Harry to bed. Made love to him and they both slept a delicious sleep wrapped around each other.

Harry yawned widely as the alarm woke him. He batted it silent, then got up. In a daze, he headed for the shower, dousing himself in cleansing hot water until his Dragon joined him, both exulting under the hot water, Draco turning Harry, then taking him, under the stream, hard and fast, drilling his arse until he was a boneless mess, putting his beloved back together, then kissing him and sending him off to a day’s toil.

At lunchtime Harry called Severus. The older man was in a snit. “The bloody bike broke down on me just this side of Carlisle. I had to wait ages for the AA and I’ve over a fortnight to wait for the part to turn up. Jephaniah got the Manchester boys released on bail. The charmless little gits go before the beak a week on Tuesday. The others are being taken back to jail in Bristol, for breaking their bail conditions, though I doubt they’ll get much in the way of sentencing, although Nott took a swing at one of the coppers and they took a dim view of that. What all this means is I’m effectively grounded for next few weeks. Can you do the next mail run?”.

When the man ran out of steam, Harry chuckled. “Tonks said one of them was a Death-Eater, I bet that’s Nott. I’m afraid I can’t do anything about the mail until at least next week. It takes me a bit longer to get around than you. It took Draco and I five days last time, although we were taking it easy. I have one day off next week, next Monday and I don’t fancy putting in a full week’s work then zooming around all over the country, then re-starting work again the next day. Tell you what though, I’ll e-mail the cadres and get everyone to set up P O boxes, I know Kilmarnock already have one. I could run up to Hogsmeade and post the batches from a Muggle Post Office, that’d just entail a there and back. I could manage that, no problem”.

“Harry, you’re a star. Thank you. You’d think, though, with all of these Muggle trained people about, that we’d have more drivers amongst us”. This made Harry laugh, “In which case, I need to restart my driving lessons. I was learning up in Manchester. I was nearly ready for my test too. I’ll give you a bell after I pick up the post next week. Aww, we won’t see you two for a bit, that’s a shame”, Harry’s voice dropped to a low purr. Harry could almost hear Sev’s smile, “Stop that at once, Mr Potter. You rather nonplussed your ex-DADA teacher you know”. Harry could feel himself colour, “Merlin, Sev, I’ve fancied your lover since fuckin’ third year. We can’t wait to get our mitts on the pair of you. Take a train. Come down and spend a weekend. We’ve got some lovely smokeables. We could all have a truly debauched weekend together. I’ll leave it up to you”.

Harry heard a long breath at the other end of the line, “I’m going to terminate this call now, Harry, you wanton slut. I’m as hard as iron and I think I need to go and fuck someone. See you two in a week or so”. They said their goodbyes and hung up. Harry sat quiet for a moment, all sorts of erotic thoughts tumbling through his brain.

He was startled by a gentle hand on his shoulder, Steffie. “Are you okay, Harry?”, her head was tipped to one side. She saw the flush and the bright eyes and backed off, “Oh, sorry, that kind of call”. Harry laughed. She leaned in, “I’ve had a word with Dean, you know, about what we spoke about at the party?”. Harry was puzzled. She shook her head, “You were a bit out of it. We discussed you guys meeting my dealer. I’ve vouched for you all having met you all now, so next time you want to score, I’m to take you to meet her”. Recollection was a bit vague though he sort of remembered the conversation, around their kitchen table, all rolling joints. “That’s brilliant. Thanks Stef. It’s coming back to me now”. They both chuckled.

He checked his watch. He had enough time. He called Pansy. She, too, was on her lunch break. She worked for a large bank in a strange pyramidal building at the confluence of two motorways in the middle of Stockport. They had a good gossip. She’d been scared shitless when Tommy Nott had tried to force his way in, “It makes me almost ashamed to have been a Slytherin, Harry. They are bad people”. Harry confirmed this, telling her about Tonks dowsing them, “Thomas Nott’s almost certainly a Death-Eater. I can only presume that Voldemort sussed that Magicals would regroup in some way”, he then proceeded to tell her of the meeting in the Bunker and how the cadres should split up and truly disappear.

“I know there’s comfort to be had from being among our own kind, but in large groups we can be found out. Kilmarnock aren’t so badly off, their billet is at least legitimate, but we must stop illegal squats. It makes us more vulnerable to Muggle law enforcement and puts us between a rock and a hard place. We need to integrate, disperse”. He could hear Pansy’s chuckle, “As of this morning, we are legal, Harry. We told the people whose building this is, that we are going to open a free school. This place was built as a school and there is a mandate written into the lease that that is all it should be used for. Many have wanted to turn this amazing place into offices or flats, but the mandate forbids this. They are quite happy about us living ‘on campus’ so to speak as long as we pay the rent”.

Harry was delighted and told them they needed to set up a PO box quickly. “I’m doing a mail run, but I won’t have time to go around everybody, so I’ll have to re-post everything through the Muggle system, then from now on, we do things the Muggle way”. Pansy was in total agreement though it galled her to say so, the last debacle had been a close call and she didn’t want a repeat performance. They said goodbye and hung up.

Harry was reflective all afternoon at work, taking extra care to get lines straight, surfaces matt and gleamingly flat as the paint dried. Once again, Joe took a moment to watch the three boys at work. Harry, Dean and Seamus. There was something about these three that he realised others in his workforce knew but not him. He thought about asking Cellan, Alan or Steffie, but they were unlikely to rat out their friends, so he decided to ask Harry directly.

He called Harry into his makeshift pre-fab office and quizzed him clumsily, although Harry got the direction that the enquiries were headed. “Have you heard of Magicals Joe?”, he asked. Joe was taken aback. “What?, you mean real Magical folk?. Not those damnable charlatans who run tarot lines or those dratted psychic lines?. Oh, yes. My great-uncle Mundungus was a Magical. Went to a school with a weird name, Pigsnouts, Pigwarts, or something”. Harry grinned, “Hogwarts?”. Joe grinned, “Aye, that’s the place. Why?”

“Me, Seamus and Dean all went to Hogwarts, we’re all Magicals as is Draco who worked with the gilding team on our last job, my boyfriend”, he added. Joe was thunderstruck. Harry continued, “Mundungus wouldn’t be Fletcher would he?”. Joe paled. “Aye”, he managed in a tiny whisper. “I know him and a fine Wizard he is too, although I haven’t seen or heard from him since the War. We all had to run and hide when the Dark triumphed over the Light. And now you have three of us working for you”.

Joe rubbed his hand agitatedly over his bald spot, then looked at Harry. “You’re the one aren’t you?. The one that’s supposed to defeat him?”. Harry slowly nodded, his eyes fixed to Joe’s. Who didn’t flinch or look away. Who reached out a shy hand pushing Harry’s hair away from his brow, exposing the scar. “Fuck, you’re real. I thought you were just a legend or something”, his hand dropped.

Harry felt his eyes tear, “We lost, Joe. I lost. For all of us”, his face crumpled, salty hot tears soaking his cheeks. He was guided into a chair and felt strong arms around him. “No you didn’t, Harry. Not according to Mundungus, you were outflanked. He used dirty tricks to get to you all. You weren’t prepared”.

I’m sitting in the great Hall having breakfast. I get my, now, usual, scorching look from Draco across the Hall. We’ve been together for over a year, since he returned early from the Easter holidays in sixth year. We’re sort of accepted as an item now, although I know Ron still isn’t sure. He has Blaise now in any case, although I know, certainly at first, that it was me he wanted, though I know I’ve never wanted him that way. His boyfriend, on the other hand has been in our bed a few times. He broke it off after they decided to be exclusive, monogamous, faithful.

xxxxx

There’s a commotion in the Dining Hall. The teachers all flap off outside, robes billowing. In no time the Final Battle is upon us and we are all caught with our pants down, so to speak. The actual fighting is nasty, brutish and short. Dumbledore is assassinated as soon as he sets foot outside. The place swarms with Death-Eaters in full masks and robes and screaming schoolchildren. People are picked off at random, lethal curses and hexes light the gloomy hallways of the School. Who has let them in?. There is no time to ponder such things. Children are dying as the Death-Eaters seek just one. They care not who is mown down in their relentless path.

xxxxx

I must reach him before they do. I turn back and go inside following a phalanx sent specifically to bring Draco to his Father. They are together cowering in the corridor. Harry steps in front of his lover in a last show of bravery. Their wands are gone. Blood and tears streak both of their faces. I advance on him, my wand outstretched, ignoring the pleas of my own godson being dragged kicking and screaming between four of them, his own Uncle one of them.

Harry is shaking in the man’s arms, memory too strong. Joe shushes him with a fatherly manner that Harry can’t help but sink into. He said, between sniffles, “I’ve been running for nearly two years, as have we all since he won. And, to tell you the truth, I’ve never known that many non-Magical folk, and now I have to make my own way in the world, I’m fuckin’ amazed that so many non-Magicals not only know about us, but are sympathetic to us, or, like yourself, have a Magical buried away in your families, often of great ability too, though it’s a shame there was only one Wizarding school in Britain”, he sighed. “More of us should have been trained, Joe. You never got your Hogwart’s letter did you?”, he murmured, “Although you had been waiting for it for eleven years?”.

The man tensed, “How did you know?”, a hoarse whisper. Harry pulled away and looked into the man’s eyes. Joe was rooted to the spot by that intense green gaze and realised he was looking into the eyes of a very powerful wizard. He started to tremble. “Okay, so that’s how you know”. Harry grinned and they parted. Joe was nonplussed and hung his head a moment, unsure of what to say next.

“Harry, I know you have to shoot off on Magical business. I sensed that the emergency you spoke of was one such occasion?”. Harry nodded. “Look, Harry, I hope by now you’ve realised I’m a pretty fair employer. I mean I adapt around Ramadan for Imran and Umar. I shorten Melanie’s hours during school holidays etcetera. I didn’t have a problem with Alan’s paternity leave and that was before it was made law. What I’m trying to say, Harry, is, if you need to attend to your folk, rush off, whatever, then just let me know. We all cover for each other here, Harry. It’s no mistake that in such a transient job, I’ve had people on this team for years”. Harry nodded, his throat too choked to speak for a moment. When he could, he squeaked, “Thanks, Joe. As it happens our usual mailman is off the road and he’s asked me to fill in as the only other biker and therefore the fastest driver. I’m gonna go over next weekend when I get the Monday...”.

Joe grinned, only too glad to help. “Take the Tuesday as well, if you need it. I told you, we cover for each other. I know you’ll do the same when needed”. Harry grinned wide, “Of course I will, Joe, just ask. I like this way of working”. Harry shrugged in delight. Joe patted his shoulder and Harry left the office a very happy man. His instincts for the Muggle and the marginally Magical were spot on.