Stonefinger

Stonefinger Prologue

The badly-lit, inconsequential pub on the corner of Latent Road with its heavy wooden booths and its smoky, slightly sinister atmosphere was Harry Potter's favourite place to drink. No one asked any questions. The Tudor-frame windows were so pokey and narrow that even in the middle of the day the room was dark. The tables were stained with wax and liquids. It was a hidden, nasty little place filled with wizards with shady, squinted eyes and rough, elderly witches who jeered at each other like toothless crones.

Harry didn't care much for the beer either. It wasn't a brand he'd come across before in the Wizarding world, so it was probably homebrewed. But he went there for the dark and the chance to sit and brood uninterrupted. Around him the noise was minimal. A lot of people came to the 'Black Hart' alone and sat in a turgid stupor, mulling over their beer. Harry wasn't anything special.

On this particular day, Harry sloped into the bar at just past six. It was October and it was bitingly cold out. There was of course no music in the background, and he navigated his way to the bar, as he always did, with his head bent low. He didn't notice the man in the corner edge his way to the bar and stare at Harry through slanted eyes.

'Evening,' the bartender said in a low voice.

'Pint please,' Harry muttered, fumbling in his robe for a few sickles. The wave of old smoke hit his nostrils as it always did and he wrinkled his nose slightly. It smelled familiar and musty. Somehow it was soothing that the Hart never changed. It probably hadn't changed that much since 1536 when it had first opened its doors. A plague on the left hand wall bore the inscription 'Opened on the Eve of Anne Boleyn's Execution.'

'That's eleven sickles,' the man said, dropping a blackish, odious-looking pint down on the counter in front of Harry. As always, the glass was dirty around the rim. Harry pulled out his handful of coins and squinted down at them.

'No, please, allow me,' someone - a man - said in a soft, courteous voice. Harry heard the chink of coins from a velvet case. It was probably just another bar-trawler looking for anyone under thirty but the voice made him uneasy. It was rare for anyone well-spoken to come to Hart and even rarer for them to single out Harry in particular. That was the sole attraction of the place: he was never singled out, but he was always single.

'I've got it,' Harry said hurriedly. He glanced up at the guy who had spoken. He was wearing a fur lined hood over his hair but his scarred, battered face was somewhat familiar even with all the blue and black on it. Harry stared at him, and then felt in his robe for his wand. 'You!'

'Yes,' the other man replied in his soft lilt. 'I suppose you thought you'd never be found.'

'No, I kind of thought you were dead actually,' Harry replied uninterestedly. He took his pint from the counter, without having paid for it (he was fairly sure the gentleman could afford eleven sickles) and moved over to his usual smoky booth in the far corner. His leg ached terribly tonight.

He was followed. The other man took a seat next to him and Harry stared at the bruising across his adversary's formerly handsome face.

'Who tried to colour you in then?' he asked in the same unconcerned tone of voice. 'Whoever it was, they obviously only had three colours.'

The other man looked horribly surprised, as if this were not going the way he'd planned. 'What?'

'Red, blue and black,' Harry said. He took a long sip of his beer and stretched his foot underneath the table. 'So what do you want, Malfoy?'

'To talk to you,' Malfoy replied.

'Well. Consider this a good day then,' Harry said.

'Potter, you can't stay here indefinitely,' Malfoy hissed. He, Harry noticed, had not sampled the beer but was drinking white wine. The bartender clearly wasn't used to such high-class demands; he'd poured it into a pint glass just the same.

'No, well, closing time's half twelve,' Harry agreed.

'That's not what I meant!' Malfoy snapped. 'You're such an - '

'Malfoy,' Harry interrupted. 'I suggest you write to your parents.'

'What? Why?'

'I'm going to kill you. They'll need to arrange the funeral. Stupefy.'

The other man's head immediately lolled forwards onto the table, knocking his white wine over in the process. All Harry could now see of the man was the top of his hood, which was slumped over the table. The liquid dripped onto Harry's legs and he quickly cleaned it up with a scourging charm. Harry sighed and drained the rest of his pint down quickly, trying not to look at the unconscious body opposite him.

It didn't surprise him that no one else seemed to have noticed the fact there was an unconscious man in his booth. It was dark, and slumping yourself over the table in despair was often the only thing you could rationally do anyway in a place like this anyway.

Then Harry stood up, and poked the body with his wand. With one hand, he had a grip on Malfoy's limp shoulder. Usually Harry didn't need a wand; he'd learned to do without, but in trying to transport two people he thought he might need a stronger direction of his magic. He muttered the charm and, with a satisfying pop, both men disappeared from the Black Hart and landed in Harry's flat.

The second they hit ground, Harry felt hands wrap around his throat. He swore, and tried to wrestle them off him but they were awfully strong. 'What the hell!' he exclaimed but no sound came out except a gargled sort of cry. Obviously they just didn't make unconscious bodies the way they used to, because this one was furious.

Harry kneed Malfoy's groin. There was a cry of pain but the hands around Harry's throat didn't loosen. He tried to kick again, but found himself soundly knocked to the floor with the other man on top of him, still clutching at his throat. Harry's hands, which were flailing at the side of his body, found Malfoy's eyes, and he didn't hesitate before digging his nails in.

The other man let go suddenly, yelping and swearing furiously in pain. He rolled off Harry and lay on the floor next to him, groaning. Harry gasped and breathed in deeply, rubbing his neck.

'That wasn't fair play, Potter!' Malfoy said. 'Reparo Oculus.'

'But trying to choke me was a really good display of sportsmanship?' Harry muttered more to himself than the other boy. 'I thought you were unconscious.'

'That's two times today you've misjudged me then,' Malfoy answered. 'What is it with you and thinking I'm nearer dead than alive?'

'Do you want a response to that?'

'No. Nice flat, by the way. A bit Spartan, but still...' Malfoy said, gesturing around.

'Thanks. What do you want?' Harry said. .

'To talk to you,' Malfoy repeated from earlier in the evening. He took a seat on one of Harry's budget armchairs and Harry resisted the urge to tell him not to get it dirty.

'And you couldn't have done that in the pub?'

'No. This is important. I don't want to talk over sleazy witches and besides, you tried to hex me.'

'It was worth it,' Harry pointed out. 'Can I get you a drink?'

'Would it be poisoned?'

'Very probably,' Harry said as his mind ran to the sweet, sweet taste of cyanide.

'Thanks, I'll pass.'

Harry took a seat and turned the lights on in the flat. They illuminated the fact that Malfoy's face was completely riddled with bruising and added to that, his eyes were now extremely bloodshot. He looked positively awful. At least looking at him was a break from looking at white though. He really was quite colourful.

'So,' Malfoy said and his voice was soft again, 'the thing is, we need you to come back to Hogwarts. You can't spend a minute longer in Hull. There's a War, Potter. And you are really pivotal to us winning it.'

'Last time I remember, your side was the one that wanted me dead,' Harry said.

'Things change.'

'Not that much they don't.'

'Potter, I really don't like you,' Malfoy said. He rubbed his face with his hand and winced as he touched over a particularly angry looking sore.

'You want some salve? Or, you know, the number of a surgeon?' Harry said. He fleetingly wondered if he had any salve and if there was enough in the world to help out a face like that anyway.

'No, it's a good disguise,' Malfoy said.

'I recognised you,' Harry pointed out. 'But that was probably the accent too. Look, you're going to have to go. I don't want to talk to you and if you stay I'll probably have to attack you. And I'm not going back to Hogwarts anyway.'

'Hermione's been injured,' said Malfoy rather hesitantly.

'Since when did you call her that?'

'Since I started teaching with her. Since you buggered off to this godforsaken place in the middle of the War. Since I changed sides. Things have happened Potter. Just because you've been too busy doing nothing to notice doesn't mean they've stopped.'

'I think you're forgetting that you're my enemy,' Harry said scathingly. He stood up and walked off into the kitchen, where he made himself a cup of tea. He pointedly didn't make one for Malfoy.

When he returned to the lounge, mug in hand, he found that Malfoy was sprawled on the chair comfortably and using a compact mirror to rearrange his hair to his taste. The blond wonderfully accentuated his blue and black visage.

'There's a bathroom, you know,' Harry said loudly and distinctly.

'Yes,' Malfoy replied without looking up, 'But I prefer this mirror. It doesn't talk.'

Before Harry could throw something scathing back his way, three men Apparated into his lounge. They were big, burly and dressed in white with a red square on their chests. They were also triplets - each one was as ugly as the other two, which was quite a staggering feat. Draco Malfoy paled at the sight of them and pulled out his wand, clearly ready to Apparate from whence he came but one of the men raised a strong, pulsating hand.

'Don't do it,' he said gruffly.

'We've warded it,' the other one said.

'It's warded,' the third added.

Harry raised his eyebrows. 'Who are you then, the three Musketeers?'

'Orpheus.'

'Eurydice.'

'Icarus.'

'Were your parents Ancient Greeks?' Malfoy asked in a strangled sort of voice. Harry wondered if he was just trying to be polite or if he just generally enjoyed finding out psychopaths' parentage.

Deciding not to stick around, Harry muttered the Apparition spell but found that the place was indeed warded, and all that happened was that he fell back into the air he had started from weakly. Icarus growled at him like a stray dog. Eurydice stuck a finger up. Orpheus neatly cast a spell across both him and Malfoy that left them bound up across the arms and legs.

'No funny business,' one - possibly Eurydice - said.

'We're here to take you away,' Icarus continued.

'No questions asked,' Orpheus finished.

'I've got a question,' Harry said in a dull voice, ignoring Malfoy shaking his head violently in the corner, 'How come one of you has got a girl's name? Because you know, Eurydice wasn't male, unless that story was a whole lot more fun than I remember it.'

'That's it!' Eurydice roared. 'I CAN HAVE WHATEVER NAME I LIKE EVEN IF SHE WAS A GIRL AND IT DOES MAKE ME MY BROTHER'S LOVER! You can't judge me!'

The last thing Harry felt was a spell hit his chest with a thump. In a way he was rather glad. It was clear that Eurydice had many problems and as such was probably best left alone. The thought that he might die also fleetingly attacked him, but he decided it was bull and the worst that would happen might be he would be made to take on a Greek name. He thought, before he passed out entirely, that Persephone Potter had a lovely ring to it