Resurgence of Evil

THE RESURGENCE OF EVIL

CHAPTER 1

It was high summer, and even in the depths of the Ministry the heat was nearly palpable. It seemed as if even the walls were sweating, Harry mused, as the hot earth pressed in on them.

Shoving his sticky black hair back from his forehead, he looked at the papers in front of him again. It was Hermione's handwriting - and her report was both detailed and extensive.

Harry sighed. After Voldemort had been defeated, most of the Ministry members who had been deputized and incorporated into the Auror Division had returned to their original Departments. There were still a scattered few who remained in the field, but for the most part, specialists were needed in their fields to work with the reconstruction effort. Hermione returned to research, working jointly with the Department of Mysteries. Ginny was back in the Department of Magical Catastrophes, which was swamped. Ron, surprisingly, had turned down his former position in favor of completing Auror training, for real. And Harry - said person sighed. He was twenty-two, and the Head of the DMLE. Quite an accomplishment, but he'd done nothing - quite literally, in this case - to be awarded this position. And it was more than a little tedious to sit behind a desk and delegate rather than working in the field.

Turning his thoughts to the future, he pushed away from his desk and began to pace. The number of attacks had barely dropped off with the Dark Lord's death. Usually, when the head of a snake was chopped off, the body died. But Harry suddenly envisioned a Chimera (one of which he'd gotten uncomfortably close to in Hagrid's class during seventh year). Every time a head was chopped off, two more grew back from the stump. It seemed that this was similar to the situation he faced.

There was no way around it - there was another leader for the Death Eaters. There had to be - a second, someone who had waited in the sidelines for the right opportunity. The attacks, and deaths, were just as numerous, only this time they were not as public. No Dark Marks floating in the air. Rather than fighting an open war, Harry was battling a covert, guerilla force. And their main tool was terrorism, though it wasn't blatant or obvious.

Running the facts through his head, Harry sighed. At least two witches or wizards would be found dead of the Killing Curse in their homes every ten days. The Minister, Christian Blair, had not sought to keep this information from the press, but the press itself was too involved in the final victory to do more than place small obituaries in the later pages. Few saw the pattern, and many of those who did chose to ignore it, unable to believe that the threat could still exist without Voldemort.

But if there was a new leader to the Death Eaters, how could Harry find out who he - or she - was? The only feasible solution was to plant a spy. But who? The spy would need to be powerful, clever, and skilled both at artifice and the Dark Arts. A name flickered through his head but he dismissed it.

This person would also have to be familiar with Death Eater etiquette, and, above all, believable- someone who was suspected to be a Death Eater, or whose conversion would not be wholly unexpected. The name returned. Harry pondered it for a moment more, and frowned. It would be perfect, if he consented - and Harry knew very well that he might not. Even though he had been quietly declared innocent of all charges, after it was revealed that he was, in fact, still alive, he lived a quiet life, on the fringes of both worlds.

But it was still their best shot, Harry admitted to himself. But that wouldn't prevent him from having another backup plan, just in case.

Having firmly decided upon at least asking, Harry sat down and grabbed a sheet of parchment. He was just about to set his quill to it when there was a jaunty knock on the door and Ron meandered in.

"How's everything, Harry?"

Pig swooped in behind him, flying a few hyper circles in the air before the weight of his letter pulled him to a halt almost in Harry's lap. "Shut the door, would you?" asked Harry.

"Sure." Ron pulled the door shut and dropped into one of several chairs along the walls of the room.

"Silentium," Harry said quietly, flicking his wand at each corner of the room. A slightly green glowing shield sprang up before melting into invisibility.

"What's up?" asked Ron, sitting straighter.

Harry told him.

"You're off your rocker, mate," Ron informed him seriously. "He's out of it, completely. And besides, how could we trust him?"

"He's on the side of good, Ron," said Harry, smiling a bit. "And I don't think we get much of a say in the matter."

"Stupid git," muttered Ron. It was unclear whether he was talking about Harry or the proposed spy, and Harry decided not to ask.

"Do you have any other suggestions?"

"Well, yeah," said Ron.

"And?" Harry asked, after a prolonged moment of silence.

"Polyjuice Potion," Ron promptly replied.

"Why shouldn't we just place someone in a position for recruitment?"

"Because this way, we don't put anyone's family at risk."

Harry winced slightly. Ron's father had been killed in their sixth year, after it was known not only that he was a member of the Order, but that several of his family members were as well. Bill and Charlie had been ruthlessly stalked by Death Eaters, and there had been several near-misses that were still too difficult to discuss with Ron.

"After all," Ron continued. "There were six Death Eaters killed at the Burrow a month and a half ago, and we kept their deaths quiet. Most have assumed that they fled to try to save themselves after You-Know-Who's fall. Their bodies are still in the morgue, and there's enough left to make Polyjuice from, even after Malfoy got through with them."

Harry shivered.

"Something wrong, there, Harry?" Ron was concerned.

"It's just - you weren't there, Ron," Harry sighed, looking towards the window. "I've never - there's nothing that could have prepared me for that. It was awful. And, frightening, too. I mean, who would've thought that Malfoy had that much power in him? After all the jokes we made about inbreeding and pure-bloods marrying their own family, who would ever have thought there was a real reason for it?"

Ron was quiet. "I guess," he said after a moment, "no one. And maybe that was the point."

Surprised, Harry glanced at Ron, who said simply, "We may be pure-bloods, but we're not as - I don't know, as concentrated, I guess, as that end of the spectrum. I never knew about real wandless magic - you know, except about the disasters every wizard kid creates - about the purpose of it or the reason behind the whole pure-blood mania until Malfoy told me."

"He told you?" Harry couldn't hide his surprise.

"Well, yeah," said Ron, suddenly looking uncomfortable, shifting aimlessly in his chair.

"Did you try to beat it out of him, then?" Harry asked, gently ribbing his friend as he moved to sit on his desk.

Ron flushed. "Well, there was some threatening involved, but I didn't actually follow through on it," he admitted.

"I thought that Hermione researched it and told you," said Harry. "The only reason I knew was because she owled me right after he left."

Ron shrugged, a small, besotted smile on his face at the mention of his wife. "Yeah, she had been looking around, and then I told her what Malfoy told me, and she put that in, too."

"Hmm."

There was a companionable silence as the two thought over the last months, and Harry said, "Alright. We ask first, and if - well, if he says no, we can always put one of six dead men back into the circle to try to glean some information."

"Why not put all of them, even if our prospective spy says yes?" asked Ron suddenly. "Then, we have all players in position if we ever need to make a definitive move against this guy."

Harry grinned. Ron's mind was continually calculating strategies, moving players into position, setting up for the checkmate. He was grateful that Ron was here to help him, because while Harry focused on the entire fight and absolute objectives, Ron saw the small steps necessary for the bigger picture. They were a nearly unbeatable team, especially when Hermione added her detail-oriented mind to the mix and Ginny contributed her organized, puzzle-solving focus, fixating on a problem until she found the most expedient solution.

"Geez, Harry, get your mind on the job," said Ron.

"What?" Harry blinked, startled, and Ron grinned.

"You were thinking about Ginny, weren't you?" he asked knowingly.

"Guilty as charged," Harry said, flushing slightly.

"It wasn't that hard to figure out, Harry," Ron replied. "You got this distant, glassy look and there was a smile that - well, it was obvious."

Harry just shook his head. "How are we going to approach him, then?" He changed the subject quickly, and Ron obliged.

At the end of three hours' worth of planning, the strategy was in place. All that was left was to implement the plan. With a bit of maneuvering, Harry thought, they would have Draco exactly where they wanted him.