Gambit

Gambit

If there was one thing old Mundungus Fletcher hated more than dark wizards, it was celebrities--namby-pamby little prats who ponced about the place, coddled and admired by everyone and rich without having to do the slightest bit of work. Being poor himself, he especially hated celebrities for that reason alone. He'd had his own bit of bad luck with someone who had been famous at the time and never wanted to repeat the process. And yet here he was, meeting Albus Dumbledore about one.

Who cares if the boy defeated Voldemort? Whatever he did, he apparently didn't do it very well because here was the evil git rushing back into the living world like an unwelcome cat.

"And the cat came back, he wouldn't stay away..." the old man sang to himself, finding it appropriate to the situation at hand, as he skulked down the corridor of Hogwarts, unaware of the startled glances the portraits were casting him. Even if he had noticed, he wouldn't give a damn anyway. Gruff personages such as him were bound by social rulings to, 'not care what anyone thinks of me'.

His thoughts returned to the matter he was discussing with the headmaster today. Part of him--the sentimental part, that usually asked him to say 'sorry' after torturing an enemy--wanted to meet Harry Potter, merely so he could see if the boy really did look like the late James, as everyone said he did, and if he really had Lily's eyes, just as everyone said he did. Of course the moment he would let his mind think this, he would shut down that part of his head, the little corner of his brain that was riddled with cobwebs and dust that held emotion for any of his deceased friends from the past.

What was Dumbledore thinking anyway? The boy was--what?--fifteen years old? He didn't care whose son he was, there was no way he would be able to undergo any training at the age of fifteen.

Fletcher stopped at the ugly gargoyle and stared into its blank stone eyes. The gargoyle was endlessly standing there, guarding the doorway to the headmaster's quarters, and never resting. It must be dull. Fletcher knew how it felt.

"Pumpkin pasty," he said clearly, voicing the password Dumbledore had given him earlier. He knew Dumbledore was a genius and everything... but when it came to passwords he was wearingly obtuse. Fletcher walked into the room.

Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards stood petting his symbiotic pet, Fawkes. From his mouth came discreet sucking noises and Fletcher knew he was sucking on a lemon drop. If it weren't for magic he'd have been wearing dentures at the age of thirty, Fletcher thought.

Dumbledore turned to him, smiling brightly, "Ah, Mundungus! It's been too long since I last saw you. Lemon drop?" he motioned to a disgustingly large bowl full to the brim with the yellow candies.

"Quite all right, Albus." Fletcher sat without being asked to. Still smiling, Dumbledore took his seat across from him.

"So how has everything been?" Dumbledore asked conversationally, though he was just spinning his wheels. He knew that not only was Fletcher dirt poor, he wouldn't want to converse about anything than why he had been called there. He was right.

"Bloody terrible." Fletcher said shortly, and then said, less curt, "Can we get on with this?"

Dumbledore sighed, the smile fading from his face and the twinkle that Fletcher had always found annoying disappeared from his blue eyes.

"You can't possibly expect me to be able to train Potter. He's fifteen." Fletcher burst out with, breaking the silence. "I know what he is, but we have to wait until he's older. James only managed at such a young age out of pure rage. I doubt he could have taken on anyone had he not been so livid--and Grindewald wasn't anywhere near as powerful as Voldemort is now. It would be suicide sending Potter in there."

Dumbledore plucked his glasses off his nose and rubbed his eyes as if they itched. It was a gesture that most people with glasses have, and every time someone did it Fletcher felt uneasy.

Dumbledore spoke, "Voldemort has gone further than almost any other dark wizard before him. He's undergone transformations that have turned him into something inhuman. If we don't do something soon, before he gets a good grip, we'll be in trouble. That's why I'm asking you to train Harry. If he fought out of pure anger he would not be able to defeat Voldemort as James did with Grindewald. If he's trained, though, and has a good reign and control of his ability, he might be able to do something."

Fletcher cast around for an excuse. "His 'ability' doesn't even come out until he actually fights Voldemort. How can I train him when he doesn't even have the powers?"

"You can practice the basics of power-control with him, and then, later, perform makeshift power-transfers to him and see how he copes."

Fletcher said nothing to this.

"Mundungus, listen to me. I know the years have not been kind to you and the Ministry--"

"--Have been ungrateful fools? After all I've done with you and the others they still suspect me of breaking laws? The Ministry raided my home a couple of years ago did you know that? Old Perkins and that muggle-loving Weasley--"

"Did you really try to hex him?" Dumbledore interjected curiously.

"Of course Weasley would call it a hex. I was only trying to put painful memory spell on him--that's beside the point. Why should I help anyone when all I get in return is distrust?"

"That suspicion is mostly in your head, Mundungus." Dumbledore had the gall to say, "You have done slightly er, dishonest things. What was this I heard about you putting in a claim last year at the World Quidditch Cup for--what? A twelve-bedroom tent with an en-suite Jacuzzi?"

"I think I deserved some pension," Fletcher replied cagily. "The cloak I was sleeping under was my favorite and it was trampled by the panicked crowds."

Dumbledore's mouth twitched, but he said seriously, "Mundungus, I promise you that you will receive the recognition you deserve--but there actually has to be a world to recognize you first. I ask you again: will you train Harry?"

Fletcher looked at the man he had grown so estranged with and reluctantly nodded. He had nothing else to do, why not help save the world?

Besides, the boy couldn't be that bad. He was Lily's son after all.

~~

Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived to the wizarding world, just 'Boy' to his living relatives, Scar-head, Potter, and other, more colorful names to Slytherins, bent over the tiny sink in the bathroom, his nose nearly touching the cloudy mirror as he stretched his lips ridiculously wide as he surveyed his teeth. He tilted his head up and looked down his nose so he could peer into the reflection of his nostrils to check for hair. Satisfied with what he saw, he picked up a cheap, disposable razor and set to work on his face. This was a monumental event in his life. He was going to shave.

...

"YYYOOOUUCH!"

Three minutes later found him leaning glumly against the counter of the sink as he stuck pieces of tissue paper on the abundant cuts on his cheeks, and feeling foolish.

It had been a couple of weeks since he had gotten back from Hogwarts. But even though he was extremely bored and unhappy at the Dursleys, part of him liked how he wasn't anyone special there, and how he wouldn't be reminded of Cedric or anything else.

In an unconscious attempt at salvaging what was left of his personality, happiness, and mental well-being, Harry had developed a type of mental block about the events of the night of the third task. If he ever let his thoughts drift to anything related to it, he'd automatically shut down that part of his head, the little corner of his brain that was riddled with screams and the faces of his parents and Cedric.

So, presently, he was contemplating something that, unbeknownst to him, nearly every other boy his age was thinking about at that moment: girls. Harry Potter wanted desperately to be normal, to go through the usual routine of any other boy. He wanted to have nervous first kisses, passionate embraces, and eventually, big glorious break-up fights where he's accused of cheating and he calls the girl a bitch. He wanted to be broodingly handsome. He wanted to be the usual angst-ridden--but not about anything that has to do with Voldemort--teenager.

He wasn't broodingly handsome--not even brooding, even. In fact, at the moment, he looked quite ridiculous; a quarter of his face covered in bloody pieces of paper. What girls would want to kiss this, he thought absently, though deep down, if he was honest with himself, he could really care less. He had bigger things to worry about than girls, things like--Harry shook his head to stop that train of thought.

There was a loud banging suddenly on the door as his cousin Dudley pounded on it with his sledgehammer-like fist.

"Harry!" He yelled, "Get out of there! I have to use the room!"

Panicking at the thought of Dudley seeing him with so many cuts and papers on his face, Harry glanced around the room for help. "Just a sec...." He trailed off, looking frantically around.

Another moment of waiting and Dudley began opening the door anyway. Losing his head, Harry grabbed a towel and pulled it over his head, looking down and moving the towel as if he were drying his hair.

Dudley said nothing but merely shoved Harry from the room, slamming the door behind him. Harry slammed against the wall opposite the door and slid down into sitting position, massaging his nose from where it had collided with the wall. This was the second time he had bruised his nose in the past month, the first time being when he had just portkeyed back to the Hogwarts maze, and had fallen down flat on his face--Harry automatically switched his train of thought before he could think of anything else relating to the incriminating subject.

He got to his feet and staggered down the hall to his room. As he closed the door he caught sight of himself in the mirror of the open wardrobe. For someone who was trying to look handsome, he certainly was a mess. His thick black hair, which was usually a mess, now stood out on all sides so he looked as if he was wearing a bush on his head. His nose was red and sore looking. His black glasses were crooked upon his nose. Grimacing, he strode across the room and slammed the wardrobe shut so hard that it rattled. A few forlorn pieces of tissue fell away from his face and drifted down to the ground.

~~

"GIN! OI! GIN!" Ron bellowed from the fifth landing of the Burrow, down to the third, where Ginny's room was. He heard a bang as a door slammed open and Ginny stuck her head out over the railing of the stairway, twisting it so she could look up at him.

"WHAT?" She yelled back.

"WHERE'S MY PHOTO ALBUM?" he shouted down to her.

"HOW SHOULD I KNOW?" she called.

There was another bang and before Ron could reply, the twins stuck their heads out over the railing of the second landing.

"What are you two hollering about?" George inquired, quite quietly compared to his siblings.

"GIN'S--GOT--MY--PHOTO--ALBUM!" He hollered, cupping his hands over his mouth to be heard.

"I--DO--NOT! WHY--WOULD I--TAKE IT?" she shrieked up at him.

"Ooh, Gin's been looking for pictures of Harry," the twins caroled in unison, cracking identical evil smirks that could be seen from several floors up.

Face red, Ginny cried angrily, "SHUT UP! I AM NOT! I'M--COMPLETELY-- OVER--HIM!"

Above Ron laughed, "IS THAT--WHY YOU--WERE--MUMBLING--HIS NAME--IN YOUR--SLEEP--YESTERDAY?"

Ginny's response was immediate. "YOU ONLY WANT THE ALBUM BACK SO YOU CAN LOOK AT HERMIONE!"

"SO YOU'VE GOT THE ALBUM THEN?" was all Ron yelled back.

Below Ginny threw her hands up and stalked back into her room, slamming the door. Fred and George craned their necks up at Ron and caroled in unison, "Ooh, so Ron's been looking for pictures of Hermione."

"SHUT IT!" Ron, now scarlet, roared down at them. He would've continued except a bellow came from the first floor in the form of their mother's voice:

"RON! I'VE FOUND YOUR BOOK! YOU REALLY SHOULDN'T LEAVE YOUR THINGS JUST LYING ABOUT, YOU KNOW!"

George and Fred grinned even wider at Ron and disappeared back into their room as Ron sheepishly started down the stairs to pick up his photo album.

~~

"Hermione, darling, why don't you come out with me to the store?"

"Can't, Mum, I'm studying."

...

"Herm, Honey, Conspiracy Theory is on! Do you want to watch?"

"Sorry, Dad, I'm busy."

...

"Hermione! Dinner's ready!"

"I'm not hungry!"

Hermione stood in a corner of her room, head tilted to the side as she surveyed something from across the room in apparent satisfaction. Walking forward, she picked up her Prefect badge and turned it to the right, so it was facing the opposite direction. Then, she walked over to the other corner of her room and looked back at the badge. Its shiny silver surface glinted from the sunlight hitting it through the open window, setting off the fancy curved P engraved upon the badge.

The Weasleys had said you could only polish a Prefect badge so many times before it got old. They were wrong, and Hermione had proved that by spending a good deal of the day admiring it from all angles and polishing it with nearly every non-acidic, cleaning substance she could find.

Hermione wasn't one to waste time with trivial things such as polishing badges, and normally would've been horrified with herself for spending the day doing so, but today had been an exception. When she had woken up to find the thick envelope on his night table, with a circular bulge in the middle, she had been ecstatic. She knew that her grades were definitely good enough to assure her a Prefect badge, but she had been caught breaking rules so many times before with Harry and Ron that she was uneasy about the whole deal.

Today had actually been the first day of the summer she had not spent studying or worrying about Harry. Their O.W.L.S were coming up this year and she had every intention in getting the maximum number possible. She just had to. Nothing could distract her... except, of course, the emotional decay of one of her best friends, Harry Potter. At the end of the year he had been so quiet all the time, and had smiled a total of two times (she'd counted). She and Ron hadn't wanted to badger him about it, figuring he would tell them sooner or later, when he was over it. Hermione had even been hoping that he'd write about it, because that way he wouldn't have to worry about breaking down in front of them. But he hadn't.

Maybe he truly was over it and just didn't want to think about it anymore than he had to.

Maybe he hadn't written because Dumbledore had put an owl-proof spell over the place where he lived.

Maybe he was pushing down all those unwanted emotions and one day he'd just snap and go off and live with primitive muggles from some third-world country.

Hermione jerked out of her preposterous thoughts long enough to scold herself for being so silly and worrisome. Whatever Harry was going through Ron and she would help him... as soon as he actually contacted them.

Now thoroughly frowning darkly, a stark contrast from a few minutes ago where she had been smiling so bright and smugly, Hermione picked up her badge and began to rub nonexistent dust off of it.

~~

Fletcher walked down Hogsmeade towards the Post Office, scowling heavily at every passing person. With his bushy eyebrows, clean-shaven, scarred face, and snapping blue eyes that could be seen clear across the street, he intimidated quite a few people. Mothers rushed their children onwards, hissing, "Don't ever go near the likes of that man, all right Kevin?" Or Josie. Or Billy. Or whatever the children's names were. Whenever Fletcher heard this particular comment he'd glare all the harder at the person.

Being noticeable ran in his family--but where his brother's presence seemed to comfort people, his just daunted. One of the only people who didn't seem to dislike him right away when they had first met was Lily Potter. Her husband, however, the quiet and nervous James, had been incapable of coherent speech. Fletcher neatly skipped over the fact that he had nearly hexed away one of James's favorite appendages.

***The past***

A pair of noisy footsteps echoed in the nearly empty marble hallway of the Auror Office, alerting Mundungus Fletcher that someone had entered the building. Someone, he thought, who was very mad. Getting up from his seat he edged to the door and peeked out. Two people were walking quickly down the corridor--or rather, one person was storming down the corridor with the other walking quite normally at her side, visibly pleading. Fletcher concentrated to hear what they were saying.

"...We really don't have to do this, Lilz. Think about this. Why don't we just go home and watch your muggle telly, eh? Brazil is playing for the Cup tonight--" The man was saying, clasping his hands in front of her awkwardly. The girl--an extremely small woman, actually, Fletcher realized, seemed to be determined to keep going. Her face was red and her eyebrow was twitching funnily.

"You don't have to come with me, James!" she nearly shouted. "But I am going in there--I will not allow that asshole to threaten us! No one threatens us. No one!"

They must be there to attack Moody or something, Fletcher thought. It was not uncommon that civilians or former followers of recently vanquished Grindewald would come storming in, raving about getting Moody. Alastor Moody was an extremely good Auror, extremely unpopular person, and had the worst table manners imaginable. Fletcher worshipped the ground he walked on.

Knowing it was his responsibility to stop anyone who was going to hurt a member of the Auror Office, Fletcher jumped out suddenly in front of the couple. The two jerked back, the man letting out a startled yell and the woman cursing. Before the could do anything (they were starting forward, looking menacing now), Fletcher raised his wand and yelled:

"Secare!" A scarlet curse flew at the man, through his legs, and hit the wall, leaving a deep crack that smoked.

The two froze, both staring down at the man's pants. Fletcher said easily, "An inch up and do you know what that curse would've taken off?"

The man looked back at him, face white. He let out an indiscernible noise, a whimper, and another strange noise and, trembling, darted behind the woman, as if planning on using her as a shield. He was staring down at his pants again, swallowing repeatedly. The woman however stared boldly up (way up) at him. She had noticed his uniform.

"Why are you assaulting us?" she asked, voice dangerously calm, emerald eyes flashing. Her feet, he noticed, slid into an offensive stance. Interesting.

"No one who may pose a threat to any member of the Auror Office is allowed into the main building." He said, wishing he had one of those nifty sticks that muggle police carried about. If the girl threw herself at him, punching and kicking, he wouldn't have space or time to hex her. Magic wasn't for close quarters fighting and he didn't know how to physically attack anyone--or defend himself. If he had one of those sticks, however, he could beat her repeatedly until she succumbed to his will.

The woman now looked confused. Behind her, the man straightened and pushed his glasses back up his nose, where they had been sliding down. He too seemed to notice the uniform and his lips curled in a smirk.

"Ah, security guard." He said, as if that meant something, and stepped out from behind the woman, his mood completely changing. He was now talking down to Fletcher in a voice that brooked no question, as he were used to getting his way. "Now, listen here: I'm James Potter. I--" Fletcher promptly pointed his wand at James's pants and again the man shrunk away, that peculiar color taking over his face again.

"We didn't come here to hurt anyone of the Office." The woman said, blinking rapidly. "We're here to enroll for training to become Aurors."

Fletcher didn't believe her. "You were talking about someone threatening you."

The woman shrugged, eyes flashing angrily, "I was talking about Lieutenant Voldemort--well, actually, he's not a lieutenant anymore, I suppose, but--"

"Voldemort was threatening you?" Fletcher said, incredulously. "Why would he do that?"

"Because James humiliated him."

"How?"

"By beating him."

"He beat--"

"Yes, yes, big deal. He wasn't that great without his bloody sword, anyway."

"Sword--?"

"Slytherin's sword--it's in a museum now--we turned it in for some money."

"But how did he beat Voldemort--"

"That's a secret. I'll tell you someday if you ever make it further than security guard."

Fletcher grinned down at the tiny woman and she grinned back, sticking out her small hand to shake. Fletcher took it, and gave her his name.

"I'm Lily, and this is my husband James."

James glanced at Fletcher, nodded weakly and looked quickly away again, seemingly staring at the large crack in the wall and wondering what it would've done if the hex had hit him instead of the wall...

"Go on up, I'll buzz you in. I have a feeling Moody is going to like you." He said, meaning Lily. He walked back into his office.

He had been right. Moody was thrilled with his two new recruits--which startled Fletcher. He hadn't thought that James bloke was able to fight as well as his wife.

***The present***

Fletcher stopped in the middle of the street, staring down at the letter in his hands. Should he really send it off? He didn't have much money as it was so what was the point in spending it just to deliver a letter?

Fletcher thought of Lily and James and then pictured their son, when he had last seen him. The baby had looked tiny in Lily's arms, which was a hard thing considering Lily's small stature, and exactly like James. Except for the emerald eyes that sparkled with challenge when he looked into them, just as Lily's always had. Making up his mind he stuffed the letter in the deep folds of his cloak and turned away. He'd deliver the letter in person. He began walking back down the street and was gone before the passerby's blinked twice.

~~