Barty Crouch Jr, who would rather commit murder than be called that, was not very well as of late. An idiotic student had sent him a Remembrall that was charmed to spin relentlessly, and he could not remove the damned thing from his desk. There was a weird H scribbled onto the damn thing, which niggled at his mind for some reason.
With a glance at the door, he pulled out the most recent letter from the Dark Lord. He had been displeased at Barty's late report, but given the distance, the most he could do was send jolts of pain towards the Dark Mark. After sifting through the third paragraph of displeasure and promises of agony, the Dark Lord stated that he'd move in with Barty's Imperiused father and ordered his servant to accompany them in doing so.
Taking another drink of the utterly disgusting concoction, the loyal Death Eater pinned the Yule Ball and wrote "moving day" before sending his reply. He did not notice the Remembrall taking soft 'click's all whilst blaring the most loud and annoying sounds. Barty was a wizard, after all, and had the forethought to silence it.
***
The morning after, I woke up to two early Christmas presents: one from Sirius over the mail, the other through the miniature camera in the impostor's office. I sifted through the pictures from the camera and found the safer day to visit the Gaunt's shack and Riddle's home. The latter will be much fun, especially experimenting with Darkin magic. Voldy would be reborn and enslaved immediately from the very bones and blood he carried.
Opening the package, I found the locket – which I set aside for some experiment – and a short letter. Sirius had seemingly gotten it from Kreacher after much coercion (basically, an order without loopholes) and was delighted to tell me how it made the creature (no pun intended) had suffered doing so. I was in the middle of my reply, telling him to stay put and clean up, when a thought hit me.
"DOBBY!"
A loud 'crack' after and the cheery house elf appeared.
"Harry Potter, sir! What do you need of Dobby?"
"Good to see you too, Dobby. Well, my godfather's been needing a good house elf to clean up his place, would you be up for that? I'll be paying you as much as you want, of course."
The house elf looked positively exuberant at the suggestion. Before long, he was popping to Sirius's, twelve sickles richer.
Once that was done, I turned the runes to the Horcrux, which was pretending to be a harmless, innocent locket. It was moved to my inventory, the soul piece separated and destroyed without as much as a hiss. The ring should be more dangerous, what with the compulsion and curse, but I won't have to deal with that until after the Ball, at least.
Speaking of the upcoming Ball…
(Day before, Room of Requirement)
"Harry?" said a voice, possibly to my left, dangerously close to my ear.
"Yes?"
I could 'see' her crossing her arms and staring at me. That meant I needed to know something – what was it?
"What did Professor McGonagall ask you, just now?"
"Er," I tried to recall. She had pulled me aside after class, assumed I had a partner, and told me to meet her if I needed to learn dancing. That's probably it, then.
"Hermione, would you go to the Ball with me?"
She looked surprised but pleased.
"Of course, Harry. You know, I thought you'd asked someone else, so just in case…"
The girl looked disappointedly at her list, which I suspected contained the 'persuasion' to change my mind. Sighing of relief, I diverted the subject.
"She mentioned she'd help me learn to dance, though. Do you want to come with?"
Hermione looked a bit torn at the invitation. It must've cut into her planned study time, somehow.
"We can do some 'revision' afterwards, if you'd like?"
Her eyes narrowed at my choice of words, but it did draw a chuckle.
"Shut up, Harry." She leaned in for a peck. "I'll take you up on that."
(End flashback)
…it wasn't a surprise, but having confirmation was always better.
For tonight, after the ball, I would be expected to stay at Hogwarts, and with Ron being a right prat in the original timeline, there's too many eyes to sneak out immediately. If there was a way to appear in two places at the same time, a perfect copy, that would be Leblanc's. Well, if I didn't cast any magic, my cover would be perfect – and the clones would be disposable, so it could trigger the trap in Gaunt's shack.
I summoned her ability to myself through the interface. Dark chains rose from the ground and melted into my skin, burning as it touched the many runes. As Leblanc's origin lay in witchcraft and demons, as opposed to runes which were meant to subdue or seal them. They were not dissimilar to Zed's shadows, however, and the two complemented each other quite well. When the bar was full, little felt different about me.
I closed my eyes and willed the familiar shadow to appear. Instead, it felt as if part of my soul was siphoned away, into a dark, humanoid mass with molten gold for eyes. Blood and shadow coalesced to an almost spitting copy of myself, which stared back blankly. A thought, only one, was enough to send it into action. The clone walked out the front door and into the passageway that led to Hogsmeade and stopped.
A map of the UK showed up on a nearby table. It must've sensed the confusion in the "other" me. I opened the thing and committed the image into memory – it would be a long way indeed, even with the ability to shadow jump. As my clone was sent to Little Hangleton, I flipped through a few Muggle and magical magazines for ideas. Making all that I could imagine was a bonus, but one that only go so far as my imagined details.