So Much for No Strings Attached

Chapter 89 Party Fool

Marcus Flint Junior made his way into a local park that was filled with Muggles running around like vermin. There were screaming children in the playpark. There were adults in too tight running outfits. There were old couples going slower than a snail. And teenagers hanging around the edges drinking, smoking and snogging. Marcus didn’t even bother to hide the sneer of disgust at being forced to coinhabit with this filth as he found himself at the strangely textured black bench that was neither wood or metal or any material that Marcus recognised it must be something strange Muggles were doing.

 

Marcus sat down and waited for the old wizard to arrive. Dumbledore turned up a couple of minutes later. Marcus still had trouble putting this tired, sad looking old man with the old venerable headmaster. Dumbledore had had to shave his hair and beard and without them his wrinkles seemed more pronounced. He was wearing large grey cotton running trousers and an even large moth-eaten black trench coat. This just served to make the always thin man look exceptionally frail. Only those bright blue eyes that still shone with power reminded Marcus of the man that Albus Dumbledore had once been.

 

Dumbledore sat down beside him, ‘ah, Marcus, my boy.’

 

Marcus grimaced but was saved from answering them thanks to a middle-aged couple walking past them. They didn’t so much as glance their way and if they had what would they see? A grandfather and grandson going for a walk most likely.

 

‘Dumbledore,’ sneered Marcus. ‘My father has received an invitation to celebrate the Dark Prince’s-‘

 

‘-Dark Prince, is that what they are calling young Harry now,’ Dumbledore sounded vaguely amused. ‘And you were saying.’

 

Marcus felt a little peeved at the old fool’s nonchalance – did Dumbledore not understand how much Marcus was risking by just talking to Albus Dumbledore! If he was found out the Dark Lord would kill him! And not even his father would do anything to help him, even if he was so inclined to which given his precious new sons was rather unlikely.

 

‘As I was saying! The Dark Prince will be celebrating his pregnancy and the continuation of the Dark Lord’s line with a feast,’ Marcus said.

 

‘Will you be able to attend?’ Dumbledore asked looking more animated than Marcus had seen him in years.

 

Marcus nodded, ‘families of Death Eaters have been invited to come. Due to the fact I am known to be back in the country it would be embarrassing should I not attend an event like this – my father has demanded that I be in attendance.’

 

Dumbledore smiled and it seemed to take decades off of his face ‘meet me here again this time next week and I shall give you a wardborer and all you need to do is place it at a weak-point in the wards and it will create a gap large enough that will allow me to get in. The wardborer will glow red when it reaches a weak-point.’