Nose to the Wind // tomarry

Chapter 24: Your Razorblade Caress of Love

Given how obvious he was about having spies in the Realm of Death, it really wasn't that much of a surprise when, a couple of days after Lily returned home, James pulled him aside and asked, "Will we know if any Russians get it into their heads to try something like this again?"

"Absolutely," Harry promised, because while he might not have enough spies to place on every one of Golubev's followers, the death of the man who'd had his mother had given them the names of anyone clever or high-ranking enough to mastermind something like the Diagon Alley attack, and Harry had immediately sent almost two-thirds of his European spies to cover those people.

When he finally managed to convince himself his family would be fine if he left for a couple of hours, not quite a full week after the attack, he found the dark lord glaring at a too-large pile of paper stacked on the edge of his desk. "Trouble?" he asked, and he hated how tiny his voice sounded.

Tom looked up, his glare smoothing out into something fonder. "Only in that I suddenly have so many more reports to read through; how ever do you manage to keep up with your multitude of spies?"

"Ah." Harry stepped forward and picked the first parchment off the pile, trying not to be surprised when Tom didn't make any move to stop him. "A bit of delegating – there are plenty among the dead who were high ranking members of the military or government, or otherwise had to deal with incoming reports – and a bit of trusting that those I set to spying are clever enough to know when they see or hear something that I need to know about, and when it's something they can keep to themselves. Would you like help?"

Tom eyed him for a moment. "Do you know the code my people use?"

"No," Harry admitted, because he'd never cared enough to learn how any version of the dark lord communicated with his people. "But I'm a quick enough study."

"Doubtless," Tom muttered as he waved his wand to summon Harry a chair, "you'll have found a way to learn it in time."

"Possibly. I have no particular interest in standing at the head of an army again, but I do have the experience, and I think we can both agree that this work will go faster with two pairs of eyes."

"It's not as though you don't have your own means of discovering anything in these reports," Tom added, and Harry shrugged and nodded, because that was very likely true. "I do ask, however, that you avoid going off after whoever had your mother captive, should their name come up."

"Of course," Harry agreed.

Tom narrowed his eyes. "They're already dead," he guessed.

Harry shrugged. "Some nonhumans the man had captured and been torturing may have found a way to get free."

Tom watched him for a long moment, during which Harry practised his best enigmatic smile, before snorting and leaning forward, eyes moving down to the parchment Harry had taken from the pile. "At least it won't be tied back to the kidnapping. Now, for the code..."

Harry was indeed a quick study, and he had the benefit of knowing how the dark lord's mind worked, so it didn't take them but another hour to get through the pile.

"Are you intending to come by every night, now?" Tom asked as he stood and stretched, his back making an unpleasant cracking noise.

Harry shrugged. "I might pop by more often once term starts; for obvious reasons, I'm not particularly fond of leaving my family for extended periods of time."

Tom was quiet for a moment, presumably debating how best to respond to that, before he stepped around the desk and caught Harry's hand, using it to pull him upwards. "How is your mother?"