Chapter Text
“It’s four galleons nightly, and double that for our weekly rate.”
Harry looked across the desk at the spiffy receptionist. He had planned for this. “I’d like to pay in advance. Is that possible?”
“Entirely,” said the receptionist, “for how long?”
“Let’s start with one month.”
The receptionist, a thin man with neat mousy hair and an even neater uniform of chartreuse, pressed flawlessly down to the coattails, and a shining brass nametag reading W. STERLING. His eyes shone with greed. “Certainly,” he said, “But a long-term stay requires a fee.”
“How much?”
“Fourteen sickles per month.”
“I’ve got that.”
"And your identification.”
I’ve got that too, thought Harry, retrieving the false papers from his breastpocket. Harry James Waterhouse, born 1921—making him twenty-three years of age in October of 1944. British, wealthy, passive income overseeing preservation of antiques and peculiar objects.
The receptionist licked his lips as Harry paid what was required, as well as the fee. He grasped a winged key from the air and handed it over. “Enjoy your stay at the Nordlicht Hotel, sir.”
Harry went upstairs, bypassing the chatter of the lobby, and laid on the bed with his clothes and shoes on, in the dark.
It was a very nice hotel, almost entirely undisturbed by the Muggle War. Tucked away in the Swiss Alps, wizardkind sought refuge at the Nordlicht Hotel & Resort—if they could afford it.
Harry turned down the sheets, Egyptian cotton. He lit a candle and kept it on the holder. He opened the curtain and gazed at the dimming sunlight behind the mountains, and the people on the grounds below. Lovers in an embrace, women in equestrian gear walking jauntily across the grass, men in fur collars sipping espresso outside the bistro. He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. Harry closed the curtain.
At breakfast tomorrow, he would begin finding William Potzdorf.
Harry was anxious the next day, eating quickly and simultaneously labelling himself as a foreigner. He scanned the grand dining room, from the chandelier to the brocade rug and in between, looking over his shoulder, for Herr Potzdorf, but was unlucky.
He saw someone else—for an instant, sitting upright and alone though the smoky haze of the dining room— but the spectre was gone in a blink of Harry’s eyes.
William Potzdorf was three times a widower, who had lived an idle life of largess. He was highly educated and formerly an accomplished Quidditch player.
He also owned the Maltese Falcon, an invaluable artefact, destroyed in ‘46.
The Ministry of 2005 desperately wanted to recover it.
Harry knew he had it, and that he had it at the Nordlicht. Potzdorf certainly hadn’t left it in Germany, with the state of things.
Harry was willing to do whatever it took to obtain the Falcon.
It would be suspicious for his arrival to coincide with the disappearance of an invaluable object. So, after considerable lurking, he found himself on the veranda at the Nordlitch, watching the ski lift go up the mountain in the distance. He had spent the days ingratiating himself with his surroundings and was aware of the impression he gave: subdued, wealthy, polite-mannered but not very bright with a pink nose and a fur collar at the hotel restaurant. He made himself unassuming. He allowed the restaurant staff to charge him more than necessary and spoke in a poor drivel of Swedish-German-English.
His efforts had consumed him. Harry was running out of time. Through his glasses, he caught sight of Potzdorf, finally, finally. A jolly, considerable man across the many white-tablecloth tables. His watchchain must have been several feet long to encompass such a distended waist, reflective of his general largess. He was eating braised duck, clinking his glassware and flirting in an overconfident way with the young waitress for a man his age. A cigar the size of a candlestick burned away in the ashtray.
Now was the time to move.
Harry put his glasses in his pocket and stood, blinking against the dry at the blurry world before him. This way, it would be easier.
Making certain his gloves were tight around his fingers, he went stalking between the tables.
He could hear Potzdorf’s voice, “---like my late wife! But was it my first, or my second? I–er–I positively can't remember! Adored cats my…first…wife,” said the old man in an unsure way, “Hungarian. Too bad she became so allergic. That’s what killed her.”
Harry drew nearer, and at the right moment, he stepped sideways onto the dangling fabric of the tablecloth, dishes and silverware toppling off the tableside and onto the floor with a riotous clatter.
Harry turned around. “Oh, forgive me!” he said too soon. Behind his back, he surreptitiously dropped his glasses to the ground.
Potzdorf blinked in a watery, senile way and looked up at Harry. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Forgive me, sir,” Harry said imploringly, “I am so very sorry. I’ve lost my glasses—”
The blurry shapes of people were watching the fiasco from the corners of their eyes, some pointed rudely. A host came out from the huge glass doors of the restaurant and began asking questions in German with barely-contained aggression.
Perfect. British idiot. Britischer Trottel. Gabby, old codger. Everything was happening as it should.
“I”m terribly sorry,” Harry said again, laying it on thick. Potzdorf said nothing, stunned, but he stood up and looked around himself. This was Harry’s opportunity. In his reticent apologies, he bowed his head low and snatched the roomkey from Potzdorf’s trouser pocket. He doubted anyone noticed. Potzdorf was barely above comatose—
“Mister,” said a voice. It was the waitress.
Harry froze, the key clenched in his fist. He turned toward the sound.
“This your glasses?” She held the lenses between two fingers. The host was still going on, muttering. Several elves had appeared to banish the mess, shivering in their rags around several pairs of feet.
“What’s going on?” said Potzdorf again.
“Something has been broken,” said the host in accented English.
“Broken?” said Potzdorf. “No matter. I’ll pay for it.” He motioned to retrieve his wallet.
“Thank you,” said Harry to the waitress, and placed his glasses back on his nose, staring at a single thumbprint on the lens.
He breathed out, and began again. “I am so very sorry,”
“Sorry?” said Potzdorf. “You English. You are English, correct?”
Harry nodded, accidentally tethering himself to conversation with this old bat.
A new tablecloth and place setting was conjured. The German host began once again, muttering low apologies in Potzdorf’s ear. Potzdorf blinked his filmy blue eyes. “Den Mund halten!” he barked, and the host shut up. “I’m trying to talk to this young man!” He turned back to Harry, smiling. “You English will apologize for breathing.” Herr Potzdorf sat heavily back down on the chair. Harry clenched his fist harder around the key. “What a crisis,” the old man said cluelessly, and then scrutinized Harry. “What are you standing there for? It’s all forgotten.”
Harry realized he had been staring. “Ich danke Ihnen,” he said, dazed.
“No,” said Potzdorf, unfolding his napkin. Clearly, he would go on eating. “Ich danken Ihnen.”
Harry turned and walked, with his hands in his pockets, back into the restaurant, the stuffy air prickling his cold face.
It wouldn’t be long before Potzdorf noticed his key was gone, and waddled to the front desk for another. The receptionist, Sterling, would give him a spare, from his endless supply. The receptionist would also lick his lips and perspire in greed. Harry knew something the receptionist didn’t, that the International Confederation of Wizards had an open file on him for extortion and theft, and he would be arrested in a year’s time. What was one more charge?
Harry’s visit would also coincide with Potzdorf’s death in the hotel. Unexpected heart attack early the next morning, nice and clean. He could harmlessly enter Potzdorf’s room and get away with the Falcon—no witnesses.
Harry laid on his bed without turning the covers down once again. He couldn’t take the Falcon and then flee. He would have to hide it until his month at the Nordlicht resort ran out, an unsuspicious, comfortable vacation. It was skeevy business, yes, but soon the artefact would be where it should be in the present, and he would be Auror Potter once again in his office at the Ministry. Back to photo-ops and grand openings and paparazzi following him around corners in Wizarding London.
He quite liked being left alone. Here. In October of 1944.
At midnight, he wrapped the invisibility cloak around himself, and walked, heels coming down softly on the long oriental rug, to Potzdorf’s suite. The hotel was quiet and dim, an abyss of orangish candlelight. Harry stilled his breathing. A distant celebration cawed and cried out from one part of the hotel, and Harry fell totally still in the middle of the hallway.
A woman in a fur hat and coat was walking alone, looking irritable. Not long after she passed Harry, trailing the smell of talcum powder and perfume, a man reeled around the corner and followed after her, slurring apologies in Italian.
Harry let them pass and walked on. When he arrived, he lingered outside Potzdorf’s door, his back to the wall, and stuck his hand from cloak for an instant. Very carefully, tooth by tooth, he sunk the key into the lock, and turned.
It gave way completely, unlocked.
He couldn’t hear any motion in the room. The windbag had left the door unlocked, despite the DO NOT DISTURB sign.
Harry creaked the door open.
Momentarily blinking in the darkness, he pushed his glasses a little farther up his nose. Potzdorf’s room was far larger than his own. Large glass doors opened to a balcony, Harry shivered in the cold night air. A table was laden with a late, half-eaten dinner: one huge soup bowl, one huge dinner plate. And the cutlery was on the floor. It seems Potzdorf was immune to having a peaceful meal. Harry crept closer still into the room, shutting the door behind him.
On the other side of the table, the chair was overturned. The tablecloth was stained with broth. A struggle.
Someone else had been here.
The bed was vacant. Potzdorf was not on the chaise, or in the chair, or on the sofa. He was nowhere to be found. The bedclothes were strewn around the floor, the feather pillows split open. Split open too were the couch cushions like a gash in the flesh. The bed was stripped and batting had been removed from the mattress like innards. Harry’s heart beat hard in his chest. Someone else had been here. Without thinking, he cast the cloak down on the bed.
A trail of gray goose down led to the bathroom, Harry noticed, of which the door was halfway closed. The bathtub was running like the whooshing in his ears of his own blood, and the light was turned on, throwing through the crack a yellow blade across the carpet that crept up the wall and the curtains and the bedpost.
Again, Harry crept, this time toward the bathroom door, and didn’t notice yet that his shoes squished on the damp carpet. He cast a silencing charm on the hinges and pushed the door open without a sound.
There was a man, with his back to Harry, in a dark suit wet up to the knees and elbows. On the tile floor was a thin amount of water from the overflowing tub, the bathmat nearly floating. Toiletries had been scraped off the countertops, cologne bottles broken open and perfuming the air.
The man with his back turned went on, unaware of Harry’s presence, rummaging through a suitcase. Sopping piles of shirts, sock garters, and dinner jackets were on the floor. Apparently enraged, the man threw the suitcase from the floor to the bathtub, where William Potzdorf lay dead and half naked with open eyes. This was no heart attack.
In a moment, Harry stepped toward the man, jutting his wand into the stranger’s jugular. The man froze.
Harry’s heart was beating very quickly. Not since school had he crept around like this, not since the war had he been so thrilled. “Hands up,” he said quietly to the man.
The man’s hands flew into the air, one hand grasping his wand.
Harry pressed harder with his own wand into the man’s neck. “Drop your wand,” he said.
The piece of wood was falling to the wet floor, Harry summoned it in midair and shoved it inside his jacket pocket in one motion. His watch slipped down his arm. “Who are you?”
“Let me go.”
Harry prodded his wand further into the man’s neck. “Answer me.”
“I’ve killed people,” said the man. “I killed that fellow there, a few minutes ago, so I suggest you let me go. Or you’ll be next—”
“Shut up,” said Harry. He was thinking of what to do, but he needed to think faster. He took a step backward, water sloshing. The noise of falling water from the faucet jackhammered his head. “Turn around, and keep your hands in the air,” he said.
The man sighed, water dripping past his cufflinks and down his sleeves. With the turn of his head, Harry was struck cold. It was the face from another man’s memory, the face belonging to a spirit clinging to the pages of a diary. The black hair, the pointed cheeks, the square jaw.
Tom Riddle.
He looked back at Harry, his young face devoid of recognition. His hair was scraped back and black and damp, a droplet of water or sweat rolled down his face and into his collar. He looked at Harry with narrow eyes, his lithe body undulating for a few seconds in that empty bathroom like a charmed snake. “I’ve killed people,” he said again, his eyes darting to the tub. “I’ll have no problem killing you either.”
Harry was sweating cold, but his face was hot. His throat was closed all the way down to his stomach. He knew in an instant that they were after the same thing. “If you’ve got the Falcon,” he said, “Hand it over and forget about this.”
“I’d sooner curse you in the back,” Tom said.
“I’m a collector,” said Harry steadily,
The faucet was running on and on.
“So am I,” said Tom. He was like an angry, wet cat, but his aggression hid his pleading, which Harry saw right through. Clearly, Tom was unused to being on the wrong end of a wand. “So we both know the value of this object.”
“Is it money you want?” Harry demanded. For once he felt desperate. He had never again expected to cross paths with Lord Voldemort. “I’ll pay you off, and we’ll forget about this.”
“It’s priceless,” said Tom. “But–”
“Then give it to me for free and forget this.”
“It’s not here, you bastard!” Tom said. “I can’t find it.”
Harry came closer once more and put the tip of his wand against Tom’s face. “You’re lying.”
White with rage, Tom spoke through his teeth, “If I had it, I wouldn’t be wasting time turning this fool’s bathroom into a swimming pool.”
This was terribly, terribly bad. Clearly, Tom had torn the room apart short of blasting the walls to splinters, and the Falcon was, had to have been, gone.
There was also the issue of Tom himself. Harry had to pacify him, regardless, because if Tom got hold of his wand, the resulting Priori Incantatem would blow apart the bathroom, and possibly alter the course of history.
If Tom did curse Harry in the back…Harry didn’t even want to fathom what would happen then.
“I know where it is,” Harry blurted. “The Falcon.”
After Potzdorf’s death, it was assumed—rightly—that someone had discreetly robbed his room, and from there the Maltese Falcon had fallen into the wrong hands.
Harry’s mind was racing. Historical assumptions had been wrong. Potzdorf, despite his senility, wouldn’t have been so stupid as to transport the Falcon to and fro Europe during the Muggle War, which meant it could only be in one place: hidden in Potzdorf’s ancestral home, miles away, in Berlin.
An active war zone.
Tom was incredulous, sneering, “You know? You liar. You pitiful animal. I don’t buy your attempts to spare yourself—”
“You’ve killed this man.” Harry said. His wand arm remained entirely extended. “The evidence is irrefutable.”
“You broke in as much as I,”
“Attempted robbery is a shorter sentence than murder. Especially with a confession.” When Harry didn’t return to the future, the Ministry would know. Somewhere, still, Albus was alive.
This was salvageable. He just had to get Tom to calm down.
“And you’re the only witness,” said Tom. “I just told you, you damned fool, I’ll curse you square in the back—”
“And kill the only man alive who knows where the Maltese Falcon is?” Harry said. He was shaking, inside, all of his muscles trembling in a mortifying rolling boil that didn’t quite reach the surface of his skin. “You’ve killed Potsdorf. He had no living children.”
Tom was palling by the moment.
Harry continued. “You’ve taken apart his room, and I’ll allow you to continue if you please. You won't find it.”
“If you're so sure of where it is, why are you here?”
“I wasn’t sure until this moment. I thought it was here as well, but it just can’t be.”
The water was still beating down from the faucet, still pouring over the side of the tub. It was humid, and wrapped around Harry’s body was an undistinguished haze of sweat and condensation, his glasses slightly foggy and his blood thrumming forcefully though his veins.
Very slowly, Tom began to run his hands down his face and through his hair, flattening it to his head.
“Stay still.”
“Shut up!”
There were moments of silence as Harry thought of what to do. He could flee, and call the Aurors. Tom could be arrested. By killing such a recognizable socialite, every single press in Europe would be inflamed, and his name would be infamous twenty years too early. The course of history could be altered if Harry didn’t . “If you want your wand back,” began Harry, “Go downstairs to the lobby. Find the receptionist with the nametag Sterling. Tell him that thirty-thousand galleons are waiting for him in Berlin.”
“Thirty-thousand—-”
“Do you want the Falcon or not?”
Tom sneered, and said nothing.
Go.” said Harry forcefully. “And don’t think I won’t be two steps behind you the entire time.”
He had to leave Potsdorf’s suite by whatever means. The room would be left as it was, and with any luck Sterling will have fled to Berlin by dawn, with a record that he procured a second key for Potsdorf’s room the evening prior. Harry would leave next, without dirtying his hands, to Berlin.
If he could just get Tom to move.
“Go!” Harry said in a harsh whisper, “Before water starts to drip from the ceiling below and some housekeeping witch is pounding down the door!”
Finally, with short, tentative steps, Tom began to splash through the water. Harry kept his wand trained on him without falter, until Tom’s back was in front of him. For good measure, Harry prodded his wand between Tom’s shoulder blades until they had cleared the bathroom. “Keep walking.”
Harry cast a drying charm on them both as soon as their feet left the flood of the bathroom. With Tom’s back turned, he summoned his cloak and hung it on his own arm so it would have no effect. They slipped from the room, and Harry closed the door until it latched, the DO NOT DISTURB sign swinging on the knob.
Harry was indeed very disturbed.
He put his wand partway into his sleeve, concealing it beneath his wrist, keeping his eyes trained on Tom’s back. He moved stiffly. Two men walking down the hallway, that’s all they were.
They descended the stairs, down the mezzanines to the ground floor lobby, trekking through the honey-colored glow of the Nordlicht. The walls were paneled with dark-stained wainscoting, inlaid with ivory in Art Deco patterns. It would have been more beautiful, if not for the weird candlelight reflections dancing among the woodgrain, the shapes sliding darkly down the walls as Harry walked on.
Tom tried to ask questions. Harry answered every one in a similar fashion: Shut up if you want your wand back.
They encountered no one. There were no footsteps but their own, coming down softly on the long, oriental rugs.
Harry led Tom on like a cattle driver to the front desk, hoping that W. Sterling would be on duty to take the bait. He pictured him, over and over, standing in the vacated lobby as if he could will it to be. They descended the final staircase, footsteps ringing out on floor tiles in the empty lobby. Harry hung back as far as he could to minimize suspicion, as if there was anyone around to be suspicious. They walked between dozens of pillars, past empty lobby furniture, past huge windows—black and vacant to the frigid night outside.
The desk came into view. Unmistakably, the figure of W. Sterling stood very straight, like a punctilious beanpole. Harry lingered, and, throwing his jacket tails behind him, took a seat near the desk, his back only slightly turned, looking straight ahead yet peering out from his peripheral vision.
Tom kept walking toward the desk. He heard Sterling’s high, drawling voice, and Tom’s low, suspicious one.
Yes, sir? Muttering. No, sir, I don’t suppose, sir… More, low garbled speech. In his straining ears, Harry could still hear the big band from the party, droning on in drums and brass.
Silence from the receptionist. The talking went on, and Harry crept away, concealing himself with the cloak until he was directly around a corner.
Lie in wait, he thought. The hotel lobby was astoundingly large and quiet with no one crowding it. It would have made another man anxious. Harry never checked his watch, just stared ahead until he heard footsteps—-Tom. Unveiling himself before Tom turned the corner, they came face-to-face again in the dull near-silence.
Tom looked nervously over his shoulder. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I told you. I’m a collector.”
“What’s your name?”
“Waterhouse.”
Tom’s eyes glimmered black with suspicion, “I don’t know any guildsmen named Waterhouse—” he said proudly.
“I’m an independent.”
“You idiot, so am I!”
“Don’t fool me,” Harry said, "I know you. You're that clerk.”
Tom swallowed.
Harry looked back at him unblinking, placid and Occluded as a still pond, the depths invisible.
“I’m Tom,” said Tom, “Tom Riddle.”
“With any luck, Tom,” Harry began, “That receptionist will be off to Berlin by morning. He’ll take the fall for the robbery.”
“How very keen of you. I want my wand back now,” said Tom petulantly, “I’ve had enough formalities.”
“I’ve saved us both from murder charges,” Harry said, taking Tom’s wand from his jacket pocket, “But I’ll throw you in the way of a lot more. Remember Lady Yaxley? How would she feel if she knew that Mesoamerican jewelry she had you appraise had been duped, and the originals you’re using at collateral on the black market?”
“I—”
“I can lead you to the Falcon. All the blame will fall on Whitworth Sterling. Neither of us are in it for the money.” He held Tom’s wand out to him, aiming the tip toward the latter’s chest in a gesture that would have otherwise been unthreatening. “Just do as I say.”
He’d never let Tom actually get his hands on the Maltese Falcon, but seeming to do so could stand between himself and Tom’s wrath. God knows how many people he had killed by then, and the lengths he had gone to to obtain what he desired by his formidable will.
“Fine,” said Tom, taking the wand. He didn’t strike, and he wouldn't yet. Harry knew him to be more clever. “Just tell me.”