Chapter Text
Chapter Twenty-Five
Harry didn’t think he had ever seen Theta’s eyes so wide. They had all long ago learned to hold back their emotions, to not reveal what they were feeling. But at his announcement to contact the other Letters, even Zeta had frozen and barely looked to be breathing. It felt like if anyone moved or made a sound, it would break the moment. Destroy their hope.
Finally, it was Theta who had the courage to take the plunge. “A? You… truly mean that? We’ll get the Letters back together?” Harry knew the other teen well enough to know that hope had leeched into Theta’s voice.
“Do you think it is safe, A?” Zeta spoke up next when Harry didn’t reply right away.
With a small inclination of his head, Harry allowed himself a little smile. “Letters were always loyal to Letters first above all.” It had been years since he had seen them, but he would still trust them with his life. He had been close to the other squad leaders, having trained beside them the most when they were growing up. They might not have always been able to show how close they were, but they had been steady companions. They all did what they could for each other, stood against the rest of Legio together. Harry had kept tabs on the other squads as best as he could while trying to keep off of Legio’s radar. They’d done well for themselves, though it was time to get the family back together.
Harry picked up a sandwich triangle and then looked between his two teammates. “To face Thief and his cronies, we’ll need reliable soldiers. Who better than those we grew up with?”
“And we’ll finally get them out from underneath Legio’s hand,” Theta muttered as he sat back, his own plate gripped between both of his hands. “How will you contact them?”
At the question, Harry took a bite of his sandwich. Theta grumbled, but started on his food as well. Once he had finally swallowed, Harry set down his plate and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to uncover his right forearm. “With this,” he said simply. He waved his hand over his forearm to reveal a piece of ink that hadn’t been there before.
Theta immediately set his plate aside as well and leaned forward in interest so he could inspect the raven and its intricate lines. “Is it like the Thief’s Dark Mark?” He asked curiously.
“No,” Harry responded. “From what Thorgeirr’s been able to gather, the Dark Marks are soul brands. They link the Thief’s followers to him and he can use them to punish them, or compel them to run to his side.” He looked down at his forearm and the details of his tattoo. Within the lines were hidden the Greek lowercase letters for alpha, beta, delta, gamma, and epsilon. “Our tattoos are just forms of communication.” He pressed his finger against the mark and gathered up a bit of his will. He pushed it into the tattoo to activate it.
Showing the others the mark then, they were able to watch as the letter for his name changed in colour. A dark charcoal grey rather than the deep black it had been previously. It was subtle, but the others would be able to feel the change. Even Epsilon, who had no magic of her own, had one of the tattoos. A blank ribbon in the raven’s talons suddenly filled with light grey lettering, it lasted barely a few moments before it disappeared. It was the coordinates for one of his safehouses. The other squad leaders would be able to reveal their tattoos, and the coordinates, when they were in a safe position to do so.
“I’ve never seen it before. On any of you. When did you get it done?” Theta asked as he lifted his eyes away from the ink.
Harry covered the mark again and then leaned back in his seat. “Delta specialized in magical tattooing,” he revealed. “You’ve seen his marks? They’re more than just decoration.” His first, and most visible one, had been the collar like one about his throat. It had been later that he had revealed that he had imbued magic in the markings and had trained beneath a magical master during one of his squad’s long missions. “We all got them not long after, though we made sure to hide them from Capitán.” He took another bite out of his sandwich.
Theta nodded slowly and then exchanged a look with Zeta. “What is that location?” He asked when he turned his eyes back on Harry.
Once he had swallowed again, Harry gave a brief smile. “I have a safehouse in Cusco, Peru. We’ll meet them there.” It was a small one and one that he didn’t mind abandoning if things went sideways. He trusted the other Letters, but there would always be the possibility that things had changed. Or Capitán might catch on and send a tail after one of the squads no matter how careful they were. They were good, but still human.
“When will we meet them?” Zeta asked, so Harry’s eyes slid over to her.
“Everyone will arrive as soon as they are able,” he replied back. “But it will likely take a few days before we’ll all be able to gather.” They would want to get there first though to make sure that they wouldn’t walk into a trap. Just in case.
Theta groaned suddenly. “We only just got here and now we have to get moving again, don’t we? Why even come here?” There was a whine to the teen’s voice, though he gave Harry a little smile to show that he wasn’t actually complaining.
“This will still be our main base,” Harry said simply. “We’ll return soon. I wanted the chance to strengthen the wards.” That way they wouldn’t return to any surprises. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
Both of the other two nodded, though Theta gave another groan. “I’ll pack the necessities and then get some rest. Try to get some sleep, A?”
Harry couldn’t make any promises so he didn’t respond. He only finished off his sandwich and then set the plate on the low table in front of him. Theta sighed, but didn’t press. He only stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and then got up to prepare a small pack. Harry watched him leave and then turned his attention to Zeta. He raised an eyebrow at her even stare, but then she only shook her head and stood up to collect their plates.
“Sleep, Alpha,” she told him sternly as she made her way into the kitchen.
He couldn’t promise that he’d sleep, but Harry finally relented. “I’ll try,” he said back. Zeta gave a nod as she knew that was the best she was going to get. As she quietly puttered around in the kitchen, Harry called upon the wards to examine them and strengthen them. He referenced his new knowledge of runes to help him, though it was still rudimentary at best. Still, it was very late by the time he finished. Or perhaps very early. Harry checked his watch and allowed a small sigh. Dawn would be in a few hours, but he still needed to pack a new bag from his duffel. Then he’d try for some sleep, just as he had promised.
In the quiet of the apartment, Harry found a backpack in one of the cupboards. He pulled a few things from his duffel and put them into the pack before he stashed his duffel away for when they came back to the apartment. He quietly dropped the backpack down near the door and then went to lay himself out on the couch. Theta and Zeta had retreated into the bedroom, but he didn’t want to disturb them if they had been able to sleep. So he pulled the blanket off of the back of the couch and made himself comfortable. With just a couple of hours left before dawn, Harry allowed himself to relax enough to sleep.
With only those few hours of sleep, Harry got them out the door just after dawn. He took them outside Aberdeen and then accessed the magical highway from a remote hillside. They looked like tourists as they traveled by foot to the location that Theta had stashed his vehicle. It would be the quickest way to move over the ocean road since they had a long journey ahead of them. Much faster than any mundane means of transportation.
Theta hopped into the driver’s seat and Harry took the passenger’s one. Zeta stashed their bags in the seat next to her as she climbed into the back. Once they were on their way, she passed out little boxes of food for them since they hadn’t eaten anything before they had left. Harry opened his box to find a breakfast wrap and some dried fruit. It warmed something in his chest to know that Zeta had taken an interest in something as mundane as cooking. She was getting really good at it too and Harry had to wonder if she had been able to trade pointers with Thorgeirr in the short time she had been at the man’s apartment. Perhaps one day.
Harry found himself watching out the window as they entered the ocean highway. The magical road slipped beneath the waves of the water, so the world around them seemed to take on a green hue. The sun provided light from above, but it was strange with how it was filtered through the water. Flashes of silver darted past the magical tunnel as sunlight reflected off of schools of passing fish. As they continued to drive through the ocean, they even spotted a pod of whales as they swam sedately by.
“These are always my favourite roads to travel,” Theta commented quietly as a giant sea serpent twirled around the tunnel barrier and then swam off. “I feel privileged to see the mythical creatures especially.” Harry hummed his agreement.
Even with the speed of travel that the roads provided them, it was still hours before they finally drew close to Cusco. But with the time difference, it felt almost like they had gone back in time. When they had left Aberdeen, it had been early morning. When they reached Cusco, it was early morning in the region. Regardless, it would make it easier to move about unseen.
“It’s colder than I expected,” Theta muttered as he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down lower. They had just exited the highway and had appeared on the outskirts of the city. It was still early morning here, so the city was quiet. “I don’t think I’ve been here before.” Theta was looking around in curiosity, though he was also trying not to draw attention to them from the few people that wandered about. “I’d like to come back sometime and actually take the chance to explore.”
Harry didn’t look at his companions as he adjusted his backpack over his shoulder. “It’s a beautiful city. A long history,” he said and ducked into an alley. When the other two followed after him, he led the way through the city down alleyways and smaller paths that were less likely to be populated as the city started to wake up. He finally turned down one of the narrow cobbled streets and led the way to a doorway that was painted a cheerful blue. Above the wooden door set in its archway was a window with a small balcony. Harry unlocked the door and pinged the wards. It told him that he had been the last person to access the apartment about a year ago. Good.
Once they entered the apartment, Harry dropped down his backpack and then straightened back up. “I want to check over the wards,” he told them. “Make yourselves comfortable.” He knew they needed time still to prepare themselves for seeing the other Letters again. Though the leaders were likely to come alone rather than bring their whole squads. The squads would likely be nearby, but only the leaders would come to the apartment.
Harry made his way to the exact centre of the apartment and steadied his breathing so it was even. He reached out his hands then and gathered his will, his magic. The wards appeared like a spiderweb, strings of magic that only Harry seemed to understand. He spread his fingers so that the strings wrapped around them and then tugged to test them. He spent time like that as he tugged on the various strings. He could feel Theta’s curious eyes on him even as Zeta started to move about the room. He knew she was mapping it out and making note of its exits, its weaknesses.
Once he finished, Harry dismissed the magic with a sharp twist of his hands. The glowing threads faded away, though he could still feel the faint hum of them on the edges of his awareness. He ignored them and instead went to pick up his bag again. He brought it over to the dining table and unzipped the main pouch. Harry dragged out a rolled up map and spread it out over the table. It was a topographical map of the British Isles, though it also showed cities and settlements. The map had been charmed to show the magical highway and other magical areas of Great Britain. Along with a few other features. Harry went to brush his fingers over the runes that had been inscribed along the edges of the paper, but he paused as a thought came to him.
He had been using his birth name, but he wasn’t Harry Potter here, was he? He was Alpha again, about to face the other Letters again. It was a mantle that was much more comfortable than Harry Potter was proving to be and it was one he wanted to be when he met with the other Letters. So Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He searched down inside of himself and wrapped the familiar persona of Alpha around himself again. He hated Legio and what they had done to him, but it was what he was most comfortable with. So when he opened his eyes again, Alpha had tucked Harry Potter deep away inside of a locked room of his Playground mindscape.
Across from him, Theta approached the table and tilted his head a little as he regarded Alpha. He gave a toothy grin then and nodded. “Welcome back, Alpha.”
Alpha held back a smile. Theta certainly knew him too well. He gave the other teen a nod and then brushed his fingers over the runes on the edges of the map, magic a spark on his fingertips. They flashed briefly and then a ghostly image of the map seemed to rise off of the paper it had been contained on. It was like a hologram from one of the books that Theta enjoyed, vaguely see-through with a soft glow. When it was like this, Alpha was able to zoom in on the image and make notations on it if needed.
There were a few markings that glowed a faint red rather than the grey-blue the rest of the map was coloured. “What are these?” Theta asked as he dropped his hands onto the table and leaned in to inspect one of the marks.
“Known Deatheater bases,” Alpha replied. “Thorgeirr’s sources were able to confirm frequent activity within the various establishments or residences.”
Theta hummed softly and reached out to zoom in on a manorhouse in the middle of nowhere. “Thorgeirr’s intelligence network is impressive,” he remarked.
“It will be essential to track the Thief’s movements,” Alpha agreed.
It was then that the door to the bedroom opened and Zeta joined them again. “Does Thorgeirr have any information on Thief’s current location?”
When she joined them, Alpha crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his hip against the table. “Not yet. Thief doesn’t seem to step outside at all. If he’s moving between locations, he’s taking the floo or using apparition points from within them. He’s not using any other modes of transportation. He’s being careful not to be tracked.”
“We would benefit from a mole,” Theta remarked as he straightened up. “Bring someone to our side, or plant one in his ranks.”
The idea did have merit. It would be more reliable to insert a mole into Thief’s ranks, but it would require Thorgeirr’s help. The Letters were no stranger to undercover work, but the wizarding world was a whole other ballgame. They had to send in someone who had magic, but also someone who had more experience in the pureblood circles. Alpha wouldn’t be surprised if Thorgeirr was already making preparations for such a move, but he would pass along the message. Blaise or Theo might also have an idea of someone they might approach to bring over to their side.
Alpha straightened then when he felt a ping against his wards. Each one of them had their own signature, a certain sort of flavour to their magic. Even Epsilon had her own signature by having an echo of one. The one who was at the door was Gamma, the oldest of the squad leaders. He’d be twenty-three now, wouldn’t he? Alpha wondered how he had changed.
Not wanting the man to linger on the doorstep, Alpha reached out and curled his fingers slightly. It opened the wards long enough for Gamma to slip through. A moment later he could hear footsteps on the stairs, a conscious move by Gamma to announce himself to Alpha’s team. It was an unspoken token of trust to let the others know where he was. It eased a fraction of the tension that Alpha felt in his shoulders. He turned to face the door as Zeta and Theta went to flank his sides. They stood at rest, their hands behind their backs. Alpha knew they had weapons close at hand, just as he did.
When the door opened, the man that stepped through still had a young face that Alpha would recognize anywhere. But Gamma had changed, his face not as soft as it had been when he was a teen. And the man had gained more muscle while a dark shadow of a beard adorned his jaw. The man’s dark hair was still long and tied into many tight braids, just as Alpha remembered, but there were beads threaded into them now. Alpha thought they might be enchanted. A pale scar cut through his brow now and along his cheek, prominent against his dark skin. Though Alpha realized that he was as tall as Gamma now, perhaps even taller.
Gamma’s stern eyes trailed over Alpha and then the two behind him, first over Zeta and then other Theta. Alpha knew the older Letter was inspecting them as he picked out their changes. Gamma then met Alpha’s gaze head on. “That last mission. You lost Eta and Iota,” he stated without question, his voice deeper than Alpha remembered. It rumbled like the heralding thunder of a storm.
“Yes,” Alpha responded simply, his expression carefully clear. “We were rushed into the mission with poor intel.”
At the answer, Gamma suddenly snorted and his face relaxed a fraction. “That seems to be a standard for the missions that Capitán passes along to the Letters. We always seem to get the missions that have poorly done intel or have little time to prepare. That hasn’t changed. It’ll never change.” He stepped forward then and reached out a hand. Alpha didn’t hesitate to grab it, though he wasn’t quite prepared for when Gamma pulled him in close and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Welcome back, Alpha,” he whispered for the younger man’s ears.
When they pulled back, Gamma looked them over again. “The others will be glad to see you all again.” His gaze returned to Alpha. “But why now?” Gamma’s eyes flickered over to the map that was still spread out over the table in the next moment.
Alpha allowed a small smile and turned his head a little to glance at the map out of the corner of his eye, Gamma still in his sight. “Needed your help. And thought it was time we got the family back together.”
“And defy Legio.”
The statement drew Alpha’s full attention again as he faced Gamma. “Yes,” he said it simply, firmly. He tilted his head a fraction then as he studied Gamma’s expression. “We all knew it was going to happen one day, didn’t we? It’s the promise we made to each other when Delta gave us the tattoos. It should happen before we lose anyone else.”
Gamma’s expression darkened and his eyes slid away from Alpha. “I lost Omi. We lost Omikron. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
The look in Gamma’s eyes, that pain of loss, Alpha knew intimately. He reached out and placed his hand on the older Letter’s shoulder. “I know,” he whispered. “We’ll honour them. Omikron. Eta. Iota. We’ll honour them by protecting what’s left of our family. We’ll honour all of the Numbers we have lost.”
After he placed his own hand over Alpha’s, Gamma took a deep breath and relaxed his expression again. “You’re right.” A small smirk quirked his lips then. “Though you should know that Beta has been angry with you.”
“For supposedly dying?” Alpha could see it. The Spanish girl had been closest in age to him and she had been the friendliest of the other leaders towards him.
Gamma gave a low chuckle and pulled away from Alpha. “Basically. Watch yourself when she gets here.”
Of course. “As if that’s in question,” Alpha said as he watched Gamma walk over and drop down onto the couch. “I’m surprised you’re here so early. Thought it would have been at least another day.”
“We were in the area,” Gamma said. “Bit north. Xi is taking care of things for me.” He gave a little quirk of his lips then. “You’ve really grown up, Alpha.”
Alpha could practically feel the way that Theta and Zeta both relaxed. Zeta moved over to the kitchen then, though she always kept an eye on each of them. Theta moved towards the couch as well as he eyed Gamma. “How are they? Xi? Pi and Rho?” It was a question that Alpha wanted the answers to as well. He had become closest to his own squad, close to the other leaders. But Letters like Xi, Pi, and Rho were still all family. He had still missed them.
“They’re good,” Gamma said. “Knowing you’re alive, Pi’s going to want to challenge you to a sharpshooting match, Theta. See if she’s surpassed you.” Theta had been the best sniper amongst all of them and that was what earned him his place on Alpha squad. The snipers of each squad had a friendly competition going to see if they could surpass each other and Theta was not exempt from it.
At the challenge, second hand as it was, Theta gave a bright grin that was full of teeth. “Oh, I still reign supreme,” he said as took his usual perch on the back of the couch. “But I’d be happy to show her how much she’ll need to practice to ever beat me.”
As Gamma gave a low chuckle, Alpha made his way into the kitchen to join Zeta. Both of them still kept an ear on the conversation that Theta had struck with the dark skinned leader, but Alpha moved to help Zeta prepare food for them all. He had gotten some lessons from Thorgeirr, but relied on Zeta’s directions for what she wanted done. As they worked, Theta grilled Gamma for any details he was willing to give about how the Letters were doing. Gamma was tight lipped about other squads, but Alpha knew that he was doing it to give the other leaders the choice in how much they were willing to say.
“I heard there’s a new Alpha squad,” Theta finally stated. It caught Alpha’s full attention as he glanced up from where Zeta had him slicing vegetables. “What are they like?”
A dark looked passed over Gamma’s face that he could not fully hide. His expression cleared quickly, but Alpha already had the sense that he would not enjoy what Gamma would reveal. The older Letter seemed to feel Alpha’s gaze on him and lifted his eyes to him. “Capitán sent us to investigate when your squad didn’t return,” he said first. “Your magic blanketed the area and any bodies were burnt beyond recognition. When we returned to basecamp, I reported to Capitán you’d been killed by the explosion.”
“You didn’t know for sure,” Alpha stated.
A small smile curled one side of Gamma’s lips. “I didn’t think you would be killed so easily, though it’s not improbable. Even you are not infallible. If you were alive, then you had to have gone into hiding for a reason. I wasn’t going to expose that.”
Alpha gave the other leader a nod, his chest warm with gratitude. It was Gamma who had kept Legio off of their backs initially, allowed them to lick their wounds in peace. “I owe you,” he said.
At the statement, Gamma gave a little shrug. A small crease appeared in his brow then. “Capitán ordered us to silence. We couldn’t hide from the rest of Legio that your squad had been taken out, but Capitán didn’t want it getting out that his best squad had been defeated. So he selected a new Alpha squad from his best mercenaries.” Gamma went quiet. “They’re the reason we lost Omi.”
Something twisted in his chest then and the warmth he had felt became burning anger. Alpha’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the kitchen knife in his hand. “How?” The word was said lowly, a demand more than a question.
“We partnered with them for an op,” Gamma said immediately, a fire of his own in his eyes. “Took us somewhere in Africa. We were supposed to intercept a shipment of goods, but you know how it goes. Op went sideways. We got the shipment, but the new squad took it and left us behind.” Alpha could see the way that Gamma nearly growled then, his jaw clenched together. “Omi took two bullets, one to the throat. He bled out before we could get to safety long enough for me to treat him.”
Alpha clenched his own jaw, the situation uncomfortably familiar. “Iota was the first to die,” he said finally. “He took a bullet to the neck, just as Omi did. But he used a grenade and took a few of our enemies with him.” He’d never actually spoken about this in detail with anyone before. He and those who were left of his squad already had to live that night over and over in their dreams, so why put it out into the world with words? He hadn’t even described this in detail to Thorgeirr. “Eta took three bullets to the chest and went down. They went straight through his body armour.” Zeta stood stiffly next to him and Alpha could not look at her to offer her comfort. Theta had his head bowed, his knuckles white as he clasped his hands together between his thighs.
There was understanding in Gamma’s eyes, a shared grief at the loss of their comrades. “We’ll honour them,” Gamma echoed Alpha’s earlier words.
“We will,” Alpha said tightly and then forced his hand to relax around the kitchen knife. Beside him, Zeta started to move again as well. They finished making the meal in silence. Theta too had become quieter, but Gamma seemed to understand.
Once the food was ready, Alpha put away the map for now and they all sat down at the table to share the meal. Things started to relax then, so they started to reminisce over the few happy memories they all had together as first Numbers and then when they had become Letters. They stayed up long into the night as they got to know each other again in a place where they finally felt safe enough to be themselves.
Delta was the next to arrive once the new day dawned. The young man had grown out his hair and had it piled up in a messy bun. The twenty year old also had quite a few more tattoos than Alpha remembered, many of them in hanzi. The characters of Delta’s native tongue seemed nonsensical at first glance, but Alpha could guess that they had a magical significance like the runes he himself had started to learn. “Should have guessed that you’d be the first of us to run, Alpha,” was all Delta commented before he joined them.
Epsilon arrived next, a day later. She had cut her blonde hair short into a sort of pixie cut while she sported a new burn scar that stretched over her shoulder. It crept up her neck and onto her cheek as well. Epsilon looked over each of them critically before she stalked over to Alpha. The young woman smirked a little when she had to tilt her head up to look him in the eye. “Our little Alpha has all grown up,” she drawled and then dragged him into a hug. “Welcome home, Alpha.” She went over to Zeta then and pulled her off into a corner, presumably to catch up with the other woman.
Beta was the last to arrive. The Letters had been gathered around the table as they shared a meal together. Epsilon was regaling them with a story about a recovery mission her squad had done earlier that year. Alpha turned his head though when he felt the ping against the wards. Epsilon immediately went quiet, though remained relaxed. Alpha reached out to open the wards and let them close again when he heard Beta’s footsteps on the stairs. He stood up and away from the table.
When Beta entered the into the apartment, it was quiet. No one dared to move or say anything. Even Alpha remained quiet as he tried to gauge what Beta’s mood was like. As he examined her, he took the time to compare how she had grown. She was close in age to him, though would be about nineteen now. The tips of her hair had been dyed red the last time he had seen her. They still were, though her hair was much longer now and she had it in a single long plait down her back. The red was darker in colour now and looked almost like blood that dripped from the brown of her natural hair. Her eyes were just as fierce as he remembered.
“Alpha.” Beta was the first to break the silence. Her voice was even and did not betray whatever emotions she held onto. When she stalked towards him, however, Alpha felt like she towered over him even though he was a good head taller than her at least. In a stand off between predator and prey, it had been a long time since he had felt like the hunted. She reared her hand back then and slapped him hard against his cheek, though Alpha knew she had pulled back her true strength. He deserved it, so he didn’t try to dodge. She wasn’t aiming to truly hurt him.
“You ever do something like that again to us and I will hunt you down to kill you myself. Got it?” She growled the words at him. Alpha could only nod in agreement through the burning sting of her strike. He could feel the amused looks directed towards his back and was sure that Theta was trying not to laugh. Alpha ignored them. He might have been strongest of the Letters, but even he knew not to mess with Beta.
The young woman nodded then as well and her expression finally relaxed. “Good. Now what war council have you summoned us to, Alpha?”