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kennahijjaTitle: Assassin’s Creed
Characters: Alex Rider, a few others :)
Fandom: Alex Rider
Rating: PG
Spoiler (highlight to view): Alex Rider/Harry Potter crossover
Length: ~ 5300 words
Summary: One did not, in general, expect to encounter one of the world's deadliest assassins on the Tube.
Note: A one-month-late birthday fic for the incomparableannephoenix, with lots and lots of love and admiration! Thanks soverymuch to lazy_neutrino and melusinahp for beta and advice and for bearing with my chattering about this particular bunny in July. ♥
One did not, in general, expect to encounter one of the world's deadliest assassins on the Tube. However, Alex Rider was no ordinary fifteen-year-old, and he had a gift for coming across this particular killer in unusual places. Like the rooftop of a twenty-nine storey skyscraper in the middle of London. Or while sunning himself on a beach in the south of France. Or holding him while he almost died aboard Air Force One, the private plane of the American President.
So when Alex looked up at the new passengers crowding into the carriage after the train had come to a rattling stop at Charing Cross, and saw a glimpse of the familiar face, he wasn't as surprised as he could have been. He grabbed a dog-eared copy of Metro and opened it in front of his face. His fingers trembled. He peered around the side of the paper, trying to be inconspicuous.
An untrained observer, not schooled by Ian Rider or the SAS or a year of painful experience with madmen set on destroying the world, might not even have recognised him. Yassen Gregorovich wasn’t using much in the way of disguise, but what little he wore he'd employed effectively. The assassin sat half-hidden beside a heavy-set American couple whose matching luggage took up most of the space next to the doors. A saxophone case was balanced between his legs, and somehow, Alex didn't quite believe it was music Yassen was out to make with the contents.
The Russian’s disguise matched the prop, however. He was wearing narrow corduroy trousers with handmade Italian boots, and a matching black corduroy jacket over a gray turtleneck whose long sleeves emphasised his slender wrists and long, elegant fingers. His hair was slightly longer than the usual close-cropped cut Alex was familiar with, and fell into his forehead in gentle and purposefully tousled waves. They softened the icy blue eyes to a darker shade that seemed less intimidating. A black leather bag completed the ensemble. Yassen looked the part of the musician on his way to a rehearsal, and Alex couldn't help but notice the admiring looks and whispers he got from a gaggle of teenage girls crowding on the back seat.
When Alan Blunt had called Alex into the offices of Royal & General shortly after his fifteenth birthday to inform him, with an expression as if he'd been force-fed a pitcher of unsweetened lemon juice, that Yassen had not only survived Damian Cray's bullet on Air Force One, but had also escaped from MI6, Alex hadn't quite expected to see the assassin so soon. He knew they'd meet again – that seemed inevitable. But not this quickly. Last seen in Havana, Blunt had said. Alex snorted softly.
The Tube train had accelerated again and was rattling towards the next station. Alex kept his face behind his paper and stared at Yassen's shoes. It wouldn't do to meet his eyes by accident.
Instead of getting off at Euston as he'd planned, Alex sent a silent apology to Tom, who’d moved into South Camden with his mother after his parents’ divorce. They had arranged to meet in the late afternoon to try out Alex's beloved Assassin’s Creed game on Tom’s new playstation. For a moment, Alex contemplated sending Tom a text message, but rejected the thought. Drawing his friend into spy business was a bad idea. For the umpteenth time, he wished he had a phone number to call MI6. But while Alan Blunt never hesitated to send him off into danger, he was generally unforthcoming with a straightforward way of contacting him in an emergency.
It would have been easy enough to just get off among the crowds, hidden from the assassin's eye. Alex had walked away once before, convincing himself that the Russian's job was not his business, only to find his own holiday home blown up because Yassen's target had been Edward Pleasure, his friend Sabina's father. It was a mistake he would not make again.
When the train came to a halt at Camden Town station, Yassen got to his feet, slung the saxophone case over his shoulder, and filed out behind a quartet of Spanish students. Alex waited until he was outside, then threw his paper aside and pulled the hood of his bright green top over his head to disguise his hair and face. He squeezed outside just before the doors slid shut, eyes scanning the platform.
He couldn't see Yassen, but when he rounded the corner and reached the escalators, the saxophone case was riding upward ahead of him.
He got into the queue and stepped onto the escalator, weaving through the passengers while keeping back far enough to avoid the assassin's line of sight should he turn and scan the crowd for pursuers. To look even more like an ordinary teenage boy, he put his iPod plugs into his ears without turning it on.
Outside, the downpour that had forced him to take the Tube rather than his trusted Cannondale Bad Boy mountain bike had eased into a heavy drizzle that still managed to suck the colour out of the station's famous oxblood tiles. Puddles with a greyish film of dirt and oil had formed on the pavement. Alex knew the immediate area. With her typical American enthusiasm, Jack had fallen in love with Camden Street Markets years ago. Alex had accompanied her a fair few times. But it looked far less inviting in the rain than on a sunny summer weekend. It was certainly less busy. Most of the pedestrians were hurrying to get out of the rain, and huddling under their umbrellas.
It made shadowing Yassen through the afternoon gloom easier. The assassin too had pulled up the hood of his corduroy jacket, but the instrument case on his back made it easy to follow him.
The Russian cut his path through the crowd with easy grace. His head down and about fifty steps behind him, Alex passed St Stephen's Street, then turned right into Grimmauld Lane. The area grew bleaker, the houses more forbidding and derelict - dark facades, windows that were broken or boarded over, rubbish spilling out of bins and strewn across front gardens and stairs. There weren't many people around now. The rain and the gloom didn't invite strolls.
They passed a run-down Tesco; its security guard was standing outside underneath the canopied roof, smoking a cigarette and glaring at potential customers. Yassen walked with purpose, and Alex started to wonder. Maybe it wasn't a hit – perhaps Yassen was meeting a contact. Maybe the saxophone case contained drugs or data files instead of a rifle?
And then the assassin vanished. One second he was passing a small square with a single tree, two parked cars and an assortment of containers for rubbish, paper and plastic. The next, he was gone.
Alex cursed silently. If Yassen had taken cover behind the bins or the cars, he'd be able to see Alex approach, and closer-up, he would recognise him. If he'd entered one of the houses instead, he'd have shaken Alex off for good.
On impulse, Alex turned to the house he was passing and pushed open the metal gate to the stairwell leading down to the lower ground floor. The downstairs flat itself looked empty, with shutters closed tightly inside the windows. The fence continued on top of the stairwell, but wasn't too high to reach. Alex jumped and gripped two metal bars, then pulled himself up. Even though he knew that Yassen couldn’t possibly hear the soft scrabbling noise the soles of his trainers made on the stone, he held his breath until he could peer over the fence.
He’d reached the edge of the square, and looked into a tiny, unfenced front garden. Owners or neighbours had dumped what looked like old living room furniture, perhaps hoping for a bulky waste collection that never came. A couch and an armchair with stuffing bulging out would provide Alex with cover and allow him to peek right into the part of the square where Yassen had disappeared. His heartbeat sped up with excitement.
He waited until a lorry passed on the street before diving into the yard and behind the upturned couch. He knew he would be visible from the upstairs flats, but it wasn't the sort of neighbourhood where people asked questions. He hoped that he was looking more like a child playing hide and seek than a burglar intent on mischief.
Alex scanned the square, and spied his target almost immediately. Instead of taking cover behind the rubbish bins or cars, Yassen stood just outside the entrance of one of the set-back houses that had been out of Alex's field of vision from the pavement. Three steps led up to the battered door of Number Seven. The Russian had put down his instrument case and bag and leaned against the stairwell, lighting a cigarette with a match shielded in his palm. Somehow, Alex couldn’t believe Yassen smoked, but he looked for all the world like a resident who'd just stopped outside his door for a fag. His gaze wasn't on the cigarette, however. It was fixed on the opposite pavement.
Alex followed it. He watched two girls in pink t-shirts and tights passing by chattering. One pushed a pram loaded with shopping bags and a squalling infant.
Next came an elderly man on the near side of the pavement, propelled by a dachshund on a leash which seemed to find the overflowing rubbish bins in the middle of the square of great interest. Alex ducked deeper behind the couch to stay out of view. At last man and dog passed, tugging in different directions.
Yassen's eyes swept over the square a few moments longer, then he dropped his cigarette with an air of finality, crushed it under the sole of his boot, and pulled a key chain out of his pocket. Alex's heart missed a beat. If the Russian had access to one of the flats at Number Seven, all Alex could do was to call the police and hope that his name would be recognised and the message passed on to MI6. Ever since he had dropped a river barge containing a drug laboratory and two dealers onto a conference centre where the Chief of the Met was giving an address, London police seemed to be acutely aware of his existence.
Briefly, Alex's attention was distracted by a boy who'd appeared around the corner on the other side of the pavement. He was thin, in an ill-fitting sweater, jeans and battered, wire-rimmed glasses, and was lugging two heavy shopping bags. Alex's eyes brushed him and wandered away. Certainly not who Yassen was waiting for.
Just then, however, Yassen started to move. He’d left the saxophone case on the stairwell and was coming down across the square. He was moving purposefully, but without directly looking at the boy, who walked on without noticing anything. Yassen stepped between the rubbish bins and the parked white van, invisible from the houses around the square, but not from Alex's angle.
His eyes fixed on the boy, Yassen called out, "Harry Potter?”
For the first time, the boy on the other side of the pavement looked up. He dropped his shopping bags. Glass splintered, and a trickle of milk started to drip onto the dirty pavement.
Acting purely on impulse, Alex started to run before he even noticed that the Russian was reaching into his jacket. He had the presence of mind to push back his hood, hoping against hope that Yassen would not kill him in cold blood if he recognised him.
He saw the assassin lift his arm, saw the familiar gun in his hand, and screamed, "No!"
Yassen spun around, and the dark muzzle yawned in front of Alex. He'd known the risk of crying out. The Russian was a hitman, operating on hair triggers – there was a chance Alex would be dead before Yassen had quite taken in whom he was shooting.
But Yassen didn't fire. His foot shot out at impossible speed and caught Alex on the hip just before he could barrel into him. The pain that flared up his side and down into his thigh knocked the breath right out of him. He was propelled backwards and fell, scraping the skin off his palms and knees on the tarmac.
Yassen still didn't shoot. Not at Alex, anyway. The boy, Harry Potter, had used the short moment of distraction to reach into his own pocket, and came out with something that looked like a twig. Yassen's Grach barked, a dry, muffled crack. The boy cried out. Something inside Alex's stomach plunged. Yassen never missed his targets. He expected the boy to crumble on the dirty pavement, silenced forever. Instead, he stumbled and dropped the twig. He stared at his hand, at the bright blood that was welling up between his fingers. Relief rushed through Alex like a heat wave.
Yassen's eyes were on Alex, though the gun still pointed at the Potter boy... Harry. Alex didn't dare to make a move. His skinned knees ached from where the Russian had thrown him to the ground, and the impact of the kick still burned in his side.
Painfully, he forced himself back onto his feet.
"I thought you didn't kill children."
If Alex's voice was shaky, it was with anger and disappointment rather than fear. Although Yassen was a professional killer, Alex had always believed that he had a code of honour he lived by. Of all people, he'd trusted Yassen not to lie about his principles.
"He isn't a child, Alex," Yassen said calmly. "He's a monster."
Involuntarily, Alex's eyes went to the boy. He didn't look like a monster. More like a scrawny, underfed street kid. He found it hard to estimate the boy's age. He seemed young, but behind the atrocious glasses his eyes looked much older. They were a rather pretty green, Alex noticed. His mouth, however, had thinned and was pulled down.
"You mean like a clone?" Alex blurted out. Dr Grief's reincarnation as his own double had been the closest thing to a child killer he'd encountered.
"Like a creature that is too dangerous to live," Yassen said.
"I'm not a monster!" the boy snarled. His voice was rough, making Alex add another year to his estimate. Not a child, really – more a young man.
"Then what are you?" Alex asked with genuine curiosity. He forced himself not to look at Yassen. 'Harry Potter' – quite an ordinary name for a lethal menace.
"I'm a-" The boy stopped short and bit his lip. "I can't tell you. It's forbidden." At Alex's incredulous look, he added, "Against the law."
"They made you sign the Official Secrets Act?"
Though it was hard to imagine that MI6 had forced another teenage spy into their service, Alex knew Alan Blunt and couldn't rule out the possibility altogether. He knew the Americans had tried and failed. Maybe the boy served another power, even if he looked and sounded British?
"Not quite," Harry admitted. "Just... something like that."
"And are you?" Alex prodded, half out of curiosity, half for wanting to keep Yassen's attention away from his gun. "That dangerous?"
A trace of pink crept into the boys pale face. It almost convinced Alex that even if he was dangerous, he probably wasn't evil. He'd encountered plenty of evil people over the past year, but blushing hadn't been high on their personal agenda. Murder, on the other hand, had been.
"There are people out there who are afraid that I might do something to stop them.” Harry grimaced as if disgusted by the prospect. "They're evil psychopaths and murderers." A muscle jumped in his cheek and made Alex wonder just how close to him the people they'd killed had been. He thought of Ian Rider, and felt a twinge of sympathy.
"They're trying to kill me. They probably hired him." Harry shot a dark look at Yassen. "Or paid the people who did."
Alex turned his eyes to the assassin, keeping his face carefully blank.
"Scorpia?" he asked.
To his credit, Yassen's expression never wavered either.
"I can't tell you," he echoed Harry's earlier words.
The boy's face turned even grimmer. Obviously, he didn't much like being made fun of. For a second, Alex almost smiled.
"Mad and deadly," Yassen said in a reasonable voice. His eyes caught and held Alex's. "Do you believe I would have taken this assignment if I wasn’t convinced of it?"
Alex paused, then shook his head.
"They lied to you!" Harry snapped. "Maybe they forced you to think that.”
Yassen released Alex's gaze and turned his head the fraction it took to study his intended target coolly. He raised the Grach.
"You may believe that, Mr Potter. But I don't."
Heart hammering, Alex took a few blind steps backwards until he stood right in the line of fire between Yassen and Harry. He recaptured Yassen's eyes.
"You'll have to shoot me first," he said.
Yassen's gun hand didn't waver.
"And you think I wouldn't?" The assassin's voice was almost pitying.
After the events on Air Force One, Alex wasn't sure of anything. Whatever debt Yassen had believed he owed John Rider and by extension Alex, he'd surely paid it there, nearly dying in the process. Who knew where they were standing now?
"I don't know," Alex said simply. "We'll just have to find out, don't we?"
"Don't!" Harry snapped behind him. "I don't want anybody else to die because of me!"
Alex felt a corner of his mouth lift in a split-second smile of approval. Without turning his head, he said, "It's not your choice to make."
He could feel the other boy's presence behind him. Harry's breaths were harsh and nervous. Alex hoped he wouldn't try and make a run for it. Yassen's Grach would inevitably find him if he left the shelter Alex's body provided.
Alex stared into the black muzzle and wondered if he would die, and whether he'd feel much pain if Yassen shot him in the forehead or chest. He'd been hit by a sniper's rifle before, and had felt nothing until the world had started to tilt and darken. Certainly Yassen would be as skilful. Although Alex knew that in theory, Yassen could hit him in the knee or thigh, then shoot Harry when he fell, he somehow thought that he ranked high enough in Yassen's estimation to receive a more... decisive response.
His fingers clenched, and he felt his heartbeat thrum through his entire body and pulse in his fingertips. Time seemed to slow; all Alex could see was the gun, and Yassen's face blank behind it. Alex could read nothing at all in his expression.
Then he felt a rush behind him, and from the corner of his eye he saw Harry dive down. Yassen fired only a split second later. The projectile grazed Alex's arm, tearing off a line of skin from wrist to elbow. It burned like acid.
Caught in a timeless moment of sheer tension, it looked to Alex as if the bullet slowed on its course towards Harry. Instead of slamming right into the boy's head as Alex had been certain it would, Harry hit the floor just in time. The bullet passed over his head, snipping off a few of the messy hairs sticking up there.
Harry's hand wrapped around the twig that had landed next to Alex's ankle. He rolled away and came up on one knee. Yassen fired again just as Harry yelled something unintelligible. The bullet went wide.
Alex gasped. He'd never imagined the Russian could miss on such a short distance. Harry screamed something that sounded like "Defy!" and waved his twig.
Yassen just… dropped as if he'd suddenly gone boneless. It was all over before Alex was able to move again. Harry got to his feet, and cast a quick glance at the raw scratch at Alex's arm. Once he seemed to be convinced that it wasn't serious, he took a step towards Yassen.
Galvanised into action, Alex grabbed Harry's arm to hold him back and put himself bodily in his path. The green eyes narrowed. Up close, Alex saw that the boy's forehead was marred by a jagged scar. It wasn't the face of a drop-out kid, Alex realized. It was as if adrenaline had hardened Harry’s features, to reveal the warrior beneath. He didn't look hostile. He just looked dangerous.
"I won't let you kill him either," Alex said.
"You care about him?" Surprise curled at the corners of Harry's mouth, and a fine line was crinkling his brow.
Alex felt his cheeks warm. "My father was his mentor and friend," he explained curtly. "He spared my life a couple of times. Saved it, too."
The words I love you too, Alex... I'm glad that you're here with me now. were ghosting through his mind – words he would never, ever, share with another human being, no matter how sympathetic.
He left it at a dry, "It's... complicated."
For an instant, Harry's eyes seemed to lose their focus. He stared at nothing.
"Those things tend to be," he finally acknowledged in a tone of voice that told Alex he carried his own baggage of relationships he didn't want to bring up for discussion. "Your killer is just unconscious. I won't do anything to him, all right?"
Harry's twig was aiming somewhere between Alex and the ground, and try as he might, Alex found it hard to imagine that this child's toy had sent the Russian to sleep. Perhaps the boy was indeed a sort of confused telepath – the ‘monster’ Scorpia wanted to eliminate?
After a hesitant pause, Alex stepped aside and allowed Harry to kneel next to Yassen. The boy gingerly went through the assassin's pockets, avoiding the hand that still held the gun. At last he pulled a scrap of black cloth from the inside pocket of Yassen’s jacket. It was hemmed with a web of multicoloured threads. Harry scrutinised it, then smelled it. A faint scent of herbs he could not identify hit Alex's nostrils.
"What's that?" he asked.
"A Trace of sorts," Harry replied absently. "It's as I thought. Vol- my enemies must have hired him and given him this to find me... to bypass the precautions we've been taking"
"They? Who are ‘they’?" Alex insisted. "And who's 'we'?"
Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry... Alex, isn't it? You saved my life, and I'm more than grateful for that. But the less you know the safer you'll be. Believe me, you don't want to get mixed up in this." His eyes travelled over Yassen's prone body. "It looks like the things you are mixed up with are dangerous enough."
"Try me," said Alex coldly.
Harry cocked his head. "Would you believe me if I said there’s an evil Dark Lord out there who wants to rule the world and kill everybody who hasn’t got magic? And that he wants to destroy me because some prophecy said that I’m the one who might be able to defeat him?”
As if unconsciously the boy’s hand went up and touched the scar on his forehead, half-hidden by his messy black fringe.
"Someone cut open your head?” Alex gasped. He had become very familiar with scars over the past year. This one didn’t look fresh, more like the remainder of an old injury. How old had Harry been when it had happened?
"He killed my parents, and tried to kill me when I was a baby. His own curse rebounded on him and got rid of him for a while. Not long enough, though. He came back.” Harry paused, his lips thin. "Because of me.”
Alex’s mouth fell open. If anything, it sounded as if the boy was even more delusional than Yassen had claimed. "Aren’t you a bit tall to pass as Frodo?” he mocked.
"Not a hobbit, twit,” Harry shot back. "A wizard.”
"A wizard,” Alex repeated. He could hear the growl in his voice. Here he’d saved the snarky bastard’s life, only to be made fun of. "And that,” he pointed his chin at Harry’s gadget, "is your magic wand.”
"Yes. Didn’t you wonder why nobody showed up or called the police?”
It was a fair point, Alex had to admit. But in this neighbourhood, people might just as well be scared of getting involved in what looked like a gangland shooting.
"It’s too crazy,” he said.
Harry smiled, a little sadly. "I know. There’s even a book that explains it – Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know.”
"Muggles?” Alex asked against his better instincts.
"Non-magical people,” Harry explained. "The ones the Dark Lord wants to wipe out. You.”
Alex wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that nickname – it sounded way too much like a garden gnome in a fairy tale.
"So you're going to save the world?” Alex didn’t even try to hide his sarcasm. "You are crazy, you know?”
The other boy grimaced sourly.
Alex nodded at Yassen, still unconscious on the tarmac. "Won't he come after you again, when he wakes up?" he asked. "He's... persistent." If anyone could testify to that fact, it was Alex.
Harry's mouth quirked. "I don't think that will be a problem."
He turned his twig over between his fingers, studying Yassen thoughtfully. Alex felt himself tense. Instinctively, he fell into the kumite dachi offensive stance he had learned in karate, ready to strike. If he attacked quickly, he might be able to divest Harry of his device before he could use it. And then? Hand him over to MI6? Both of them?
The boy – the 'wizard', Alex snorted – sighed and managed a put-upon look. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt him."
For an instant, a shaft of blue light seemed to pass over Yassen's face. His cheek muscles tensed and his nose twitched, as if, even unconscious, he was smelling something unpleasant.
"What did you do?" Alex cried, wondering if he should have tried to go for the Grach still clenched in the assassin's hand.
"Magic," Harry replied, and Alex snarled at him. "He'll be fine," Harry promised.
Alex eyed the twig that hung between the boy’s fingers. A toy wand. Perhaps he would mention it to Smithers. He would like the idea. It had fired something that had knocked Yassen cold. And quite obviously it could produce light. A multi-purpose gadget along the lines of the device Alex had been equipped with when he was sent to Point Blanc Academy? Not impossible.
Alex looked down at Yassen's unconscious form. Asleep, the assassin's face looked ridiculously young and innocent.
Harry's dark brows narrowed; he licked his bottom lip. "If he wakes up and comes across you again..." he echoed Alex's previous concern. "Would he hurt you?"
Alex found it hard to take his eyes off the sleeping Russian. At last, he shook his head.
"I don't think so." He paused, then said, "I think he'll just... walk away." There was a raw edge of pain in his voice that had to be hard to miss.
Harry’s eyes ghosted over Yassen too. "In a way, I’m almost grateful to him,” he mused. "It was a wake-up call. We’ve been sitting around in hiding and doing nothing for far too long.”
"What are you going to do?" Alex asked, though an inner voice advised him against further provoking the boy's delusions.
Potter's lip twitched. "We're going to break into the Ministry of Magic and steal an ancient artefact."
Sighing inwardly, Alex just raised a cool eyebrow. "What, no dragon's lair? I'm disappointed." They glared at each other. Alex shook his head. "What now?” he snapped, suddenly impatient to get this stupidity over with.
"Now I get back to my friends,” Harry said matter-of-factly. "They must be worried about me by now.”
It sounded final in a way Alex did not like. He knew he wouldn't be able to reach Harry before Harry's device hit him. Somewhere along the way, the other boy had almost convinced him that he had some supernatural powers. Maybe his madness was contagious.
"Don’t make me curse you,” Harry said, as if reading Alex's mind. "You saved my life. I don’t want to leave you lying in the street like that killer. He deserves it. You don't.”
Alex saw his fingers tighten ever so slightly around the gadget, and experienced a rush of anger. He felt... helpless, not knowing what it could do to him. He hated feeling helpless.
"What do you expect me to do?” Alex glared, fists still clenched tightly. "Just take it?”
"Just... just walk away.”
Alex stood as if frozen. He didn't 'walk away'. Not since the South of France. And yet he trusted the other boy implicitly to stay true to his word. Whatever Harry Potter was, and whatever was wrong with him – he wasn't like Yassen. He was no killer.
Slowly, Alex nodded. It took more effort than he had anticipated to turn his back on both, but it created a pleasant illusion of being able to leave the whole encounter behind him. He’d think about whether to inform MI6 of Yassen’s reappearance and the strange, deluded boy with the mysterious gadget later. Harry Potter – he made Alex almost physically uncomfortable because he reminded him too much of himself. Parentless, hunted, embroiled in dangers far beyond his years. Alex did not want to bring him to Alan Blunt’s attention, he realised. Neither him nor Yassen.
Though now he’d probably never know whether Yassen would really have shot him, or would have walked away from his target for Alex’s sake. It seemed... cruel, not to know.
He’d walked a few steps when Harry’s voice rang out.
"Alex?”
Alex stopped and turned his head. Harry hadn’t moved. Yassen lay unconscious at his feet. Somehow, Alex knew he would never forget that sight.
"I'm sorry." Now the twig was pointing at Alex.
"What for?" Alex's forehead crinkled.
"Never mind."
Alex shrugged and started to walk again. The back of his neck prickled and he increased his pace, rubbing his nose that had suddenly started to itch.
How utterly stupid of him to have fallen asleep on the Tube and missed his stop. And then got lost on top of it. Tom would laugh his head off when he heard. Grumbling, Alex pulled up his hood against the rain that was starting up again, and began to retrace his steps towards Camden Town station.
An hour later, relaxing on Tom’s bed with a glass of coke, a bowl of tortilla chips and watching his friend pop the cartridge of Assassin’s Creed into his play station with excited reverence, Alex was struck by a sudden vision of Yassen Gregorovich, aiming a gun straight at his face. Alex almost dropped his drink, glad that Tom was too preoccupied to notice. When he blinked, all he could see were the opening credits scrolling past on the screen.
Quickly, Alex took a sip of coke to keep it from sloshing over the rim of his glass. Why was he thinking of Yassen when he was as snug and safe in his own world as could be? He shook his head hard, willing the thoughts to scatter, and leaned over Tom’s shoulder to immerse himself in the vivid action on screen.
After all, Yassen had last been seen in Havana, Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones had assured him. So there was no reason why Alex should think of him now.
No reason at all.
~ finis ~
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Anthony Horowitz and J K Rowling, respectively. Just borrowing, no money made. Title isn't mine either :).
Characters: Alex Rider, a few others :)
Fandom: Alex Rider
Rating: PG
Spoiler (highlight to view): Alex Rider/Harry Potter crossover
Length: ~ 5300 words
Summary: One did not, in general, expect to encounter one of the world's deadliest assassins on the Tube.
Note: A one-month-late birthday fic for the incomparable
annephoenix, with lots and lots of love and admiration! Thanks soverymuch to lazy_neutrino and melusinahp for beta and advice and for bearing with my chattering about this particular bunny in July. ♥ One did not, in general, expect to encounter one of the world's deadliest assassins on the Tube. However, Alex Rider was no ordinary fifteen-year-old, and he had a gift for coming across this particular killer in unusual places. Like the rooftop of a twenty-nine storey skyscraper in the middle of London. Or while sunning himself on a beach in the south of France. Or holding him while he almost died aboard Air Force One, the private plane of the American President.
So when Alex looked up at the new passengers crowding into the carriage after the train had come to a rattling stop at Charing Cross, and saw a glimpse of the familiar face, he wasn't as surprised as he could have been. He grabbed a dog-eared copy of Metro and opened it in front of his face. His fingers trembled. He peered around the side of the paper, trying to be inconspicuous.
An untrained observer, not schooled by Ian Rider or the SAS or a year of painful experience with madmen set on destroying the world, might not even have recognised him. Yassen Gregorovich wasn’t using much in the way of disguise, but what little he wore he'd employed effectively. The assassin sat half-hidden beside a heavy-set American couple whose matching luggage took up most of the space next to the doors. A saxophone case was balanced between his legs, and somehow, Alex didn't quite believe it was music Yassen was out to make with the contents.
The Russian’s disguise matched the prop, however. He was wearing narrow corduroy trousers with handmade Italian boots, and a matching black corduroy jacket over a gray turtleneck whose long sleeves emphasised his slender wrists and long, elegant fingers. His hair was slightly longer than the usual close-cropped cut Alex was familiar with, and fell into his forehead in gentle and purposefully tousled waves. They softened the icy blue eyes to a darker shade that seemed less intimidating. A black leather bag completed the ensemble. Yassen looked the part of the musician on his way to a rehearsal, and Alex couldn't help but notice the admiring looks and whispers he got from a gaggle of teenage girls crowding on the back seat.
When Alan Blunt had called Alex into the offices of Royal & General shortly after his fifteenth birthday to inform him, with an expression as if he'd been force-fed a pitcher of unsweetened lemon juice, that Yassen had not only survived Damian Cray's bullet on Air Force One, but had also escaped from MI6, Alex hadn't quite expected to see the assassin so soon. He knew they'd meet again – that seemed inevitable. But not this quickly. Last seen in Havana, Blunt had said. Alex snorted softly.
The Tube train had accelerated again and was rattling towards the next station. Alex kept his face behind his paper and stared at Yassen's shoes. It wouldn't do to meet his eyes by accident.
Instead of getting off at Euston as he'd planned, Alex sent a silent apology to Tom, who’d moved into South Camden with his mother after his parents’ divorce. They had arranged to meet in the late afternoon to try out Alex's beloved Assassin’s Creed game on Tom’s new playstation. For a moment, Alex contemplated sending Tom a text message, but rejected the thought. Drawing his friend into spy business was a bad idea. For the umpteenth time, he wished he had a phone number to call MI6. But while Alan Blunt never hesitated to send him off into danger, he was generally unforthcoming with a straightforward way of contacting him in an emergency.
It would have been easy enough to just get off among the crowds, hidden from the assassin's eye. Alex had walked away once before, convincing himself that the Russian's job was not his business, only to find his own holiday home blown up because Yassen's target had been Edward Pleasure, his friend Sabina's father. It was a mistake he would not make again.
When the train came to a halt at Camden Town station, Yassen got to his feet, slung the saxophone case over his shoulder, and filed out behind a quartet of Spanish students. Alex waited until he was outside, then threw his paper aside and pulled the hood of his bright green top over his head to disguise his hair and face. He squeezed outside just before the doors slid shut, eyes scanning the platform.
He couldn't see Yassen, but when he rounded the corner and reached the escalators, the saxophone case was riding upward ahead of him.
He got into the queue and stepped onto the escalator, weaving through the passengers while keeping back far enough to avoid the assassin's line of sight should he turn and scan the crowd for pursuers. To look even more like an ordinary teenage boy, he put his iPod plugs into his ears without turning it on.
Outside, the downpour that had forced him to take the Tube rather than his trusted Cannondale Bad Boy mountain bike had eased into a heavy drizzle that still managed to suck the colour out of the station's famous oxblood tiles. Puddles with a greyish film of dirt and oil had formed on the pavement. Alex knew the immediate area. With her typical American enthusiasm, Jack had fallen in love with Camden Street Markets years ago. Alex had accompanied her a fair few times. But it looked far less inviting in the rain than on a sunny summer weekend. It was certainly less busy. Most of the pedestrians were hurrying to get out of the rain, and huddling under their umbrellas.
It made shadowing Yassen through the afternoon gloom easier. The assassin too had pulled up the hood of his corduroy jacket, but the instrument case on his back made it easy to follow him.
The Russian cut his path through the crowd with easy grace. His head down and about fifty steps behind him, Alex passed St Stephen's Street, then turned right into Grimmauld Lane. The area grew bleaker, the houses more forbidding and derelict - dark facades, windows that were broken or boarded over, rubbish spilling out of bins and strewn across front gardens and stairs. There weren't many people around now. The rain and the gloom didn't invite strolls.
They passed a run-down Tesco; its security guard was standing outside underneath the canopied roof, smoking a cigarette and glaring at potential customers. Yassen walked with purpose, and Alex started to wonder. Maybe it wasn't a hit – perhaps Yassen was meeting a contact. Maybe the saxophone case contained drugs or data files instead of a rifle?
And then the assassin vanished. One second he was passing a small square with a single tree, two parked cars and an assortment of containers for rubbish, paper and plastic. The next, he was gone.
Alex cursed silently. If Yassen had taken cover behind the bins or the cars, he'd be able to see Alex approach, and closer-up, he would recognise him. If he'd entered one of the houses instead, he'd have shaken Alex off for good.
On impulse, Alex turned to the house he was passing and pushed open the metal gate to the stairwell leading down to the lower ground floor. The downstairs flat itself looked empty, with shutters closed tightly inside the windows. The fence continued on top of the stairwell, but wasn't too high to reach. Alex jumped and gripped two metal bars, then pulled himself up. Even though he knew that Yassen couldn’t possibly hear the soft scrabbling noise the soles of his trainers made on the stone, he held his breath until he could peer over the fence.
He’d reached the edge of the square, and looked into a tiny, unfenced front garden. Owners or neighbours had dumped what looked like old living room furniture, perhaps hoping for a bulky waste collection that never came. A couch and an armchair with stuffing bulging out would provide Alex with cover and allow him to peek right into the part of the square where Yassen had disappeared. His heartbeat sped up with excitement.
He waited until a lorry passed on the street before diving into the yard and behind the upturned couch. He knew he would be visible from the upstairs flats, but it wasn't the sort of neighbourhood where people asked questions. He hoped that he was looking more like a child playing hide and seek than a burglar intent on mischief.
Alex scanned the square, and spied his target almost immediately. Instead of taking cover behind the rubbish bins or cars, Yassen stood just outside the entrance of one of the set-back houses that had been out of Alex's field of vision from the pavement. Three steps led up to the battered door of Number Seven. The Russian had put down his instrument case and bag and leaned against the stairwell, lighting a cigarette with a match shielded in his palm. Somehow, Alex couldn’t believe Yassen smoked, but he looked for all the world like a resident who'd just stopped outside his door for a fag. His gaze wasn't on the cigarette, however. It was fixed on the opposite pavement.
Alex followed it. He watched two girls in pink t-shirts and tights passing by chattering. One pushed a pram loaded with shopping bags and a squalling infant.
Next came an elderly man on the near side of the pavement, propelled by a dachshund on a leash which seemed to find the overflowing rubbish bins in the middle of the square of great interest. Alex ducked deeper behind the couch to stay out of view. At last man and dog passed, tugging in different directions.
Yassen's eyes swept over the square a few moments longer, then he dropped his cigarette with an air of finality, crushed it under the sole of his boot, and pulled a key chain out of his pocket. Alex's heart missed a beat. If the Russian had access to one of the flats at Number Seven, all Alex could do was to call the police and hope that his name would be recognised and the message passed on to MI6. Ever since he had dropped a river barge containing a drug laboratory and two dealers onto a conference centre where the Chief of the Met was giving an address, London police seemed to be acutely aware of his existence.
Briefly, Alex's attention was distracted by a boy who'd appeared around the corner on the other side of the pavement. He was thin, in an ill-fitting sweater, jeans and battered, wire-rimmed glasses, and was lugging two heavy shopping bags. Alex's eyes brushed him and wandered away. Certainly not who Yassen was waiting for.
Just then, however, Yassen started to move. He’d left the saxophone case on the stairwell and was coming down across the square. He was moving purposefully, but without directly looking at the boy, who walked on without noticing anything. Yassen stepped between the rubbish bins and the parked white van, invisible from the houses around the square, but not from Alex's angle.
His eyes fixed on the boy, Yassen called out, "Harry Potter?”
For the first time, the boy on the other side of the pavement looked up. He dropped his shopping bags. Glass splintered, and a trickle of milk started to drip onto the dirty pavement.
Acting purely on impulse, Alex started to run before he even noticed that the Russian was reaching into his jacket. He had the presence of mind to push back his hood, hoping against hope that Yassen would not kill him in cold blood if he recognised him.
He saw the assassin lift his arm, saw the familiar gun in his hand, and screamed, "No!"
Yassen spun around, and the dark muzzle yawned in front of Alex. He'd known the risk of crying out. The Russian was a hitman, operating on hair triggers – there was a chance Alex would be dead before Yassen had quite taken in whom he was shooting.
But Yassen didn't fire. His foot shot out at impossible speed and caught Alex on the hip just before he could barrel into him. The pain that flared up his side and down into his thigh knocked the breath right out of him. He was propelled backwards and fell, scraping the skin off his palms and knees on the tarmac.
Yassen still didn't shoot. Not at Alex, anyway. The boy, Harry Potter, had used the short moment of distraction to reach into his own pocket, and came out with something that looked like a twig. Yassen's Grach barked, a dry, muffled crack. The boy cried out. Something inside Alex's stomach plunged. Yassen never missed his targets. He expected the boy to crumble on the dirty pavement, silenced forever. Instead, he stumbled and dropped the twig. He stared at his hand, at the bright blood that was welling up between his fingers. Relief rushed through Alex like a heat wave.
Yassen's eyes were on Alex, though the gun still pointed at the Potter boy... Harry. Alex didn't dare to make a move. His skinned knees ached from where the Russian had thrown him to the ground, and the impact of the kick still burned in his side.
Painfully, he forced himself back onto his feet.
"I thought you didn't kill children."
If Alex's voice was shaky, it was with anger and disappointment rather than fear. Although Yassen was a professional killer, Alex had always believed that he had a code of honour he lived by. Of all people, he'd trusted Yassen not to lie about his principles.
"He isn't a child, Alex," Yassen said calmly. "He's a monster."
Involuntarily, Alex's eyes went to the boy. He didn't look like a monster. More like a scrawny, underfed street kid. He found it hard to estimate the boy's age. He seemed young, but behind the atrocious glasses his eyes looked much older. They were a rather pretty green, Alex noticed. His mouth, however, had thinned and was pulled down.
"You mean like a clone?" Alex blurted out. Dr Grief's reincarnation as his own double had been the closest thing to a child killer he'd encountered.
"Like a creature that is too dangerous to live," Yassen said.
"I'm not a monster!" the boy snarled. His voice was rough, making Alex add another year to his estimate. Not a child, really – more a young man.
"Then what are you?" Alex asked with genuine curiosity. He forced himself not to look at Yassen. 'Harry Potter' – quite an ordinary name for a lethal menace.
"I'm a-" The boy stopped short and bit his lip. "I can't tell you. It's forbidden." At Alex's incredulous look, he added, "Against the law."
"They made you sign the Official Secrets Act?"
Though it was hard to imagine that MI6 had forced another teenage spy into their service, Alex knew Alan Blunt and couldn't rule out the possibility altogether. He knew the Americans had tried and failed. Maybe the boy served another power, even if he looked and sounded British?
"Not quite," Harry admitted. "Just... something like that."
"And are you?" Alex prodded, half out of curiosity, half for wanting to keep Yassen's attention away from his gun. "That dangerous?"
A trace of pink crept into the boys pale face. It almost convinced Alex that even if he was dangerous, he probably wasn't evil. He'd encountered plenty of evil people over the past year, but blushing hadn't been high on their personal agenda. Murder, on the other hand, had been.
"There are people out there who are afraid that I might do something to stop them.” Harry grimaced as if disgusted by the prospect. "They're evil psychopaths and murderers." A muscle jumped in his cheek and made Alex wonder just how close to him the people they'd killed had been. He thought of Ian Rider, and felt a twinge of sympathy.
"They're trying to kill me. They probably hired him." Harry shot a dark look at Yassen. "Or paid the people who did."
Alex turned his eyes to the assassin, keeping his face carefully blank.
"Scorpia?" he asked.
To his credit, Yassen's expression never wavered either.
"I can't tell you," he echoed Harry's earlier words.
The boy's face turned even grimmer. Obviously, he didn't much like being made fun of. For a second, Alex almost smiled.
"Mad and deadly," Yassen said in a reasonable voice. His eyes caught and held Alex's. "Do you believe I would have taken this assignment if I wasn’t convinced of it?"
Alex paused, then shook his head.
"They lied to you!" Harry snapped. "Maybe they forced you to think that.”
Yassen released Alex's gaze and turned his head the fraction it took to study his intended target coolly. He raised the Grach.
"You may believe that, Mr Potter. But I don't."
Heart hammering, Alex took a few blind steps backwards until he stood right in the line of fire between Yassen and Harry. He recaptured Yassen's eyes.
"You'll have to shoot me first," he said.
Yassen's gun hand didn't waver.
"And you think I wouldn't?" The assassin's voice was almost pitying.
After the events on Air Force One, Alex wasn't sure of anything. Whatever debt Yassen had believed he owed John Rider and by extension Alex, he'd surely paid it there, nearly dying in the process. Who knew where they were standing now?
"I don't know," Alex said simply. "We'll just have to find out, don't we?"
"Don't!" Harry snapped behind him. "I don't want anybody else to die because of me!"
Alex felt a corner of his mouth lift in a split-second smile of approval. Without turning his head, he said, "It's not your choice to make."
He could feel the other boy's presence behind him. Harry's breaths were harsh and nervous. Alex hoped he wouldn't try and make a run for it. Yassen's Grach would inevitably find him if he left the shelter Alex's body provided.
Alex stared into the black muzzle and wondered if he would die, and whether he'd feel much pain if Yassen shot him in the forehead or chest. He'd been hit by a sniper's rifle before, and had felt nothing until the world had started to tilt and darken. Certainly Yassen would be as skilful. Although Alex knew that in theory, Yassen could hit him in the knee or thigh, then shoot Harry when he fell, he somehow thought that he ranked high enough in Yassen's estimation to receive a more... decisive response.
His fingers clenched, and he felt his heartbeat thrum through his entire body and pulse in his fingertips. Time seemed to slow; all Alex could see was the gun, and Yassen's face blank behind it. Alex could read nothing at all in his expression.
Then he felt a rush behind him, and from the corner of his eye he saw Harry dive down. Yassen fired only a split second later. The projectile grazed Alex's arm, tearing off a line of skin from wrist to elbow. It burned like acid.
Caught in a timeless moment of sheer tension, it looked to Alex as if the bullet slowed on its course towards Harry. Instead of slamming right into the boy's head as Alex had been certain it would, Harry hit the floor just in time. The bullet passed over his head, snipping off a few of the messy hairs sticking up there.
Harry's hand wrapped around the twig that had landed next to Alex's ankle. He rolled away and came up on one knee. Yassen fired again just as Harry yelled something unintelligible. The bullet went wide.
Alex gasped. He'd never imagined the Russian could miss on such a short distance. Harry screamed something that sounded like "Defy!" and waved his twig.
Yassen just… dropped as if he'd suddenly gone boneless. It was all over before Alex was able to move again. Harry got to his feet, and cast a quick glance at the raw scratch at Alex's arm. Once he seemed to be convinced that it wasn't serious, he took a step towards Yassen.
Galvanised into action, Alex grabbed Harry's arm to hold him back and put himself bodily in his path. The green eyes narrowed. Up close, Alex saw that the boy's forehead was marred by a jagged scar. It wasn't the face of a drop-out kid, Alex realized. It was as if adrenaline had hardened Harry’s features, to reveal the warrior beneath. He didn't look hostile. He just looked dangerous.
"I won't let you kill him either," Alex said.
"You care about him?" Surprise curled at the corners of Harry's mouth, and a fine line was crinkling his brow.
Alex felt his cheeks warm. "My father was his mentor and friend," he explained curtly. "He spared my life a couple of times. Saved it, too."
The words I love you too, Alex... I'm glad that you're here with me now. were ghosting through his mind – words he would never, ever, share with another human being, no matter how sympathetic.
He left it at a dry, "It's... complicated."
For an instant, Harry's eyes seemed to lose their focus. He stared at nothing.
"Those things tend to be," he finally acknowledged in a tone of voice that told Alex he carried his own baggage of relationships he didn't want to bring up for discussion. "Your killer is just unconscious. I won't do anything to him, all right?"
Harry's twig was aiming somewhere between Alex and the ground, and try as he might, Alex found it hard to imagine that this child's toy had sent the Russian to sleep. Perhaps the boy was indeed a sort of confused telepath – the ‘monster’ Scorpia wanted to eliminate?
After a hesitant pause, Alex stepped aside and allowed Harry to kneel next to Yassen. The boy gingerly went through the assassin's pockets, avoiding the hand that still held the gun. At last he pulled a scrap of black cloth from the inside pocket of Yassen’s jacket. It was hemmed with a web of multicoloured threads. Harry scrutinised it, then smelled it. A faint scent of herbs he could not identify hit Alex's nostrils.
"What's that?" he asked.
"A Trace of sorts," Harry replied absently. "It's as I thought. Vol- my enemies must have hired him and given him this to find me... to bypass the precautions we've been taking"
"They? Who are ‘they’?" Alex insisted. "And who's 'we'?"
Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry... Alex, isn't it? You saved my life, and I'm more than grateful for that. But the less you know the safer you'll be. Believe me, you don't want to get mixed up in this." His eyes travelled over Yassen's prone body. "It looks like the things you are mixed up with are dangerous enough."
"Try me," said Alex coldly.
Harry cocked his head. "Would you believe me if I said there’s an evil Dark Lord out there who wants to rule the world and kill everybody who hasn’t got magic? And that he wants to destroy me because some prophecy said that I’m the one who might be able to defeat him?”
As if unconsciously the boy’s hand went up and touched the scar on his forehead, half-hidden by his messy black fringe.
"Someone cut open your head?” Alex gasped. He had become very familiar with scars over the past year. This one didn’t look fresh, more like the remainder of an old injury. How old had Harry been when it had happened?
"He killed my parents, and tried to kill me when I was a baby. His own curse rebounded on him and got rid of him for a while. Not long enough, though. He came back.” Harry paused, his lips thin. "Because of me.”
Alex’s mouth fell open. If anything, it sounded as if the boy was even more delusional than Yassen had claimed. "Aren’t you a bit tall to pass as Frodo?” he mocked.
"Not a hobbit, twit,” Harry shot back. "A wizard.”
"A wizard,” Alex repeated. He could hear the growl in his voice. Here he’d saved the snarky bastard’s life, only to be made fun of. "And that,” he pointed his chin at Harry’s gadget, "is your magic wand.”
"Yes. Didn’t you wonder why nobody showed up or called the police?”
It was a fair point, Alex had to admit. But in this neighbourhood, people might just as well be scared of getting involved in what looked like a gangland shooting.
"It’s too crazy,” he said.
Harry smiled, a little sadly. "I know. There’s even a book that explains it – Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know.”
"Muggles?” Alex asked against his better instincts.
"Non-magical people,” Harry explained. "The ones the Dark Lord wants to wipe out. You.”
Alex wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that nickname – it sounded way too much like a garden gnome in a fairy tale.
"So you're going to save the world?” Alex didn’t even try to hide his sarcasm. "You are crazy, you know?”
The other boy grimaced sourly.
Alex nodded at Yassen, still unconscious on the tarmac. "Won't he come after you again, when he wakes up?" he asked. "He's... persistent." If anyone could testify to that fact, it was Alex.
Harry's mouth quirked. "I don't think that will be a problem."
He turned his twig over between his fingers, studying Yassen thoughtfully. Alex felt himself tense. Instinctively, he fell into the kumite dachi offensive stance he had learned in karate, ready to strike. If he attacked quickly, he might be able to divest Harry of his device before he could use it. And then? Hand him over to MI6? Both of them?
The boy – the 'wizard', Alex snorted – sighed and managed a put-upon look. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt him."
For an instant, a shaft of blue light seemed to pass over Yassen's face. His cheek muscles tensed and his nose twitched, as if, even unconscious, he was smelling something unpleasant.
"What did you do?" Alex cried, wondering if he should have tried to go for the Grach still clenched in the assassin's hand.
"Magic," Harry replied, and Alex snarled at him. "He'll be fine," Harry promised.
Alex eyed the twig that hung between the boy’s fingers. A toy wand. Perhaps he would mention it to Smithers. He would like the idea. It had fired something that had knocked Yassen cold. And quite obviously it could produce light. A multi-purpose gadget along the lines of the device Alex had been equipped with when he was sent to Point Blanc Academy? Not impossible.
Alex looked down at Yassen's unconscious form. Asleep, the assassin's face looked ridiculously young and innocent.
Harry's dark brows narrowed; he licked his bottom lip. "If he wakes up and comes across you again..." he echoed Alex's previous concern. "Would he hurt you?"
Alex found it hard to take his eyes off the sleeping Russian. At last, he shook his head.
"I don't think so." He paused, then said, "I think he'll just... walk away." There was a raw edge of pain in his voice that had to be hard to miss.
Harry’s eyes ghosted over Yassen too. "In a way, I’m almost grateful to him,” he mused. "It was a wake-up call. We’ve been sitting around in hiding and doing nothing for far too long.”
"What are you going to do?" Alex asked, though an inner voice advised him against further provoking the boy's delusions.
Potter's lip twitched. "We're going to break into the Ministry of Magic and steal an ancient artefact."
Sighing inwardly, Alex just raised a cool eyebrow. "What, no dragon's lair? I'm disappointed." They glared at each other. Alex shook his head. "What now?” he snapped, suddenly impatient to get this stupidity over with.
"Now I get back to my friends,” Harry said matter-of-factly. "They must be worried about me by now.”
It sounded final in a way Alex did not like. He knew he wouldn't be able to reach Harry before Harry's device hit him. Somewhere along the way, the other boy had almost convinced him that he had some supernatural powers. Maybe his madness was contagious.
"Don’t make me curse you,” Harry said, as if reading Alex's mind. "You saved my life. I don’t want to leave you lying in the street like that killer. He deserves it. You don't.”
Alex saw his fingers tighten ever so slightly around the gadget, and experienced a rush of anger. He felt... helpless, not knowing what it could do to him. He hated feeling helpless.
"What do you expect me to do?” Alex glared, fists still clenched tightly. "Just take it?”
"Just... just walk away.”
Alex stood as if frozen. He didn't 'walk away'. Not since the South of France. And yet he trusted the other boy implicitly to stay true to his word. Whatever Harry Potter was, and whatever was wrong with him – he wasn't like Yassen. He was no killer.
Slowly, Alex nodded. It took more effort than he had anticipated to turn his back on both, but it created a pleasant illusion of being able to leave the whole encounter behind him. He’d think about whether to inform MI6 of Yassen’s reappearance and the strange, deluded boy with the mysterious gadget later. Harry Potter – he made Alex almost physically uncomfortable because he reminded him too much of himself. Parentless, hunted, embroiled in dangers far beyond his years. Alex did not want to bring him to Alan Blunt’s attention, he realised. Neither him nor Yassen.
Though now he’d probably never know whether Yassen would really have shot him, or would have walked away from his target for Alex’s sake. It seemed... cruel, not to know.
He’d walked a few steps when Harry’s voice rang out.
"Alex?”
Alex stopped and turned his head. Harry hadn’t moved. Yassen lay unconscious at his feet. Somehow, Alex knew he would never forget that sight.
"I'm sorry." Now the twig was pointing at Alex.
"What for?" Alex's forehead crinkled.
"Never mind."
Alex shrugged and started to walk again. The back of his neck prickled and he increased his pace, rubbing his nose that had suddenly started to itch.
How utterly stupid of him to have fallen asleep on the Tube and missed his stop. And then got lost on top of it. Tom would laugh his head off when he heard. Grumbling, Alex pulled up his hood against the rain that was starting up again, and began to retrace his steps towards Camden Town station.
An hour later, relaxing on Tom’s bed with a glass of coke, a bowl of tortilla chips and watching his friend pop the cartridge of Assassin’s Creed into his play station with excited reverence, Alex was struck by a sudden vision of Yassen Gregorovich, aiming a gun straight at his face. Alex almost dropped his drink, glad that Tom was too preoccupied to notice. When he blinked, all he could see were the opening credits scrolling past on the screen.
Quickly, Alex took a sip of coke to keep it from sloshing over the rim of his glass. Why was he thinking of Yassen when he was as snug and safe in his own world as could be? He shook his head hard, willing the thoughts to scatter, and leaned over Tom’s shoulder to immerse himself in the vivid action on screen.
After all, Yassen had last been seen in Havana, Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones had assured him. So there was no reason why Alex should think of him now.
No reason at all.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Anthony Horowitz and J K Rowling, respectively. Just borrowing, no money made. Title isn't mine either :).
