“What happened?“ I asked as I sat myself down next to a depressed looking Bill.

He ran his hands through his hair that was almost as long as mine. “I got fired.” He replied.

I nodded understandingly, but still, odd timing. “Well at least you'll have more time to help me break into Azkaban.”

My brother fainted, he did this fairly often really, so I was used to the reaction by now. It never failed to amuse me watching a grown man just collapse from a sitting position into one where he was lying on the floor.

I went and made myself something to eat.

-/-

Sitting at the table eating my casserole I heard groans coming out of the living room and heard Bill hauling himself onto his feet.

My brother stumbled into the kitchen, dressed immaculately as ever, in his preferred house wear of pants and shirt.

“Oh you're there Ron, man I had this weird dream.” He mumbled.

I stared at him blankly. His face became pale.

“That wasn't a dream was it.” He squeaked out. Burying his head in his hands he threw himself on the chair next to mine.

“Tell me the whole story or I ain't helping.” He said, sounding actually demanding for once.

I shrugged. “Well it all started with Dumbledore hiding the philosopher's stone in Hogwarts to lure out the not quite dead You-Know-Who afte-...”

“...-nd now I have to do something public and evil, wearing a mask to make sure nobody suspects anyone but the alter ego that I made Dumbledore think was the one behind stealing the philosopher's stone.”

Bill looked at me with dead eyes, the eyes of someone so done with my shit he was going to jump out a window to not have to hear another word of it.

“What do you wanna do in Azkaban exactly?” He asked me after a few minutes.

“Kill death eaters so that when You-Know-Who comes back, he won't just have to break them out to basically regain ¾ of his forces.”

“Alright.” It was my turn to look at him weirdly.

“Huh I thought you would be more against killing.” I said, receiving a shrug.

“It's a good plan, eliminate You-Know-Who's army while we still can, I’ve lived through the war, enough to know I would do anything to prevent it from happening again.”

“Good, with the stone I can threaten the dementors into compliance, but we are still only two men against probably five to six aurors.”

“I'm sure you'll think of something.”

I gave him a smile. “You know me too well.”

-/-

Bernon Snagger, born on the twelfth of november 1964, a petty criminal that enjoyed raping young women and today my test subject.

I sent another cutting curse at his bound and whimpering form.

After the man was almost in delirium from blood loss, I cast the spell I had invented the month before.

“Festucam animo”

I felt a piece of my mind detach itself and latch onto the muggle’s.

I felt less intelligent somehow.

I dissolved the connection my splinter had with the muggle man and it suddenly flew back to me reattaching itself joyfully.

Doing it again I surmised that It would take some getting used to.

After a few days of practice, I concluded that I couldn't hold more than three splinter mind spells at the same time.

It all got incredibly disorienting, very, very fast.

The second thing I wanted to train was apparition.

Combat apparition to be exact.

I had finally managed to teleport without taking some time to focus, but while fighting for my life I wouldn't have that luxury.

That is why I started fighting with Bill, preparing us for the probable confrontation with Azkaban's auror guards in a few months or so.

Sadly I couldn't simply murder them in their sleep.

I had to beat them, let them see me and then incapacitate them, this 'break out' wasn't there to just kill the death eaters, it was there to distract people from Ronald Weasley stealing the philosopher's stone by giving them an obvious villain.

The mask was finished, I had made it myself.

It looked intimidating, grotesque and most of all evil.

It would do.

“That is one scary mask.”

I turned to my brother and thanked him for the compliment.

“I don't think we will manage to stage the break out this summer.” He nodded, we both knew we weren't ready.

The fighting style I had developed was fearsome in its simplicity.

A splinter mind making enemies unable to cast overly complicated magic like apparition and then me simply abusing that fact.

It had weaknesses though.

If there was a ward to prevent apparition, I would be screwed, if there were more than two opponents I would be screwed, if they were better than average with occlumency I was screwed, and if the philosopher's stone was unable to turn a dementor into gold I was absolutely fucked.

I only had four weeks weeks until school.

I had wanted to start on my animagus transformation, but I simply didn't have the time.

What I needed was experience fighting to see if my style actually worked and after that some more time dedicated to mastering my apparition and mind arts more.

“Hey Bill how do you feel about being a mercenary for a few weeks?”