Facing Danger
Chapter 46: Worse than Death (Year 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Percy opened his eyes, then closed them again. Even through the blurring from the loss of his glasses, he could tell he was nowhere he might reasonably expect to be. Still, his face and arms were only moderately sore, which argued for some sort of friendly attention. The last thing he remembered was seeing the pavement approaching at high velocity.
Though I would much rather have seen that and not what I saw immediately before it...
"Sounds like it," said a woman's voice, with the air of answering a question he hadn't heard, and a female figure topped with silver-speckled hair appeared as he opened his eyes again. "Ah, you are awake. I'm glad. Can you sit up?"
"I can try." His voice sounded harsh and breathy in his ears, but he managed the feat requested without too much difficulty. "Where . . . "
"Don't know exactly, but it's wherever Death Eaters store prisoners they don't think much of." The woman waved a hand at herself and the other person Percy could now see, another woman about his mother's age, if his eyesight could be trusted. "We know who you are, had some friends in here earlier who confirmed it for us, but for the time being we've got them thinking you're Grace's son. Can you remember that?"
"Yes." He felt as though his mind were filled with fog, and welcomed the feeling with all his heart. Thinking about anything at this point seemed likely to send him into a screaming panic. "And you are?"
"Call me Sue." A cool hand closed around his for a moment, then moved to his cheek and his forehead in turn. "Good, you're cooling down. Seems that healing potion we used on you has a side effect or two, like temporary fever and delirium."
"Many home brews have that designed into them, to keep them from being misused," Percy recalled his Potions N.E.W.T. "If people think they can heal everything with just a cauldron and a few ingredients, they might not see a Healer in time to help something truly serious . . . " He trailed off, recognizing the implications in the second symptom Sue had mentioned. "I hope I didn't bother you with any babbling," he said uneasily. "I do apologize, if I did."
"You talked a little, but nothing we couldn't handle," said the other woman, Grace, moving closer so that Percy could see the auburn hair which had likely made her his designated mother for the time being. "I can tell you that your sister and your brothers are all right as far as we're aware. They weren't brought in with us, certainly, and from the bragging these Death Eaters seem to think is appropriate when they kill someone, we would have heard about that as well. Your girlfriend, though—Penelope—"
"I know," Percy interrupted, more roughly than he had intended. "I was there. I saw it. The little girl—the one she tried to protect—do you know—"
"I'm afraid she died as well," Grace said gently. "But her teacher survived, because Penny pushed her out of the way in time. So it wasn't quite for nothing, what she did."
Percy turned his face away, bringing an arm across to shield it. "How did you know?" he whispered.
"I've lost people in my time." Grace's hand rested on his shoulder for an instant, then withdrew. "And the hardest thing in the world is thinking, even knowing, that they died for no reason. Or for no reason except some fool's need to show off how much faster or stronger or better he is than the next fool down the line." Her voice had gone hard as stone. "Which is the same thing, and never think it's not."
The words would make sense eventually, Percy knew, and when they did, they might help. For now, though, he had no ability to understand anything but grief and pain.
Penny, he wept silently, watching on the backs of his eyelids as she swept the child into her futile embrace, as three spells converged on them at once, two blasting through the Shield Charm he had managed to cast, the third ricocheting off and heading straight for him. Penny, no, not you, please not you . . .
Evanie Meade pulled her feet up onto the bed, tucking them under her crossed legs and closing her eyes. Her hands, twisted together in her lap, were slick from nervous sweat, but her voice had held steady. She found a moment's irrational pride in the knowledge.
Why did I do that?
The question had no direct answer, nothing simple or easy to understand. She was sure she had a reason, but it was buried deep in the back of her mind where her instincts lived.
Instincts, sneered the usual voice of disdain, the one that spoke in the tones of the man who had taught history and philosophy at the secondary school near the Home where Evanie had grown up. Crude, base, animal things. Just like desires—you have to deny them, fight against them, if you ever want to be fully human. Listening to them is the stupidest thing you can do.
She wondered briefly what that said about him, who hadn't fought his own instincts and desires when it came to her and several of the other girls in years near hers, but a deep inhale silenced the voice and the exhale sent it on its way.
That was a long time ago, she reminded herself, and it's over now. He died three years ago—she had found this out almost by accident, and was still unsure whether her spasms of glee ought to be guilty or not—so he can never hurt me, or anyone else, ever again. And knowing the signs let me stop two other men who were trying to do the same thing to my girls.
I wonder who will watch out for them now.
Memory lanced through her, making her gasp with pain. Annette. I didn't watch out for you very well, did I? Poor baby . . .
Annette was, she had been, so bright and filled with promise, so sure that her life would hold more than a gray little job and a gray little flat somewhere, it had hardly been a surprise to Evanie when the middle-aged woman in the ill-fitting black dress and tartan sash made her careful explanation and handed over the green-inked letter. The matron, naturally, was skeptical, but Evanie had professed herself willing to take the chance of looking foolish.
I almost wish now I hadn't.
The moment seared her mind, as clear as though it were happening in front of her now. The kind-faced young woman with her long curls, holding out the gold coins to Annette—the masked men appearing from nowhere, laughing wildly, pointing slender sticks at them—the shove that sent her stumbling away, out of the line of fire but near enough to see the eye-burning green that struck the young woman and Annette, dropping them limply to the pavement—
Tears slid down her face now, hot and cold all at once. She let them come, encouraged them even. Crying would help her accept the loss, and if she cried now she could wash the traces away and look normal by the time Peter returned.
Ah, yes. Peter. And that same question again. Why?
She was usually quite good at guessing people's ages, but Peter was a walking contradiction. His thinning hair and lined face should have belonged to a man at least in his fifties, but he moved like a much younger man, almost like—
Of course, now I recognize it. He moves like some of the older boys at the Home, when they know they shouldn't be where they are or doing what they're doing. Not the ones who've given up on being good, the ones who've decided the world thinks the worst of them and they might as well live down to that—no, he's like one of the ones who wishes he had a mother to come along and haul him home by the ear.
Splitting the difference, then, Peter was likely close to her own age of thirty-two. More importantly for Evanie, he hadn't always been what he was now, and he didn't seem happy with it.
But he isn't strong. The contempt on the faces, now unmasked, of the other—Death Eaters, what an odd name for a group—told her that much. He fell into bad company and couldn't find his way back out, and he's been sliding downhill ever since.
The pattern was heartbreakingly familiar to anyone who had ever worked with the children the modern world called "underprivileged". Too many of them could only see what Annette had been able to look beyond, that gray little job and that gray little flat, and out of quiet desperation went searching for their answers in places polite people didn't talk about.
I suppose even having magic doesn't change human nature.
But that same human nature might save her now. Her instinctive reaction was coming clearer by the second.
I recognized how he was behaving the moment he walked in the room. He hates everything around him and everything he is, but he's been like this so long he can't imagine his life any other way.
Maybe I can imagine it for him.
Her colleagues had sometimes accused her of being unrealistic, too much of a dreamer. They'd pointed out again and again that the problem would always be bigger than she was. No matter how hard she worked, she simply couldn't help every child.
Evanie smiled, blotted a last tear from her cheek, and whispered to the empty air the answer she had always given her naysayers.
"Maybe not . . . but I can help this one."
Opening her eyes and sliding off the bed, she went to investigate the washroom. It proved just as small and grimy as she had feared, but she'd never yet been harmed by dirt, and Peter's semi-coherent chatter in the few moments they'd spent together had given her an idea. After splashing some water on her face and drying it with her sleeve, she went to one knee and put on the gentle smile she used with the youngest children.
"Is there a house-elf around, please?" she said quietly.
Standing at the attic window of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Alice Longbottom looked out over the rooftops of London and considered insanity. It was a subject with which she had some familiarity.
But this pain comes from within, not from without. I can’t escape it by hiding inside my mind. It will only come with me.
So instead of going mad, she was going to go sane. It wouldn’t be a pretty kind of sanity, nor would it necessarily be pleasant, but it would do something about the shrieking, howling demon within her soul, and that was all that mattered to her.
My husband is dead. Calmly, rationally, sanely she absorbed that fact, relived the moment of its happening, watched him fall and saw the glee on the face of his murderer. The person who killed him deserves to be punished. I could kill her—if and when we meet again, it is likely to be on a battlefield, and no one would blame me for striking first—but that hardly seems fair. A life for a life is just, yes, but her death will not bring back my husband or my son’s father. That pain, we will have to suffer for the rest of our lives.
By the logic of her new brand of sanity, therefore, Alice reasoned, her husband’s killer should suffer for the rest of her life. And ideally . . .
Ideally, she should have what she wants most for a little while. She should think it will last. She should revel in it, gloat over it, exalt in the glory of it. And then, I will take it all away from her, and leave her dazed and bleeding in the ruins of her dreams.
That, as I see it, is justice for what she has done today.
A smile spread over Alice’s lips. It was not a pleasant expression.
How convenient that I was already planning to help do most of that.
Something strange was happening to Percy Weasley. He wasn’t sure what it was, which in itself was very odd. Usually his emotions knew their place, staying in line behind his logical thought processes.
But I don’t usually witness the premeditated murder of the witch I was planning to marry and an innocent child she was trying to save.
The tears were gone, though he knew they’d be back at some point. In their place was a tightness in his chest, a muted buzzing in his ears, a tense readiness through all his muscles. He found himself hoping one of the Death Eaters came in and tried something. He would show them what it meant to kidnap a Weasley!
“All right?” Grace asked him, and he jumped, whipping around to face her. “No, clearly you’re not. What’s wrong?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Percy ran his hands across his face, trying to trace the troublesome feelings to their source. “I’m so . . . so . . . angry.” The word came to him in a rush. “I’m angry. And I don’t get angry. Ever.”
“You haven’t before,” Grace corrected gently. “Now you are. So what are you going to do with that anger?” She moved close enough to bring her face into full focus, the clear hazel eyes behind her glasses steady and sure. “You can’t just wall it in, or it will poison you, but if you learn how to use it and not let it use you, it can be one of the strongest forces for good in the world.”
“I don’t understand.”
Grace laid her hand over his. “Let me teach you, then. It takes time, and we may not have much of that, but you can learn at least the beginnings tonight . . . ”
Draco sat in his usual place for serious thinking, the top of the near middle hoop on the Hogwarts Den’s Quidditch pitch. Harry would be asleep for another hour or two thanks to his lupus potion, and Hermione was in the library making sure of a few points about the Trace on underage magic he’d asked her to check.
Specifically, is it only wanded spells that set it off, or does it catch any type of magic?
He had a feeling the question would become more than academic within the next few days.
Harry can’t stay here. It’s a prison to him now, after those months with Umbridge, more than a day or two and he’ll be climbing the walls. But he can’t leave without Voldemort being able to get at his mind, and apart from what that’ll do to him—as if that weren’t enough—he knows a lot about the Order’s plans and personnel. We all do, but Harry’s the only one with a direct link to the other side. And now with Moony hurt, that link is open and operational.
So we have to find some other place where Voldemort can’t invade Harry’s mind, and it has to be a place where Harry can stay for a few weeks, until Moony gets well. Assuming he does—no, I’m not going to play that game, the Healers say he will so he will. It’s temporary, it’s just temporary . . .
Which is going to be the only thing that reconciles Harry to the one place I can think of that fits the criteria.
Well, not quite the only thing. He indulged in a brief, smug grin. One furry little compensation, at your service. But still, it’s going to be interesting getting him to agree to this. I’d like to think he’ll be sensible after that little scene in the tower, and who knows? He might be. But I’m not about to assume. Let’s see now, best way to get Harry to do anything is . . .
Oh, that’s right. Try and convince him to do the opposite. Times like this I see why he and Ron are friends.
A brief wave of cool rippled through Draco’s pendants as the latter name crossed his mind, and he groaned aloud. “Ron, whatever you’re doing,” he said between his teeth, “don’t.”
But he knew it was already far too late for that.
“Cold?” Crystal asked as Ron climbed into the back seat of the Ford Anglia.
Ron shook his head. “Just something I’m wearing,” he said, digging his pendants out from their usual place against his skin and dropping them between his T-shirt and his robes. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would stop the metal from chilling him to the point where he was noticeably shivering. Ginny, beside him, had already done the same, and was now double-checking the pockets of her robes, which she had filled with spare potion cartridges, including one or two brews even the general run of the DA hadn’t been given.
Including the one I’m planning on using once we get where we’re going.
The pendants cooled again, to the point where Ron could feel them through the T-shirt, and he hissed under his breath. Look, you’re not going to change my mind, he thought in their general direction. I know perfectly well I could die doing this, and I’m going to do it anyway, so you may as well stop distracting me. If Ginny or George or Crystal are about to die and I can stop it, let me know. Otherwise, leave me alone.
The chain went absolutely icy for an instant, then returned to the usual temperature of body-heated metal. Ron rolled his eyes and was about to will the pendants back against his skin, but Ginny elbowed him first. “We’ll need directions once we’re loaded,” she murmured, nodding towards George, who was busily stuffing crates into the car’s boot. “You might as well start it now.”
“Right.” Ron hooked the pendants out and held them up in front of his eyes. Percy, he willed once again, concentrating this time on one of the tiny, gleaming red gems. Show me where he is. Lead me to him. And if you can get us there before the Death Eaters kill him, I’d really appreciate that.
He could have sworn he heard a reluctant snort of laughter in his mind before the gem flashed with its own internal light.
Danger sat by Remus’ bedside, her hand curled around his. His mind flickered dimly at the edge of her awareness, a bonfire miles away on a foggy night.
And it’s about to get farther away than that.
“I love you,” she whispered, bending to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry for this, but you’d never forgive either of us if Sirius or Letha die and I could have saved them. You know I’ll come home to you, no matter what. Just . . . ” She swallowed hard. “You’d better not die while I’m away. You hear me, Remus John Lupin? You are not allowed to die!”
It may be absurd, but it does make me feel better. And for a job like this, that counts for something.
“All right,” she said aloud, tightening her grip on Remus’ hand. “I’m ready.”
The words, as she had expected, were waiting for her, queued up at the back of her mind. “I, Gertrude Granger-Lupin, hereby place my bond with Remus Lupin in temporary abeyance, allowing us freedom of movement as we would have it if we were not so bonded. This state of affairs will last until we next touch skin to skin, and I do understand that its price is a full day taken from the time we may usually spend apart and accept this price freely and willingly. So I speak, so I intend . . . ” She paused to swallow again. “And so let it be done.”
So it is done, Alex’s voice responded, formal as he always was in his official persona. Go in peace, and seek your friends. His voice lightened to its more casual tone, and Danger got the distinct impression of a wink. I’ll give you a hand if you like.
“If you start clapping, I’ll—” Danger broke off. The image of a man’s hand had formed inside her mind, the index finger extended, pointing over her left shoulder. “Wait. Is that—is that the way I should go? Is that where they are?”
Isn’t she a clever widdle Danger, Alex crooned. Isn’t she just the smartest widdle fing!
“Isn’t somebody going to get himself thrown in the lake the next time I see him.”
I can always take it away if it bothers you . . .
“No, no, that’s fine.” Danger quenched her indignation by reminding herself of what and who she was going out to find. “Thank you. This will help me a lot.”
You’re welcome. Just a warning, it only works in straight lines, so you may have to go around a few things. Mountains and rivers and such.
Danger blew a kiss to the ceiling. “I’ll manage. Thanks again.”
Percy thought he was getting rather good at anger, if he did say so himself.
According to Grace, the first step was to stay in control of the feelings, and that he’d known how to do since before he’d gone to Hogwarts. The second, more bafflingly, was to give in to those same feelings, but only to the point where they fueled your movement towards a goal you had already chosen. He wasn’t quite sure he had that one down yet, but he was having no trouble imagining himself committing various types of mayhem on Death Eaters, which seemed like a good sign.
“What’s the third step?” he asked, running a hand restlessly back and forth along the stone wall. “What do you do when you’re ready?”
“Wait,” Sue answered before Grace could. “Which is the hardest part, especially for someone your age. You haven’t had to wait for much in your life, have you?”
Percy shook his head. “Not for anything important. New robes and such, and . . . ” He stopped, a memory washing over him. “How strange. I used to be angry with my parents when we couldn’t afford things I wanted, because it showed how poor we were, and I thought people would think less of us for it. What was wrong with me?”
“It’s called being young.” Sue chuckled dryly. “It’s a fault that corrects itself, if you live long enough. When—” She froze before the second word of her sentence could emerge, her hand going to the butt of her potion piece. “On the wall,” she mouthed, pointing to the stones. “Move back.”
Grace edged away from the outer wall of their prison, drawing her own potion piece and checking it to be sure it was set to the yellow cartridge. Percy, for his part, moved in, nerving himself up for a grab. There didn’t seem to be much reason why the Death Eaters would come through the wall instead of the door, but neither had there been any reason he could understand why they had attacked Diagon Alley. Until whatever emerged from the stones proved itself a friend, he was assuming it was a foe.
One of the stone blocks wobbled, then grated inwards and fell to the floor with a dull thud. It was only as thick as Percy’s hand, and its upper surface was still steaming slightly from whatever had been used to dissolve most of it away. “All right in there?” a girl’s voice called softly through the hole thus created.
Percy opened his mouth and closed it again. He knew who was speaking, but under the circumstances he couldn’t be sure whether her arrival was good or bad.
Friend or foe is one thing. What do I do with a sister?
And how am I going to stop Mother from blaming me for her being here?
Sirius knew, better than he wanted to, how dire his situation and Aletha’s really was. He had been on the other end of it, in his apprentice days and his first year qualified, and the percentages of people who had been rescued alive from Death Eaters were low. Alive and sane, even lower. Alive, sane, and with all major body parts intact . . .
Yeah, that’s not happening. Not unless we get rescued in the next, say, thirty seconds. Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven—
The Death Eater gripping his arms shoved him to his knees on a stone floor.
Make that zero.
A spell from behind him untied his hands, a second one vanished his blindfold, and he turned and rose in the same motion in time to steady Aletha as she was shoved into the hall behind him. “I’ve got you,” he told her, pulling off her blindfold before the wand-wielder could do it. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yet.” Aletha got her feet back under her but didn’t move away from his grip on her now unbound arms.
“Thank you, Captain Optimist.”
A clatter on the floor drew both their attention. Sirius looked and felt his eyebrows defy gravity. “What—”
“It’s a trap.” Aletha slid her foot away from their two wands, lying temptingly between an uneven pair of floor tiles a few inches away. “It has to be.”
“A trap?” repeated a cool voice from the end of the room, and the Death Eaters drew back to expose their Master, his own wand hanging loosely in his grasp. “Do you really think so little of me? Would I be that crude? Go on, pick them up.” His wand tip made a little circle in their wands’ direction. “They won’t bite.”
Sirius didn’t move, except to tighten his grip on Aletha. She shifted but made no other comment.
“Pick them up, I said.” Voldemort’s wand rose to cover them. “Or must I use the Imperius for even so simple a task as this?”
Slowly, Sirius knelt, keeping his eyes on Voldemort the whole time, never taking his hand off Aletha. He scooped up the wands with his fingertips, cradled them in his right palm, and rose again, handing Aletha hers by feel and swapping his own into his dominant hand, though he took care not to let it point in any particular direction. “I thought giving prisoners back their weapons was against Dark Lord policy,” he said when he was satisfied with its position.
“Usually it is.” Voldemort began to circle them, his thin white lips curving upwards as Aletha turned, tracking his movements. “But today I want you armed. One of you, in any case, but it will do no harm to let both of you enjoy the possession of your wands. One last time.”
I knew it. We’re going to die. Sirius slid his free hand around Aletha, mildly surprised by how calmly he could come to that conclusion. Maybe it’s because I know it could be worse. At least this way we’ll go together, and the cubs still have Moony and Danger to take care of them. It’ll tear them up, but all the better to blast Death Eaters with. And we get a front-row seat to the rest of the war, with Prongs and Tiger Lily. Yeah, it could be a lot worse.
“One last time.” Voldemort lingered over the words as though he enjoyed their taste. “After tonight, you see, one of you will no longer have the capacity to use a wand. And one of you will have the capacity, but will not know about it.”
Aletha stiffened against Sirius’ arm. Sirius growled under his breath.
This is one of those days when I didn’t want to be right.
It just got worse.
“Ginny?” Percy sounded as though the stone she’d pushed into the room had hit him on the foot, Ginny thought. “What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you, of course.” Ginny started to outline a large square on the stone wall with her potion piece, set to a red cartridge. “Who’s there with you? Mr. Padfoot and Mrs. Letha, have you seen them, are they all right?”
“No, the Death Eaters took them away, and Miss Meade as well. Sue and Grace—Mrs. Robertson and Mrs. Smythe—they’re here, we’re none of us hurt—” Percy squinted out the tiny hole at her. “Ginny, how did you get here? Who’s with you?”
“We borrowed Dad’s car, and just George and Crystal at the moment. They’re watching to make sure we’re not seen.” Ginny reached into her pocket and pulled out something she was glad she’d thought to bring, if only to copy them for Ron. “Here, you might want these. Yours broke, didn’t they?”
“Yes, when I fell.” Percy took his spare set of glasses from her hand and slid them on. “Thank you, that’s much better. What do you mean, at the moment? Did you lose someone?”
“Not lose, exactly. And you might want to move back, this bit of wall is about to fall over.” The Semi-Universal Solvent was doing its job perfectly, eating through stone and mortar indiscriminately. “We dropped Ron off through one of the windows. He’s our decoy. A little Aging Potion and a pair of fake glasses, and even Mum would think he’s you. For once it’s useful that Weasleys all look alike. Heads up!”
The section of stone she had outlined rocked in place for a moment, then fell inwards with an echoing boom. The two women Percy had mentioned appeared first, peering with interest at the hovering car, and George popped open the back door and waved them in beside him. Percy came last, and Ginny frowned as she got a good look at his face. “What is it?”
“You made Ron look like me.” Percy’s voice matched his expression, filled with a suppressed passion Ginny had never associated with him. “To make them think I’d got out. Ginny, they don’t know who I am. I’d hurt my face, my glasses were lost, so Grace called me her son to try and keep them from taking me with the Blacks. It worked, obviously, I’m here, but they don’t know who I am and if they see Ron looking like me—”
Ginny gasped as her pendants turned to ice.
“You may remember Bartemius Crouch.” Voldemort finished a circuit of the room and turned to face them, his robes swirling about his ankles. “Junior, though you knew him as Senior. My spy in your ranks for some time—one of my spies, I should say, I do have others—and the one who brought me the tidbit I will be using tonight.” His smile thinned, if the word could be used of a thing which was so very thin to begin with. “Such fine irony, that he gave me the means of your downfall several months before you killed him at that Department of Mysteries debacle, Aletha.”
“Get to the point,” Aletha snapped.
Voldemort tapped his wand against his fingertips. “If you insist. The point is that Bartemius, in his character as his worthy father, attended your magical marriage, and found the vows you took so very touching that he brought me a copy of them.” The wand paused against the ring finger. “Do you realize you made a fundamental error in their writing?”
Sirius called up his memory of that day and the vow he’d helped to write, and swore mentally as he spotted the implication Voldemort was making. Damn it. Damn it. I’d have seen that right away if it were in a story, why the hell didn’t I spot it in real life? We forgot to say—
“You forgot to say, when you promised that you would not use magic against one another, that the promise held you only if you used that magic of your own free wills.” Voldemort stroked his wand as though he were caressing an animal’s head. “I think it will be amusing to see what results when one of you uses a full-power Memory Charm on the other.”
Antonin Dolohov took a step back and admired his playground. He would have to leave it behind after tonight, he knew, but part of the fun of his favorite game was designing a new arena in which to play it every time. It gave the process the touch of novelty it needed to keep from getting boring, though personally he doubted he would ever tire of hearing the sounds which formed the game’s inherent music.
The screams. The crying. The begging for mercy, the trying to bargain, the bribe attempts—those are the funniest of all. Why would they think I have a use for their money? Money couldn’t buy me these pleasures.
Besides, by the time I’m done with them, I know all their secrets anyway. Including where they keep all their precious money, and how to get at it. When the Dark Lord finally triumphs, I’ll be able to buy as many Muggles as I like to play with. He sighed. It won’t be as much fun as going out and hunting them down myself, but we can’t have progress without losing a bit of the charm of life.
A commotion in the corridor outside drew his attention. Cursing under his breath at the stupidity of underlings who couldn’t comprehend such simple instructions as “do not disturb me until I call you”—Novir and Pierson were new to the ranks, true enough, but Rowle had been a Death Eater for long enough to understand how the system worked—Dolohov stormed to the door, ready to give them a piece of his mind.
Then he saw what they had found, and the piece he was intending to give them changed.
How did we miss that?
The boy the Muggle woman had claimed as her own was dueling both the stubby, balding Novir and the scruffy, gangling Pierson to a standstill, with what Dolohov would have laid money was Rowle’s wand. But what had him smiling as he slipped his hand into his pocket was the clear identity written in every freckle and red hair of the bespectacled brat before him.
We’ve caught ourselves a Weasley. What odds we can use what we get from him to help plan the Ministry job?
After a little preliminary fun, of course. Finder’s privilege.
An Impediment Jinx froze the boy in the act of throwing a Stunner. Dolohov plucked the wand from his hand, tossed it aside, and levitated him into the room, jerking his head to tell Novir and Pierson to follow.
“What about Rowle?” Novir wanted to know, wiping his perpetually running nose on his sleeve. “We can’t find him anywhere . . . ”
“He’ll keep.” Dolohov hesitated for a moment between two of his favorite sets of restraints, deciding in the end on the classic dungeon-wall look mounted opposite the room’s one window, with the boy’s arms held over his head. The Impediment Jinx wore off just as the second manacle snapped shut, and Pierson jumped back as the boy lunged at him, snarling. Dolohov chuckled. “Feisty one, aren’t you?” he said, chucking the boy’s chin. “And which blood traitor might you be?”
The boy spat an obscenity at him, the eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses seething with fury. There was no trace of fear in them, as there usually was in eyes whose owners had been brought to this point, and that was irritating, but Dolohov thought he knew how to fix it. This was hardly the first Gryffindor he’d dealt with. Glancing around the room for inspiration, he allowed his mock geniality to drop and showed the boy his true smile.
I am a Death Eater. Initiate of the Dark Lord himself, seeker of pleasures too overwhelming for the common man. You are entirely within my power, and once I begin my work on you, you will beg for death . . .
But the eyes never flickered, never wavered, and Dolohov felt an answering fury rising within him. Who did this insignificant brat think he was, to glare at him, Antonin Dolohov, this way? He needed a lesson, one he would never forget, one that would wipe out the overpowering rage in those blue eyes once and for all—
“Divexare Oculi!”
Red obliterated blue, and the boy screamed, convulsing in his restraints. Dolohov hissed in satisfaction, a rush of pleasure coursing through him. Not so brave now, are you, little Gryffindor?
A fraction of a second later, the back wall blew in.
Dolohov was thrown to the ground, rolling over in time to see Novir and Pierson both collapsing in the act of getting up, large areas of their robes inexplicably soaking wet. Whatever the liquid might be, it had obviously come from the purple-and-green car hovering outside the huge hole in the masonry, and he even thought he could see the person who had downed Pierson—a fierce-faced girl with blonde hair, leaning out the driver’s window, gripping a small black object in her hand—
The rear door sprang open, and out shot the mirror image of the boy, face distorted by the same snarl, eyes the same blaze of fury. It was strange, though, Dolohov had time to think before the spell forming at the tip of the boy’s wand blasted past his half-summoned defense and slammed him full in the chest. Those eyes had been blue, and these were brown . . .
At this point, he lost interest in most of the outside world, finding a far more fascinating subject in the way his skin was hardening and growing points, and in his newly awakened desire to swim around a coral reef and eat fish. A few words caught in his ears, and hazily he wondered what they meant.
“His eyes . . . get him home . . . Dark magic . . . ”
And then there was nothing.
She was awakened by a foot in her side. A man with a scarred face and a tangle of white-blond hair stared coldly down at her. “Get up,” he ordered. “You can sleep when your work is done.”
She considered objecting, but the way the man was gripping the small rod of wood in his right hand told her it was a weapon, and work wouldn’t hurt her. She could decide what to do about his assumption of rights over her while she was working. “What work do you want me to do, sir?” she asked, getting to her feet.
A brief smirk passed over the man’s face before his expression of disdain returned. “This kitchen is a pigsty. Scrub it out, then make something for yourself to eat. I should be back by then to show you what will be your usual chores.”
Usual chores. So he expects me to stay here a while. A good thing to know. “Yes, sir.” Eyes on the floor, she listened to him start to leave, then stop. “Was there something else, sir?”
“Yes.” His voice had a curious mixture of tones in it, elation, disgust, and something akin to worry. “Your name is Mare. Remember it.”
“Yes, sir.” Mare waited until she heard the door close, then had herself a good long look around. Pigsty was a bit too strong—the kitchen looked as though it had had its last cleaning sometime within the past year, but most of the problem was accumulated dust rather than the grime of use. It wouldn’t take long to make it sparkle again.
And it’s not as if I have anywhere else to go.
Rolling up her sleeves, she started for the sink.
The door banged open behind her. “I almost forgot,” the man announced. “When you make yourself that food, make something suitable for a dog as well. A large one. You’ll be feeding and cleaning up after him daily from now on.”
“Yes, sir.” Mare waited once again until the door closed, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
His face is familiar. It looks too old, though, and it shouldn’t have all those scars. And there’s something about a dog, something important . . . something I ought to remember . . .
There were a great many things she was sure she ought to remember. Doubtless they would come back to her when she was ready. In the meantime, there was work to be done.
Elsewhere in the sprawling manor house, in an alcove hastily fitted with bars, a black dog lay with his head between his paws, two trickles of water running away from his snout across the stone floor.
The broken vow had shown him this one mercy. It had left him magical enough to weep.
Author Notes:
I told you there were Bad Things. This is why I didn't write this chapter for months, because I was secretly hoping there would be a plague or an earthquake or a worldwide collapse of the Internet and I would never have to write the Bad Things. But it did not happen, and now I have written the Bad Things and I can work on making them good again.
Yes, my brain is very strange. If you've read the DV to this point, you knew that.
My New Year's resolution was to write every day, and now that I've broken my DV block, I shall attempt to turn it to this use. No guarantees, but we shall see what we shall see. Please feed the author and reassure me you're still out there reading this!