A/N: Whatever you recognise does not belong to me. It belongs to J.K Rowling; in case you haven't figured it out yet.
Prologue: The End
The Death Eaters dispersed after the meeting. Only a single entity now sat in the dark chamber, its inhuman face flicking in and out of the light emanating from the elaborate fireplace. The fire was turbulent, its flames quivering with the perverse waves of magic that swept over the room every now and then.
A glittering silver crown sat atop the head of the dark figure, glittering whenever the flames chose to cast their light upon it. Two eyes were visible below the silver crown, glittering with an unholy red light of their own, gazing impassively upon the flames, but drawing no light or comfort from them. Perverse waves of magic swept over him, pressing down upon his genitalia, until his robes were stretched to uncomfortable tightness. Sexual tension throbbed within him, aching to be released in a burst of sticky, white droplets of happiness and joy.
A woman drew up alongside him, undressing him slowly, each of her fingers trembling with an ill-concealed anticipation, for she was serving her lord. She had dreamt of this moment for years, and now, here the opportunity had unrobed itself, waiting to be caressed and touched.
The night passed in wild ecstasy, each moan echoing through the confines of the chamber, as the serpentine sculptures flicked in and out of view. An evil hissing echoed from the darkest corner of the chamber, the sound writhing within the already confined Silencing Charms that wreathed the chamber. Hiss and touch. Moan and writhe. Fervent wild bursts of human seed into an orifice, releasing their foamy ejaculation within a hollow canal, uniting at last with the female seed, begging to be fertilised.
Evil cloaked the chamber with its shadowy veil, but within that shadowy cloak, a seed had been planted. It was too late now, to retrieve it.
Hiss and touch.
She laughed in wild mirth as she saw with amusement the lady that had come to challenge her with such idiotic ferocity. She twirled her wand at the witch that had dared challenge her. They traded curses; she was merely testing the stupid, presumptuous witch. The battle was lost, but the war could still be saved. Only two remained of her side now - her, and the only hope their side had ever had.
Suddenly, she felt it well up within her. It rose from the very bowels of her fertile body, rising like a volcano, a burst of untamed magic, as if another magical core was sprouting within her besides her own. A flood of bile arose within her throat, and the frugal meal she had that day, rose up until it constricted her oesophagus. And then it struck her in a flood of clear thought.
A seed had been planted within her womb.
She smiled. But the moment of clarity came at a woeful price – ignorance of the present, a present that would be hailed as the turning point for the Wizarding World. A curse soared beneath her face and hit her just over her beating heart. With a fleeting smile, her body collapsed, unconscious.
She awoke within the dreary pits of the same prison where she had spent fourteen years, awaiting the arrival of her Master. Back to the finish line. She looked at her left forearm. The Dark Mark was no more. Yet she did not lose hope. Her faith was tenacious - her master would return and she knew it.
The darkness threatened to overtake her, but she shrugged it off. She had bathed, drowned and relished in that darkness for as long as she could remember. But surely, her memory stretched past those years, didn't it? A rattling hiss echoed across the narrow confines of the prison. The dementors had been reemployed at Azkaban. The rest of her stream of thought was drowned in a flood of torture and remorse.
She screamed to get the attention of the Aurors, but they did not hear her. They never fed her. They never even checked on her – the prisoner in the highest security ward of Azkaban. Her entire magical core went into overdrive, sustaining her. Yet it would not sustain her for long. The dementors were slowly draining it away from her. She was dying. Two lives were being sucked out of her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
And then, seven months later, she died, just a day before her hugely publicised trial. Her death did disappoint a whole host of people that had been baying for her blood, but a wave of relief did sweep over the entire nation, bathing it in a glow of extreme euphoria. The last trace of Darkness had been swept away.
Oh, how wrong they all were.
Dawlish shivered as another wave of cold assaulted him. It was a miracle that he had retained his position as Auror, even after the regime change in the magical world. He might not like his new job, but at least, he was still an Auror.
Alas, if only his station wasn't at Azkaban. Falling victim to the Imperius Curse of the Death Eaters was an all-too-common occurrence during the War. Yet, he – the erstwhile Head of Auror Department – had fallen victim to the same curse. He was ashamed of it. And so, he had come to Azkaban, taking over as deputy warden of the prison, now holding captured Death Eaters.
Not at all a privileged position. And now, Dawlish knew why. It was so blasted cold, it chilled your bones to the marrow. And the worst part of it was the dementors. Why they had been reappointed, Dawlish did not dare ask; but they were the bane of his existence at the prison. He just couldn't understand why the entire prison had only a single Auror Contingent in charge. He realised the enormity of the destruction that had taken place during the War, but he failed to grasp the firm belief of the new Minister – Shacklebolt, his erstwhile partner at the Auror Academy – in the fact that the Dark Lord was gone.
Okay, so Potter had killed the Dark Lord… again, but did that mean he was gone for sure this time around? Dawlish was not so sure. He shuddered as he thought of the terrible things they had made him do at the Ministry under the Imperius.
The door to his wretched little office burst open as an excitable, rosy-cheeked Auror rushed in, galumphing, his robes billowing in a non-existent breeze.
Dawlish looked up at him. It always annoyed him when they did not knock. He deserved some respect after all. He wrinkled his nose in distaste as the Auror slammed the door shut and stared at him wildly.
"What?" Dawlish barked.
"She's… dead." The Auror said succinctly.
"She?" asked Dawlish confused, screwing up his eyes in confusion. And then it struck him with the force of a sledgehammer. "Oh… her."
He tried to veil his tense excitement beneath a veneer of calmness, though he had to admit it was extremely transparent. His knuckles whitened upon the edge of his wooden desk, as he murmured, "Good. Is that all?"
The Auror gaped at him for a moment, his mouth moving soundlessly like that of a fish, and then clamped it shut. He leaned against the wall, took a deep breath and said, matching Dawlish's calm tone, "I understand your lack of sorrow at her passing. After all, that bitch did kill my infirm parents in the War."
Dawlish nodded tightly.
"But you know that this is going to receive a lot of publicity."
Dawlish shrugged. "She got what she deserved. Now, is that all?"
Dawlish made to turn back to the sheaf of parchment upon his wooden desk, but the auror's crisp voice startled him.
"No. That's bloody well not all."
Dawlish looked up again in surprise.
"I've sent a house elf to fetch the bundle."
"What bundle?" Dawlish asked. Now, he was thoroughly confused. His hand twitched towards the wand. If the War had taught him anything, it was not to trust one that babbled strange things. For all he knew, the Auror might be under the Imperius.
The Auror took another deep breath and murmured, "The dementors informed me of her passing, as they always do at a prisoner's death. However they had something strange to report."
Dawlish tensed.
"They reported that while one soul departed, another was created. One life for another."
"What do you mean?" Dawlish asked crisply.
"What I mean, is that she was pregnant all the time. The bitch gave birth to a baby," the Auror spat.
Dawlish felt as if his rib cage was about to crack with the sheer pressure of his heart's pounding.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"I told you we should have checked on her," the Auror moaned, "If only…"
Dawlish slammed the table. "What's done is done. Now, we have to search for a way out. We cannot reveal the existence of the child to the world. It would mean our jobs this time."
He sighed. Why did it always have to be him?
A house elf entered the office and deposited a bundle on the desk. In another second, it was gone.
The bundle expanded and collapsed rhythmically, in sync with the baby's breathing.
Dawlish came to a firm conclusion. "We have to cover it up. Have the dementors kiss it."
"Do you think they haven't tried already?" the Auror asked incredulously, "Since the baby was born under their influence, it seems to have developed some sort of powerful resistance against them. Besides, it's only a day old, Dawlish. It doesn't feel any despair."
Dawlish motioned to the Auror and said, "Then you kill him."
The Auror gazed at him haughtily. "Do you take me for a Death Eater? I can't kill a baby!"
Dawlish moved up to the little bundle and sighed. He was right. They couldn't kill it ruthlessly.
"Let's face it," Dawlish sighed, "We cannot kill it outright. We cannot bring anyone else into this for risk of exposure. We have to abandon him someplace… remote."
He looked at the Auror, who seemed to be in deep thought.
"We could abandon him… How about the Black Forest in Albania" the Auror asked fervently.
Dawlish looked at the Auror incredulously. "Are you mad? Albania? For all we know, You-Know-Who might still be hiding there. If he… if the boy… no… Albania is out of the question. The Forest is heavily populated by all sorts of creatures. The baby might survive."
The Auror shuddered. "There, there, Dawlish, be a good man and keep that tongue of yours in check. You-Know-Who's dead… dead", he said with finality.
He looked at the baby, screwing up his face in concentration.
"Although, now that I think of it, we could abandon him…"
Dawlish, who had been staring at the bundle, looked up at the Auror eagerly.
"…In India…" the Auror concluded thoughtfully.
"India?" Dawlish asked, his voice slipping back into the incredulous tone.
"Yes," the Auror said, and shifted guiltily, "When I was seeking a place of… refuge… during the war. India was one of the many places I visited. I came upon this vast desert called the Tar… or something. Completely deserted, not a soul in sight. The baby would be dead at the end of the day."
"The Tar?" Dawlish asked, scrutinising the Auror suspiciously for any sign of drunkenness, "Are you sure?"
"I'll apparate there, deposit the baby, and apparate back," the Auror said absently, "And yeah… I'm sure of the place."
Dawlish settled back down. He was knee-deep in shit anyway. "Fine. Take the baby, and deposit him there. You have thirty minutes. I'll give you a little bonus at the end of this month."
The Auror nodded smugly and gathered the bundle. And then, he disapparated.
Dawlish sighed. A man in his position had to take certain decisions… guilty decisions. The world was better off without her anyway. There was nothing he could do about it. He had starved her to death. It was all action and reaction, after all. After all the lives she had taken, this was a minor punishment.
But he had never predicted this hitch. Yet, he would trust Dickens with his life. If Dickens said the baby would be dead in a day, it would.
He felt a little guilty at the punishment inflicted on the baby for no fault of its own. Yet, if the woman was a bitch, what else could the child be but a monster? He wondered who had had the guts to screw her. He admired the man. He must have been an animal.
With a sigh of unease, he dipped the quill in the scarlet ink and continued to scribble away on the parchment.
For all the world knew, Azkaban's most notorious and hated prisoner was dead. End of story.
In any village in the less developed regions of India, the Sarpanch is the ultimate authority when it comes to… well, anything. The word of the Sarpanch is Law.
Yet, today he was faced with a dilemma. True, his village was not the most reputable of settlements in this part of the desert, and true, the villagers did do business with the traffickers – be it drugs or humans – journeying in caravans down south to Mumbai, yet, they did have the reputation of being one of the richest villages in the Thar.
There had been a terrible storm that afternoon. The villagers usually took shelter amidst their thatched huts or, in the case of the camel herders, behind their camels. It was a blinding storm, or so the villagers told him. He considered himself too high to be touched by the fiercer aspects of nature. So he did not dare comment on the fury of the sandstorm that had rocked his own palatial dwelling. The air had been so full of sand, you couldn't see even a foot ahead. Worse than the mists of the Himalayas that he had heard tale of from the caravans.
However, one of his villagers had reported a curious event. After the fury of the Wind God had abated and the air was as clear and dry as it should be, the villagers had found a baby in the outskirts of their settlement. He had immediately rushed to the scene, and the expensive cotton dhoti he wore was stained by dirt.
The baby in question was in the hands of his wife, who was scrutinising it from all angles. Yet, something about this baby was highly irregular. It was white! Not the creamy-white complexion of the mountain dwellers… but white… pure milky white!
His wife looked at him irritably. "The storm must have blown it to this place, I tell you", she told him.
"Don't be foolish, woman," he said, flapping his palm at her irritably, "The storm… You mean the Wind God carried him here?"
He laughed at the absurd notion, but soon noticed no one else was laughing. By the gods, they were fools, the whole lot of them! Idiots!
"Huzoor," said a villager tentatively, addressing the Sarpanch respectfully, "It must be true. No one in the village was pregnant, except for my Lajjo. And she is still pregnant. She hasn't given birth. It must have been blown here by the storm."
"True," muttered one of the village elders, "Who can decipher the will of the Gods?" He pointed at the azure blue sky.
The Sarpanch shook his head dejectedly. "One of the caravans might have abandoned it."
"Huzoor," said the same villager again. The Sarpanch was furious now. Why does the idiot have to contradict everything he said? "There was not a caravan in sight before the storm. No caravan could have made it here in that storm."
The other villagers murmured in assent.
"The question is," said another of the village elders, "What do we do with it?"
"One of those whores at the city must have gotten herself impregnated by a gora," the Sarpanch's wife spat, "This child must be gora – just look at its complexion!"
The Sarpanch considered this. His wife might be right, after all. Life could surprise you, at times. He chanced a glance at the circle of curious villagers gathered around him. They were all awaiting his decision.
He drew himself up to his full height, and declared, "We cannot abandon the child. Yet, we cannot raise it as our own. So I suggest a compromise. We raise it, keep it until it is five or six, and then sell it. He should fetch us a good price with the traders."
The villagers shifted uneasily. The Sarpanch was proud of his qualities; yet the quality he was most proud of, and possessed in abundance, was frankness. His villagers often deluded themselves into thinking they are honourable men, and are reluctant to reveal their ties with the traffickers. The Sarpanch smirked. Their village was the most notorious in the locality. It was more of an open secret. No point hiding what everyone knew.
The villagers would ultimately agree. All the Sarpanch had to do was to summon a council, and persuade the village elders. The rest would back his agreement like a flock of sheep.
Idiots. The whole lot of them.
"It was a bloody sandstorm out there. Could see a foot in front of me! Had to clear the dust out of the way with my wand," the Auror exclaimed when he entered Dawlish's office.
"Then the baby has absolutely no chance of surviving. As long he's out of our hands, and as long as our memories are free of images of murder, I don't care," Dawlish muttered.
The Auror nodded and left the office, pale faced.
Dawlish sighed. The poor fool. He'd get over his damned conscience in the end.
And of course… the poor baby. Dead before it could breathe.
Pity.
With that thought, Dawlish turned back to his sheaf of parchment and resumed his scribbling.