A/N: Hey, y'all! This was written for the QLFC Round 1.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Those rights go to JK Rowling.
Chaser 2: Write a setting you've never written before. (I have never written any of the settings in this story.)
3- (quote) Adventure is not outside man; it is within. -George Eliot
5- (setting) Department of Mysteries
11- (dialogue) "It's like the blind leading the blind."
Word Count: 2850
Enjoy!
Augustus Rookwood surveyed the room with feigned disinterest. He stood inside the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries with a handful of his fellow Unspeakables. It was a large, rectangular room with a floor that descended downwards. At the very center of the floor was a stone dais, and standing upon that dais was an arch that looked as though it may collapse at any moment. From the top of the arch hung a tattered black veil, fluttering slightly, though there was no wind in the room.
As his coworkers theorized about the Veil, Rookwood descended the stone benches that wrapped around the room like steps, resembling an amphitheater. He reached the dais and looked curiously at the Veil, wondering what secrets it held. He leaned closer, mesmerized by the flickering black cloth. Then he frowned.
He could have sworn he had heard voices.
He looked around to the other side of the dais, but there was no one there. He ran a hand through his dark hair, grey eyes darting about suspiciously. But he found no trace of anyone near him, save for the men and women he had entered the room with. With one last glance at the Veil, he turned and joined the other Unspeakables for what he believed was a much-deserved lunch break.
The next week, Rookwood found himself in the Death Chamber once more. Although he tried to engage in the conversation, his eyes kept drifting over towards the Veil. After a few more minutes of his fruitless efforts to focus, Rookwood let his thoughts wander to the mystery in the room.
His coworkers left to go to one of the other rooms in the Department, and Rookwood promised that he'd catch up to them later. Once he heard the door close, he headed toward the Veil.
Rookwood examined the archway before him. There was a sort of power here, some magic so old that its name had been lost to the centuries. Rookwood could feel it pulling at him, like an invisible thread connecting him to the fluttering black curtain.
A strange calmness flooded his brain. Without meaning to, Rookwood took three steps towards the Veil. The toes of his boots were now touching the dias. Rookwood leaned closer.
The whispering continued, stronger than the last time he had heard it. Suddenly, deciphering the words being spoken seemed like the most important thing in the world. Rookwood's breathing was shallow as he leaned ever closer to the Veil. He was only a hair's breadth away from it now, the tattered curtain tickling his nose. As though in a trance, Rookwood brought his right hand up to the Veil, letting the material brush against his fingers.
Rookwood, he heard. Rookwood.
"How do you know me?" he whispered. He was certain, absolutely positive, that the voice that had spoken had come from inside the Veil.
He heard more garbled whispers and strained his ears, desperate to hear what the voices were saying.
Darkness approaches... prophecy... a boy... pieces of his soul... the Dark Lord... terrible betrayal... must die...
Those pieces of sentences were all Rookwood had heard. He knew, somewhere deep within him, that he should try to figure out their meaning, or leave immediately. But he was mesmerized by the voices he heard. There was more than one– male and female, harsh and soft, deep and high. All he knew right then was that he'd be content to stay there and listen to those voices forever... If only he could get closer, he could better hear what they were trying to say!
His knee hit the dais–
"Augustus?"
Like a twig snapping, Rookwood was ripped from his reverie. He shook his head, attempting to clear it, and turned to look up at the person who had spoken. "Broderick?"
Broderick Bode looked at him curiously. "What were you doing?"
For some reason, Rookwood did not want to tell Bode what he had heard.
"Just inspecting the Veil."
Bode frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together. "Careful. We don't know what that does, exactly, but it's obviously dangerous."
Rookwood nodded, though he disagreed. The voices hadn't seemed sinister. They had seemed... alluring.
Bode looked at him suspiciously, but remained silent. "Come up here, Augustus. The day's over. Go home."
Reluctantly, Rookwood obeyed.
That night, the Veil invaded his dreams.
He was standing on the dais, his body barely an inch away from the most intriguing bit of magic in the Department of Mysteries. Unlike the other times he had seen the Veil, however, it was still. Rookwood stared into the inky folds of the curtain before him and listened. Listened for the voices that were slowly becoming his obsession. Then he heard them.
Touch me.
Almost lazily, Rookwood raised his right hand, the first knuckle on his index finger barely brushing the Veil.
Immediately, the Veil sprang to life, flapping furiously in an invisible storm, wrapping itself around Rookwood. Every place it touched him it burned, as though it were tongues of fire licking at him instead of the faded drapery he saw before him. He screamed, thrashed, tried fruitlessly to break free, but was unable to. It wrapped itself around his neck and chest, and tightened its grip on him. He gasped, tried to draw breath, but it was no use; he felt himself falling forwards, through the archway–
Rookwood shot up in bed, shaking, panting. He was drenched in sweat, and his shirt clung to his damp body. Heart pounding, Rookwood attempted to steady his heavy breathing. Once his breathing had calmed and his heart had resumed beating at its usual rate, he dropped his head in his hands.
The dream had terrified him. He pushed his sweat-soaked hair off of his forehead and forced himself to figure out what it meant. When working in the Department of Mysteries, one learned to believe in meaningful dreams.
The trouble was, he couldn't remember the details. He knew that the Veil had been involved, and he could recall that something had burned him, tried to choke him, even. But he could not remember what it had been.
Perhaps this was a sign of what would happen if he never figured out what the voices in the Veil were trying to tell him. Would it drive him mad? Or maybe the secret the Veil was hiding was so important, the consequences of not knowing would be great...
Not once did it occur to him that knowing the Veil's secret could be what killed him.
The weeks went by, and Rookwood was no closer to discovering the answers he searched for.
His nightmares grew more frequent, and he found himself unable to concentrate at all on his work- the Veil consumed his every thought.
Come to me, it seemed to say. Come to me.
And he did. Every time it called.
Then one day, he found himself sitting down to eat lunch with Broderick Bode.
Out of all the other Unspeakables, Bode was his favorite. Only a few years older than Rookwood, Bode was nearing his thirtieth birthday, but his hair was already beginning to grey about the ears. His black hair was always very neat, meticulously combed in such a way to ensure it wouldn't fall into his sapphire eyes. He had pale skin and was never seen without purple smudges beneath his eyes from lack of sleep, but Rookwood knew that this did not dull his mind. On the contrary, Bode's was one of the sharpest in the Ministry.
After a few minutes of silence, Bode sighed and put down the paper he was reading. "All right, out with it. What's on your mind?"
"The Veil." Rookwood admitted. Bode didn't judge people. It was one of the things Rookwood liked about him. He'd listen to what Rookwood had to say, and he'd address the situation in a logical manner.
Bode raised an eyebrow, a skill Rookwood envied. "What about it?"
Rookwood leaned forwards. "What do you think the Veil is for? What's its purpose?"
Bode exhaled slowly. Haltingly he said, "I'm not sure. Some think it's a gateway of sorts between worlds– parallel universes, if you will. Some think it's a gateway to Hell. Others think it's some sort of time-travel device."
Rookwood narrowed his eyes. "But what do you think?"
Bode took a long sip of his water. "This isn't my area of expertise, remember. I work primarily in the Hall of Prophecies. You're the one who works so closely with the Death Chamber. But here's what I think."
Bode scooted his chair closer to Rookwood's and lowered his voice. They were already speaking quietly in the Ministry cafeteria since the Department of Mysteries was meant to remain exactly that– a mystery– but this was such a heavy topic that both men knew better than to let any part of their conversation be heard.
"I think, and most agree, that it's the line between life and death."
Rookwood gazed at Bode confusedly. "What do you mean?"
Bode shrugged and picked up his paper again, but Rookwood knew that he wasn't actually reading it. "I mean that here, on this side of the Veil, we are alive. But if we were to go through, I suspect that that would be it. We'd be dead. Gone."
"But..." Rookwood considered his words carefully. "If there are two sides of the Veil, and living is one of them, does it... does it work both ways? Alive to dead, and dead to alive?"
Bode looked at him sharply. "Listen to me right now, Augustus. There is no magic in this world– nor any other world– that can bring back the dead. Besides, there is no way to test this theory; it'd be unethical to try."
Bode's words should have eased his mind, but they just increased his curiosity about the situation.
Rookwood cleared his throat, trying to change the topic; sometimes it scared him how often his thoughts turned towards the Veil. "Anything of interest in the paper?"
Bode shook his head disgustedly. "Just You-Know-Who again. Honestly, I can't believe how many people are supporting him. It's like the blind leading the blind."
"How do you mean?"
"I've heard rumors about what this man is promising his followers," Bode confided darkly. "They're things he can't possibly give them– immortality, endless gold, a pure world, good connections, answers to the wizarding world's most puzzling questions... He claims to have delved deeper into magic than any man has done before. Utter rubbish, if you ask me. But all the people buying into his promises! They flock to him blindly, lured by his silver tongue, but he's just as blind– anyone who had studied magic as extensively as he claims to knows that what he seeks is unattainable. There is no such thing as a pure world. He's been blinded by his ambitions if he thinks there is. Although, the way things are going, there may soon be such a thing as a rotten one."
Rookwood nodded, but his mind was reeling. A pure world... That's what the Dark Lord wanted. And the impure ones... answers to the wizarding world's most puzzling questions... what if they threw a Muggle through–?
These dark thoughts continued to drift through Rookwood's thoughts the rest of the month, but they didn't bother him.
Not at all.
He was standing in front of the Veil again. This time, however, the Veil was fluttering about him, gently slapping his arms and face. It seemed to almost be beckoning him forwards, urging him through the archway. But for reasons unknown to Rookwood, he held back.
Then the voice spoke.
"Come to me."
Rookwood swallowed harshly, shaking his head.
"There is darkness approaching. You must pick a side. Come to me, and I will help you."
Again, Rookwood refused.
"There will be a war like no other. If you do not have the answers you seek, then you, and all that you hold dear, will perish."
"Why can't you just tell me?" he questioned softly.
"All knowledge comes with a price."
"And if I refuse to pay it?"
In answer, the Veil burst into flames, and Rookwood screamed as it wrapped itself around him. He bat at it desperately, but to no avail; the fire burned bright, and Rookwood was consumed by it.
Rookwood's eyes snapped open, and he threw himself out of bed, but was so tangled in the duvet that he fell to the floor. He lay there for several moments, shaking. Once his adrenaline had gone down, he tired to recall his nightmare once again– this was the fourth time that week– but was, as usual, unable to.
His arm was twinging, and, wincing, he brought it in front of his face. He gasped at what he saw.
He scrambled to his feet, kicking the duvet away impatiently, grabbed his wand off the bedside table and lit it, hoping that his suspicions would not be confirmed.
But they were. His left arm was burned from his wrist to his elbow. He stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he stood up and hurried to his bathroom, the tiles cold beneath his feet, to dress his wound.
He downed a few potions and then wrapped his arm in a bandage for good measure.
He dropped heavily onto the toilet and put his head in his hands. His arm was tight where the skin had been burned, but Rookwood wasn't paying any attention to that. He could not figure out how he had been burned. He knew he had been dreaming of the Veil, and that something in his dream had caught fire, but for the life of him he could not remember what. He feared he was losing his mind.
Knowing that he would be unable to sleep that night, Rookwood stumbled into the large library he had built beside his bedroom. Its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves normally calmed him, but tonight the added shadows only worsened his nerves. He lit the fireplace and flung himself into a nearby armchair, then Summoned a random book. He opened it to no particular page, and began to read.
Hours passed, and the sky outside the large windows began to lighten. Still he read, only half-focusing on the text, until one line in particular jumped out at him.
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
Rookwood stared, transfixed, at those eight words for what felt like an eternity. He did not know why those words called out to him, but they did; they seemed to calm the storm in his mind. They also made him wonder...
Why was he so fixated upon uncovering the secrets of the Veil? He had always been a curious person, but this seemed to be moving beyond curiosity and into obsession. He had always thought that the Veil called to him, but was it possible that he called to the Veil? Was there something within him that felt connected to its mysteries? He did not know. All he knew was that the rest of his life would be dedicated to unearthing the truth about the Veil.
He knew with the utmost certainty that he'd do whatever it took to do so. No matter what the cost.
The next month, Rookwood sat in a dark corner of The Leaky Cauldron, nursing a glass of firewhiskey. To the other patrons of the pub, he looked mad– his dark hair in disarray, eyes wild, large bags beneath his eyes, and a twitch in his right hand that refused to go away. Everyone steered clear of him.
The Veil. As per usual, it had driven him nearly mad; he had spent the last few weeks combing over numerous texts in multiple libraries, reading about the darkest magic he could get his hands on, but none provided him with the answers he sought. He had been able to think of only one solution to his plight: Voldemort.
The Dark Lord promised answers to unanswerable questions. Connections even the Black family couldn't get. And best of all, the Dark Lord wouldn't mind if Rookwood used a few Muggleborns for... experimentation.
A cloaked figure silently entered the pub, drawing fearful looks from the other wizards and witches in want of a drink. The man swiftly made his way over to Rookwood's table and sat down in the seat opposite the Unspeakable, then quickly cast a Silencing Charm.
The man pulled down his hood, revealing hair blacker than the darkest of nights, and cold, cruel green eyes.
"So, Rookwood," began Rodolphus Lestrange. "You want to become a Death Eater."
Rookwood thought back on the blur of the last few months, the utter madness of his life ever since he had first interacted with the Veil. He thought about his scattered memories, and about how his entire being had been centered around the Veil for so long. Nothing else in the world mattered to him anymore. He had to know its secrets.
Connections.
Answers to the most puzzling questions.
Rookwood leaned forward in his chair. Eyes gleaming, he met Lestrange's gaze head-on.
"Long live the Dark Lord."