With the fleeting days of August comes the onset of a cold headwind. For eleven years Lily has learned from her mother and father and family and friends. Home and life have walked hand-in-hand. Now eleven years have led her to a closed door, beyond the experiences told in the passing stories of her brothers and cousins, like tall tales she wishes to believe. Here, one step before she takes the plunge, all her thoughts tell her to halt.
Hogwarts. It is her father's world. Her mother's. Her brothers'. But it is not hers. Not yet. And, say the cackling voices that slip through in the dark of night when she struggles to fall asleep, maybe never hers. Not if she fails. Maybe she's a squib deep down underneath. Maybe she lacks talent. Maybe she'll never make a friend at that old castle, at whatever school is, that foreign word, alien world. A hundred maybes. A thousand. Her thoughts and fears flit about them all like gnats circling a fly trap.
Mum comes to her room one night as the bass drum rhythm of thunder pounds outside her window. "What's worrying you?" she asks. "You were excited at Diagon Alley."
Lily does not answer apart from turning over to stare at the wall. A child's pride. She cannot tell her mother that she wants to stay here, wants to keep the dangers of a great world at bay for a year longer. She cannot say that her courage is faltering, that with each passing day Hogwarts is less a dream and more a dragon, its fire closing meter by meter.
"You can't do any worse than I did my first year," Mum jokes, but humor will not ward the dragon off. She puts her hand on her daughter's shoulder and says, "Lily, listen. It's alright to be anxious. Your brothers were. Even your dad was." Lily shakes her head, but Mum presses on. "He was. He thought he wouldn't belong, that they'd show him out."
"It's not the same," Lily murmurs into her blanket.
"It's okay. Hush."
"It's not."
Mum sits on the bed beside her. "Back in your dad's first year, Aunt Hermione came to Hogwarts not knowing anything about the school except what she'd read. Her parents were Muggles. She learned faster than anyone, but for weeks she couldn't make a friend. It hurt her, and she wondered if she belonged. But then things came together, Dad and Uncle Ron warmed up to her after one Halloween, and then, well, magic happened."
Lily covers her face with the blanket. "You have your brothers there already," Mum said, "even if James might be a clown sometimes. Your cousins are there. Hugo's going in with you. You two already play together. Imagine both being in the Gryffindor Common Room at nights, going to the same classes. You're already ahead. And you're strong. You've always been. You can do this."
She leans over and kisses her daughter's cheek. She stays for a little while, the steady resilience Lily needs, the bond between mother and daughter a wall holding back the fears for this little moment. When she leaves the dragon remains, but for a little while, just enough time for Lily to fall asleep, the cackling voices fade into whispers.
On the last day of August, she gathers with her family on the sweeping fields of Ottery St. Catchpole outside the old, weathered, warm house of Arthur and Molly Weasley. The veritable prairie that doubles as the Burrow's yard it is a crowded place. It plays host to three generations, multiple surnames, and countless memories, each individual, personal, special, and so many of them happy. This land has seen smiles and sunlight, tears and defeat, victory and love. It has watched babies take their first steps and seen proud parents grow old as their children take steps into new lives. It is home.
They are a clan, a nation under red hair and joy, the Weasleys. Lily's cousins seem innumerable, and out of all the family, she is the youngest. She and her cousin Hugo, the son of her uncle Ron, are the only ones yet to step foot on Hogwarts's hallowed ground, and today, under the cloudless sky where the sun shines on all and every word pouring from her oldest brother James's mouth seems like the scripture of Merlin himself, she sits in the dry grass and hears of that great castle.
"You should know," James says as sandy-haired Teddy Lupin, Lily's godbrother, smirks nearby, "A couple hundred years ago there was this guy named Albert Weasley. His name was really Albus, but –" he leans in closer and lowers his voice to a whisper, "-we don't want to confuse him with any other Albuses of questionable decision-making around here."
Lily laughs. Her brother Al, two years her senior and two years James's junior, sits on a bench out of earshot between her uncles Bill and Percy, the teenage boy the picture of the man to be. "Anyway, this Albert," James goes on, "he goes to Hogwarts, yadda yadda ya, and then on the Sorting Night, boom, he's in Slytherin."
"And that's it!" Teddy shouts as he jumps in. "Never heard of Albert Weasley after that, have you?"
"Goes down to the Slytherin room and disappears that night, right like that. Rumor has it he turned into a ghost and still haunts the dungeon today. So better get good at communing with the Sorting Hat," James said, "'cuz that dungeon the Slytherins sleep in, or whatever they do since I don't think any of them do normal things like sleep, it's got a magical ward around it. Anyone related to a Weasley gets sorted into Slytherin, and they're haunted by poor ole Albert for all seven years." He frowned. "So you can see why we were all disappointed when our illustrious Al over there got into Gryffindor two years back. Coulda had our very own haunting."
Hugo chuckles in the slow, hefty way he does. Lily's smile flickers. "There's not actually hauntings, right?" she says.
Before James or Teddy can answer, a dish towel swats them away. "What're you filling their heads with now, boys?" Molly says. "Don't pay those two any attention."
"Whoa now, it's been a long time since you were at Hogwarts, Grandmum. All sorts've things might've changed," James says.
"What? So now I'm old? If you didn't look so much like Harry, I'd think you were George's."
Arthur slips by her. "He's got a point. We are old, dear."
"Arthur! Well, alright. Only a little."
The joy is infectious. It is the last afternoon they will have together for months, all disparate members of the family here as more than the sum of their parts. The food is enough to feed a whole house at Hogwarts. Lily eats until she is fit to bursting, and even then makes a brave last stand against her rhubarb pie as Aunt Hermione regales her with stories of the school's faculty. "Well you know Neville. If you end up in Gryffindor, he's the head of the house, and Assistant Headmaster at that, too," Hermione says as Lily steels herself against the last few bites of pie. "Herbology was never my favorite subject, but it's really quite useful, especially for a lot of careers."
Uncle Ron chuckles from her other side. "Pretty sure every subject was your favorite," he says between bites of treacle tart.
"I'm sure there's something useful in Divination, whatever it might be," Hermione says. "Maybe not drop crumbs of tart everywhere, though? Ginny spent forever making that."
"Well yeah, that's 'cuz Ginny can't cook."
"Excellent, Ronald, really great example for Lily here," Hermione says, but a smile tugs at her lips and creases the corners of her eyes. "Merlin knows Rose and Hugo already take after you. We don't need Harry's kids doing the same."
"Too late. George and I've already got James."
Hermione shakes her head. "Your uncle is hopeless," she tells Lily. "Anyway, your Charms instructor, Professor Redwine, he's wonderful; a kind and patient man. Rose's favorite. And Charms you use every day. It's intuitive, and fun. Did you look over your textbook?"
Lily nods. "First couple chapters."
Ron groans. "Ignore him," Hermione says. "That's excellent. Really. You're already ahead of some people." She puts her hand on Lily's shoulder. "You're going to do great."
"All we'll have to worry about is Hugo getting stuck in the washroom with Moaning Myrtle, then," Ron says. "If you ever see that, do whatever you can to get a picture, Lily."
"Ronald!"
Come nightfall the land is awash in moonlight, the darkness overhead populated by the thousand white pinpricks of stars. Lily crouches by the pond Mum, Dad, and Ron built five years back, now home to colorful carp that flush a deep purple and sprout an extra pair of whiskers whenever she skips a stone across the water. Behind her Uncle Charlie conjures a wooden dragon that belches fireworks until it catches fire. Al sits next to her, his eyes lost in the still surface of the water stirred only by the fish and Lily's rocks. No breeze. Nothing but the stillness and the sound of summer ending.
Moreso than James, it is Al who looks like Dad. The same messy black hair. Green eyes. Glasses. Everything but the scar. Then there is this, these quiet times when he looks into a deeper seam between the grass and the water and the rocks as if his thoughts lie visible and animate in that tangle. "It feels different," he says at last.
Lily looks up but says nothing. "I don't know," Al says, "just something. Like something's not quite right."
"What's not right?" Lily says. She looks around as if Al's doubts will come tromping out of the dark. "Did you get all your books?"
"Not that. Just something," Al says. He leaves a pause for a moment before continuing. "Mum and Dad had crazy years at school. Always something was going on. Lord Voldemort or teachers who were imposters or basilisks. But these first two years were normal. Nothing crazy happened at all. It's just school."
"Well, you said it," Lily says, "It was Voldemort and all that bad stuff. He's gone, isn't he? I mean, I know he is, but-"
"He is. Yeah."
"It's fine then. Right? I mean, isn't it good if it's normal? Teddy and Victoire and the others who are done did seven years of normal."
"Sure. Maybe," he says, but his eyes don't meet hers. They wander. What slumbers out there in the imperceptible that he sees and she only imagines? "Dad has people still asking for his autograph because of what he did," he says, his voice lower, quieter. "He's a hero. We're just us. There's none of that."
Lily creases her brow. "People died back then, Al. It wasn't nice."
"I know, yeah. It's just a thought," he says. He looks back. "They're packing up. We should go."
She nods and moves to leave, but when she turns back Al's still seated, still searching for dreams in the water. "Al?"
He doesn't answer.
Azkaban
The North Sea is violence and loneliness churning in the chilling water, and the wizarding prison of Azkaban is a granite splinter defiant astride the waves. The Dementors have been gone for two decades, but still the despair of this alien landscape presses to the skin like the sea salt. Tiberius wraps himself in his cloak and stares off into the waters, looking, searching. Nothing will come, yet he imagines some immense and terrible beast swallowing him whole, here, now, before he will commit the terrible deed he is here for. Death is inviting in times like this, when all else is swallowed up by the dark and the dread. He has known it too many times, too many nights, for more than twenty years.
He turns back to the prison. A path just wide enough for one stretches from a stone gatehouse over a rope bridge to the prison beyond. No closer can he get like this, as this uninvited stranger, a face few in the civilized wizarding world would recognize.
But he has brought another face. What horror died in old Babylon did birth a spark in Tiberius's heart and set him on a path, the road from Mesopotamia to the ruins of antediluvian magi in Malta, to Gallic dolmens and at last to forgotten barrows in Orkney warded by old magic. There, north of the place he once called home, north of the old castle and school that once awed a young boy who called himself a Gryffindor, he found what slept beyond history's sight.
Tiberius pulls a sack the size of his fist from his belt. He tosses it to the ground and cinders slide out onto the wet rock, still glowing, warm despite the chill and the slapping of the surf. Tiberius closes his eyes and the cinders rise, an ashen host wrapping around his body until he is swathed in grey. The world around him is gone. He hears, feels, smells, but there is nothing but the grey waste in all directions.
He takes a step. Another. He knows not where to go, where one footfall will mean safe passage and the next a sprained ankle or a dive into the sea, but he doesn't need to. He is not alone now. Another step. Another. Then he is at the gatehouse.
He hears the Auror inside rouse himself from drowsiness. "Who's that?" he says. Young. Inexperienced. By the sound of it, Irish.
"Deputy Minister of the Commission for Magical Law Enforcement in Antwerp," a voice that is not Tiberius's says.
A pause, as if the Auror is checking his credentials. "Belgium?" the Auror says. "You have people in Azkaban?"
"Two. I'm here to take their testimony, because you might soon have a third."
"Huh. Barmy. Well, looks in order."
"Our Minister for Magic's signature is below."
"Alright, you don't have to show me the bloody Magna Carta. Come on. I'll alert the watch."
A spell sounds somewhere in that grey haze, and Tiberius can do nothing but walk. He knows not how this magic works, this ancient, caustic thing. He had questioned it once early on, wondered whether he could use this disguise to sneak into the Ministry of Magic, or even Hogwarts. No, came the answer. Too many eyes, and alert ones at that. Hogwarts itself is old magic, and the spells that built that castle's foundation have an answer for everything.
But more than twenty years after Voldemort's defeat Azkaban is home to a skeleton crew of Aurors and their watch beasts, magical dogs trained to search out dark wizards and bred to subdue unruly prisoners or escapees. The dogs could be a problem, but these Aurors are young, stuck on the worst assignments they could land, some whom had never fought a dark wizard in their lives, here on rotating six-month assignments. They don't want to be here. They know Voldemort won't be coming. Amidst the dismal conditions and loneliness, complacency sets in, even around prisoners. Peace breeds softness, and in the time of Harry Potter's peace an entire generation has come without ever seeing the darkness. Besides, no one has escaped here since Voldemort's fall.
Tiberius doesn't plan to set any free tonight, either.
"Careful on the bridge. Bit slippy," the Auror says. Tiberius follows until a force slows him, stopping his legs as if a disinterested puppeteer has finally stepped in and worked the strings. Even familiar with this magic, it is still uncomfortable, alienating, like some outside mystery has inhabited Tiberius body alongside him.
Chatter at the door. "Alright," the Auror says after a minute, "all checks out. Come with me. I'll show you the way."
Inside the rain leaves but the despair does not. Cries of misery, shouts of pain of a primal kind emerging from buried deep in the hindbrain like some Neogene ancestor howling in dismay at what his progeny have become. The air reeks of sweat and urine and men who have given up on life. "Got a way to go up before we get to either of the ones you want to see," the Auror says. "You want to see the medium security one or the high security first?"
"The latter," the voice in the ash says.
"Right. Gonna be a lot of climbing."
They ascend. After what Tiberius imagines is halfway he hears a growl. A watch beast. The hound is headed this way.
"Excuse me," the ash says as if it too has spotted the creature, "what level exactly is this man on?"
"Thought you were alright with hiking," the Auror says.
"Oh I am, it's just that I'm curious. I know Azkaban had breakouts years ago back in Voldemort's return, and…"
The voice carries on speaking, quoting international treaties, citing bylines of magical law. In the grey waste Tiberius finally sees something, a black dot, an outline of a beast. He raises his wand.
"Now, look up there, if you could," the ash says to the Auror. "Do you see that?"
"Confundo," Tiberius whispers.
The hound grunts, and the black outline splinters into nothingness. Again Tiberius is lost in the ash. "That's not a security flaw, it's a design," the Auror says. "That's – huh, dog doesn't look like it's doing too good. Best move on. Things have ornery tempers. Come on now. I'll explain when we get up there."
They walk on. After a long hike the Auror stops, and again the puppeteer intervenes to halt Tiberius, too. "Right in here," the Auror says. A knock, fist on iron. "Hey. You. Wake up."
Something stirs. "Huh?"
"Got yourself a visitor, you tosser. Here, sir, step aside so I can open the cell up. I'll stand by while you question him, case this fool has any ideas."
Tiberius takes a step back. Keys jangle. All at once the ash slips away as if someone has drawn down a curtain.
He does not bother to look around. He does not bother to get his bearings. He has seconds at most, and the young Auror is right there.
"Stupefy!"
A red jet launches from Tiberius's wand and catches the Auror in the back. He slumps forward, the light gone in an instant. A watch beast descends down the circular stairs that ring the prison perimeter, snarling, hair standing on its back and its fangs bared. Tiberius does not hesitate; it is only an animal. He swings and flicks his wand. "Expulso!" The hound explodes.
"Bloody hell!" the prisoner in the cell shouts. He is a shell of man, the years hollowing him out until only this bearded, shriveled thing in a striped jumpsuit remains. "What do you want?"
Tiberius turns. "Not you."
He is near. This top level holds those who committed the gravest crimes where the chance of escape is slimmest, and here he will find his prey, the vilest ones of all. Death Eaters.
First is Antonin Dolohov. Like the other prisoner he is a man anatomically only. Tiberius aims his wand at the door, mutters a curse, and the lock burns away into dust. He yanks the door open and barges in. Dolohov's beard reaches to his chest, and his cheeks have sunk until they threaten to fall away into his throat. His eyes are pits, and twenty years after Voldemort old age has caught up. Hair is a memory. "The hell are you?" Dolohov murmurs, slumping forward from his rest. He struggles to lift his manacled hands. "Not a damn guard."
"No," Tiberius says. "Do I look like an Auror?"
Dolohov squints. Tiberius pulls another wand from his belt, and the former Death Eater's eyes brighten with the last spark left in them. "Merlin," he gasps. "You here for me?"
"Yes."
"God, man, cut the chains," he says, holding his hands out. "I don't know you, but I don't care. Did you serve the Dark Lord? Others of us are still alive up here. Rosier, Rookwood. Others."
Tiberius does not answer. "The Aurors have a little time before they find out what I've done," he says. "Enough time for a confession."
Dolohov furrows his brow. "What now?"
"You are Antonin Dolohov?"
"Yeah."
"Fabian Prewett, Gideon Prewett, Remus Lupin. Yours?"
"Hell man, I don't know who I did in and who I didn't. Not anymore. This place kills you," he says.
Tiberius is still. "Do you remember 1998?"
"Yeah. Rather not. You trying to kill Harry Potter for that? I know he's still out there."
"Of course he is, you dolt. He's Britain's chief Auror. I'm not asking about Potter, I'm asking about you, and about 1998. Do you remember the wizarding village of Bluebramble?"
Dolohov's lip twitches. "Why?"
"Do you remember an old man and an old woman living in a cottage just off the main thoroughfare with a red door? Little statue of a gnome out front? A golden retriever?" Tiberius raises his wand. "Remember what you did to them?"
Dolohov jerks back. "Hell, brother, I'm a prisoner already in this hole."
"That makes no difference to me."
"Don't, please!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
The Killing Curse leaps from Tiberius's wand and Antonin Dolohov slumps dead.
Now Tiberius has both wands in hand and his blood boils. He stomps out of the cell and steps up to the next, blowing apart the door with one wand and rearing up with the other. He does not bother to check who the prisoner is before he fires. It is only an animal.
Corbin Yaxley is in the next cell. Then Rodolphus Lestrange. Green light flashes across Tiberius face and he is in a rage, killing, killing, wand flashing as these creatures twist in their chains and he ends them, and Azkaban echoes with the shrieks of the dying and screams of terror. Tiberius rends Amycus Carrow and snuffs out Amycus's sister and he enjoys it. An Auror leaps up to the stairs and raises his wand. Tiberius throws out all the rules of engagement and blasts him off of the steps, the shout of the man as he falls twirling in the air like a falling star a sweetener. This prison is an appalling legacy of men who failed to do what is necessary and now he is here, he who casts judgment, he who steps before these monsters draped in human clothes and clinging to their arrogance and destroys them.
In the last cell to the top he finds Thorfinn Rowle. The man has kept himself fit despite all else, and when he stares up at Tiberius there is fire in his eyes. "I heard," he says, nodding his head. "Go on, you filth. Do it."
Tiberius steps past him. He aims one wand and blasts open the wall, stone flying off into the storm. He aims the other wand and severs Rowle's shackles. "I guess I am freeing one from Azkaban tonight," he says.
"I'm not going with you," Rowle says, spitting.
"I know."
Tiberius pockets one wand and grabs Rowle's throat. The Death Eater's strength fails him. Tiberius turns, lugs Rowle to the entrance, and shoves the Death Eater out into the storm. The man falls, spinning in the air without a scream, silence his defiance until he breaks apart on the rocks below.
Enough. Tiberius raises his wand. "Ascendio."
He vaults up to the roof of Azkaban, landing on his feet. Devana waits on the roof, a broom between her legs, another in one hand. Disappointment lines her face, paths creasing in the blue war paint that colors her forehead and cheeks. Her black hair billows in the wind and in her hand is her wand, that gnarled dark root. She has come prepared for battle and found only a slaughter.
She tosses the spare broom to him. "That tattooed shit was too lazy to come," she says, her voice dwarfed by the storm. "Said he had other plans."
"I gave Andor another job," Tiberius says, mounting his broom. "He went to London."
"What for?"
"Later."
Devana looks down past the lip of the roof. "All dead?"
"They are."
"Well? We staying for something?"
Tiberius kicked off from the roof. The rain, the chill, the salt in the air. The thrill. Perfect. "No. We go."