15 September 1978
Standing on the concrete landing of my third floor flat had been more confusing than it did in that single moment.
On one hand, I'd let a probably Death Eater escort me back to my flat because I'd done a number on knocking back the whiskey and side-along apparation seemed like a better alternative to getting splinched or taking a wrong turn in the Floo. I'd led a stranger to my doormat and panic signals were being forwarded to my brain, a quick succession of warning flags and red lights.
On the other hand, I was standing inches away from a man whose smile made my stomach dance with my intestines and whose ardent gaze made my toes twitch. It was probably the alcohol causing me to over-romanticize my feelings but, in the moment, they were driving that stupid smile I could feel on my face. They were in control and, just then, I wanted them to be in control.
Flashes of wild fantasies—being pushed up against the rough concrete, stumbling through my darkened flat, limbs tangling in bedsheets, languid, lingering kisses beneath the early-morning light—came to an abrupt end as Karkaroff gave me a small nod, gesturing over the balcony's railing.
"You live in a Muggle neighborhood?"
There were a solid twelve seconds in which my brain wasn't registering his question. That little logical voice was busy busting out of solitary confinement to beat back the erotic images bombarding my brainspace.
"I—erm." A hot blush worked its way up my neck as expectantly waited for a response, eyebrows raised in bemusement. "London. I mean—" I waved my wand behind my back, lowering the wards and fumbling for my door handle (an escape attempt was crucial, else I might have dropped dead from embarrassment). "The rent. It's cheap."
As I turned to hide away in my flat—certain that if I stayed, I'd only continue to make a fool out of myself—I heard Karkaroff call after me.
"I'll be seeing you again, though, half-blooded MacDougal?"
"Grace," I said.
"Grace."
"I, erm, I don't know." I resisted looking back over my shoulder, trying to keep my attention focused on the darkened living room beyond the cracked door. My plan for avoiding any kind of involvement in the war was beginning to form some steady cracks. With Gideon being an Auror-in-training as it was, becoming involved with a You-Know-Who supporter was probably not such a great idea—no matter what effects he was having on my heartbeat or how many moths he was awakening in my stomach, not to mention the way he my knees trembled a little when he looked at me that way, all white teeth and playful eyes.
"I'll be at the pub next Friday around the same time," he said. "If you're there, maybe we'll have another drink?"
There was a soft pop and I finally chanced turning my head to look behind me. The spot where Karkaroff had been before was now unoccupied, and I slipped behind my door. As I closed it, I leaned against it, resting my spinning head in the relief of the blackened room, silently confessing to myself that I would, indeed, be going to meet him next week.
Something was seriously wrong with me.
18 September 1978
I rubbed at my newly-freed wrists, gladly shuffling closer to Gideon as he stood protectively between Moody, Black, and I. The entire world had gone mad and I had been officially swept up in the whirlwind. What's worse is I had inadvertently (but also, somewhat knowingly) dove headfirst in the midst of a war I wanted nothing to do with. iThat figures./i
"She might be out lead to actually putting Karkaroff and some of the others in Azkaban," Black seethed, throwing his arms up in the air.
Gideon's wand was pointed at Black and I felt around for mine, finding it missing and wondering if Moody had taken it or if it was still back on my nightstand. "She has nothing to do with any of this."
"Then ask her why she was seen fraternizing with him!"
The redhead opened his mouth to retort but stopped before he managed to get the words out. He stiffly glanced at me, narrowing his eyes in confusion.
I gave him my best sheepish smile. "Funny story, really…"
The door opened again, with a bang. James Potter, in all of his stupidly messy-haired glory, strode in, a crooked grin on his face. "There you are, mate, I've been—" He stopped, the smirk sliding away from his face slowly as he took in all the people in the room. "What's going on?"
After a moment of silence, Dumbledore took the opportunity to speak. "As it would appear," he said lightly, "we are conducting a series of 'off-the-books' interrogations." He tilted his head towards me.
Grimacing, I tried to catch Gideon's eye but he pointedly avoided contact.
"At your flat?" Potter asked Black.
"It's a long story."
I scoffed. "Not really," I said, unable to keep the words from tumbling out of my mouth, even though I knew it was one of those times to keep quiet. "You broke into my place, kidnapped me, and tied me to a chair.
Black's eyes raised and he pointed a finger at me. "You opened the door. Nobody 'broke into' anything. Besides you're the one hanging around with Death Eaters."
"That was disproven."
"Then ask him to show you his arm next Friday!"
How long had they been watching me? Where the hell had they been? I wracked my brain in an attempt to figure out if I had remembered seeing any of them that night, but I couldn't. I could feel Gideon's eyes on me again, only this time the questions were underlined with accusation. Et tu, Brute?
"I don't owe any of you an explanation!" I seethed, squaring up with Black. "I was at the pub having a drink. My friends—" I purposefully glanced at Gideon over my shoulder, watching him stiffen at the word "—haven't been in contact with me for ages. Karkaroff sat next to me and also had a drink. He told me about his time at school. Then, he made sure I made it home okay and implied that he wanted to have another drink with me. Is that a crime, Auror Moody?"
It was Moody's turn to stiffen.
"I'm afraid it's a turbulent time, Miss Watercrest," Dumbledore said. "It has put us all on edge, though we have no intention of inaccurately accusing anyone of any false crime, isn't that right Alastor?"
Moody sneered, his eyes rolling. "Yeah, that's right."
"Though, you must understand, Miss Watercrest, that there was no ill intention in bringing you here. You would not have been brought to our attention had you not been involved in such extenuating circumstances."
I gritted my teeth. 'Extenuating circumstances.' Perhaps I was better off being a hermit for the rest of my life, that way I wouldn't be caught up in such 'extenuating circumstances,' anymore.
"But, perhaps there is something you can do for us, given the arisen opportunity."
I watched Dumbledore uneasily, not entirely trusting his intentions, but waiting for him to continue, nonetheless.
22 September 1978
The atmosphere of the pub had severely altered from the previous week. Patrons laughed heartily. Unperturbed by the others surrounding them, conversations flowed boisterously and freely, their volumes increasing at the height of a joke or a climax of a tale. Glasses clinked and the bitter liquids sloshed in mugs. The grimy, old Intemperate Imp seemed a little less lonesome with all the contagious carefree attitudes drifting through the air.
At first, the peasant top seemed like a good idea. I was able to hide the golden beetle in the flowing drapes pewter-colored fabric without worrying about it being discovered. As the night wore on, however, I'd noticed just how many things those damn sleeves were getting caught on and I continuously had to shove them up my arms to free my hands.
After a while, however, even my sleeves became less worrisome.
I'd almost forgotten what I was supposed to be doing while listening to Karkaroff's voice.
"When I was 12, one of my older cousins stole my grandfather's stuffed Graphorn," he said with a small smirk. "It was his prized possession, he claimed to have poached in himself, but if I knew my grandfather, he either bought it or stole it from whoever actually killed the beast."
I shifted the weight of my head to my hand as I leaned on our wobbly corner table. "How could your cousin have smuggled out an entire Graphorn without your grandfather noticing?"
"No, no; he didn't take the whole thing. He cut off the horns to pawn—they're worth an extraordinarily large sum of money." He tipped his stein at me before taking a swig. "My grandfather believed that, without the horns, the thing was nothing more than a stuffed toy. He kept it, though."
"You're lying," I said, laughing. "You can't just have a stuffed Graphorn. They're endangered. They've been endangered for longer than either of us have been alive. There're all sorts of laws passed about hunting them, let alone stuffing their corpses for show."
"But I'm not!" He insisted, laughing with me. "I will show you. Come."
He stood, offering me his hand.
18 September 1978
"You want me to what?" I demanded, automatically looking to Gideon for backup.
Blue eyes became a muddled mass of uncertainty and my heart fell. Something had happened since we'd last seen each other. Something had made him wary and untrusting, even of me.
09 March 1977
"Looks like you're all alone now, you great slimy snake."
I glanced up from my History of Magic homework in the little annex of a third-floor corridor, hidden away behind a thick, dusty tapestry. Or, at least, I thought it was hidden. Dirk Cresswell and his proxy band of merry arseholes barged in to disrupt my quiet time.
The weight of the wand in my pocket was becoming more pronounced as I stared at the four pointed at me. I stilled, waiting patiently for either a curse or an explanation. I wasn't sure what exactly I'd done and getting to my wand to defend myself was unrealistic. I wasn't unused to the snide remarks concerning generalizations surrounding my house, but 'great slimy snake' was completely unoriginal.
Not to mention, inaccurate. Snakes aren't slimy. "Snakes aren't slimy."
I cringed immediately at my impeccable incapability of keeping my mouth closed.
Marlene McKinnon glowered at me, closing in on my personal space, jabbing her wand threateningly toward me as I lifted my History text as some sort of pathetic excuse for a shield. Her locked eye contact would have been the perfect opportunity to slip my wand out if only I wasn't busy cowering behind the book.
In my defense, McKinnon stood a full head taller than me and had a noteworthy temper. Not to mention her renowned skill when it came to dueling or the fact that I was heavily outnumbered.
"We know what your friend did to Mary Macdonald, Watercrest," she snapped, that bouncy blond hair moving with every crisply enunciated word.
My eyebrows rose on their own accord, my mind racing to remember if Gideon or Greta had ever mentioned Macdonald before or, more importantly, having an issue with her. Greta seemed to be the most likely culprit, but I couldn't imagine what Greta could have done to antagonize the group of Gryffindors in front of me. I rose from my seat slowly, trying not to incite an attack. "I don't think—"
"Oi!" Gideon was at my side, wand out and ready. Gideon was always ready. "Let her alone."
I took the opportunity, under the cover of distraction, to procure my own wand as Greta came up along my other side. Safety in numbers, after all.
"Why do you two even hang out with her?" McKinnon asked. "She's creepy. And her friends used Dark Magic on a student!"
Greta sneered at her housemates. "She doesn't even associate with Mulciber."
"Mulciber?" I glanced between the group. "This is about Mulciber?" I groaned, turning away from my attackers and began aggressively shoving my books in my bag. "I'm not going to answer for that moron."
Gideon helped me gather my stuff while Greta shooed away the rest of her housemates.
"Mulciber attacked MacDonald?" I asked lowly.
He nodded sharply. "Yeah, but, don't worry—she's fine, and we know you didn't have anything to do with it."
18 September 1978
But now, even when I'd asked to speak with him away from the group—much to Moody's great displeasure—he regarded me warily.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Gideon demanded quietly. "Why were you out on a date with Karkaroff?"
"A date?" I sneered, shaking my head defiantly. "I'm wasn't on a date, you idiot. I was having a drink. He sat down. He also had a drink. I told you this already."
"This isn't a game! We're in the middle of a war; people are dying, and you're off drinking with Death Eaters!"
"The Prophet said it wasn't true. They let him go—"
"The Ministry is compromised. Of course he's a Death Eater—he's goddamn Igor Karkaroff. He's known for torturing and murdering Muggles! For fun! Did—did you fall and hit your head?" He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't thinking about anything!" I hissed. "No. No, I was thinking about how I haven't heard from one of my best mates in weeks—how I've been waiting for his name to show up in the paper among the dead every day because that's the only reason I can see him not even writing me! I was thinking that even Greta's letters were becoming more scarce. I was thinking about how I was left utterly alone after school while you—"
"I'm fighting a war!" he snapped. "A war that you wanted nothing to do with. Yet, here you are—DRINKING WITH DEATH EATERS."
I suddenly felt small, like a child being reprimanded for doing something naughty. The feeling was quickly replaced by bitter anger. "You have no right to tell me what I can or can't do. How do you even know that Karkaroff did any of those things? Did you see him?"
His expression changed several times in rapid-motion, as if he was trying to wrap his head around the situation and failing miserably. "You can't just—" He stopped, placing his hand on my shoulder and looking me directly in the eyes. His voice was considerably lower as he said, "There's a war going on. You need to make sure you're on the right side of it, whether you're involved or not."
I frowned. Of course I was on the right side of the war, wasn't I? Just because I had a drink with a guy didn't make me a traitor, even though it seemed like an unpopular opinion. I gritted my teeth, trying to let my anger go. "Fine. Fine. No more drinking with possible (or disproven) Death Eaters."
"Just one more drink," Black said from across the room.
"I never agreed to—" I looked around at the faces in the room, each one waiting for an answer (some more patiently than others). "Look, I'm not some kind of secret agent. How do you expect me to be able to spy on Igor Karkaroff?"
At once, Moody said, "With this" and he dropped a golden button on the table with a quiet metallic click. It wobbled for a few moments before distorting, springing free six small appendages, a head, and two long, curly antennae. The small golden beetle chirped and scuttled around on the scuffed surface before finding Moody's sleeve, where it attached itself inconspicuously beneath the cuff. It folded itself back into a button, fastening onto the fabric.
"You'll only have to touch it to activate it," Potter said. "You meet with Karkaroff, the bug attaches itself to Karkaroff, picks up anything that he might say—if he meets with You-Know-Who, you know? And then the next week, just meet with him again. It'll be enchanted to come back to you. No harm, no foul. Then you never have to see him again."
"He knows where I live," I mumbled, wincing at the collective tightening in the room.
22 September 1978
"There are over a hundred," Igor said, as we walked through the line of posed, taxidermied magical creatures. "Each one of them as disquieting as the last."
I laughed uncomfortably, wary of the stiffly moving dead animals, enchanted to blink and turn their heads, watching us as we traversed the high-ceilinged hall.
"They disturb me, too," he said, flashing me a wry smile.
Slowing to a stop, I cocked my head to the side. "Why keep them, then?"
"They were my grandfather's greatest accomplishments, in his own opinion. He won countless numbers of metals...for the legal ones." He draped his hand along my shoulders to gently guide me forward down the dimly lit corridor, causing me to shiver. I couldn't decide if the quake in my stomach was from trepidation or anticipation or merely from the fact that he was touching me, so I tried to focus my attention on what he was saying. "I had them moved here from Turkey when I inherited his estate."
A particularly displeased-looking Diricawl caught my attention as it stretched its feathered wings to a breadth four times my height. "How-how many estates did you inherit, exactly?"
"Seven. Three in Russia, one in England, one in Turkey, and one in India."
Our pace slowed as I turned to look at him, feeling flush in the wake of his gaze again. I was an idiot, to say the least. My mantra became a chanted, ideatheaterdeatheaterdeatheater/i in my mind to reel myself back in because, with every blink we stood in close proximity, those damn erotic flashes were back, pooling heat deep in my belly—dead animals, be damned.
But he nudged me to turn to my left, where I was met with the tentacled maw of a Graphorn, its substantial size making me feel small and vulnerable by comparison. As Karkaroff said, two golden stumps were perched at the top of his its heads were the only jaggedly cut remainder of its once glorious horns.
I coughed in surprise as it lifted its head proudly in the air. "Y-your grandfather killed a Graphorn."
"So he claims."
I stepped back from the statue, eyeing Karkaroff as he distractedly observed the hunched-over beast. Steeling my nerves, I'd decided that it was an appropriate time to set the plan into motion. As I fiddled with those flowing sleeves, however, I couldn't find the button I'd fastened there before leaving the flat.
"Looking for something?" he asked.
My eyes snapped toward him as he watched me, his easy posture reassuring. "No," I said, adjusting my sleeves in what I hoped looked like an unsuspicious manner.
"That's fortunate," he said, smiling softly as he stepped toward me, "because if you were looking for your little recording device, you would have been very displeased to find out that it was disabled back in the pub."
A distinct cold began to sink through my skin, freezing me in place as I reached for my wand—which was no longer in my pocket. I tried for the other pocket, fighting with the fabric on my sleeves in my panic.
He made no move for his. He didn't move at all, in fact, but stood observing me with his arms folded across his chest, an amused smirk playing on his lips.
"You're very trusting, for a spy," he murmured, stepping closer.
My mouth went dry. I tried to swallow in vain as Karkaroff slowly circled me. "I'm not a spy," I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I once again became very aware that I might actually die.
He held out my wand before me and my stomach dropped. "Not a good one, no. Not overly observant, either." His face remained impassive as he watched me so profoundly that I had to clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. "What am I to do with you, you deceptive little mouse."
"I'm not a mouse." I cannot shut up.
He laughed—an actual, hearty laugh—that startled me into jumping. "Better to be a mouse than a rat."
I was going to die.