The White Cliffs of Dover
As a flash of green light rose into the sky, its lingering presence sinking into the air, Marlene McKinnon felt her own heart drop.
Green Light—theres only one thing that Green Light Means—Only one possible cause these days...
"Marlene—" she could hear her husband call from the distance ahead of her, "Marlene? Are you alright?"
I want to go home, she thought to herself as she leaned against the old stone walls that made up the encampment, I just want to go home and watch my babies as they sleep. Where we're safe. I want to go home.
She wasn't a coward. She had been a member of the resistance since she and Orrin began dating the year after Hogwarts. She was one of the bravest in the Order, having been there in the early days and making it out of situations that had claimed others, like the attack outside on Slitheen Lane. Discovering hostages in Nottingham three years ago. The attacks at a Starkid Concert outside of Leeds. She had been a leader on a raid conducted by the Order after the attack on Tintagel last fall. She had fought where others had ran, but for the first time, as she saw her husband's shadow walk towards her from the castle below the green light, she wanted to run. She wanted to take him and run. She wanted to be encased by fear. She didn't want to be brave.
Orrin had told her they would be going home soon, that they just had to wait for Philip Beal to rendezvous with them with his month's report of spying on suspected Death Eaters in Kent. Although there weren't that many Death Eaters believed in the area, Dumbledore had wanted Philip to keep tabs on the international "visitors" who were believed to be housed in a Kent manor house. Initially, Marlene hadn't minded. She and her husband had been going on Order-Dates for a few years now. Both she and her husband wanted to allow the girls some sense of normality, and they loved when Vera and Lily came over to watch them. With the addition of the mysterious black dog Sirius brought every time Vera and Lily stayed, normality seemed to return and thrive in the McKinnon home. Her little Ada hadn't asked any questions or eavesdropped in weeks. She had the ideal home at day, and fought for that ideal life at night with her husband.
But tonight's date, unlike the half dozen before it, had varied from routine. Philip hadn't showed up.
She and Orrin had spent the evening at one of their favorite little shops for fish sticks and chips, and they had then gone for a broom ride along the cliffs; it was foggy enough and most of the muggles wanted to believe they had witnessed some sort of unnatural event as they looked up from the shore and those in their fishing boats would deny a flight outright to avoid an admittance of such superstitions on their own ships.
Flying along the white cliffs, the sea mist in her hair and her arms wrapped around the waist of her sweetheart, it hadn't felt as though there had been a threat. Until they landed. Until her husband took her hand after he stored the broom in the Foreland Lighthouse and the apparated to the Castle. Until he started whispering the same lines of comfort that they both knew to be dipped in false truths. "Don't worry Marley, we just have to get the report from Phillip and we can go home. And you know Philip, he's always one to be quick and to the point. He won't drag on a meeting—even if he hasn't seen one of the Order for over a month," he had told her, taking her by the hand as they walked up to the castle. They never went inside the castle, just waited along the walls and Philip would be there. But not tonight.
Tonight there had been a crack in the quiet night air and a flash of light that accompanied it. Like a bolt of lightening, it illuminated the castle towers and walls as it shot to the heavens. More terrifying than the crack was the silence that followed, and the absence of her husband who had bolted towards the gatehouse the moment the green light filled the sky.
That was the moment the foreign fear took hold. I want to go home to my babies, she thought relying on the rocks of the castle walls for support. I want to be in their nursery with the dog asleep on the floor and Orrin holding me in his arms. I want to go home and be safe.
"Marley!" Orrin called again, his voice closer and with more urgency. "Marley, come on Philip's in there! We have to make sure he's safe—did you see the blast?" his face came into view as his hand clasped her wrist. "Come on—let's go—"
"I can't," she said, gripping the stones behind her. "Orrin, we need to get home, we need to get back to the girls—I can't do this anymore, I can't be brave like I used to. I want my girls."
The hand around her wrist relaxed as the fingers reached down to her own and lead her up to the castle. "I need to see if he's alright—there's the slight chance that was him and his wand misfired. Philip spooks easy for a field agent, has ever since we were kids—I need you to come with me just in case it's someone else. I don't want to leave you at in the open—especially if it wasn't Philip who—"
"It couldn't have been Philip," Marlene answered hastily, matching her step to her husbands as she switched between braved and distressed spheres. "Distress flairs are red. If he was trying to get out attention on something related to the Order we would have seen his beaver patronus-" she stepped up and steadied herself against another wall. "It had to be someone else—that green light—" her eyes looked back at the sky, "It ought to be the Dark Mark, why isn't it the Dark Mark, Orrin?"
"Perhaps Philip fought him off?" Orrin said, helping her past a fallen beam. "He had an uncanny jinx with curdled milk—could have thrown off his attacker. It's either that, or a new Death Eater who hasn't mastered the Dark Lord's signature mark."
Marlene gave an involuntary hiccup and looked up at her husband with wide eyes. "Don't look at me like that Marley, you knew this is what we were going to face. What's the matter with you?" He turned back to look at her more fully, "You're more shaken than I've ever seen you before."
"I thought, when we had the girls—I thought they'd put us on some side line job you know? A quieter task but a task of resistance none the less. Why don't they have Black or Evans out here, why is it that they have parents with little girls out walking into a trap with an ill formed dark mark overhead? It doesn't make sense," her hand tightened around her husbands and her feet stopped forcing him to turn around and face her. "Come on Orrin—let's just call in Frank Longbottom to investigate and we can go home. Please?"
"We are doing something on the sidelines Marley," Orrin answered, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Once every two weeks making calls of field agents across the country. Not that bad. Not like the raids before Ada was born."
"But we've never been the first on scene, not since that fire in Essex in '69, and we could only try and extinguish it before we could go in there."
His voice and hand remained steady,"Phil Beal could be dead or injured. I'm a registered Healer—I have to check—"
"But Orrin—"
"We don't leave people behind," he said, kissing her cheek before he walked through an archway. She looked around her surroundings as she leaned against the walls. One of the castle walls had been blasted away and beams lay hewed along the ground and out of buildings. After the Order was notified, the Ministry would have to be notified so they could fix the inner walls of the citadel, she could only imagine what the Muggle Historians would have to say if they caught wind of the glacises and gate houses left pristine as the citadel laid in ruins.
"Philip!" Orrin called from a distance, little balls of blue light bobbing around to aide him in his search. Marlene could see her husband's patronus, a Bassett hound, busy at work sniffing out the scene for a trace of the missing Order agent. While he may not always see it her way, she thought, she could always count on her husband to be the brave one. Always searching for those left behind. The stubborn curse of the McKinnon's...
"Philip—" she too called, walking along the debris flicking her wand here and there as her own little blue lights appeared. A month of spying on Death Eaters and their house guests—Philip better have the names to stop the ruddy war in this report or Merlin help him...
Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt her foot graze something soft. "L-Lumos," she stammered, hoping it was just a stray cat or fuzzy moss. Whatever courage had been recovered fleeted. Lying on the ground spread eagle was Philip Beal, his eyes wide to the heavens. His dark hair appeared darker against his pale skin. But that isn't want made her scream.
"Orrin— Orrin!"
It wasn't that Philip Beal's death had brought Marlene to scream. It was the deep crimson that had bled on through his shirt, a jagged bolt across his torso under the green moonless night and if his frozen facial expression revealed anything, it told that death had not come softly.
((*))
Not far from the scream two cloaked figures appeared out of the air and began a hasty walk to the old Peverell Gateway, their cloaks flowing in the wind. One of the figures stood tall and kept his eyes on the looming gateway while the other snapped on his heels and continued to berate the first figure who never the less kept walking.
"You couldn't even get the Dark Mark spell right," Macnair grumbled, dusting off his shoulders after they had landed on the other side of the castle. "You didn't even let me play with him after we got the information, as soon as we found out his business you did your little— well you know, and that was it he was dead. Not even a few rounds of Crucio or other forms of magical impalement."
Severus rolled his eyes, trying to ignore his companion who seemed to be distraught over the loss of some Christmas present that was the opportunity to kill someone. In some ways Severus couldn't blame him. Originally, Macnair was given all the opportunities to be the Death Eater hit man for Dumbledore's lesser protected followers. However once Switzerland and converting Lily Evans had failed, the job had needed to be shared by the two newest Death Eaters. Severus had no personal reason to kill Beal, but he had meddled where he shouldn't have and needed to be punished. He knew it was only a matter of time before James Potter found out he was back in the country. He was sure that his signature Sectumsepra would be enough to draw the little boy James out of the Auror's training day care and cause him to chase after Severus. And when Severus Snape met James Potter, this time he would kill him, regardless of the Dark Lord's desires for Potter. There were other charismatic, gifted wizards...ones that hadn't taken Lily from him.
"The Dark Lord said he was to meet a traitor's end; I'd say having your intestines erupt from the inside and then tear themselves free is a brutal enough way unless you had something better in mind," Snape snapped at his companion. "And if you do please share and we'll incorporate it some how."
Macnair fumbled in his sack, leaning into the gateway. "We could've waited for Dumbledore's people. Wouldn't that have been better? Could've gotten Black or Pettigrew—heard he's back."
"We don't know if there were Order members coming," Severus said evenly. "For all we know the idiot was talking about the stars when we were interrogating him—he was a sucker for astronomy in school."
"For the last time, it was Orrin, not Orion-" Macnair complained as he pulled out a cigarette. "Come on Severus, let's just go back and look. I swear I heard a woman's scream a few minutes ago—I could play with my food before you do the intestine killing thing. Or better yet, I could come up with my own signature move to kill by— you know, give them a choice, me or death—not that they'd have much a choice—and once I have my ways with em' I get to kill them," he gave a long puff, the smoke sinisterly floating above his head like a devil amongst his flames.
Taking one of the cigarettes out of his friend's jacket Snape rolled his eyes, "A few minutes is all Dumbledore needs for his people to get there. I bet there won't be just the woman. Besides, we're to be here at midnight exactly for when Lucius comes."
"I don't know why I got stuck with you," Macnair grumbled, gnawing at his cigarette, "You don't enjoy death, you just bring it about. Make a lousy executioner you would."
"Who says I didn't enjoy that?" Severus asked. He hadn't. He just saw Beal and tried to imagine that it was James Potter he had petrified, interrogated and then killed from the inside out. It had been a clean murder. No struggle. A good learning experience. He knew now that he should silence them immediately after interrogations. "Anyways, he was beginning to grovel. You know how I can't stand the groveling—as if the sniveling and lamenting over people they'll leave behind is going to do them any good in the long run."
"Still—If Bellatrix had been assigned we all would have had a good time before getting even," Macnair sighed kicking a stone, "You could learn a couple things from her you know."
Snape did not like Bellatrix. He had hoped to say he had utter dislike towards all Blacks, but Narcissa seemed to be the exception. She wasn't as arrogant as her sister, and not as obnoxious or pinning(?) as her cousins. What I could possibly learn from her, he thought. "I don't think I'd want to. Death is death, why master a method that yields the same results?"
Macnair took in a long drag from his cigarette, thick clouds coming out as he spoke, "So when the time comes and you get to kill James Potter, are you just going to make it clean and quick? You're not going to Crucio till kingdom come, manipulate the mind, ensnare the senses, kill him in every other possibly way before you physically bless him with that release he'll call death?"
Severus took in his own cigarette, Perhaps Macnair has a point—Potter's death would prove the exception of his usual routine killing. He would suffer. A hundred fold for every year he had made his own life a living hell. And then an eternity of hell for taking Lily…
"Just make sure Evans is there and it will be hell for both of them, you and me killing as we know best." Macnair grinned as Severus extinguished his smoke.
"She doesn't have a death sentence yet. The Dark Lord still wants her," he corrected, trying to fight the urge burning through his free will to hex Macnair then and there for such accusations.
A familiar, sinister smile crept on Macnair's face, "I don't think he's the only one that wants her."
A loud POP and SMACK echoed at the same time, Severus punch, intended for Macnair hit Lucius Malfoy square in the nose. "Bloody Hell,Severus! What the devil is going on!"
"Reflex," Severus answered looking down at the ground, "I was just practicing my elbow reflexes when you apparated in."
"Well Merlin, practice less," Lucius complained, rubbing his nose, his head slightly tilted back as to avoid another sudden onslaught of Severus' reflexes. "Now—you two with me immediately, we have a meeting to attend. I trust the mole is dead?"
"Very much so," Macnair grinned, "Where are you taking us?"
"Oh we just have a celebration to plan for us Death Eaters," Lucius said as they crossed through the ancient gatehouse. "Now that the mole is gone, they won't suspect a single thing. The Fifth of November will soon have a new reason to be remembered."
And before the swirl of apparation set in, Severus realized that if Lily was part of the they, he needed to do everything in his power to make sure she didn't make it to the party, if not for her sake, for his. And his reflexes.
AN: So a chapter without either Lily or James, I'm sorry. Don't worry, both will be back in the next chapter. James is almost back, and I am so excited (so I could only imagine how you all feel). I know this seems a bit of a filler chapter, but it was necessary to set the stage for the next chapter. Plus, you got to meet And Snape's back! And his creepy friend! As my roommate would say, "Ah great-the Slytherin Angst has returned..."
As always, thank you to my wonderful beta Maria, you are a life saver! If you have any questions, comments or concerns, as always, please leave a review or send a PM. I'll admit, I'm one of those selfish authors that delights in email notifications from fanfiction...
Until Next Week m'dears,
-Kait