Chapter 7
12th August, Malfoy Manor
Lucius Malfoy angrily slammed his fist to his desk.
"Damn it all," he growled.
He definitely wasn't pleased with the way things have gone since fourth August. At first, the situation seemed perfect, there had been a chance for him to get Dumbledore's poster boy out of the wizarding world for good, and threaten Amelia Bones – he wouldn't push for her being sacked for lackadaisical execution of her duties, which nearly resulted in their world being exposed to muggles, and she in turn would do a few favours for him.
But all went to hell as soon as he got out of the floo at the Ministry. He had caught a glimpse of Dumbledore in one of the elevators, who undoubtedly came to get the boy wonder out of trouble. That had meant one of his schemes had been thwarted. It annoyed him, but Lucius hadn't been too upset about that, other opportunities to destroy Potter's reputation were bound to appear.
Then he arrived at Bones' office. Instead of the DMLE director he met the Head Auror and Albus Dumbledore, who were engaged in an argument. The old headmaster tried to convince Scrimgeour to get Bones back to the Ministry, or at least give him some information, but the Head Auror was repeatedly refusing. During the few minutes when Lucius stood at the door unnoticed, he witnessed Dumbledore trying the kindly grandfather's face, sadness and disappointment and finally the Chief Warlock, whose face was composed, but with anger bubbling just under surface.
Scrimgeour had been unmoved and almost started to snicker at the old mage's frustration. Lucius would have been quite amused, too, had he not been so impatient to put his plan in motion before it could occur to anyone to look for the real culprit of the whole mess.
But even the second part of his scheme didn't work out. Dumbledore had not listened to any hints to get out and kept interrupting any conversation the Malfoy patriarch tried to have with the stubborn DMLE official. Scrimgeour kept repeating that his department had everything in hand and yes, one of the incidents had been caused by the incompetence of a member of DMLE, but said person was definitely not Amelia Bones. The Head Auror then had the gall to threaten both of his visitors with charges of obstruction of investigation.
In the end, he wasn't charged with anything, but they did ask him to come to the ministry to answer a few questions concerning the temporary suspension of Albus Dumbledore and the happenings at Hogwarts. That matter was dangerously close to the business with the enchanted diary and the Weasley girl. If Bones got her hands on Dobby-the-bloody-bat-eared-pest …
He glared balefully at a letter laying on his desk. Perhaps Narcissa would have an idea what to do. Giving the letter one last glare, he stood up and went to search for his wife.
When he found her, she was deep in thought, a forgotten letter laying in her lap.
"Narcissa?"
She didn't react. Lucius came closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she jerked and frowned, but she softened her expression when she saw the worried look on his face. He sat down next to her and she took his hand.
"What is troubling you, Lucius?" she asked.
He told her everything and she listened without any interruption. When he stopped talking, she was lost in thought. While he was waiting for her answer, he sneaked a look at the letter in her lap. It was written on pristine white and thick paper, rather than on parchment. The handwriting was neat, but unfamiliar.
Narcissa shifted in her seat and turned back to him.
"When you met Dumbledore and Potter in June, what did the boy say to you? Was it 'I saw you slip the diary to Ginevra Weasley' or 'I think you gave the diary to Ginevra Weasley'?"
"The latter. But Dumbledore behaved as if he had some information, too."
"No doubt from performing Legillimency without permission. That is not usable as evidence."
"You are probably right. But what about Dobby? What if Bones had got to him?"
"A minor unpleasantness. Not even Augusta Longbottom and Barty Crouch would consider the testimony of a house elf, who betrays his master's secrets, trustworthy."
"So you think that for now we should just wait and observe?"
"Yes. It will be best if you go to the Ministry, answer their questions and play the role of a worried parent. And while you are there, under no circumstances repeat what you did on the fourth."
12th August, mid-morning, theShrieking Shack
Sirius was having a wonderful week. His plan was working well, perhaps even better than he imagined. The new teacher brought him good food daily, so he had finally been able to leave behind Aberforth's horrendous cooking, but he also got a scratch behind the ears and a few words. It was true that the young woman hadn't said anything too important, but for now he didn't care. Just the sound of calm, sane speech was enough. It helped him to clear his thoughts. His anger and hatred towards Peter Pettigrew had not diminished, but he wasn't controlled by it anymore. And speaking of his benefactor, there she was, coming up the hill. He transformed into Padfoot and sprinted down the stairs and out of the front door.
"Woof!" he greeted her when she approached.
"Hello, boy."
She smiled, scratched her ears and unshrunk a plate filled with leftovers. He devoured them in a few moments and then plopped himself down on her feet. The woman sighed, half exasperated and half amused and sat down on the lawn. He immediately lifted himself from her feet, made a few more steps and laid down again, this time with his head in her lap. She once again scratched her ears and petted his head, and then she started talking.
"You know how I said that there are strange things happening everywhere, like the headmaster constantly running to and from London, deputy headmistress slowly, but surely becoming furious with him and also the constant headaches and fogged mind?"
"Woof."
"Well, that was nothing compared to what happened yesterday and the day before. Apparently, out of nowhere a quite important ministry official had been sacked and some wealthy and influential aristocrat had been summoned for questioning in front of the Wizengamot. And you still haven't heard everything."
Padfoot whined softly, trying to sound questioning. The woman gave him another scratch behind the ears and continued:
"The strangest thing these days has been Snape's behaviour after we got to know the name of the new DADA teacher. When Minerva McGonnagal announced it, he stalked out of the staffroom and slammed the door so strongly that dust fell from the ceiling and the next day he kept making comments about murderers, their wimpy sidekicks and having unwanted extra duties because of the headmaster's precious Gryffindors. That was his second temper tantrum I have witnessed, and I'm already getting tired of it. If he does it a few more times, I swear I'll slam him to the door."
She didn't say much more and spent the next quarter of an hour in thought, occasionally petting his head or rubbing his back. Sirius thought about everything she told him. Clearly, there was something happening in the Ministry, but he would need more details to deduce what exactly was going on.
He turned his thoughts to the last part of her narrative. His guess as to her position at Hogwarts had been clearly wrong, but he didn't try to figure out which subject she taught, rather, he focused on her description of Snape's behaviour – and also on recovering from the shock he suffered when he realised that Snape was free and very much able to hurt his godson.
So the hook-nosed git had a grudge towards the new DADA teacher, who was a former Gryffindor? Sirius immediately thought about one man who would fit the description, but it was unlikely that Remus would get the position. He didn't doubt his former friend's abilities, but he imagined that the board of governors would put up a very loud protest.
The woman nudged him off her lap and he whined, sending her a sad look. He didn't want to give up the company of a friendly, and more importantly sane and calm human, but she wasn't moved.
"I have been sitting here long enough and I still have some quite important things to do. See you later."
12th August, around noon, Little Hangleton
Irene looked around as she got off the local train. The first houses of the village of Little Hangleton stood quite near the small train station and an asphalt road led away from it and to a small square with a war memorial and a few flowerbeds. Further away there could be seen a hill where a stately looking manor house stood.
Searching through the old records about former students and later through old issues of Daily Prophet in the library had proved to be a good idea. According to those dusty documents and yellowing newspaper, this village was a place where her father's grandparents lived and she was very eager to look at it closely.
A growl from her stomach disturbed her musings. Checking the time, she was surprised that it was lunchtime already. Irene started to walk towards the village at a brisk pace. She hoped that there was some pub or similar establishment. She could get a good lunch and perhaps she would come across some of the locals who were old enough to meet and interact with Tom Riddle Sr. and Merope Gaunt, the parents of Tom Marvolo Riddle, who, in her opinion, had been an individual with tremendously bad luck.
She once again went over everything she found out about him. One parent dead and the other not knowing about his existence. Growing up in an orphanage and spending his summers listening for sirens announcing bombings, because the orphanage had been overlooked during the evacuation.
Before long, she got to the little square. The village did have a pub, named The Hangman. Several tables stood outside under big parasols, one of them taken by a small group of old men, who nodded a greeting at her. When she ordered her lunch, the waiter made a small talk.
"What brings, you here, ma'am?"
"I have been told that some of my ancestors used to live here and I wanted to see the place with my own eyes."
This had been overheard by one of the elderly locals, who immediately joined the conversation.
"And who would your ancestors be? Bill here has probably met them at some point and he knows everything there is to know about Little Hangleton."
"The Riddles and the Gaunts," answered Irene without any hesitation. The man named Bill snorted incredulously.
"So the stuck up Tom Riddle actually ran away with the Gaunt girl because he'd had a thing for her and not because she held a knife to his throat?"
"Why does it seem so impossible, sir?" asked the young teacher curiously.
"Well, it is like fish marrying a bird. You see, miss, the Riddles were landed gentry and old money. Proud of it too. The Gaunts on the other hand… well, those were the local vagrants and cranks. Lived in a shack behind the hill," said the man and pointed in the general direction.
"Violent, too," added the old man who'd asked Irene about the names of her relatives. Bill nodded in agreement.
"Right you are, Jim. Crude and violent, all right, the bunch of them. Or at least the father and the son. I don't know what the daughter was like, nobody had ever seen much of her. The son, Martin-"
"Morphin," interrupted Jim. "I'm sure that was his name. I remember it, because we used to joke about it. Half the time in a fit of rage, the other half in a lethargy, as if he'd got too much morphine."
Bill glared at Jim, who returned it. Irene decided that now would be a good time to interfere. She turned to Bill.
"Sir?"
He stopped glaring at his neighbour and turned to her.
"Yes, miss?"
"You were saying something about the Gaunts' son?"
"Yes. The son, Morphin, loved to target Tom Riddle. You can probably imagine that it did not help the relations between them. Always looked down their noses at each other, they did. But I really don't know what the Gaunts had been so proud about."
Here Jim interfered once again:
"You said yourself that they were soft in the attic. I'd bet they thought themselves some kind of nobility."
Irene was inclined to agree with Jim. From what she had seen, heard and read so far, it seemed that feelings of superiority or even delusions of grandeur were something typical to the most conservative British pureblood wizards – and by all accounts, the Gaunts had been far over the line between conservative and bigoted.
Irene returned her thoughts to the present and asked another question:
"If the families disliked each other so much, how is it possible that the Riddles' son had ran away with the Gaunts' daughter?"
"Nobody knows, miss," said Jim. "One day the Riddles' maid just appeared here and told the whole room that the two had disappeared together."
"Bloody gossip, that one," grumbled Bill. "That hadn't been the first time she did so. Nor the last. I well remember it was her who barged in here, screaming that all three Riddles were dead and later she told us that Frank had been arrested."
Irene tried to piece together a possible sequence of events from everything she'd heard. So far it looked that Tom Riddle Sr. had ran away with Merope Gaunt, but for some reason returned home and sometime after that he and his parents had been murdered. She turned to Bill and asked:
"Excuse me, but who is Frank?"
"Frank Bryce. He's been a caretaker at the manor house since he came back from the war. Back then, we all thought that he killed them all, but he said he hadn't done it. Kept talking about seeing a strange dark haired boy, but no-one would believe him."
Irene nodded absentmindedly, a new thought forming in her mind.
"Is Mr. Bryce still alive?" she queried.
"Aye," answered the old man. "But he doesn't like local people much and strangers even less. I wouldn't go asking him for information. He'll just shake his cane at you and try to shoo you away."
There hadn't been much more conversation afterwards and soon Irene paid for her lunch, took leave of the locals and set out for Riddle Manor. She was determined to at least try to talk to Frank Bryce, despite what had the pub's patrons told her.
The journey had been pleasant at first, but as she neared the manor house, the surroundings started to get a little depressing. The neat and tidy gardens and the small, well-kept caretaker's house contrasted sharply with the rusting wrought iron gate and the dilapidated main house. The old building, which seemed so stately from a long distance, had its walls covered in ivy and many of the windows were broken. Some of the window shutters either hung on just one hinge or were torn away completely. One of the chimneys had almost fallen apart and parts of beams could be seen in places where the roof tiles were missing. All in all it was a sad sight.
An old man, who had been up until then trimming one of the hedges, interrupted his work and gave the newcomer a suspicious glare.
"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked, his croaky voice practically dripping with hostility.
"My name is Irene McAdams. I presume you are Mr. Bryce?"
"That's right. What do you want with me?"
"I'd like to ask about the Riddle family-"
"Well, they'll tell you all you want to hear down in the village," grumbled the caretaker and made to return back to his work. Irene stopped him.
"Mr. Bryce, wait. I don't doubt that the people in village would be willing to talk, but I'd also like to hear about your opinions and memories. I assume you have been working here for a long time?"
Bryce slowly nodded, still looking very suspicious. Irene continued:
"What were the Riddles like?"
The old caretaker took a moment to sort out his thoughts. After a while he spoke:
"They probably told you all manner of bad things about them, but I say that there had been many a worse master than old Mr. Riddle and Master Tom. My wages have never been late when they still lived and they never took out their anger on me or the maid and cook, which is more than others could say. They also never did anything scandalous, that is until the young master disappeared with the vagrant's daughter. I'll eat my pruning scissors if she hadn't slipped some strange herbs to master Tom."
"So you believe that the whole thing had been Miss Gaunt's idea?"
"Aye. Master Tom had been perfectly happy with Miss Cecilia, a proper young lady, not like that mousy thing who probably didn't even know how to read and write. Didn't know how to wash herself, too. It was the Gaunts' fault, alright. Crackpots the lot of them. Queer things used to happen near the hovel where they lived."
Irene had a fair idea what could have been the cause of the "queer things" and that all of them had probably been quite unpleasant, but she asked Mr. Bryce for clarification anyway.
"Mostly people getting injuries and illnesses that just wouldn't get better. Every time something like that happened, there also appeared some people who looked just as crazy as the Gaunts. There was one in swimsuit and tailcoat and another man in a suit, woman's shoes with high heels and a corset with garters over the suit.
Anyway, avoiding the Gaunt's shack has ever been the smart thing to do. If I think about it, it's still the smart thing to do."
"There are strange things still happening?" asked Irene.
"There are," answered the old man with a decisive nod. "They had got worse after the '44. And I'd say that they'll continue to happen. Even the most brazen kids don't go near the shack and if you were thinking about it, forget about it and march back to the train station. Good day," grumbled Frank Bryce, turned his back on her and resumed his work.
The young history teacher left the manor's grounds, but instead of returning to the village and eventually to the train station, she headed away from the main road and towards the Gaunt shack. After an hour of brisk walking she finally saw the old dilapidated house. The roof had long since caved in and one of the ivy-covered walls was half-demolished.
As she neared the dilapidated building, the first enchantments took effect. At first, Irene didn't sense any danger. She only had the same feeling as during her childhood, when her father used to amuse her with some simple spells and his magic gave off comforting warmth and feeling of calmness.
When she re-started her logical mind and observational skills, and realized that the enchantments around her were definitely not her father's and that there were strange, disharmonic undertones in them, similar to the smell of an unwashed body covered with a perfume, it was late. She abruptly turned around, trying to go away and contact the DMLE, her colleagues, anybody… but as she made the first step, she was suddenly assaulted by a debilitating headache, nausea and muscle pain. Still, she attempted to go on.
But whoever placed the enchantment or ward there, didn't intend for any intruders to return home. When Irene made another step, the air suddenly shimmered and she was flung several meters in the direction of the shack. The headache and nausea were replaced by knocked-out breath, scrapes and several nasty bruises. It was sheer luck that she had no broken bones.
For several moments she laid without moving, trying to catch her breath. When she finally managed to stand up, the same invisible force as before started to push her towards the shack. When she got to the door, she attempted to hold on to it, but in vain. No matter how hard she tried to get away, her body was slowly, but surely being pushed towards the centre of the shack, where she could see a circle of glowing runes drawn on the floor and some kind of dried dark substance was splattered over them. Two bundles of what looked like old branches were laying near the runic circle.
As Irene got closer and had a better view of the bundles, her fear turned into outright terror. They were not piles of branches. They were human bones. This realization was followed by another, equally horrifying. The dark brown substance had to be dried blood. She was now about half a meter from the circle. The runes started glowing more brightly, as if waiting for a new coating of blood, and she felt as if a gigantic fist was squeezing her body.
She doubled her efforts to get away, but her struggle only caused her to lose her footing and fall face first to the runic circle. Instinctively, her hands shot out to break her fall, and this simple action in all probability saved her life. The moment her scraped, bloodied hands touched the runes, the squeezing stopped and the force pushing her forward eased. The headache and nausea were still there, but now there finally was a chance to get away and Irene grabbed it with both hands, thanking any deity who listened for the similar magical signatures in blood relatives.
Walking back to the edge of the wards surrounding the shack was like trying to pass through neck-deep, icy cold water. Irene's muscles felt as if they were on fire and her breath was short. The distance she had to traverse seemed infinite, but she continued through sheer stubbornness and in the end managed to get free of the wards. She was totally exhausted. Cold sweat was running down her back, there were spots dancing in front of her eyes and her ears were ringing. She wanted to continue back to the village, but every ounce of her strength had been spent. The dancing spots turned into a pitch black wall and Irene McAdams knew no more.
12th August, evening, Hogwarts
Albus Dumbledore was in the process of contemplating the special Wizengamot session which had been called by Amelia Bones and scheduled for the day after tomorrow, when one of the strange silver instruments in his office started to flash and give off a shrill whistle. The instrument was connected to a new ward which had been added to those already existing after last year's fiasco with Tom's diary.
The aged headmaster walked over to the flashing contraption and tapped it with his wand. It released a big puff of white smoke, which instantly started to gain colours and contort into various shapes. The end result was a picture of the person who had dark magic residue on them – in this case it was his new History teacher.
When Dumbledore looked closer, he noticed that she looked dishevelled and exhausted, and that she held firmly onto a box covered with dust and cobwebs. He tapped a different place on his silver instrument. The picture was replaced by two sets of runes and arithmantic equations – two magical signatures converted into writing. One of them belonged to Irene McAdams, but the headmaster practically ignored it. His eyes were fixed on the other one, which was very familiar to him. There was a lot of differences, but still about quarter of the various runes and symbols were the same.
So the young miss had been playing with something that Tom left behind, or worse, his former student was back in Britain and Irene McAdams had chosen the bonds of blood over the principles of the Light. The young woman needed to be watched to find out if she could still be turned back on the straight path. Dumbledore waved his wand and called his patronus.
"Tell Severus that I want to talk to him. A situation similar to that with Quirell has arisen."
As Dumbledore was instructing his Potions professor on what he wanted him to do and the professor in question was vehemently protesting and claiming that the best course of action would be to just let the Aurors haul his new colleague away, Irene eventually managed to drag herself to the infirmary. It seemed that her luck continued, because Poppy Pomfrey was just exiting her office and immediately noticed her. She rushed towards her and helped her to get to the nearest bed. Then she pulled out her wand to perform diagnostic spells.
"Please, call the DMLE," Irene croaked.
"I will, don't worry. But first I need to take care of you. You know that you broke a record? Every time we had a new teacher, and we've had a lot of those, that teacher ended up here, injured or ill. Some of them got here as early as the end of September, but none of them had managed to arrive here before the school even started. I hope you will not continue like this."
Irene didn't respond. The mediwitch's voice became just a background noise and the young History teacher finally succumbed to her exhaustion and fell asleep. Madame Pomfrey quietly finished her work, placed some monitoring spells on her new patient and moved towards the floo in her office. Starting a fire and throwing a pinch of floo powder into the flames, she called out:
"Ministry of Magic, the Auror office!"
Her floo call was immediately accepted by Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was on duty that day.
"Madame Pomfrey, what seems to be the trouble?"
"I suspect that one of the teachers had been attacked by some unsavoury character. She arrived dishevelled, scratched and bruised and there was a dark residue on her," said the mediwitch with a frown.
Shacklebolt listened attentively and after Poppy stopped talking, he stated:
"I'd like to come to Hogwarts to talk with Miss McAdams."
"You'll probably have to wait until tomorrow until she wakes. She was exhausted and fell asleep almost immediately."
"I understand. I'll see you tomorrow at ten o'clock," said the Auror.
