Chapter 20-

The Gingerbread House

All that night we waited for the Death-Eaters and half-giants to come looking for us, but Nudd must have really had mixed them up because they never came back. The next morning, we woke up and couldn't find any tracks almost as if they were never there in the first place.

We ate a small breakfast of oats and eggs, while I filled Nudd in on most of what I knew about him being "early-retired" from the Ministry. He said, "I don't understand. Will and I were so close to nabbing Slipher. What... what happened?"

I said, "Not sure since it's classified, and unfortunately the Ministry hasn't been completely forthcoming to the public. However... there's something else I need to tell you."

He looked at me. "It's about Ariel isn't it, something's... wrong with her, isn't it?"

I looked him in the eyes. "Sadly, yes… a little later, Ariel was apparently attacked, tortured, and… Obliviated."

He just listened in silence, spinning and twisting his wand, then looked up. "So... what does that mean... isn't there some sort of cure?"

I looked him in the eye. "Well, right now she's at St. Mungo's receiving the best care possible."

He looked back down at his wand, then he stopped spinning it, and grabbed it and held it so tight like he was going to snap in half, and said, "Oh... I see."

"I'm sorry, there's no known cure for Oblivated memories. That's probably why a few weeks later, you then went looking for the Cauldron, even though it was just a legend."

He nodded. "And that's when I disappeared..."

I put my hand on his shoulder to comfort him. "Yes, now I've been able to piece together pieces of your story and bits of your journey, but I'm still not exactly sure when, or how, you wound up at that Lady of Lake who turned you into a donkey."

He looked like he was going to cry, and he took a deep breath, then said, "Now I know, and I'm glad you told me about Ariel."

I did the only thing I could in that situation; I gave Nudd a hug and said, "I'm sorry."

It seemed to help a little bit, and he said, "Thank you..."

We packed up camp and continued walking through the Forest Sauvage in relative silence, after a while, he sort of chucked and shrugged. "I can't believe I was a donkey…"

I laughed and replied, "It's alright, Professor Snape once turned me into a toad in potions class."

Nudd smiled, and I hoped it helped relieve his worry.

We continued walking and the fact that Nudd knew the truth seemed to help his usually pensive mood. Eventually Nudd asked about other news, and I filled him in on the whole Boy-Who-Lived business. Nudd laughed, "Seriously... after all that, a... little bitty baby defeats him?"

I nodded, "It's true!"

Nudd laughed some more, "Come on... a baby? Now I know you're pulling my leg!"

I tried to make a straight face. "I know, I know... sounds made up, right? Now all the Death-Eaters are on the run or gone underground and the Ministry is back to normal, erm... more or less."

Nudd looked away. "It's hard to believe that one child did all that..."

"A gosh-darned miracle, it was." I said, as I noticed some dirt being dusted up in the distance.

He looked around. "So, what's happening at the Ministry now?"

I shrugged. "Not much, most Aurors are mainly hunting down old Death-Eaters. Auror Self has got a new partner now and supposedly they are closer than ever to catching Slipher, it was in the Daily Prophet and everything. But mainly things have gone back to being peaceful again, now there's not a war to fight."

Nudd must have saw the car first, and recognized it and he said, "Well, speak of the devil himself..." Because guess who comes driving down the dirt road in a mustard-colored '79 Talbot Avenger and pulls up in front of us? None other than Auror Will Self, er... himself!

Auror Smith was driving, and Self hopped out of the passenger side and shouted, "Nudd? Nudd Ludlow, is that you?!"

Auror Self ran over and gave him a big hug. If there was animosity between these two, Auror Self did an amazing job of hiding it as his eyes welled up. Will and Nudd started laughing, as Auror Smith stepped out of the car and walked over to me, and said, "I can't believe you were telling the truth…"

I nodded, "Do your eyes deceive you?"

She smiled and touched my arm, and my heart stopped, and she said, "I guess not."

As Nudd and Auror Self walked over, I tried to mentally re-start my heart and swallowed (more than breathed) a gulp of air. Nudd and Self were getting each other caught up on recent events, and Auror Self told him, "We tried finding Vesto Slipher for months, and went undercover but kept getting the run around. Eventually we find out that Slipher is really the alias of somebody connected to Bellatrix Lestrange. This person has been setting up deals with dark beasts who support the Dork-Lard."

I laughed, "Ha ha, Dork-Lard, that's a good one!"

Auror Self just stared at me as his elf-rolled baccy hung from his lip. He clearly was not impressed I was able to find Nudd and he wasn't. I said, "So... what about the article I read by Rita Skeeter? Are you really closer to arresting them?"

Auror Self smiled, "Not really, it's just the 'official' story to throw off the perps, hoping they'll leave town or slip up."

Nudd laughed, "MLE (Magical Law Enforcement) does it all the time, if we didn't, criminals would be able to stay two steps ahead of us."

Auror Self pulled out his keys and said, "There's a Gingerbread house not far from here we can use."

I asked, "A what?"

Nudd said, "That's what we call hidden Magical Safe-Houses in the forest."

Auror Smith said, "We hide former Death-Eaters who have had turned against the Dark Lord out here till we can move them. We set them up with a whole new name, new life, new face-"

Auror Self chucked, "New memories..."

Agent Smith and Nudd looked at each other, and I asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Auror Self said, "We used it when we were going undercover and needed to throw off a witch who was using Legilimency. We would re-use the memories from old Pensieves."

I asked how that worked and Nudd replied, "It's kind of like a memory of acting in a play, they are 'real' to an extent but not completely, that way if an advanced Legilimens were to go snooping, or if an Auror is under the influence of a potion like Veraserum they would technically have a 'memory' of the false experience to throw any interrogation them off the trail."

Auror Smith stepped forward, "It's not something the Ministry really likes to discuss."

"I'm picking up on a theme.' I said.

We all squished inside the small Talbot Avenger. Auror Smith was on the driver's side and she nodded towards Auror Self. "He's not allow to drive..."

Auror Self groined, "Oy! One crash-"

Ruby Tuesday blasted out of the speakers as she peeled out on the dirt road and left a cloud of dust hanging in the air. She drove into the forest for a while as Auror Self gave her directions. After a few miles we pulled off on an overgrown side trail where the cramped smelly Talbot Avenger barely fit, and the branches kept whacking into the windscreen. Eventually, we drove up to a large random oak tree, and Auror Self said, "This is it..."

We all got out and walked between some overgrown spruce pines, past a random old gas lamppost, and around a bend, where there was another small clearing with a little circle of stones on the ground.

Auror Self walked up and said, "Solamen miseris-"

And Nudd finished, "-socios habuisse doloris."

A log cabin magically appeared, complete with a circular wooden door. We walked in and it was even bigger on the inside as it opened up into a large double-story cabin. I walked over to the kitchen and there were plenty of bottled drinks and frozen foods, and the pantry was stocked with all sorts of snacks, chips, and canned foods. Next to the fireplace there was a radio, some board games, and a record player. Unfortunately, the records were all by bands like Joy Division, The Damned, and P.I.L. –all terrible and completely unlistenable stuff. Nudd walked over and played "Love Will Tear Us Apart". He then looked up and said, "I vaguely remember staying here... listening to this."

Auror Self said, "We've been here many times before."

Nudd shook his head, "No… this is… recent."

"Really? Remember anything else?" I asked.

Nudd sat in silence listening for a while, and then said, "There was a Pensieve here, maybe it was… mine. Or Ariel's? I can't remember but I remember bringing one here. But I don't see it around here anymore…"

Nudd then stared at Auror Self, "I also remember that there were rumors about Will and my wife-"

Auror Self said, "Nudd, please understand-"

Nudd interrupted, "...but I never believed them for a second."

After an awkward silent moment, Auror Smith looked up and said, "This is the sort of things the Dark Lord did- he sowed paranoia, doubt, and distrust among the closest allies and staunchest friends. That was how he really succeeded defeating the Ministry, by rotting it from the inside."

Nudd and I then told them all about Twiggy Eggnog and the story of Herpo-the-Foul teaming up with Fomorians to try and raid Avalon from Queen Mab.

"Fomorians, huh?" Auror Smith gave me a slight look and then said, "Weird..."

"Why's that?" I asked.

Auror Smith brewed up a pot of tea, and said, "The reason why it was so hard to defeat the Fomorians was that supposedly the wind would carry their name to them, and whenever someone started talking about them- good, bad or otherwise, they would listen in."

I asked, "But what does that have to do with The Dark Lord?"

Auror Self slammed his fist down, "Sod this!" and stomped away.

Auror Smith leaned in. "The Ministry believes that You-Know-Who learned how to listen to the winds from a Fomorian spell book, which is why, officially, the Ministry doesn't say his name out loud."

I laughed, "That's why?!"

Auror Smith smiled wanly, "Something else the Ministry doesn't like to discuss."

Auror Smith poured us some tea and as we sipped it, I walked over and perused some books on a dirty book case and saw that there's was the two famous versions of Dr. Faustus. One was The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, and the other was a play made two hundred years later by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe- Faust, Part I and II.

Auror Smith walked closer, "You a fan of Dr. Faustus?"

I replied, "Well, I'm a fan of the original by Marlow, of course. Not the knock-off that came later."

She smiled, "So... you don't like Goethe's story?"

"It's not that I don't like the story, the plot is fine. It's just, I believe that authors shouldn't recycle characters from another story. That is surely the lowest form of writing."

"Oh?" She flipped through Goethe's version.

I got a little heated. "Yes! I believe that the creator of the characters should be the only one that writes them, and not every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along later. Authors should try to be original, not... plagerize!"

"I see." She said, and laughed and touched my arm again, and I forgot what we were even talking about.

I looked back at the bookshelf and took out Marlow's version. I said, "Yeah, so... I love books, but do they have to always have so many words?"

"Of course!" Smith smiled and picked out a worn copy of B. Traven's The Death Ship and she said, "Oh, this is a good one too."

I flipped through some other books. "Never heard of it, but the cover does look interesting. Do you like to read?"

She had a twinkle in her eye, "Oh, yes... I love books. My father once owned a magical bookshop in Diagon Alley, so I had tonnes of books growing up."

She picked up a magical reference book from the shelf, flipped through some pages and I saw some Alchemy symbols, one of which is a snake eating its own tail, and next to it was a scribble of the Cryptic Cauldron rune in black ink.

I called Nudd over and showed him the runic alchemy symbol and said, "Remember the librarian showing us these?"

Nudd's eyes went wide when he looked at the crude doodle. "This is my drawing..."