–––CHAPTER 21–––

I STOOD next to one of the glassless windows in the old tower that overlooked Azkaban Island, pondering a question. It was a very simple question, but it had far reaching consequences I didn't yet grasp fully.

I knew what I had smelled, minutes ago in Lucius' cell, and I knew I had encountered the smell before. It was a hint of juniper, reminding me of summery heathland, barely perceptible in the air but nevertheless unmistakeable; as unmistakeable as it had been in Tom's room at the Leaky Cauldron when I woke up this morning. Then and now … I was sure it was the same smell.

And both times, someone had died. Coincidence? Not the kind I believed in. But the important aspect was, standing on the threshold of Lucius' cell, I suddenly had remembered where I had smelled it for the very first time: in Daphne's basement, over a clear, simmering potion.

I rose and walked the two steps over to the glassless window, staring out of the tower in silence. The fog was still there, drifting by in billows, pushed on by the wind. It dug into my hair, smelling salty. I thought I could feel the spray of the waves that crashed against the rocks. Somewhere called a seagull. Lonely, defiant against the storm.

The implication was obvious. The question was why and how.

On the other hand, the key the guard carried to open the cell had finally reminded me what I had been looking for, this morning when I thought something was missing from Astoria's body. I had seen it often enough – her small Gringotts key.

A key could hide many things. Enough to kill for it? Surely. And Malfoy?

I tapped my fingers on the sill, frowning. He hadn't known anything in particular, but his words had warranted him an early death. Urgent enough for her to visit the most secure place in Britain. Even if she somehow afterwards silenced the guard, which she'd convinced to let her inside, it was still one hell of a risk. Anyone could have seen her. I made a mental note to check with the guards. So, why? And – she had to have known about Malfoy.

I pushed that question away, and focused on the last thought, agitated. The fact of the matter was, she couldn't have known that I had talked to Malfoy, since no one had known – no one except myself. So if she knew, I had told her. That was the only explanation.

My mind raced through the implications. It meant she had had the means to make me tell her – had had the means to make me forget. I couldn't remember any of it. She had them then, and she would have them in the future. I needed to take that into account, when I dealt with her.

Countless little clues started to fit together. Her Hogwarts certificate, which had lauded her knowledge of potions and her excellence with complex charmwork. The two potions in her basement, one of which would be Veritaserum, requiring a skilled potion maker to brew it, and the other an unknown, undetectable poison. I'd have bet on that. And then, of course, one of the most complicated spells there was: the obliviation charm.

She had those tools, and this, finally, accounted for the missing Friday night. The details were hazy still, especially concerning the mystery of the room, but I put that aside for now. I guessed she had to have taken me home and interrogated me, afterwards arranging for Astoria's death in some way, something that she would have wanted to do for a while, and then pinned it on me, killing two birds with one stone. The how wasn't important right now. The actually important question here was, where did all that leave me?

I jumped up again, pacing through the small tower room. There was really no way for me to guess just how much I had told her, and how much I had known. Her ability to modify my memories was probably her most dangerous skill. It meant I couldn't rely on my memory implicitly anymore, to determine what was real and what wasn't. Was this her doing, then? The clues only figments implanted in my mind by her magic?

I frowned, then dismissed it as unlikely. There was no reason I could come up with why she would want to leave traces that pointed into her direction. More likely that I simply hadn't told her about those seemingly unimportant facets. After all, Astoria hadn't been dead yet, so I had no reason to suspect her. Otherwise, if she had known just how close I was to discover her secrets, I had no doubt I would have already joined Astoria and Lucius.

"Sloppy, Miss Greengrass," I said out loud. "Should have removed me anyway."

So why hadn't she, then? She had merely put a halt to my inquiries. If she had thought I was getting too close to – to what? Malfoy hadn't told me anything of consequence, had he? And yet she had killed him, and not me, even though he had no proof for any of his accusations, especially her work for Voldemort, whereas as long as I was alive, I remained in a position to use that information and find out –

I stopped and cursed. The chair went flying with a well placed kick.

A game, always a game.

She wanted me to find it. She had even said so herself, even if I hadn't believed her. And the reason for that was that she thought she could shut me up at any time, and that was true – something I had failed to consider as yet was the other side of the Astoria-complex.

If she had killed her, then she was the one who had framed me, but of course it also meant that it was only her testimony that got me back out again. I felt like laughing. She had me so good it was ridiculous. One word from her, and I was shut away in prison for life. No doubt that's how she liked things to be. I lived my life at her convenience.

Well, not bloody likely. Two could play that game.

She trapped me, I'd trap her. As simple as that. We'd see how she liked her own medicine. There was nothing I could do about her having me in check from various angles. But I didn't care for defending anyway, and she had left herself wide open. It was high time for a counter attack. What I needed was cold, hard proof of something. What I needed was to checkmate her before she did the same to me. And then we'd just see if she could waste more time playing her little games. I flicked my wand at the chair, which returned to its upright position, and strode to the door.

A flight of stairs and a conversation with a guard spent looking at the shift schedule later, I was looking for Walt of all people. I found him where he had apparently been last night too: In the third subterranean level that had housed Lucius and other special prisoners, cleaning the floors.

He blinked as I asked him if he had seen someone.

"I did, yes. She came around five in the morning. Not sure that she saw me, though."

I suppressed the impulse to tell him that she hadn't for sure, because otherwise he wouldn't be telling me. By the same token, he hadn't yet told it anyone else. I suspected he wouldn't have either, had I not directly asked him – he was the type to tell no lies, but also the one to ask no questions. So he had seen her – maybe he knew the implications when Lucius was found dead, and maybe he didn't. In any case he didn't want his name tangled in something she was part of, and I couldn't even blame him. I almost felt sorry for what I was going to do. His eyes stared at me through his thick glasses as he looked up, hunched over his bucket of water, waiting for the question he knew I would ask.

"In that case, I'd need a official testimony. You have a moment?"

He sighed, a little sad, summoned the wet floor cloth that was dirtier than the corridor ever was, and lead me into a little room where the cleaning utensils were kept. A quarter of an hour later I had a statement from a witness that had identified one Daphne Bletchley, walking down the corridor, entering Lucius' cell, spending no more than a minute inside and leaving again; all the while Lucius had been sleeping.

Good, but I could do better. The next stop was whatever the key was hiding. Daphne's position was crumbling. Her mistake to put me in this place, where anything I did could only make it better. I started to feel the anticipation building, this strange but very welcome feeling in your gut that pointed towards an impending showdown. So maybe she was right. Maybe I needed my own rules, and my own way, to be free. But it was to her disadvantage that I rediscovered it.

Having nothing left to lose was a great position indeed.

o ] [ o

Outside, the Aurors and my wards produced a jaunty firework. It crackled and banged and flashed. I leant back into the rickety chair behind the table, folded my hands, and tried to reconstruct Friday night, with the information I now had available.

I had left the ball with Daphne sometime after eleven o'clock. I went home with her, where she had interrogated me. Meanwhile, Astoria had met Geiger in the Leaky Cauldron, and handed him the key, in a desperate attempt to get it to me, hoping I would look into him and inevitably stumble over it. A long shot, but it had worked. And not a moment too soon either, since the minute she had returned, maybe a quarter of an hour before midnight if Tom was right, Daphne decided to go ahead with her long-time plan and got rid of her.

That or something like it. I probably wouldn't ever know for sure exactly what happened in that last hour of Astoria's life, but I thought this might come close. It was the most likely progress of events. Daphne already knew of my visit to Malfoy and my vague suspicions. Possibly she simply seized the opportunity. Astoria having rented a room at the Leaky Cauldron that no one had seen her leave was perfect. Daphne had to have realised the implications in seconds. Because everyone still thought Astoria was with an unknown man up in her room at the Leaky Cauldron, she could return both of us there, and everyone would assume that this was where the murder had taken place, and that it was me who had done it. So she'd stunned and obliviated me, prepared Astoria and then … what?

Geiger had been in and out of the room at the Leaky Cauldron. So had Astoria; both had apparated away. And finally I had been there. We were the three persons from the site report. Daphne had never set a foot into the room.

We had been sent there by other means; Astoria dead already, assuming Daphne wanted to be certain she was. But what other means? The only possible way was for her was to portkey me and Astoria there, but there had been no item that could have been a Portkey. Nothing was out of place. And how had I ended up being the one who had used the wand to cast a Killing Curse at Astoria?

The entire shack shook under a particularly vicious barrage of spells, jostling me out of my thoughts. I needed to get a move on. Figuring out the last details was for later, I needed all the evidence against Daphne first. I rose; walking over to the tiny window over the hearth, peering outside through the layers of grime. The Aurors still were working behind the row of trees that shielded the clearing. Enough time yet for the second memory.

I walked back to the wooden table, tipped the other phial into the Pensieve, knowing even before I plunged inside what I would see. There was only one kind of additional evidence that I could have gotten my hands on on short notice, and that was the one from the vault.

After all, there had been another death that had looked completely natural, four years ago. Bletchley had died, and from all I'd read it bore all the signs of Astoria's and Malfoy's deaths. The question was, how? It seemed impossible. The vow prevented her from killing him. And then, there had been Lucius' suspicions of Daphne's work for Voldemort. Would she have left evidence for that behind? Well, we would see.

o ] [ o

If an explanation of the death of Miles Bletchley was what I'd hoped to find in the papers, I was disappointed. I was sitting in the living room of Grimmauld Place and writing the Bletchley-Greengrass report, but my thoughts were firmly in my own past, re-living the chaotic last days of Voldemort's fall.

The report had started with Malfoy's testimony and some account statements that were part of the papers, which proved Bletchley's role as Voldemort's backer, but it quickly became more, much more. It grew into a chronicle of the war, from the moment Voldemort seized control of the Ministry to his demise at my hands two long years later. In between lay the stations of a journey – London, Godric's Hollow, Hogwarts, isles of stark clarity dotted on a line that was blurry and confused in hindsight. Now it became my tale, my manifesto, my vindication.

I had been the war. At the onset, I hadn't needed a reason. I fought because it was the obvious thing to do, had lines drawn in the sand, a world divided in two. I fought – there was no need to question the purpose, the action itself justification. It was fine for as long as Voldemort could be the absolute evil.

That safe, soothing conviction hadn't lasted three months.

An absolute evil required an absolute opposition. The first great battle had sent me crashing into reality. I didn't fight Voldemort in London. I fought ordinary people, Aurors doing their duty, passing-by wizards and witches standing up for what they thought was right, battling for a cause they believed in, with no less conviction than I did.

The fault lines suddenly ran straight through the middle of society – through old friendships – through Hogwarts. And I could not understand how. I fought against former acquaintances and was not sure why. I was forced to defend myself and ended up killing someone that shouldn't even have been there. My first Killing Curse – a bystander. After that day, I had wanted to give up.

Defiance drove me onwards, a stubborn will to win because to hell with the world I couldn't understand and with quitting now – surrendering to Voldemort, not after everything that had happened; but it wasn't the same. It became what it always had been: a personal feud, a struggle of two, because neither could live while the other survived; and if I needed help, I had to give them a different version of the truth.

Amidst crumbling support for me I managed, but it turned the fight into a race against time, as the point was foreseeable when the time would have come and too much of the opinion shifted against me. We came to Hogwarts just before the tipping point.

Or maybe it was just after.

What a fitting end to a grandiose tragedy, to finally win, but arrive just too late for it to matter … and face the bitter realisation so typical to war, that victory and defeat told a lot about who was stronger or luckier, but nothing at all about who was right.

But I needed to be right, and this report and the new insights would help me with that. I flipped through Bletchley's stuff. I always had thought Voldemort had been unaware of how close he had come to winning, that day after London, but now I realised how naïve I really had been. People believed in what they were given a chance to believe in. Voldemort had learned from the first time around, he stayed in the background; people saw Minister Thicknesse instead, read the news the Ministry had the papers print, and realised they still lived. What was a Dark Lord's reign, if it didn't affect you, as long as you did not oppose it? And if Muggleborns disappeared quietly, well, who noticed?

Bletchley's notes detailed it all, money for stories that painted me as the true Dark Lord, money that went into the new Muggleborn Registration Commission that would be more aptly titled as Deportation Commission, money for distractions to keep the international community busy, such as buying the quiet of France's former Minister and leaving Britain to its own devices, or some operations to spark violence in Eastern Europe I'd never known about. No wonder the magical communities of Transylvania and Romania, to name only two, were still giant clusterfucks the ICW struggled to keep together.

And then there was Daphne's part of the report. She'd manoeuvred herself into a role as Voldemort's personal Obliviator. If he had a problem that needed finesse in fixing, she did it. All the poor sods that couldn't count to three and spell their own name, much less those of others, that turned up towards the end of the war ... yeah, she'd been busy. And saved more than one of the Big Names from Azkaban, because she strategically targeted the links between the different Death Eater cells that were likely to spill or threatened to do so, once everything started to fall apart.

Maybe it eventually hadn't even been so much Voldemort's requests than those of the Death Eaters in question themselves; favours that she did and would love to collect eventually. No wonder that she started rising up in the social pecking order and could more or less get done anything she wanted. She had to have a veritable network of people that owed her their freedom. I had a sneaking suspicion that Durmstrang alumni and friend of Dolohov's, Yevgeny – or Eugene, as he now preferred the English form for understandable reasons – Bobbin, had been one of them. Other names from the Eastern Europe part of Voldemort's followers had ended up with severe cases of memory loss in our hands.

Most of the information came from her journal. I read it in full; finding an oddly conflicted nature speaking to me from the pages. Vain enough to want to be able to share her achievements with someone – even if it was just a book – but cautious the next moment, only allowing hints of her actions to remain on the pages, as if to make sure it could never be used against her. There never were names, for instance, not hers, and not those of others, just allusions to things that had happened.

Met V., she wrote. Interesting person. He was most pleased with the results in F. – D. forgot the speech and talked about Hinkypunks. National Assembly was stunned. I should have liked to be there.

Other entries dealt with Bletchley and made me seriously wonder what his life with Daphne had been like. She had hated him. There was no other word for it. Pages on pages of almost delirious vitriol spewed against him, hard to decipher and unclear as for their reason. If anyone needed a motive for a possible murder of her husband, here it was, a hundred times.

It's nearly time. The clock is ticking, tick-tick – each second a step upon the stairs. I hear him. I hear him every time. There are thirty-six steps – thirty-six seconds until –

I left the windows open. Again. I shall be lying on my bed, as usual, watch the crows diving at me from black-blue midnight – their wings like fingers and their beaks like wands. Stabbing, maiming, burning – burning yellow eyes, circling all around me. The darkness floats across … Drill into me, peck my eyes out. No – no – I will tear his eyes out. I shall run my fingers along his face and split open his flesh, take his redness and watch it fill the empty holes in his head – red eyes, as they were supposed to be, magnificent colour, so much red –

He deserves it. Bastard. Waste of magic. Perverse bootlicking piece of trash. Nobility? Ha! If they knew –! As if money could buy – But the steps, they come, if they take away the time, then what is – what …! I can't move! I don't – I can't …

During those darkest moments, I'd have declared her on the brink of completely falling apart except for the fact that she seemed to be able to pull herself out of her funk with a snap of fingers whenever she wanted to; and that she was fully aware of what she wrote. One memorable instance included page-long passages of ranting and a fantasy of cutting Bletchley into pieces that suddenly ended with a long dash, mid-sentence. There was an empty line, the handwriting shifted from agitated to neat and calm, and in a spurt of sheer brilliance that started with "Anyway, …" she laid down a theoretic discourse on the Portkey charm that went miles over my head and could have been published straight away in any magazine worth its salt and probably earned her a nomination for the Gold Medal at the next International Charms Conference by the way. In it, she cross-referenced half a dozen other charms, among them the Prior Uti spell.

It was unbelievable, but I had the explanation for the malfunctioning Prior Uti charm here, and it was the same as the one for the missing Portkey. The item to Portkey me in the room had to have been the wand. The one item that had to be there and that no one would think twice about.

She'd cast the Killing Curse herself, and then turned the wand into a Portkey that I, already rendered sleeping by her, used to transport myself and Astoria's body to the Leaky Cauldron, which, as she'd discovered, changed the last user of the wand to myself, while leaving the last spell the wand had cast unaffected. Brilliance. Perfection. And only she knew it had actually been a calculated gamble as there was no telling how a magical item might affect the Portkey, which she needed to deposit us exactly on the bed.

Add the ruthless way in which she removed everyone that was a threat, and being heartless enough to kill her own sister, and you had an apt description of Daphne.

I remembered how Sterling had told me all this, not a week ago. He had been absolutely right. I closed the report and opened the last side of the diary. It ended with two words.

Good riddance.

o ] [ o

I leant back in Geiger's rickety armchair, contentedly. Apart from Malfoy's death, for which I still lacked a satisfying motive, it fitted together. Astoria had threatened to expose her, so she killed her. I had gotten too close as well, so she framed me, killing two birds with one stone, simple, elegant and perfect. Except Astoria had become cautious, and gotten rid of the key just before Daphne decided to make her move. She was dead, but the key was missing. So Daphne took the game one step further, getting me out of jail again, ensuring it would make her even less suspicious, while knowing that I would jump at the chance to find the real murderer – and on the way, inevitably discover the missing key. No need for her to exert herself to get it, when I would do it gladly and for free, right? I'd find the key for her, she'd take it, retract her testimony, see me back in Azkaban and that was that.

Except I had no intention to go there. So what had I done? I retraced my steps from this morning. I'd been to Gringotts. I'd switched the contents of the vaults. And she had the key to –

The door buckled under the strain of what seemed like the entire Auror contingent, and maybe the Sobering Charm had worn off because I started to laugh. Green light, red light, blue light, all around me. Like a goddamn circus. Spells flashed, the wards came down, the door burst open, reduced to splinters. Aurors streamed inside. Holy Merlin's underpants, she would be pissed. That was the rage of epical proportions in which I'd always wanted to see her. Oh, why couldn't I be there when she opened the vault.

"Surrender your wand, Potter! It's over."

I flipped my wand towards the nearest Auror. I couldn't stop laughing. It was just so damn funny. To see her face when she opened the vault and didn't find the papers inside – after everything she'd done. She'd be so certain she'd won, and then … nothing.

That was the way they found me, sitting in a threadbare armchair in a ramshackle hut, laughing, and I still did as the startled Auror muttered something like Sirius Black and mad, still did as the world went black. It was just too damn funny.

Final chapter in a week :)

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