Note: We're going for a quick sojourn with the Death Eaters again! Enjoy.

Note2: In which we learn a little more about a character who was mentioned a few times in the canon, but whom we really know nothing about. Don't you just love artistic licence?

Chapter Twenty-Six

A Reluctant Crusader

Thorfinn Rowle, known as Finn to everyone except his maternal grandmother, who had always insisted on calling everyone by their proper given name, could honestly say that he had never actually intended to become a Death Eater, and that he was one of very few. Oh, there were many who joined without knowing what they were letting themselves in for, but Finn was not one of those. He had known exactly what he was letting himself in for, he just hadn't wanted to let himself in for it. Aside from Draco he was the youngest of their corps, completely out of his depth, and Finn could say that he blamed his father entirely for the whole rotten mess he had got his only son into.

Albert Rowle had been a loyal follower, one of the most loyal until the end of the war came and the trials began. It was then that he had decided to quietly slink away from the scene of so many crimes, and leaving his past behind him, he had uprooted his family and left the country entirely. Finn had only been six at the time; it registered on neither a mental nor an emotional level beyond the fact that suddenly, everyone outside the house spoke a different language, a language that he soon picked up himself. He remembered very little of life in England; Germany had been his home for as long as he could really fathom. He had grown up there, been to school there, met the girl who would become his wife there.

If Albert had not been so fond of alcohol and tobacco, Finn might have been able to stay in Kiel with Mareike and forget that England was about to enter into a magical war and that his father's old leader had returned. As it was, Albert was extremely fond of alcohol and tobacco, and the said liquor and snuff had had an extremely detrimental effect on his health. So when the Dark Lord returned, Albert was in no position to continue to serve him.

Desperate to appease the Dark Lord now that he had rendered himself useless through overindulgence, Albert had made an agreement. That agreement had come in the form of Finn. Albert's son would continue in his father's stead. Albert did not ask Finn's opinion of this deal, and Finn had indeed been quite surprised to find this terrifying man standing by his father's sickbed, calmly holding out a wand and asking for his left arm. From the look in his father's eyes, Finn had known that protesting would not be an option, but he had tried anyway.

The Dark Lord had merely turned his head on one side and peered around the half-open door behind him.

"Your wife is exceptionally beautiful, Rowle," he had said, conversationally, as if he was stating the weather. "And very young. How old is she, precisely?"

Finn had wished that Mareike had gone downstairs instead of waiting for him outside the door. She couldn't speak a word of English and had no idea what was being said, but he knew that she knew it was not pleasant.

"Twenty," he replied levelly, and he knew what the Dark Lord was going to say.

"Such a short life… It would be a shame indeed to see it wasted."

From then on, Finn knew that he had no choice, and so two years ago they had returned to England, where his father's old friend Camilla had taken them in and given them a roof over their heads. Finn would never let it be said that he had not tried to dissuade Mareike from returning with him, but she had stubbornly refused to stay with her parents and sister in the North.

"What if he comes for me in Germany?" she'd said. "What if he finds me with my family? I won't be responsible for getting them blasted to high heaven." Finn had smiled faintly and their joint fate was sealed. He had always loved Mareike's bluntness. She was most certainly one who liked to call a spade a spade, or in her case, call a spade a Spaten. It was a shame that she had retreated into her shell so much since coming to this (for her) foreign land. Although she had learned the language in first a pattering pidgin, then a more fluent form, she was still most comfortable staying at home with Camilla, who could speak her native tongue. Finn was perfectly happy with that status quo. At least in the house she was somewhat well-protected.

But now… Now the status quo had changed, irrevocably, and Finn was petrified. They were taking a step into a complete unknown, and that was why he was currently seeking out the advice of someone who'd been in his situation and survived it. Finn found Lucius in the drawing room, staring despondently into an empty fireplace. It looked wholly wrong without the blazing flames.

"I'm sorely tempted, despite it still technically being August," the older man muttered as Finn entered his line of sight. "You'd think it was the middle of winter, so bleak and grey." When Finn made no reply, he looked up and cocked his head on one side to question. "Something wrong Finn? Apart from the obvious," he added bitterly, gesturing vaguely around the room to indicate the idea of 'life in general'. Finn opened his mouth to speak, suddenly thought better of it, and, having confused himself completely, sat down heavily opposite Lucius, taking a moment to collect the thoughts that had not been completely together for the past month.

"I need your help, Lucius," he said eventually. "I… We're…" He took a deep breath, but instead of it giving him more courage, he simply sagged again and rested his head in his hands as he finally brought himself to speak the fated words. "Mareike's pregnant."

There was silence for a long time. When Finn finally looked up, he found Lucius smirking at him with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"Nervous about fatherhood?" he asked.

'Nervous' was possibly the understatement of the century, and Finn wasted no time in telling Lucius so.

"Nervous? Nervous! I'm terrified!"

"You'll get used to the idea soon enough," assured Lucius, but there was a shade of melancholy in his eyes that he could not quite hide.

"It's not that…" Finn sighed, trying to put his jumbled emotions into words. "I've always wanted a proper family with Mari. It's just… We're in the middle of a war, for crying out loud. This is hardly the time to bring a child into the world. It's unfair. I'm already scared for Mari as it is."

Lucius nodded his understanding. The circumstances of the younger man's recruitment were hardly a secret amongst the corps.

"So I came to you," Finn finally continued. "Because Draco was born at the height of the first war and I thought that there may be a vague chance that you know how I feel, and could give me some advice on how to survive the coming year without succumbing to an early coronary."

Silence reigned once more, but Finn found that it was not uncomfortable. At length his comrade spoke again, but this time there was no trace of humour in his voice.

"I wish I could help you Finn, I honestly do. But I can't give you any advice because I don't know how I survived myself. It was easier back then of course. I was still in favour; I had no fear of the Dark Lord. I had joined willingly and I stayed willingly. You did not and do not, which makes you so much more vulnerable. But, even then, there was always the fear that I might go out one night and not come home." He paused, still staring at the fireplace, but Finn knew that his eyes did not see it. Lucius was miles away, drowning in memories. Finn often had to remind himself just how much younger than the rest of his compatriots he was; he had grown up so much in the past two years that he felt at least twice his twenty-three years. He remembered nothing of the first war, at least not enough to make an important impression, and he could scarcely fathom what the other men and their families were going through, experiencing the fear for a second time over, sometimes triple-distilled what it had been before. So lost was he in his recollections that he did not notice that Lucius had continued to speak.

"At least I know what Cam's so scared about now," he was saying, his gaze still absent, and Finn wasn't quite sure if the older man was talking to him or not. Finally he seemed to remember that Finn was there in the room with him, and addressed him directly. "It's a blessing, Finn, honestly. It makes you fight harder, makes you that bit more determined to make it home in one piece."

Finn nodded. It was often said that when women became mothers, a fighter's instinct kicked in, a desperate and primal need to protect their offspring, but Finn thought that the same could be said of new fathers as well, especially when the fathers in question were frontline warriors like himself.

"It gives you something worth fighting for," he murmured, and a ghost of a smile flickered across Lucius's face.

"Exactly," he said, then he heaved himself out of the security of the wingback chair in which he had been sitting and meandered over to the heavy cabinet in the corner, his moment of brooding seemingly passed. "Now, I think a drink to celebrate the good news is in order. If the current climate is anything to go by, we'll have very little to celebrate for the foreseeable future so we need to grab the opportunities with both hands as they arise." He browsed the bottles on the shelves. "What will you have? Firewhiskey, vodka; there's a bottle of absinthe from I-don't-know-who somewhere in here… I'm afraid the brandy's all gone… Walden's one-hundred per cent genuine moonshine… What on Earth is this?"

He pulled a large dark bottle out of the very back of the cabinet and blew dust off the label.

"Ah, Madeira. I don't know what it's doing tucked away at the back there; it's really an excellent year."

At this point, Finn, who had been doing a very good job of keeping a straight face during Lucius's alcoholic monologue, could not help but burst out laughing. Lucius looked at him, bottle still in hand, and raised an eyebrow.

"Is there something wrong with my Madeira?" he asked. Finn shook his head and finally composed himself enough to speak.

"No, I'm sure it's wonderful. It just reminds me of something my father used to 'sing' when he'd had a few. Have some Madeira m'dear, it's really much nicer than beer. I don't care for sherry, one cannot drink stout, and port is a wine I can well do without…"

Lucius snorted and twisted the corkscrew into the wax seal of the bottle. Finn watched, not really paying attention, until a third voice made him jump.

"You know Lucius, I find it extremely interesting that whilst according to Narcissa, you have trouble putting in cufflinks without the aid of magic, you are perfectly capable of using a corkscrew."

Walden Macnair came into the room and sat down in a vacant place with a very telling yawn.

"Ah well," said Lucius. "If I wasn't a soak before the war then I definitely will be afterwards." He poured three glasses of the ruby liquid and Walden hovered them across to the chairs.

"To Finn and Mareike and their something worth fighting for," said Lucius, raising his glass. "Glad tidings in an accursed hour."

"Finn and Mareike," Walden echoed, although from his voice it was clear that he didn't care what they toasted as long as there was alcohol at the end of it. Finn managed wan smile and the quiet returned as they drank. By the fourth refill, the youngest member of the group had started singing again. As he got to the line "and he said as he secretly carved one more notch in the butt of his gold-handled cane", Walden gave Lucius a pointed look and raised his eyebrows suggestively, and Finn near-collapsed with laughter once more.

"Oh shut up both of you," muttered their host, draining his glass, going to pour himself a fifth and taking several seconds to realise that the bottle was empty.

"I never said a word!" Walden protested.

"You were thinking it," said Lucius darkly. "Besides, it was silver, not gold."

"Colour makes all the difference, of course," said Finn. He looked into the depths of his empty glass, wondering how they had managed to degenerate into such base hilarity in such a short space of time, and in such bleak circumstances as theirs. Perhaps it was true what Lucius had said: every good thing should be celebrated, if only to stop them from wallowing in their self-pity.

"I knew we'd find you in here drinking yourselves into incoherency."

Finn looked up to see Narcissa and Mareike standing in the doorway, arms folded, with a red-haired woman whom he assumed to be Walden's wife.

"Your better halves were worried about you, gentlemen," Narcissa continued. "Naturally, this was the first place in which we looked."

"Of course," said Walden. He picked up the empty bottle and waved it at the women. "Have some Madeira, m'dear?"

"Not if Finn's choice of musical entertainment is anything to go by," his wife replied drily, the effect heightened by the accent of a woman who had lived all her days in the heart of Scotland. "Come on Wally, it's getting on for one in the morning, let's go home for pity's sake." She sighed and turned to Narcissa. "It's definitely bad when you have to take your husband home to bed," she said, but despite the heavy irony in her voice, Finn could detect a note of despair. He wondered how many times Lucius and Walden had holed themselves up in the Manor drawing room, slowly getting drunker and drunker in their desire to escape the ever more oppressive zeitgeist, and he wondered how many times in the future he would be joining them.

"You too, mein besoffener Schatz,." Mareike gave a weary pseudo-smile and Finn started coming back to his senses fully. He nodded and made his way across the room to her, aware of the slight wobble in his gait. Finally succeeding in eliciting genuine mirth from his permanently worried wife, Finn allowed himself to relax slightly and concentrate on ignoring the pounding that had begun behind his left temple as they disapparated back home.

"Und?" Mareike asked once they were safely ensconced within the darkened house and Camilla was making some very strong coffee, having taken one look at Finn and gone off muttering something about 'Lucius… Walden… drinking sessions… bad influence.'

Finn thought about the evening that he had just experienced, and about the advice that had been imparted. He thought about how glad he was to have a roof over his head and an understanding woman by his side, and he nodded.

"Everything will be fine," he assured her, but even through the haze of drunkenness, Finn could not help but pray that his words would ring true.

Note2: The song 'Have Some Madeira, M'Dear' was made famous by the British duo Flanders and Swann, and can be found here: www . youtube . com / watch ? v=OW _ zi8n4HDQ

Just take out the spaces. As soon as I heard the line about the cane, the brain cells started ticking. It was too good an opportunity to miss.

Note3: Ahem. Yes. This chapter did have a point to get across, but I love drunk Death Eaters and it might have got a bit lost… Never mind, I hope you enjoyed the tipsiness if nothing else. And for those of you wishing to learn a little German, 'mein besoffener Schatz' means 'my drunken darling'.