Disclaimer: All characters and situations associated with the Harry Potter series are the property of J. K. Rowling and the following companies, including but not limited to: Bloomsbury, Raincoast Books, Scholastic and Warner Bros. No money is being made from this story and no copyright infringements were intended in its creation. All original material is the property of the author.
Chapter Fifty-Three: Push Comes To Shove
'I've always kept this push from shovingthe edge closer now
it's true enough
I have nothing left to say…'
'Sustain You', Greenwheel
It was quiet. There was a time that her mind connected silence to safety, order, calm. Now it was just as much a harbinger of danger and disaster as peals of thunder, the howls of destructive wind. Something was no longer about to happen—something was happening beneath the folds of silence. And the sand had trickled through the glass as she tried vainly to stop it. But now she was out of time.
A catch in the steady sound of breathing caused her to look away from the point of nothingness she had been fixed on for ages and cast her tired gaze on the man asleep in her arms. After the torments of the children became unbearable, she begged to be taken to her brother and, to her surprise, her wish had been granted her. It felt oddly like a show of kindness to a person condemned. And she was determined not to take this farewell gesture for granted as she pulled Michael's borrowed cloak tighter around her brother. She shifted uneasily as the clotted rents on her back throbbed and her wearied muscles ached in unison. Despite the protest in her limbs, she raised her hand and touched his cheek. It was cold, but she had expected that. She was beyond cold herself and she snuggled in closer, trying her best not to wake him.
Allowing her head to fall slightly to the side, ignoring the accompanying pain in her back and under her jaw, she felt the irony: she couldn't claim to know much about the man resting on her knee, even though he was the closest blood relative she had known. The only, in fact. But through circumstance or some phantom bonds of familial duty, she felt tied to him somehow. And the irony in that, she surmised, was that she had never felt a duty to another human before without the accompanying guilt that haunted her. She had an unquestionable duty to Dumbledore, Harry, Rhys…and the list stretched on. Those whom she owed a debt had a claim on her. But Remus had never demanded anything of her.
She frowned. This completely puzzled her. Alien thoughts they were to her. Duty and guilt, like rules of protocol allowed her a safe distance. She knew her place, as a servant understands her relation to an employer. And it was not always as bleak as that—there was usually some thankfulness and gratitude in such polarizing relationships. She was thankful for Dumbledore's intercessions when her situation seemed impossible and she was grateful for the bit of paradise Rhys had shown her. However, they inhabited another level altogether, some strata of the unattainable, whether wisdom or joy. And as she watched Remus sleeping fitfully, she felt a terrifying camaraderie, an eerie equality, like soldiers entrenched on the front line on the eve of some battle. She wished she could tell him how much his friendship had meant to her but even that prospect seemed more than paralyzing. It felt too much like a goodbye.
There was little more time to meditate on that curiosity, however, as Remus stirred and opened his eyes. Jude forced a smile, and then, like a coward looked away into the blackness. He sat up with difficulty and pressed a hand quickly to his forehead.
"How long have I been out?" he asked groggily.
She sat up straighter, meaning to stretch but losing the will to move her strained and protesting arms, settling back against the wall. "Hours," she confessed, examining him while trying not to get caught at it. "How do you feel?"
"I've felt better," he said, managing to sound lighthearted. But if he felt half as bad as he looked, then he had earned Jude's sympathy. He moved carefully to rest against the wall next to her, handing her back the cloak that fell from his shoulders as he sat up.
"No," she protested with a twinge of regret, "you keep it." He gave her what was meant to be a stern and reproaching glance, but it fell very short of those feelings. "Come here, then." He wrapped one arm around her and drew her gently closer, careful not to hurt her. They huddled together and shared the borrowed cloak. After a short silence, he began the inevitable exchange. "Tell me what happened."
Jude let a deep breath escape from her slowly. "I did what I had to," she began blandly, causing a little due alarm in her audience. It sounded like the beginning of a confession. "I betrayed everyone I trust, everyone who'd trusted me, I have possibly lead to the demise of many innocent people…oh, and I am personally responsible for one man's death today."
Remus just stared at her with puzzlement. "Jude, do be serious."
"I am," she said roughly. "When I saw…" she tried to speak, but found that her heart was racing and she could not breathe. "I told Him I would do anything He wanted as long as He stopped hurting you." She bit her lip and glanced away guiltily. "He asked me to deliver a message to Dumbledore at the school. I consented to pick a fight for Him. But I had plans of my own. Bill gave me a ring, do you remember?" She continued on, caring none whether or not he remembered. "When he gave that ring to me, he meant for it to be a signal, a message that I needed him. I gave it to him, but I am not sure he is coming."
"Why not?" Remus asked, wincing and shifting a shoulder against the rough, aged wall of the prison cell. "He's on our side, right?"
"Yes," she answered simply, "but
I don't think he would trust me after what…what I made him believe." She
smirked with joyless irony. "What I made them all believe."
"Why?" He questioned her
but she did not doubt that he already knew why. Still she did not hesitate to
answer.
"Because," she said with a cool diffidence, "if I left them in any doubt of my loyalty to Voldemort, I would not be discussing this with you right now." Her voice became an unsteady whisper. "Some believe that I should have sacrificed everything and refused…but I didn't want to lose you."
He pulled her closer to him and rested his forehead against hers. "You won't lose me," he gently reassured her. "And as easily as you may have convinced others of your disloyalty, I don't believe Dumbledore would be fooled, not even by your tricks."
She pulled away and shook her head slowly. "But that's not it. Voldemort never cared about whether or not I appeared loyal. He wanted me to believe I was ruffling some feathers for Him. But that's not what I was sent to do at all." She buried her head in her hands, ignoring the pain in her back. "He was using me to make a portkey."
"A portkey?" he repeated, astonished. "To…"
"To the school."
"We have to warn them," Remus demanded with as much energy as he possessed and he tried to stand to his feet. With astonishing speed, Jude buried her self-pity and tried to calm him, forcing him not to strain himself and to listen.
"I already have," Jude explained.
"I snuck outside and sent word with one of the seabirds—well," she admitted,
"half of a word, anyway. I wrote to Bill that we're now at Azkaban, but that's
all I had time for."
"That's not good enough," Remus said doubtfully, shaking his head. "Dumbledore needs
to know what Voldemort plans to do…"
"Has already done." Her correction almost went unnoticed.
He stared at her blankly. "Already…done…" He repeated the words without feeling or recognition. And she slowly nodded. "And…Harry?"
"He's fine," she said to his utter surprise.
"Fine? How do you know?"
"Because," she answered without thinking, "because I just saw him."
"He's here?" She answered only with a nod.
"Dumbledore?"
She shook her head mutely before offering the information he sought after. "He was not among the ones I saw arrive here tonight. Only children."
"Did they have any word from Sirius when you talked to the Headmaster?" There was a slight tremor in the words and Jude was amazed that he still cared for the friend that had so easily abandoned him. Hearing his name caused the bitter feelings of hatred to return stronger than ever.
"He was there," was the only answer she offered.
"Then there is hope still."
She made a disbelieving, mocking sound. "Hope is the only thing that escapes these walls, and she flees fast."
"Do not say that."
"Why not?" she hissed. "I have wagered nearly everything I have and I have very nearly lost all. Trust, faith in myself, not to mention that my attempts at righting this huge blunder have cost a good man his life."
She dared herself to look at him. The question was there, unvoiced, along with the fear that she always felt when she confessed these things. Still she faced that fear head on, figuring that she had nothing left to lose.
"Michael," she stated without feeling.
"The vampire?"
"Yes," she dully answered. "He died protecting me from Andrei after he discovered us sending word to Dumbledore. It was Michael who had gotten Bill's ring back for me. I made him believe there was hope and look where that got him."
No doubt there was some response cued and ready to refute her negativity, but she stopped him before he could make a noise. She held a finger to her lips and strained to hear something that seemed nothing to him. With a curious expression she listened to the silence, listened for the sound again.
"Shhh. There, did you hear that?" she asked with a crazy look.
"What?"
Jude's eyes darted from one corner of the cell to the other. Then she got to her feet, tossing the cloak aside, and strode over to the door of the small, freezing cell. Decrepit wood with a small window blocked by aged iron bars was all that separated her from the blackness beyond. "Sounds like voices." She put her hands to the bars paying no mind to the pain every movement afforded her although she was always unconsciously careful not to jostle her broken wrist. Trying to peer beyond the dark and find the source of the noise lurking just outside, she leaned against the wooden door and was surprised when it moved under her weight. They were not locked in.
She turned swiftly to face her brother, elation and fear showing in equal measure in her face. "It's open!" And just to test her own faith in what she was seeing, she nudged it open farther. "I'm going to have a look," she said almost instantly.
Remus threw the cloak from him, and braced himself against the wall. "I'm going with you," he protested in response to her belligerent look.
"No!" she whispered fiercely. "Let me check it out first."
He gave her a scolding frown and with much effort gained his feet, gathering the cloak under one arm, the other hand pressed against the wall for support. "You know I won't let you go alone." She made a cursory effort to protest but the words were stillborn before they reached her lips. She huffed a frosty breath and donned her own frown, but returned to her brother to aid his unsteady progress. She knew she could not hold his weight, but fortunately, he could stand on his own. The curses merely shook to the foundations his sense of balance. Jude was able to negotiate a path for the both of them out of the cell and into the dark with little difficulty and only minor suffering to herself.
In the corridor just outside, the darkness enveloped her like a shroud, but it offered absolutely no warmth. Leaving the womb of the cell behind, she felt a stark and frightening abandonment, although she was not alone. Close, terrifying memories of the dementor hung at the forefront of her mind and she kept every sense at the ready, waiting for the tell tale bitter cold of the lurking presence. With every step she expected heraldic cold, however none greeted her.
The narrow slit in the masonry every now and then, a miserable attempt at windows in this stone hell, afforded the only light in the yawning blackness. And she heard it again, not too far down the corridor: the sound of hushed argument and, once in a while a helpless whimper made her and her companion freeze in their places, temporarily becoming part of the stonework. Passing beneath the milky light of a crescent moon abbreviated by the tiny window, she held her breath as the owners of those hushed voices came into view. It was as she expected: the barred cell was occupied by various students of every house, mere children marked by the crimson and gold, yellow and black, blue and bronze and green and silver.
It was the last child that caught her attention most avidly. The keen eyes of Draco Malfoy reflected the scant light like the eyes of a cat as they threw a shrewd glare out of the bars and into the darkness. Confusion, surprise, utter amazement escaped her lips in an embarrassingly audible gasp, so dramatically punctuating a moment of silence that even she froze at the sound as if it had come from some other creature lurking in the thick blackness.
"Who's there?" Malfoy yelled belligerently into the darkness. "I demand an answer!" He leaned close to the bars holding him in an enclosed square of stone, affording no accustomed comforts and less than desirable company. Indeed, Jude was not surprised to see the familiar features of the next student to peer from the bars in an attempt to see what his rival saw, although he was less demanding of the darkness than his companion. Harry Potter joined Draco at the bars.
"Hush," Jude finally breathed. "Do you want to give us away?"
"Harry!" Remus whispered gravely, relinquishing Jude's feeble support in favor of a closer proximity to the boy. "Are you all right? Were you hurt?" Jude was as relieved as he when the boy shook his head to signify a negative.
Remus reached his icy hands through the bars and touched Harry's face. The boy leaned closer to the bars and nearer to the scant light. "Professor Lupin," Harry said in quiet astonishment, "what are you doing here?" Although he directed his question at the man on the other side of the iron bars, his attention was focused wholly on the woman beside the professor. Jude noticed that the kid had a black eye and a bloodied nose.
"Obviously, Potter," Draco intoned lazily, "you were the unfortunate recipient of the short end of the stick. Prisoners, are you, Elliot?" Draco queried, directing his attention away from Potter and toward the woman on the outside. Jude only nodded, taking in the slightly ruffled edge to the usually manicured appearance of a boy she had once thought rather prissy. He now seemed to proudly sport his split lip with candor, a trophy no doubt from a scrap with his esteemed cellmate.
"You got it," she answered him distractedly, glancing around at the other occupants of the cell, peering with difficulty through the murky night. She spotted Neville without much difficulty as he watched her warily as she spoke with the other boys. Beyond him, she could make out a few of the others, and by the sound of startled breathing and steady sniffling sounds, she guessed that two or three others escaped her eyes. Padma Patil leaned against the wall, huddled on the floor, muttering to herself and barely taking notice of what was going on. Realization dawned that this was the setting of her recent nightmares. It was all coming true.
"But," Harry began, confusedly, "aren't you…I thought you were on their side…you're a spy!" She snapped herself roughly back to attention.
"No, Harry," Remus corrected, "she is not a spy."
"But she has you fooled," Harry attempted, befuddled, hoping to make sense out of insensibility.
Jude spoke in low tones, mostly to herself, "I have no one fooled…not anymore."
"Listen," Draco said, impatiently, breaking the thin strand of her self-absorption, "Have you seen my father?" At this, Harry ceased his short conversation with Remus and cast a biting glare at them, awaiting her answer and Draco's response. She self-consciously answered.
"Not recently, no," she muttered to the expectant boy. By now her worries and suspicions were becoming brave enough to make themselves known. "Draco, your father can't be aware that you are here, can he?"
"Well," he answered in a mocking tone, "I wouldn't be asking after him if I didn't suspect I didn't belong here, would I."
"None of you belong here," Jude answered defensively, feeling Harry's piercing glare boring into the side of her face.
Harry suddenly slammed a hand against the hard iron bars, causing more than one of his companions to start at the sound. "Then why are we here?"
"You know why you're here, Potter," Draco said quietly, with portent. "But why am I…"
"I don't know," Jude confessed impotently. "I shall find out, if you wish."
"That I do," Malfoy spat ungraciously at her, turning away to face the bowels of the cell in which he stood mistakenly prisoner.
Jude turned away to face her brother who stood staring silently at her. "I will return," she said acquiescently, ignoring his ill-favored look. "Voldemort has no reason to fear me. I will ask him directly what He intends."
"It's risky," Remus chided to no effect.
She responded coolly. "So I hear." Placing a hand on her shoulder, she gave him a significant look, one that warned him to remain there with Harry and not to stop her. She did not look back to be sure if she was obeyed, but trusted implicitly that it was so. She set off in search of the last person she wanted to find.
***
"Minister," said a random aide, being swallowed alive by badly tailored robes that proclaimed to be as overworked as he was underpaid and under-appreciated. The bespectacled man entered the well-lit office like a heralding angel nevertheless and commanded both his superior's—the Minister's—attention, and the more hard-won, piercing recognition of the sage and aloof old man, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, a distracted presence whom seemed bent on examining the opening and closing of his aged fist, rather than negotiating an understanding between himself and Minister Fudge.
"Yes, Stanley," the Minister acquiesced to his interruption with facile attention.
"St…Stanhope," the aide corrected self-consciously, not even intent on making the point heard, for he delivered the line as if out of habit. Indeed he had more important issues to communicate at this moment. "Sorry to interrupt, S…sir, but urgent news has just arrived that I believe will be of the utmost importance to both you and your esteemed guest…"
"Out with it," the Minister chided Stanhope roughly.
"S..sir," the aide, dubbed Stanley by the Minsiter, stuttered, "there has been an attack."
The Minister leaped from his plush chair in a theatrical motion, and stared, the very definition of the word 'aghast' and choked what was meant to be a commanding and brilliant response to the shock his inferior had just delivered to him. Instead, the Minister's lips opened and closed like those of a netted tuna.
Instead, the old man rose and calmly asked the necessary question, the only one that screamed to be voiced at the time. Warily, with supreme gravity and measure, the Headmaster asked, "Where?"
With supreme austerity, the messenger announced, "Hogwarts."
***
She stood before a sentry, standing guard over a door she wished to enter. Many dark twists and turns had led her there and she was not entirely sure where "there" was, exactly. Planting her feet, she raised her chin and asked what she wished to know, defying the cold, dark eyes to intimidate her. Andrei stared back at Jude in amusement.
"Is he in there?" she asked, perfunctorily. "Lucius Malfoy, I need to speak with him."
"And," Andrei asked in his turn, "is Mr. Malfoy expecting you?"
"Not exactly," she confessed with the utmost truthfulness, witnessing the uncharitable anger that had characterized him in all of her memories cloud his manner, she amended her response with the declaration of her purpose. "I have news which does concern him, or more accurately, concerns the person closest to him."
To Jude's supreme astonishment, Andrei did not trouble himself to comprehend her meaning, but simply moved aside and granted her access to the room beyond. He did not, however, spare her his accustomed predatory glare as she passed by him. He turned his back on her as she passed the threshold of the room beyond as if to signify that whatever happened to her from this moment was beyond his control or care. She took her chances and stepped into the presence of the man she believed she loathed beyond any other.
Lucius Malfoy looked up as she entered and from his expression, she understood that he held little more warmth for her than she had for him. They despised each other, that was apparent to any witness wholly unconnected with these people under these circumstances. As it happened, however, the one witness was possessed of both the knowledge of the people and the circumstances. Professor Snape watched curiously as Jude entered the torch-lit room amidst the unfriendly shadows.
"What do you want?" Malfoy asked soon after he raised his eyes in her direction, a bland demand to know why he'd been interrupted was replaced as soon as his eyes met hers. Instant antagonism was sparked between them.
"I was hoping you would be able to tell me," she said without hesitation, "why your son shares a cell with Harry Potter."
"My son is none of your concern," he bit off acidly and turned away.
"Is he still your concern?" she returned the sharp parry. "Or have you sold him as well to the highest bidder?" As she suspected, Lucius did not answer immediately and she bristled with hatred. The man was beyond despicable and she felt a sickness merely sharing the same air as he did.
"My son's mind has been poisoned by your lot long enough," Lucius raged, his usually pale visage donning a mask of anger for the briefest moment. "It is time that he makes his choice." Jude felt the sharp glare of both Malfoy and Snape as she took a step closer. "The mindless ramblings of good and evil, the ridiculous dogma of a gutter-trash urchin like yourself will hold no son of mine from his destiny."
Sharp irony clanged against stony resolve and pride, producing only sparks of anger, nothing more. "Destiny," Jude repeated blandly. "Does destiny dictate the direction of a person's life…" she wondered allowed, a bitter smile on her wane face, "or are we simply fooling ourselves, Mr. Malfoy. Destiny as a convenient cover for pride."
Lucius narrowed his eyes dangerously, warningly.
"Is there nothing so vain as a father?" Jude asked the man before her with a deathly gravity.
"What is it that you hope to accomplish here, Miss Elliot?" Lucius asked in mock civility.
Jude leveled an uncharacteristically foreseeing glance at the man before her. "I was asked to find out why your son was among the hostages taken from the school." Jude clasped her hands defenselessly behind her, offering no threat, merely inquisitiveness. "I now have my answer."
"May I ask," Lucius interrupted her show of officiousness, "whom it was that sent you to inquire?"
Jude smiled. "Why, your own son." The barb had little effect, though Jude did not flinch. "He asked me to find his father, to find out why he was brought here by force and left shivering among the others in this hellhole. What shall I tell him, my lord?" she asked with dripping, disdainful sarcasm. "Father knows best?"
Lucius' eyes narrowed into dangerously warning slits, his advancing steps telling her that she had overstepped a line. He approached, a hand rising to strike when the door opened suddenly and Andrei entered, a bland look of disinterest on his face at the drama that greeted his eyes.
"Lord Voldemort asks to see the prisoner," Andrei announced to Lucius, his motions suspended. Jude did not flinch.
Lucius looked from Andrei to Jude and then behind him, where Snape sat silently. With a quick and quiet tension, Lucius hissed under his breath, "Do not breathe a word of this to Draco. I know how to deal with those who try to sway my son."
"What," Jude laughed audaciously, genuinely enjoying this tête-à-tête, "are you threatening to deal with me like you 'dealt' with your wife?" Jude crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin defiantly. "Does your son even know what happened to his mother?"
Lucius' jaw tensed perceptively. "Come, Severus! Another interrogation." He snapped his fingers and Jude watched as the professor obediently rose from his seat, hands bound before him, a bored and weary expression on his face. Before he exited, Malfoy turned once more to his short foe. "Adieu," he said with a falsely courteous bow, "I do expect this is the last time we shall meet face to face. We expect your beloved headmaster's arrival at any moment. I would wish you good health, my dear," Lucius said with an oily smile as he turned to Andrei and rested a hand appreciatively on his shoulder, "but I have been informed that your time has nearly run out." Before Malfoy pulled the door closed behind her, she was greeted with one last wide and predatory smile from Andrei that made her tremble twice as fiercely as the chill in the air.
***
It seemed an hour at least before that door swung open again. This time it opened to admit a smaller version of the man she had previously sparred with. Draco entered the room, attempting to carry his grand hauteur with him in tact, but faltering ever so slightly. He was frightened although he hid it well. And as his eyes met Jude's, his unsure, bewildered fear clotted and formed the familiar self-assurance that had always clothed her young friend.
"Well, I found your father," Jude began, attempting to ease Draco with false assurances.
"Save your breath," Draco drawled as he fell into the wooden chair previously occupied by the silent Professor Snape. "I know why I am here. Just like everyone else, I am expected to choose."
"Choose?" Jude began the song and dance of naivety, but they both knew what choice was about to be demanded of the huddled and frightened prisoners, Draco included in that number, not sheltered in the least by rank or connections.
"Don't patronize me, Elliot," Draco scolded moodily, one leg dangling over the chair's creaking, decrepit arm. "Though," he continued, resolved to comfort himself with his own voice, "it does not follow that that choice has to be necessarily painful."
"Draco," Jude began, closing the distance between them
quickly, "don't even think it."
He smiled the oily,
politician smile of his father. "Honestly, Elliot. Do you expect me to take the
hard road when the alternative is, well, so painless?"
"Painless?" Jude laughed. "Painless! Listen to me, Draco. You are kidding yourself if you think that choice is as easy as it sounds."
Draco frowned and held her angry stare easily. "Do you expect me to choose the alternative? You are cracked, Jude."
Jude turned her palms toward the muddled, blackened ceiling of the small room, thrusting her bluish and swollen wrist under the boy's upturned, aristocratically pointed nose. Appropriately, he grimaced at the sight of the broken bone loosely shrouded by bruised and puffy skin, harshly and undeniably marked by the ugly, decade-and-a-half-old brand, still as black and as clear as the day it was burned into her arm. "Painless."
Duly, Draco recoiled and shot her a reproachful look. "Well, considering the alternative."
To his surprise, Jude examined the only other piece of furniture in the room with voracious eyes. It was a spindly wooden chair, the twin of the one upon which Draco lazed, watching her with amusement. He frowned as she lifted it easily above her head and brought it crashing again to the ground. This she did again and again, huffing with the labor, her strength having waned days ago, the barely coagulated stripes on her back opening again to add another layer of crimson to her stained shirt. Finally, she seemed satisfied for some mystical reason with having torn free one of the fragile legs of the chair. This she examined before snapping over her knee with frightening and angry force. She brought a jagged and sharp piece of wood away from the melee and studied it with a look of satisfaction. This result of her fury she quickly pocketed.
"What on earth did you do that for?" Draco asked, half amused, half disturbed.
"Because," she said blandly having done with winning him over, "I have outlived my usefulness. Everyone who casts their lot with Him does, eventually." She turned away from the boy and made for the door, but before she reached out toward the ancient bronze handle, the door pulled itself away from her and revealed the grim face of one of Andrei's legion. Jude froze, her breath caught in her chest. The sentry/vampire beckoned them to follow, but before she obeyed, she turned quickly to her young companion.
He gave her a hard look, half arrogant unconcern tempered with a look that begged her not to say anything else. "Everyone expected this sooner or later, Jude." It was in his way, he assumed, a sort of apology.
"Not everyone," she said quietly as she obediently followed her captors. Silently Draco followed her.
***
Dumbledore did not wait for Cornelius Fudge to regain his senses, pushing his way immediately through the door, ignoring the nervous aide. Beyond the office, he saw Bill leaning against a desk, conversing animatedly with Arthur Weasley and a few others. Kingsley Shacklebolt and four of his colleagues nodded in unison, resembling a tiny regiment receiving orders. Bill glanced up from his compliant allies the offices of the Ministry had grudgingly afforded and smiled, pushing himself off of the desk the instant his eyes met his old Headmaster's—an unconscious action. Bill's smile fleeted quickly when he saw the old man's face.
"Come," Dumbledore commanded his scant troops without a second's hesitation, "there has been an attack." He spoke quickly as he strode past the huddled group and through the exit. They followed instantly. Once they were out of the building and reasonably safe from Fudge's surveillance, he turned swiftly to his trusted friends. "It is as I have feared," he said with the gravest of faces. "There has been an attack on the school."
Bill and Arthur exchanged hard glances and both visibly tensed but remained silent.
Kingsley's deep voice followed. "And the Minister has just been informed as well?"
Dumbledore nodded, allowing his eyes to droop heavily behind the half-moon spectacles. "I understand if you wish to return to your posts at the Ministry. No doubt Fudge plans some maneuver. At this point, he can no longer pretend not to see." No one returned into the building, however.
They spoke as they left the Ministry's building to vanish in their wake, shimmering into blissful invisibility between a London bakery and a smoke-dusted, bleakly modern office complex. From a street corner a block ahead of the group, the others were joined by two new arrivals: the shaggy form of Sirius Black and the hunched, wary figure of Mad Eye Moody. The five Aurors comically tensed as Black strode into sight. Dumbledore ignored everything, every gesture.
"This is it?" Black scowled, sizing up the tiny force before him. He opened his mouth to add more of his thoughts, but he was silenced by a gesture from his former Headmaster.
"We have no time," Dumbledore imparted impatiently to him. "We must return to Hogwarts this instant."
***
Jude entered what, relatively speaking, could be termed the Great Hall of the hulking, ugly stone fortress perched belligerently in the middle of the raging sea. She squinted and blinked vainly to adjust her eyes to the now-abundant torchlight. Her shoulders burned with the strain of having shivered for days and days, though she could not help tensing at the sight before her. Before her stood Voldemort and his legions, arrayed quite impressively. Seated, of course, the Dark Lord held court over miserable subjects with iron cruelty. His courtiers, arranged precisely according to their worth and estimation in their Master's eyes, spread from Him on either side, His nobly hooded and hidden Death Eaters standing on His right hand, while to His left lurked the vampire hoards, impressive in number and cloaked in an elegant manner of danger and cruelty. Immediately to His left, Andrei watched her with a hawk's predatory stare.
The sniffs and barely audible whimpers foretold of the sight behind her. Dozens of students, every age, cowered behind her, tended like frightened sheep by terrifying shepherds. This gathering resembled nothing short of a macabre Sorting Ceremony. And Jude had felt their presence even before she entered the hall. Scores of dementors were scattered throughout the children's numbers. The seeping, sickening cold, however, seemed to have been muted, controlled. She did not doubt the power Voldemort held over the untamable creatures. She forced herself to turn and face them. Harry was there, of course, but he was now joined by numbers of his classmates. Ron was there, she noted with dismay, clutching the hand of a small redheaded girl she recognized as his little sister. The pair stood on the opposite end of the crowd from Harry. In the flickering but bright light, Jude glimpsed other familiar faces scattered between the dank, black robes of the silent dementors. Neville's round face seemed pale and his eyes stared blankly forward, not trusting to rest on anything in particular. Next to him a girl stood about the same height with a similarly round face. She wore the Hufflepuff yellow and black and Jude recognized her as Susan Bones. She stared at the smoke-blackened ceiling, her chin trembling. Draco was led silently to stand at the front of the group. He obeyed, though he remained starkly in contrast to the other children, arrogantly and impatiently crossing his arms over his chest. He stood beside a small, dark-haired girl in the same Slytherin green and silver, though the resemblance ended there. She was visibly frightened, her wide-eyes fixed on the Dark Lord. Further on stood a girl that caught Jude's attention and held it. The dark features marked her as a child of Indian descent and she resembled a very young Indira. Padma held Jude's stare without blinking, silently accusing. Her face was streaked with tears. She was shivering beneath what Jude was startled to realize was Michael's cloak. Through the foggy mist of her recent memory, she thought she had left that very cloak in Remus' possession. Her eyes darted around the room but she could not find him anywhere.
Her dread, however, was not allowed to fully take hold of her as in the very next instant she was shoved roughly to the front of the room. Tripping over her feet in an effort to obey the impatient order, she afforded herself one last, hard glare over her shoulder at Draco. He returned her sharp concern with an arched eyebrow and a shrug of one shoulder before fixing his attention elsewhere. Jude stumbled forward, pushed to one side of the room, where she was abandoned by her guard and left under the watch of Andrei. She shivered when a hand gripped her shoulder, but as she turned, she saw the face of a friend, although in his features Jude saw that he still harbored some anger toward her. She had not closely examined the ranks of the vampires and among them she did not notice another prisoner like herself. Professor Snape, hands bound in front of him, stood just behind her. She rested her unbound hands on his, the angle giving her a twinge of sharp pain, but she was determined to ignore it. His presence, although not very comforting, steadied her nerves ever so slightly as she stared into the face composed of undeniably snake-like features. Voldemort returned the stony glare with an unmasked, violent hatred.
"You," the demonic voice hissed, "have been warned before that your usefulness has waned." With a slow but effortless motion, the Dark Lord rose from His seat. "Now that it has dwindled and come to an end…I have no need of such a troublesome creature." He turned from her and faced His crowd of captive listeners. "My faithful followers claim the benefit of My protection, without exception." His voice was no longer a hiss, but a commanding sound that echoed off the flaking old stone that surrounded them. "Those who cross Me…traitors…will feel the full force of My wrath." With a flourish and a great sweep of His long cloak, He turned once more to face Jude. "There was a time," He said in a lower tone, "when you were of some considerable value to Me." As He spoke, His hand idly stroked the Ankh that rested among the rich folds of cloth that covered His chest. "What need have I now of such an annoyance? You are worth more to Me dead than alive." He again sat and, as He arranged His robes into the regal tableau, He raised one wrinkled and gnarled reptilian hand, the signal that was intended to herald her end.
She froze, unsure of what to do next, whether to flee or fight, knowing that those remained her only options. The ever so slight reassurance of the professor's hand was quickly removed as he was dragged to the back of the swirling crowd by his own captor, the hint of blood giving a crazed quality to the vicious hoard. Jude stumbled away from him a few paces, but Andrei caught her quickly by both arms. Voldemort watched from His vantage point like an emperor presiding over an unfairly matched gladiatorial spar. His courtiers, Death Eaters newly released from their captive state and those who had freely moved among the normal citizenry for years hissed and jeered among them, all ready for a little retribution and she was tops of their hit list, no doubt. Pity, though, that they would not have the honor themselves.
Jude struggled in vain as Andrei easily subdued her, wrenching her arm behind her, ruthlessly twisting her fractured and bruised wrist. Her free hand was pressed into his chest as she fought to put distance between herself and certain death, but he was stronger and he easily closed the space between them. Grabbing her by the back of the neck as if she were merely the size of a misbehaving puppy, Andrei lifted her head without effort, baring the pale and dirty skin at her neck. Her muscles tensed with the last attempts at freeing herself, her eyes darting alternately from Andrei's dark and parted lips, his white fangs and black eyes to the hostile crowd around her demanding blood and fast.
The hand pressed into Andrei's chest loosened its grip and fell away. Jude relaxed into his grip, giving up. His red lips smiled as he drew her close and whisper comforting words to the condemned. "Do not be afraid, little Râde. Your suffering will soon be at an end."
Baring his ivory teeth, he gripped her wrist hard and dug his fingers into her neck just below her jaw, ready to taste human blood again for the first time in a month. She felt warm breath on her skin and then the hot trickle of blood. Andrei froze just before he struck, pulling slightly away from his prey, favoring her with an odd look, his brow furrowed over his dark eyes in supreme confusion as he stared from the thick blood running over her white skin into her collar, to her expectant face, anger and fear mixing a volatile concoction just below the surface. There was a collective, enraged gasp from the pressing crowd as the girl wrestled her injured arm free of the man's grip, in turn wrapping her arm around him and pulling the vampire closer to her, watching as his face contorted in pain and confusion as she drove the sharp wooden stake, the gnarled piece of the chair she had destroyed earlier, deeper into his chest. His black eyes narrowed as they fixed her cold gray stare in wonder. The hand he had held her broken wrist in now rested limply on her shoulder, dragging deep crimson trails in the blood, his blood, that had fallen from his lips onto her un-pierced skin. He raised the bloodstained hand before his eyes, next to her face as she held him close, forcing the wooden weapon through to the other side. Glancing in lazy succession from her pale face to his red hand, he slowly smiled and half-chuckled, half-coughed his last words.
"What would your God say?" he asked, gathering his usual haughty arrogance around him once last time. He rubbed the blood, sticky and clotting, between his fingers and then absently touched her pale cheek.
"I wouldn't know," she answered him with icy unfeeling tones. "He doesn't talk to me anymore."
Andrei rested his eyes on hers and seemed to stare through her, at some point beyond. To her surprise, he only smiled. She hugged him roughly one last time and brought her lips to his ear. "That was for Michael." She let him fall limply to her feet, his hand leaving crimson spots on her smudged and dirty face. The crowd had gathered around in a silent circle, watching as their leader fell lifelessly to the ground. Wasting no time, Jude pulled the wooden dagger from the body of the dead man, crouching beside him like a wild cat, stake clenched in her hand, her eyes darting around the crowd, daring the enraged mass to besiege her.
Antonia shoved her way to the front of the crowd. Jude was forced to move constantly, leaving her back to no one for too long. The darkly clad woman signaled to those around her impatiently. "What do you wait for? Get her, you idiots!" Antonia bellowed murderously. Several made a step toward Jude but she jabbed the wooden stake at anything that dared move. Every target quickly jumped out of her way, their eyes never once leaving the deadly weapon.
"How about you, Antonia," Jude hissed as she strove to leave herself unexposed for even a second. "How badly do you want my blood?"
The woman bared her teeth and growled a low, animal sound, furious at her own inaction. Boldly, she stepped into the open circle, ready to fight when a bored, slowly rhythmic clapping stopped them both.
"While I do admit that you are entertaining," Voldemort hissed with pleasure, "what am I to do with you? I cannot very well leave you alive, and you simply won't die." He gave her a hard glare, making a show of decision. He snapped His fingers and easily disarmed Jude, who uneasily watched the slow circle of vampires creep in toward her, Antonia's voracious expression lighting up with a smile. Jude felt the warmth of them, fought not to shake with pure fear, when the Dark Lord lazily lifted His hand and commanded them silently to halt. One of the angry vampires seized her roughly and the others fell back into a watchful audience. The vampire guard spun her to face her Master as He puzzled over what was next for the amusing but troublesome child of His. A scaly hand stroked an invisible beard and He nodded His shrouded head in mute acquiescence to a vague thought. He beckoned with one finger for a side door to be opened. Jude watched wearily, breathing heavily beneath her restraints. Her breath caught in her chest, however, when Remus appeared at the door, bound at the hands and lead roughly, like a beaten mongrel, by a large, hooded Death Eater. They passed through the door and moved aside as the last person entered the room. Peter Pettigrew followed his childhood friend into his Master's presence and the large door swung closed behind him. The round, bald man wore the same dark robes as the man who roughly handled Remus, but he allowed his head and face to be bared. He turned and made a low, officious bow to the Dark Lord. Voldemort nodded in slight recognition and settled back in His seat. He spoke the command with a lazy and bored tone, crossing His shrouded arms over His cloaked body.
"Kill him."
Author's Note: The line "What would your God say?" and the response, "I wouldn't know. He doesn't talk to me anymore," is modified from the film Dirty Pretty Things. I am grateful to those of you who wait patiently for my slow-flowing words to appear. This is my respite from real life and you all make it as rewarding as I could possibly ask. Thank you!
