April 1988
The woman with long brown hair took the stairs from the street down to the pub. The noise assaulted her as she pulled the front door open; voices at different pitches, tones, and volumes. The Clash, or maybe it was The Ramones, played over the speakers behind the bar. Glass shattered – someone dropped their pint and the people around them clapped. The bartender tossed a dirty towel in the direction of the applause.
She shouldered her way through a crowd of man who laughed near the bar. The men looked her up and down as she cut through them. She elbowed them more than was necessary, smiling as they covered their hands and tried not to spill their beers. She smelled an overabundance of cologne and sweat.
One of the men tapped her shoulder. "Want we should buy you a pint, love?"
Oh, how she wanted them to, but there wasn't enough time. She reached out and grabbed his glass. She raised it to her lips. "It seems you already did."
The man smiled. His friends laughed. She kept walking, taking a few sips from the glass as she dodged more people. Her heels stuck to the floor.
She walked to the back of the pub and went into the women's bathroom. She locked the door behind her and chugged the beer. When she slammed the glass on the sink, her hair shortened and turned black. The mirror was dirty. She leaned in and gave her reflection a wet kiss as her features rippled and pulsed.
When she was a woman, she gave her name as Roxanne or Ellen, depending on her mood. When he was a man, it was Richard or Marcus, or something a little more regal. But right now, they wanted to be somewhere in-between. They relaxed and let their features blur and shift, refusing to settle on a final form. If Kayal Rowle was honest with themselves, they had forgotten there was a line years ago, and why bother fucking looking for one.
Kayal took a robe out of the satchel they carried and pulled the hood over their face. They raised their wand. A few flicks, a few words, and the wall shimmered and disappeared, revealing another staircase. Kayal headed down. The wall closed behind them. Now came the fun part. The tunnel ahead curved and diverted as Kayal walked; matching the pace of their own transformations. Six tunnels crossed over each other, growing and moving. Kayal ducked as the ceiling lowered and stayed against the wall when the path narrowed. Some of the passageways sealed themselves off and others opened. Slamming the beer had been a bad idea.
Hands grabbed Kayal's shoulders and pulled them hard to the left. Startled, Kayal's hair shot out in thick, black waves over shoulders that widened in preparation for a fight.
Kayal recognized the face. "Fuck, Nott, you can't just grab me like-"
"The passageway key's been changed."
"Someone could have told me," Kayal said.
"I just changed it," Theshan Nott said, and pulled Kayal down the tunnel.
A staircase appeared. They walked up until the staircase shifted, then they walked down. Theshan turned fast into another corridor, his hand still on Kayal's shoulder, pushing them forward. The floor moved independent of the walls and Kayal struggled to keep their balance. Kayal didn't know if they were going up or down anymore, or if they were even still in fucking London anymore. For all they knew, Nott could have taken them through one of his fucking mirror portals.
Kayal's heels dug into their feet as they changed size and width, trying to find the best form for balance.
Fuck it.
Kayal used Nott for balance and reached down and pulled off the heels. Nott grabbed Kayal's shoulders again and pinned them against the wall. He shoved his wand into Kayal's throat.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"My fucking feet are-"
Nott slammed Kayal's head into the wall. "You left your fucking DNA at your last kill site. The fucking Aurors made two of your forms, maybe a few in-between. You fucking sloppy cunt."
Kayal shoved Nott back. "Then I won't use those fucking forms anymore, alright? It doesn't matter. The Aurors don't know shite. They still think we did the fucking train attack-"
"You got comfortable," Nott said, "like a fucking amateur."
Nott was right. Kayal had wanted a lot more than blood from Nicholas Conner. But, Christ, if they couldn't have some fun, than what was the fucking point?
Nott raised his wand, flicked it, and the concrete walls fell away. They stood in a circular room filled with figures in dark robes; witches and wizards determined to remain unseen, though Kayal knew all of them. No one else moved or spoke. They waited and watched Nott and Kayal. Kayal reached into the satchel and took out a blood-covered knife wrapped in canvas. They handed it to Nott. And turned their head.
Theshan leaned into Kayal with his wand, and Kayal let him. He surrendered his memories from the kill, starting a few seconds after he had gotten off his knees. The coils wrapped themselves around Theshan's wand.
Theshan pulled the last threads out of Kayal's head and walked to the center of the room. A large pensieve raised from the floor. Theshan submerged the end of his wand. As Kayal's memories unraveled, the dark figures surrounded the bowl. Before they submerged their heads, they whispered the names under their breath. Kayal joined them.
Abbott. Avery. Black. Bulstrode. Burke. Carrow. Crouch. Fawley. Flint. Gaunt. Greengrass. Lestrange. Longbottom. Macmillan. Malfoy. Nott. Ollivander. Parkinson. Prewett. Rosier. Rowle. Selwyn. Shacklebolt. Shafig. Slughorn. Travers. Weasley. Yaxley.
A witch who stood across the pensieve from Kayal spoke. "Before we celebrate the removal of another impostor, we must remember why we are here. We must remember our ancestors; all of those who were tortured, imprisoned, and killed."
Everyone was silent.
"Where is the knife?"
Nott levitated Kayal's knife into the air. It floated above the pensieve.
"Who removed the impostor?"
"I did," Kayal said.
"Very well," the witch said, "let us watch and witness what you have done."
Kayal was the only one who didn't submerge their head.
After they watched Kayal kill Nicholas Conner, the collective raised their heads. The witch raised her wand and collected the blood off the floating knife. She siphoned it through the air, into a vial waiting in her hand. The blood mixed with the gold and black fluid that tossed in the vial.
Theshan grabbed Kayal's shoulder. "If you are so fucking incompetent again next time, I swear to Christ and Merlin I will kill you myself. None of them will fucking miss you."
The witch sent the vial across the pensieve. It hovered in the air. Kayal took it, nodded to the witch, and slipped it into his robes, making sure it was secure.
The ritual was complete. The figures all lowered their hoods. Kayal did the same, their features still shifting; eyes changing from green to blue; chin changing from pronounced to delicate.
"Thirty-one," the witch said. "How many of our kind were killed?"
"Thousands more," the room responded.
"When will we stop?"
Theshan and Kayal spoke the words with the rest, "We will never stop."
