To Know Most Truly

by Excited-Insomniac

SEQUEL TO "CHAMPION", POSTED PREVIOUSLY. Nita Linese has survived the Triwizard Tournament and graduated Hogwarts, and is now navigating life in the wider wizarding world. But evil is on the rise, and she is in its sights. What's a not-quite Muggleborn to do when she's thrust alone into the worst peril yet? COMPLETE EXCEPT FOR EPILOGUE.

10. Midnight

Midnight

"Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god."

Crouch is dead on the floor and Viktor is unconscious on the floor and Viktor is more important but I just killed a man and I Apparated and my wand is Traced and Viktor hasn't even stirred and the door of my room crashes open and it's Rachael, wild-eyed and dressing-robed, with her wand out and sparking. Budge shrieks and starts to dive at her, only to recognize her in time and pull up and return to flying frenzied circles around the room.

"Nita!" she cries, and lowers her wand. By then she looks around and sees Crouch and Viktor and my panic and she goes very grave very quickly. "What's happened?"

"The Ministry!" I burst out. "They thought the wedding was a disguise for an Order of the Phoenix meeting and the Aurors, they attacked everyone! And Crouch! He's not Mr Crouch! I mean, he is, he's his son, the Death Eater one, and he's—" I point at the bound-up body, "he was going to kill me! He said!"

"Woah, slow down," she commands. "Whose son? What Death Eater? Is that—is that the Minister?" She edges towards the body. "Merlin," she whispers. "He's… what's happening to him?"

"What?" I'm kneeling next to Viktor, unable to do anything but terrified he'll somehow stop breathing if I leave him.

"His moustache, it's… disappearing."

Confused and disturbed, I stand and take a few steps closer. She's right: his moustache is disappearing, and his hair is getting darker, and his face is changing slightly, becoming less lined and careworn, and with a different-shaped nose. Younger. It's somehow like a snake shedding its skin, but worse, and creepier since he's… not alive. For a moment, the shifting of his features turns him into Herr Heeren, and Tom, and even Viktor, and I shake my head harshly.

"That's… that's not the Minister, is it?" Rachael whispers.

"That's what I was trying to say," I babble. "Mr Crouch's son, the Death Eater who was supposed to have died, remember? And then Dumbledore said he was impersonating Mad-Eye Moody during the Triwizard Tournament? This is him, it must be."

We're silent for a moment. Then, "What do we do?" Rachael asks in a small voice.

"I don't know."

"Should we… I'll get Madam Malkin and Mr Bigby. They'll know what to do."

I can't imagine that being true, and the last thing I want is to involve Bigby and his wife in my monumental cock-up, but the desire to have someone take control of the situation, to tell me what to do to make it better, is so strong that I can't do anything but nod. She nods back, gathers her dressing gown around her, and Disapparates.

I return to Viktor. He tackled Crouch without even his wand to give me a chance to get away, and now I don't even know what to do to help him wake up. Isn't there a charm…? But I can't remember if we ever learned one like that. Gut-wrenching guilt claws through me. I tried to explain to him that I would be a burden, but he wouldn't listen. Even if this is more severe than anything I imagined before, I still should have known better. If not for me, he would be fine right now.

The sound of two people Apparating into the main room makes me jerk up straight. Rachael, and probably Bigby. I hurry to the door to hasten them in, but the two figures dimly illuminated by the light from the moon coming in the windows are not Rachael and Bigby.

"We're Aurors," one of them calls, seeing me. "Entering the premises on authority of Madam Umbridge's Special Order One Hundred and Nine in order to investigate unlawful magic. Are you Nita Linese? Reports show that you've broken the ordinance against Muggleborns Apparating. We'll need to examine your wand."

But my body doesn't listen, and I stumble backwards into my room and slam the door.

"Oi!" one of them shouts, and footsteps pound after me. I back up into the middle of the room, wand up even know I know I can't take two Aurors on my own. But I also can't just Disapparate and escape. For one thing, my wand is Traced, so it would only delay the inevitable, but moreover, I can't leave Viktor.

The door crashes open so hard that it cracks in half down the middle. "Overkill, perhaps, Owens?" one of them says sarcastically.

"Shut up," the one named Owens says. "You don't know what she could be doing in there."

"She's just a Muggleborn," says the sarcastic one. "What could she possibly be doing?"

Then they walk in and see Crouch and Viktor on the floor and me with my wand up. There's a very short moment of perfectly shocked silence. Then they both shout spells and the next thing I know I'm lying dazed on the floor and Budge is shrieking like a train whistle and diving at their faces. One of them tries to hit him with some kind of spell but Budge is too fast to aim at, and in the end the Auror shouts in raw frustration and grabs Budge out of the air and hurls him against the wall. He falls to the floor in a clutter of feathers and hoots weakly, one of his wings spasming.

"No!" I try to shout, but it comes out as a muffled moan.

Meanwhile, the other one of them is checking Viktor's pulse and the one who hurt Budge moves to look over Crouch.

"Poor sod," he says of Crouch. "Hell of a way to die."

"This one's alive," the one checking Viktor says. By his voice, he's the one named Owens. "Looks like he's been Stunned pretty bad. Say, looks like Viktor Krum, doesn't he? Do you reckon?"

"What would Viktor Krum be doing with a Mudblood?" his partner replies derisively. Then, "Where'd her wand go?"

It had rolled under the wardrobe, and Owens fishes it out and rolls it up in a sheet of blank parchment. Meanwhile the sarcastic ones binds my hands and feet, and leans me up against the wall. I'm still not completely recovered from whatever spells they'd done on me, and my head buzzes thickly, full of horror for Budge and anger at the Aurors and continuing fear for Viktor. Owens unrolls the parchment a moment later and there are five lines of writing on it now. He examines it with mounting astonishment and disgust. "Bloody hell, look at this! She's the one who did him in! Three impedimentas, that's purposeful, that's coldblooded, that is! And the Apparation in the middle, like she was trying to flee the scene!"

The sarcastic one turns to me, his face full of disgust. "Leave it to a Mudblood to kill a man in the most dehumanizing manner possible. The Avada may be Unforgivable but at least it's quick. I'll take her to the Ministry. You stay here and deal with the body and the boy. Call for backup to secure the scene." As though to underscore his statement, three cracks of Apparation sound out in the main room. This time it is Rachael coming back with Bigby and Madam Malkin, and the babble of their concerned voices rises sharp and alarmed when they see the Aurors in my room.

"Explain yourself," Bigby commands. "What are you doing here."

Owens goes out to meet him. "Sir, this is a crime scene. I cannot allow you to enter the premises."

"I live here, you wanker!" Rachael retorts. "What have you done with Nita? Nita!"

The other Auror is wrestling me up, a difficult maneuver with my hands and feet tied, and when I call out, "I'm here!" he gives me such a shake that I bite my lip and taste blood. I barely hear Bigby growling, "If you've hurt her—" before the Auror Disapparates and we twist through clinging darkness.

We land with a thud in a dungeon: it's evident from the clammy chill of the air and the smell of the place, even before I can get my bearings or even look around. He drags me bodily across a rough stone floor whilst I wriggle to try to keep my arm from dislocating. He jabs at a lock with his wand, and throws me in a cell. My ribs strike hard against a wooden bench or bed, and the door slamming shut and the lock grinding closed are the sounds that declare his exit. The bindings around my ankles and wrists dissolve, evidently enchanted to go away once the prisoner is, well, imprisoned.

I gingerly take stock of myself. My lips is cut, blood dripping off my chin and back into my mouth; my ribs ache something fierce from landing full-force against the bed or whatever it is; I'm generally covered in small bumps, bruises, and lacerations, but am generally hale and whole. Though my head is still throbbing where it hit the wall earlier, and I've lost one of my shoes, the beautiful golden dress is ruined, and the spell on my hair has finally given up the ghost and it falls to brush around my shoulders. Absurdly, I remember what I thought of myself just before going to the Yule Ball back in seventh year: I'd felt like the ugly duckling, finally given her transformation into a swan, or Cinderella on her way to the ball at the palace after the fairy godmother's intervention.

Well, Cinderella hadn't killed a man when the clock struck midnight, and it's the prince in the enchanted sleep here, and Cinderella's slipper was glass and… wait, Cinderella never had an enchanted sleep, that was the other one… I shake my head, wondering vaguely about the symptoms of concussion.

The cell they've put me in is small, only three meters per side, and the bed and a bucket in the corner are the only objects in it with me. The walls are solid stone, but the door is metal grating, with gaps large enough to stick my arms through. I go to it and peer out, trying to get a sense of where I am. All I can see is a long corridor stretching out either direction, studded with grate doors like mine. Torches provide fitful illumination every meter or so, and there's a dank wind from one end of the corridor. Perhaps the way out? But out to where? Is this somewhere in the Ministry? I don't remember a sign for 'dungeons' in the DMLE, but plenty of other things have changed since I was last there, so it's not impossible.

"Nita?" A tremulous voice says my name, and I wonder more seriously about the concussion. But it comes again: "Nita, is that really you?"

I look around, mystified, until I see a hand slide through one of the grate doors opposite mine and wave, and I focus on the face above it.

"Kay?" I gasp.

"It is you!" she cries. Kay Haslet, my old dormmate from Hogwarts, whose parents worked in the Department of Mysteries: what's she doing here? She was a Prefect, I can't imagine her committing a crime comparable to mine… Her face, always on the thin side, is gaunt now, with deep bruisy shadows under her eyes, and her long hair, which she always took such care to brush back at school, is a tangled mess of knots and snarls. "I thought so, no one else has that kind of blonde hair, but why are you dressed like that…?"

"I was at a wedding," I say quickly. For the second time tonight I relate the happenings of Fleur and Bill's marriage, ending with, "...and all these Aurors came and I Apparated and, uh… they arrested me." No need to mention the other thing right now, I reckon. "But why are you here? I can't even imagine a law you would break."

Her lips twist in a bitter sort of sadness. "The only law I 'broke' was not registering as a Muggleborn."

"But… you're not a Muggleborn. I worked with your pargh—" The tear-binding prevents me from saying more, but she understands anyway.

"Yes, Mum said you were doing some work with them a while ago. It's alright if you can't talk about it, they were never allowed to say anything either. Maybe they never told you, but my parents are both Muggleborns. And these days, being Muggleborn is effectively the same as being a Muggle, as far as the Ministry is concerned. So if my parents have no magical legitimacy, where does that leave me and my brothers and sisters?" Her lips tremble as she mentions her siblings, and I wonder uneasily where they are. "We haven't got any magical lineage either now, which makes us 'Muggleborn-equivalent'. And I was arrested for not disclosing that fact."

"That's awful," I rasp. "I'm sorry. How long have you been…?"

"Almost two months. There used to be more people in here, but they were all taken away. I don't know what happened to them."

"God."

"Yeah."

"And your… your family?"

She wipes her eyes and sniffs hard. "My parents should still be alright at home. As long as they don't do anything to bring attention to themselves, they have resources to live for a while. And most of my brothers and sisters are still underage, so most of these things don't apply to them. But my brother Dylan…" She shakes her head. "I don't know."

"I'm… I'm sorry," I say lamely. What is there to be said of the situation? It's self-evidently awful. Is offering my sympathy really going to do anything?

But she says, "Thank you, Nita," with real sincerity, so maybe it does some good after all.

Just then, there's a resounding BANG from the drafty end of the corridor and a babble of arguing voices echo towards us.

"Get away from the door," Kay whispers. "We're not supposed to talk to each other." She vanishes from the fitful torchlight, and I follow her example, retreating to the back wall of my cell and hoping that the angry voices aren't coming for me, even while knowing with certainty that they are.

Of course they are.

They're in a pack of ten or so, witches and wizards of all shapes and sizes, most looking rumpled and sleep-dazed, as though they've just been rousted out of bed. But they all have expressions ranging between horrified and furious, and they all peer in at me as though examining some filthy animal in a zoo. I press myself to the wall, feeling my smallness, my helplessness, my lack of a wand. Even though I've already proven myself an insufficient duelist against the Aurors, I would give anything to be able to point that stick of applewood and unicorn hair at these people.

They're still arguing, too many speaking at once for me to tell what's going on, but one of the witches, a squat woman in a fluffy pink dressing gown and hair curlers, steps up and primly strikes the lock on my cell door. It squeals open and she minces in. "You are the Mudblood Nita Linese," she says, and I recognize her voice: it's the one the embroidered kitten had in my holding cell before my non-disclosure hearing. Sickly-sweet and unnervingly girlish. The little hairs on my neck stand up.

"I'm Nita Linese," I agree, as selectively as I dare.

"You have been arrested, as you are aware, for breaking the Muggleborn Apparation Ordinance, as put in place by the Muggleborn Oversight Committee. In addition to this, in the course of your arrest it was discovered you had killed a man and knocked another unconscious for unknown purposes." A protest rises in my throat, but she keeps on talking, like an impenetrable wall. "Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the man you had killed was the Minister for Magic, Bartimeus Crouch Senior." Someone, I think Kay, gasps. "Can you possibly have anything to say in your defense?"

"He wasn't really the Minister!" I cry, more than a little surprised to have any chance to argue for myself at all. "He transformed once he died, he was Crouch's son, the Death—"

"I asked for a defense, Miss Linese, not raving!" the pink woman interrupts, voice as hard and trilling as a fire bell.

"It's true!" I shout. "He was lying about everything! This whole time he's been a Death—"

"Crucio," the pink woman says almost gently.

It's just as bad as I remember. Pain rips through me like lightning. Knives of pain flay me, hammers crush my bones, fire sears me, my chest, skin bubbles and cracks and peels, someone is screaming.

It's gone. It's over. I lie gasping on the floor, the rough stone a gentle caress after the agony of the Curse. My body is trembling, but my mind is in sharp focus. I'm sick and tired of people trying to tell me I don't have any power in the world. They've taken my education, my job, my autonomy: it's enough. Now they've locked me up in the most literal way so far. But the pink woman had to use the Cruciatus just to shut me up. That means she's afraid of what I'm saying.

"Dolores," one of the people behind her murmurs, vaguely reproving.

"I do so hate to use such barbaric methods," the pink woman says sadly. "Now, would you like to tell us what really happened? The truth is important to decent people. I should so like to count you among that number."

I lick my lips, tasting blood. Sitting up is a monumental effort. "I was at a wedding," I say as clearly as I can. My voice trembles. "The Aurors came and said it was a secret meeting of the Order of the Phoenix even though it wasn't and started attacking everyone. A man who looked like the Minister said he was going to kill me, and so I tried to restrain him and used Apparation to escape even though I'm not allowed. But the man grabbed me and was going to keep trying to kill me and so I… I restrained him again. He choked. But it was self-defense." I lift my chin. I won't say I regret it. I won't say it was an accident. They wouldn't believe me.

"Yet you deny that the man you killed was the Minister for Magic?" the pink woman inquires delicately.

I swallow. Fix my gaze on her toady face. "I deny it. He was not Bartimeus Crouch Senior."

The pink woman sighs wistfully. "I had hoped to find you more amenable, Miss Linese, but I was mistaken. There is no integrity or intelligence in you. I see now that extracting a sensible confession was a fool's dream."

"What should we do with her?" a man in the group asks. "Even if she's insane, she can't be allowed to live. She murdered Crouch for Merlin's sake!"

My mouth dries up as the rest of them agree with him. "We'll have a trial," the pink woman snaps. "We'll show what happens when a Mudblood defies her betters and spits on the privileges which are given to her."

I feel nothing as they hustle out of the dungeon. Should I be relieved they're gone? Sorry I've lost the chance to argue my case? Fear for what they're planning to do to me? Can't be allowed to live… But I'm still in some kind of shock from the Curse, I guess, because I really just can't feel anything. The crystalline determination inside me rests, quiescent now that they're gone. Can't be allowed to live.

"Nita?" Kay. She's whispering, as though afraid I've fallen asleep and doesn't want to wake me.

"Yes," I reply, feeling at a far remove from my body. It's just a mechanical reflex, my mouth forming shapes, my lungs pushing air.

"Are you alright? She… that was the Cruciartus, wasn't it?"

"Yes, I'll be…. fine. It's happened before."

Her silence is horrified, and I feel bad for telling her. She doesn't need my problems on top of her own.

"When?" she breathes.

The words are buried deep, but I dredge for them. "The maze of the Triwizard Tournament. Bad things happened to me and Viktor."

"I… I'm so sorry," she says. A long moment of shivering silence. "Did… did you really kill the Minister?"

At another time, I would have sighed, or scoffed, or done something else to show what I thought of the question. But now I just say, "Sort of." Her curiosity is palpable, though knowing Kay she won't say anything out of respect for what I just went through. But part of me craves to be believed: after the pink woman's disregard, I want someone to say they trust me when I tell them what I know. "He looked like the Minister. He's probably been acting as the Minister for a long while. Before Fudge was killed, probably. I think… I think the real Mr Crouch never recovered from that illness he had during our seventh year. Do you remember how he stopped coming to judge the Tournament? I bet he died sometime around then. And do you remember what they said, Dumbledore and them, about it not really being Mad-Eye Moody who taught us Defense?"

"Yes," she says dubiously, and her doubt makes me forge ahead, earnest and fierce.

"They said it was Mr Crouch's son impersonating Moody all year, remember? The one who was supposed to have died? I bet when he escaped after the maze, he started impersonating his dad instead and went back to working at the Ministry! So this whole time he's secretly been serving You-Know-Who's interests and scapegoating Muggleborns and the Order of the Phoenix to the public so that they can make laws that basically prevent us from living in magical society! Doesn't it make sense?" I'm breathing rather hard, but it feels brilliant to be thinking again. For so long, I put my head down and endured, just made it from day to day to survive, but now I'm awake again.

But Kay still sounds doubtful as she says, "But wouldn't someone have noticed? Pretending to be someone, for years especially, I mean… do you think he never slipped up even once?"

"He fired everyone who worked directly for him," I explain, mind churning back through all the little things I've seen and heard over the years. Percy drinking away his sorrows at the pub all that time ago… hadn't he said Crouch had practically purged his whole office? Why else would he do that if not to prevent anyone noticing him acting different? "So there wouldn't be anyone to know him well."

"But he couldn't fire everyone who knew him," Kay says, but she's not arguing anymore: she's trying to figure it out with me. "There must have been people in other Departments he worked with, mustn't there?"

"And some of them did notice," I rejoin. "Madam Bones thought he was acting dead weird, but put it down to stress and his illness. And then she was… God, do you reckon they killed her because she was starting to figure it out?"

Kay shakes her head helplessly, but I feel like the whole world has come into a new kind of focus. Of course they would want Fudge and Madam Bones out of the way. Of course they would need to vilify the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore and Muggleborns and everyone associated with them. And the Order… "What do you know about the Order of the Phoenix?" I demand, sitting up in my heels and gripping the bars on my cell door.

"Um…" Kay shakes her head. "Not much, really. They fought against the Death Eaters in the first war, but now they've gone sort of vigilante. They were outlawed, weren't they?"

"Yes…. But I think a lot of what they've been accused of these last few years was really Crouch and his goons pretending to be the Order to make bad press for them." A memory flashes through my mind's eye. On the day the Germans were bringing One Who Stands Resolutely In The Wind Of Pain to the Ministry, Crouch had criticised Madam Bones for not having enough Aurors around. What had he said? Something about hoping nothing went wrong? And then the Order burst in and raised chaos and killed poor Herr Heeren… "I think it was a lot of the flashy stuff that got a lot of attention from the paper and the public," I say slowly. "But how much…?" What had Fleur and I been talking about when she said the Order wasn't involved in all the stuff people thought it was? She'd said she knew that because Bill's uncles were in the first Order, but did that really stand to reason? Could it be possible she was in the Order herself? Then… what if, in the greatest possible stroke of irony, Crouch hadn't been lying for once and there really had been lots of Order people at the wedding? I still don't think it was a clandestine meeting to plot their next moves or whatever, but…

It feels like the floor is falling out from under me.

Before I can say any of this to Kay though, shouting voices and sounds of crashing reach us from behind the thick wooden door at the end of the dungeon corridor. We glance at each other uneasily. "Not to be a doom crow, but that's probably about you again," she says. We both back away from our cell doors, and I only stop when my knees meet the bed and I sit down, hard. My head pounds all over again and I grimace. The Curse made me forget I was already injured.

A pair of voices distinguish themselves from the babble, growing nearer and nearer, until they're right outside. Then, rather than opening the door, whoever is on the other side simply blasts it off its hinges. It whooshes past my cell door like a full-speed train, and crashes at the far end of the hall.

"...slaughters my best lieutenant!" The dominant voice is high and furious and cold. "She'll die! She'll die!"

"My Lord, consider the use still to be made of the girl." To my shock, I recognize the second voice: Snape. What the hell is he doing here? "Barty's plan is still sound. She can be made a public whipping post, an emblem of the wickedness of Mudbloods, the representative of their sin. The woman in the Department of Law Enforcement intends to put her on trial: let her be shamed, spit upon, used for our ends! A much more fitting fate than to be murdered cleanly, her filth expunged. I'm of the mind it would be a useless gesture. It shan't undo her deed."

"Affection for a former student, Severus?" the cold voice demands, confirming my identification. The voices have stopped halfway down the corridor, and I wait on pins and needles to see who wins the argument, resenting the fact that I'll have to be grateful to Snape if he wins.

"Never, my Lord," Snape drawls, and my lip curls reflexively. "Linese was willful and arrogant at the best of times, the worst sort of Mudblood. But Barty's plan has nearly come to fruition. Why waste such a resource when instead we could continue to use her for our own ends? Barty always counseled patience, the long game."

"And as I recall you frequently called him a fool."

"At first, yes, my Lord, I don't deny it. I desired nothing but your own swift ascendancy. Barty seemed at times… overly content with the power he held in the Ministry under the guise of his father's role. I have shared these concerns as well, and others have agreed. There were whispers in the ranks that he was the mastermind of your return, that he meant to challenge you once the wizarding world had fully fallen under his sway."

"I knew his mind! He hid nothing! He worshipped me!"

"His years under his father's Imperius lent him mental abilities which few ever attain, my Lord. He may have been a more skilled Occlumense than we knew." The other man, the cold-voiced one he calls Lord, makes a sound halfway between a scoff and a hiss, and my skin crawls. Snape forges on, apparently unintimidated. "But his plan has proven sound. In honour of the service he did you in life, I humbly suggest we continue as he intended. The Mudblood Linese is a foul creature, but she is a tool we can use. We can build her into our… bogeyman. Let's not waste her, my Lord."

A long beat of silence. "I shall still show her the error of her ways," the cold voice declares.

"That would only be wise, my Lord," Snape says. "I'll guard the door so no one interferes."

Footsteps. My skin feels too small somehow, and I'm trembling again. I try to bite my lip, only to reopen the cut. Blood leaks into my mouth again.

The man who appears is tall, death-pale, with a strangely flat face. There is murder in his eyes. I've never seen him before, but there is no question as to who he is. This is You-Know-Who.

"So," he breathes. "This is the one who succeeded where so many better wizards failed. Barty survived Azkaban, his father's control, innumerable encounters with the Order. Yet he could not survive you… A Mudblood girl with fear in your heart and a name no one cares to know. How." He draws his wand. "HOW."

It is not like the pain of the crucio, what he does. With the Curse, the pain is total, debilitating, insane. This, it's like being strangled by an invisible snake. It's slow enough to bring on panic as my mind tries to figure out what's going on, but at the same time whatever he's doing seems to paralyze my mind. Images, memories, rise up around me, of the wedding. It's like I'm watching the events I lived through from the outside: Viktor and I are blown out of the marquee by someone's Shielding Charm, Crouch approaches me and talks, Viktor tackles him but is thrown down and Stunned, I frantically bind Crouch and grab Viktor but Crouch grabs me and all three of us vanish. The vision shivers and shifts to my room, where Crouch reaches for his wand and I frantically bind him again, and again, and watch as he slowly stops struggling. It takes a lot longer than I thought it did before. When Rachael bursts in, the memory stops, and the invisible snake releases me.

I find myself slumped on the floor, drenched in sweat and unable to focus my eyes. What was that?

"Bad luck," he murmurs to himself, almost disbelieving. "There was no great display of talent, no hidden ability you used to defeat him. A Binding Jinx brought down my most loyal follower." I try to edge myself into a corner while he talks, as though being physically surrounded will be any good against whatever sort of magic that just was. He notices my movement, and I know what's coming a moment before he does it. "Crucio."

It goes on for much longer this time.

My vision is grey and dim when I realize the pain has ended. I can't tell how much time has passed. I'm lying on the floor. My throat is raw, but that's the only thing I can feel clearly. There is gentle noise. Singing? Crying?

"Nita, oh god, Nita, please wake up, please be okay, oh my god…"

Why is Rachael saying that to me? It's not me that's hurt, it's Viktor, is he alright? Is he awake yet?

I move to sit up, but my head swoops and throbs so ferociously that all I can manage is to curl up in a ball and moan.

"Nita! Oh thank goodness! Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

It's not Rachael, I realise, it's Kay. I'm not at the flat, I'm in prison. It wasn't the fight with Crouch that hurt me this badly, it was—

My eyes snap open. You-Know-Who is gone. That's such a relief that I almost grey out again, but Kay's insistent questions keep me in the present.

I sit up more slowly this time, trying to ignore how my limbs are rubbery and fake-feeling, how my skin seems wrongly shaped and awkward. Kay gasps in relief when I manage it though, and that's nice.

"Are you okay?" she says. She's pressed herself close to the bars of her cell door, pressed her face up against them like she's trying to work her way through. She's crying, which puzzles me.

"How long was I… unconscious?" I ask uncertainly. I'm not positive I even was unconscious, but it seems the best way to talk about it.

"He left about ten minutes ago. I've been talking to you since then, trying to wake you up… Oh, Nita, it went on for ages, I'm so sorry, I couldn't do anything, I'm so sorry…"

I stare at her, not sure that I'm hearing her right. "Of course you couldn't do anything," I say, confusion making me blunt. "They took your wand, right? And that was You-Know-Who. No one's ever beaten him except Harry Potter. Don't feel bad for not doing the impossible."

"I… yes, I suppose, but…" She sniffles. "...you were hurting, and I wanted to… help."

Help? Me? I want to tell her what a stupid idea that is. I want to tell her that everyone who helps me gets their shop wrecked by angry Old Guard like Madam Malkin and Rachael, or knocked out by Death Eaters like Viktor, or killed by Death Eaters pretending to be Order of the Phoenix members like Tom and Madam Bones. I don't want anyone else going on that list. But I can't seem to get the words out. Instead, the words I do get out are the rather choked, "Thank you," and then we're both crying.

We're in prison together for four days. We're both reluctant to talk about our recent lives, how the laws have stolen our freedom and made the future too uncertain to even dream about, so we talk about the past instead. She tells me about the job she had before being arrested, where she helped grow and distribute rare herbs and plants, mostly to potioneers and apothecaries. She had liked it a lot, and hoped to make a whole career out of it. I likewise told her what I could of my translation work, and of my studies at the Euro-Glyph School, though they seem so far in the past now it's like I'm talking about another person reading those books and writing those articles with Regina. She tells me stories about her family, I tell her stories about the Alley. We reminisce about Hogwarts like we were friends the whole time, laughing at the antics of Rosemary and her clique, at funny anecdotes about professors, at pranks Peeves pulled. We talk about the Tournament, the drama and insanity of it. Teenagers against dragons? Even years later, it's absurd to think about. The seriousness with which everyone took the Yule Ball now seems even more silly and immature. Yes, she admits, everyone was amazed at me and Viktor going together. Amazed and confused. She asks if we stayed together after he went back to Bulgaria, and I give the short version of the answer.

I think about him much more than I talk about him though: is he okay? Did he get medical attention? I tell myself he's young, and physically fit, if anyone can recover from a Stunner it's him. I don't feel all that much better though.

Kay admits she always wanted to be friends with me, and feels bad for letting Rosemary pick on me so much. I tell her I always thought we could have been good friends too. We talk and talk, all through the days and nights. Neither of us like sleeping in this place so we stay awake together. Meals come twice a day, our cells are Scourgified every evening, no one speaks to us. No one comes to interrogate me again.

Until the morning of the fifth day, that is. Four Aurors troop in, all of them looking nervous as they gather around my cell. "Well, someone's got to open the door," one of them says.

"Oh, aye, why not you then?" another retorts. The first bristles, but a third steps forward before the argument can take root. He strikes the lock with his wand, and the door squeals open.

"Come with us," he grunts. I stand, lifting my chin to show I'm not frightened of them. And that's true, as far as it goes. I'm not frightened of these men. But they must be taking me to my trial, and if my non-disclosure hearing is anything to go by, the Ministry will not be playing fair. The pink woman and Snape kept saying they would make an example of me, turn me into the representative Evil Muggleborn for the public to revile. Snape convinced You-Know-Who not to kill me before they could do that, but no one said anything about after.

The Auror who opened the door shoves me roughly as I step out of the cell, and I stagger. Four days of meagre meals and no exercise have left me unsteady on my feet. Kay's eyes are huge when I look at her, and I give her what I hope is a confident smile. Her eyes only get wider, so it's probably not. "Tell Viktor, if he's awake," I start, but the Auror shoves me again, and I bite my lip where it's still swollen and half-healed.

"No talking," he grunts. I glare at him, but he doesn't seem to notice. The Aurors take up positions surrounding me, two behind and two in front. We go quickly out of the prison and through a warren of corridors. I can't tell where we are, if we're even in the Ministry building at all, and we're moving too fast for me to orient myself anyway. We take a lift up several floors, and there's no gentle feminine voice telling us where we are. More corridors, and then we come to a small room with a table, some boxes, and grumpy looking witch inside. "This is her?" she says as soon as she sees me. "How tall are you, five-two? You murdered the Minister?"

I shrug. She's only an inch or two taller than me, so I'm not sure why my height matters so much. "Magic isn't stronger in tall people."

Her brows twitch up. "No. More pity for the Minister."

I shrug again, unrepentant. I'm still trying to figure out my feelings about having killed a person, but the fact that it was Crouch bothers me not at all.

"Well," she mutters. "As though we didn't already know how the trial was going to go…" She turns and starts digging through one of the boxes. "Well, off with your clothes then."

I startle. "What?"

"You think they want you up there looking like a fairy tale princess who's been mugged? You hardly look capable of killing a Bowtruckle. It's my job to make you presentable for trial. The only issue is how to make you look like anything but a starveling waif…"

I look at her in horror, then around at the impassive Aurors. "I'm not taking my clothes off in front of you."

"You seem to think you have another option."

"Yeah, not doing it!"

The woman sighs and faces me. "Your options are, you take your dress off, or one of them does it. Up to you."

I grind my teeth, fighting down a sick feeling of panic. "I… haven't got a bra on," I try.

"No one cares."

My chest feels tight, and somehow my burn scar feels like it's glowing, like it's eager to finally show the whole world all my ugliness and pain. The last thing in the world I want is to take this dress off, foul and smelly and torn though it is after four days in prison without a bath. But I want one of the Aurors ripping it off even less. That would be one humiliation too many.

I slowly reach up and unclasp the little hooks at the back of the neck. The air is chill against my back, and worse on my sides and chest as I shimmy the dress off my shoulders and it slides down my body. One of the Aurors takes a sharp, surprised breath, and the witch turns curiously from her rummaging. "Merlin!" she cries, staring at my chest. My hands form fists at my sides, but I refuse to try to cover myself, even though that's my almost-overwhelming instinct. "Is that how the Order of the Phoenix marks its members?" she demands.

"No, this is how angry mothers mark little girls they don't love," I snarl.

I'm gratified that she recoils, her eyes wide.

It doesn't last long though. She visibly gathers her composure and sweeps a quick cleaning charm over me. It leaves my hair frizzy and my nails tingling. "We'll want to disguise how small you are," she says, tossing a shapeless black garment at me. Her tone is business-like and brusque, as though she wants to cover how much my burn affected her. I struggle into the garment, which turns out to be an too-large dress, wishing I could feel even the littlest bit smug over her reaction.

The rest of her ministrations take twenty minutes. She brushes makeup on my cheeks and under my eyes, though I'm sure the end result has nothing to do with glimmery blush and pink lipstick. She tries to do some spell or other to my hair, which doesn't seem to work, as it continues to float around my head like a cloud. The witch frowns. "What do you usually do to make it behave?" she asks.

"I don't."

One of the Aurors snorts.

"Well, it's far too whimsical and innocent-looking." She goes back to her boxes and extracts a bottle of blue potion. She slathers this into my hair, and begins combing it to and fro with rather violent yanks. I wince my way through this and have no idea what I look like when it's over. "There," the witch declares, sounding unsatisfied. "She's as murderous as anyone can make her look. I leave her to you."

One of the Aurors grabs my arm and pulls me through into another room. It's larger than the other one, but the only thing in it is a large cylindrical cage. The Aurors hustle me on into this, though they don't come in themselves, and I find there are shackles and chains attached to the bars, and spikes poking inwards like an Iron Maiden, and a sense of magical residue that makes my neck prickle. An Auror charms a collar to go around my neck, and cuffs go to my wrists. The chains they're attached to aren't long enough to let me sit down or move around much at all, though I can stand comfortably enough. The door to the cage slams shut, and the Aurors go stand in the corners of the room, impassive as statues.

Now what? Is this where my trial is to happen? Where's everyone else? But all at once the cage starts to move, the whole thing shifting upwards towards the ceiling like a lift and the room with the Aurors in it slowly falls away. I'm so far past nervous that I don't even know what to feel anymore, but my central reaction turns into incredulity when I see that I haven't risen into a courtroom, or anyone's office or anything like that. It's the Atrium. And it's packed full of people. They intend to make me a public spectacle in the very truest sense.

The whole crowd starts screaming as soon as I appear, making a cacophony I'm glad I can't decipher, though they're all clearly enraged. A line of Aurors separates them from me, but that's scarcely any comfort. The Aurors must hate me too, after all.

When I manage to tear my eyes from the furious masses, I can't tell where in the Atrium I am. I feel like I've never seen the room from this angle before, even though I've been all over. But then I realize that my cage is standing where the great golden fountain normally is. What have they done with it? Have they removed it specifically for my trial, or was it already taken out for some other reason? I haven't been here in months and there are other differences too, like the banners that hang over both banks of Floo fireplaces, which read 'UNITY - PURITY - SAFETY'. They used to say something about the Ministry, I think, and the 'purity' is a new addition. But it's hardly surprising, the way things have been lately.

The crowd grows quiet and all the faces turn to something behind me, and I strain my neck around to see. There are raised stands behind me, I see now, similar to the ones erected for the Triwizard Tournament, though much smaller, only large enough for perhaps forty people. And filing out onto these seats are witches and wizards in plum-purple robes and funny square-shaped hats. And with them is the witch in pink robes, the one with the kitten's voice, only now she's in elaborate robes of ash-grey and mauve and a black Old Guard sash. I stiffen in spite of myself, the memory of her casual use of the Curse buried deep in my nerves. My chains clank in response to my movement, and several of them glance at me impassively. A chill crawls up my spine.

The plum-robed people seat themselves and a murmur of dark anticipation goes through the crowd. The pink woman steps up next to my cage and taps her throat with her wand. "Hem hem." The sound echoes out through the Atrium and stills the crowd as though it was some sort of charm rather than an annoyingly affected fake cough. "Thank you," she simpers into the silence. "My name is Dolores Umbridge. I am the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Director of the Muggleborn Supervisory Committee. I stand before you today with a grave and heavy duty. The case before us today is unique in our long and illustrious history. Ministers for Magic have been killed before, certainly. We need only look back to our dear Cornelius Fudge, may he rest in peace. However, never has an individual performed such wanton violence and cruelty in the act. The creature you see locked in this cage not only killed Minister for Magic Bartemius Crouch Senior, she did it in a slow, cruel manner in order to cause him the most horrible suffering imaginable. He took many minutes to die! Our study of his body and her wand tells us she had time to stop it! Yet she did not. He died alone and in agony, striving to protect our great civilization from threats exactly like her."

Hisses rise from the crowd like steam, but I'm not afraid, not of them. I lunge back at them, as much as my chains will let me, snarling. One woman in front screams and swoons. "He wasn't Senior," I shout, "it was his son, the Death Eater, you've all been duped—!"

Umbridge steps up and touches her wand to a bar of the cage. Crackling white magic streams over the metal and along the nearest chain, the one holding my right arm. I convulse when the white light touches me, and hang limp when it's over, though the pain itself is nowhere near as bad as the Curse. The crowd is howling its approval and Umbridge moves away, her entire bearing showing her pleased she is.

"As you know," she says, and again her voice quiets the Atrium. Maybe she did do some sort of charm on it? I can't concentrate enough to think about that and listen at the same time. "the Order of the Phoenix has been a terrible threat to us over the past three years. They may have originally stood against Dark wizards, but their cause became perverted as Albus Dumbledore's mind slowly warped, and the end result, I'm afraid, is where we find ourselves now. When Mister Crouch took office, he knew it was his solemn duty to protect all of you. Last week, my office received intelligence of a clandestine meeting of the Order of the Phoenix to take place during a wedding. Mister Crouch bravely led the strike team of Aurors himself. Many of our objectives were met: we apprehended most of the core conspirators, and have reason to believe that the Order is no longer a threat to society at large!" A great cheer rises from the crowd. "But at great cost, as we know. No Aurors were injured more than superficially, but our great loss… our irrecoverable loss, lies at this wretched thing's feet!" She gestures grandly at me, and boos and shouts of rage rise with the sweep of her arm. "This malicious Muggleborn—no, we must call them what they are: Mudbloods! For what besides a true tainting of the blood could result in such villainy? Linese acted without provocation! On her own savage instincts! There can be no defense for her actions: she has been wicked and evil since the day she entered our world as a child.

"In our investigation, we took testimonies and character statements from people who knew her in school. Wendell Abrams the sixth, a Captain of the Old Guard, gave the most illustrative description." My head jerks up. Wendell? A character statement from Wendell? "Hem hem. 'Linese never fit in with the rest of us. She was always violent and unpredictable. She once broke a student's nose for no reason and then somehow escaped without punishment. She attacked a girl in the beginning of our seventh year with nothing but her fingernails, like some sort of animal.' These reports were corroborated by Headmaster of Hogwarts, Severus Snape himself, who taught Linese all seven years. Young Captain Abrams gives several further examples, and concludes by saying, 'I always try to respect people for their deeds, but her deeds only proved her depraved nature.'" I grind my teeth, pressing down on rage. The stupid thing is he didn't lie except in omission. I did break Isaac's nose, and I wasn't punished, but only because he pinched my arse and McGonagall considered it a fair response. I did attack Athenias Ash with my fingernails, but only because she had my wand and wouldn't return it. And of course Snape would say that's what happened. Even if he did convince You-Know-Who to spare my life for whatever reason, he's never liked me. But I know that to protest now, over such petty technicalities, won't win me any sympathy.

"And it grows worse!" Umbridge crows triumphantly to the crowds, who cheer her on. "Linese has a known fixation on powerful wizards, and always has! During her seventh year, when the Triwizard Tournament was going on, she was seen to approach none other than Harry Potter, despite being several years older than him, not once but several times." The crowd roars its displeasure when she says Harry's name. "That same year, it was known around the castle that she was obsessed with Viktor Krum and somehow blackmailed him into taking her to the Yule Ball."

This time I can't restrain myself. "No!" I lunge at Umbridge, or try to, but the chains hold me in place. The noise of the crowd more than drowns me out, but Umbridge still glances at me and smirks.

"And who did the Aurors find in her dingy flat in Diagon Alley when they detected her breaking the Apparation Ordinance? None other than Krum himself, unconscious, clearly a victim of stalking and kidnap! In his interview upon his recovery, he plainly told us that he had no knowledge of Linese's plans, and the last thing he remembers is being Stunned at the wedding, where he was an innocent and unsuspecting guest." Despite the sickening wrath filling me, it's a relief to hear that Viktor recovered. But I can hear how selectively they're quoting him, again using truths without their context. "And last!" Umbridge's voice is thick with triumph and terrible joy, "her envy of Crouch! For he was all she could never be, successful, respected, powerful! How she hated him. How she insinuated herself into the Ministry in attempts to get close to him, and when Mudbloods were barred from Ministry work, she joined with the Order to fulfil her goals that way instead. And now she has done it! Murdered him! Our Minister!

"My friends, my fellow true-blooded witches and wizards… there is nothing further I can say to condemn her. She is the embodiment of all we hate about Mudbloods. She may not be tolerated to live, even in such a hell as Azkaban. Yet conversely, a quick, clean death is too good for her. I humbly submit to the wisdom of the Wizengamot that Linese should suffer the greatest punishment known to us, since she has also committed the greatest sin: let her suffer the Dementor's Kiss! Good people, tell the Wizengamot your will before they vote!"

Thus encouraged, the crowd slowly begins to chant, "Kiss—Kiss—Kiss—Kiss!"

Hysteria batters at my insides. The selective truths and just plain lies she's told, to say nothing of the ones she's been told herself, make an impenetrable wall between all of us and the truth. And now, because of this tangle of lies and obfuscations, I'm to die in the most horrible way in the world. When I was researching the Patronous Charm in sixth year, I read a description of an execution by Kiss and didn't sleep well for a week. Never in my life did I think I would witness it happening, especially not to myself.

I know better than to hope, but there's still something soft and yearning in my chest when Umbridge turns to the Wizengamot seated behind me and indicates they should vote by giving thumbs up or thumbs down, like Roman emperors deciding the fates of gladiators. I can't turn my head far enough to see more than the edges of the group on either side, but the few I can see do not hesitate before giving the thumbs up. And judging by the throaty roar of approval rising from the spectators, it's the same for the rest. I've been unanimously condemned to die by Dementor's Kiss. My head rings in weird harmony with the screaming of the crowd. I had told myself I knew I was going to die. The whole time I was in prison with Kay, I was trying to distract myself from that fact. But now it's not theoretical. It's a Dementor's Kiss. My soul is to be ripped from my body.

Umbridge steps up into my peripheral vision, hands held triumphantly over her head. Only—she's holding something. A wand? Why's she hiding her wand in two hands like that?

I only understand that it is my wand in the very last moment before she snaps it in half.

"No!" I scream. I can't help it. If I am to die for the crimes they want to think I've committed, there's nothing I can do about it. But do they have to break my wand? My bloody wand?

Amidst the vicious cheering approval of the crowds, the cage begins to descend. "You've all been tricked!" I shout, voice tight and raw. "You've all been lied to!" I don't even think they hear me, let alone believe me, but I can't let them trot me out like a pet murderer and not speak in my own defense, useless though it may be. "He wasn't the Minister! He was a Death Eater! A Death Eater!"

But the Atrium slowly rises away from me, and the cage finally settles back on the floor of the room downstairs, where the four Aurors still stand at attention in the corners. They converge on the cage and open it and charm the chains off me. Without their weight, I feel like I'm floating as I step out into their midst. I hate the feeling. If I'm going to die soon, I want my last time on Earth—however long it is to be, Umbridge didn't say—to feel solid and real and grounded. Flying is Viktor's thing.

The thought strikes me bitterly hard: I'll never see Viktor again.

Tears well up and overwhelm me. I press a hand to my mouth, but it doesn't stop the shaking or the choked sounds or the crying.

"Oi," one of the Aurors says roughly. "Don't think you'll get any sympathy from us. What do you expect for killing the Minister?"

"I don't care about that," I say, somewhat ruining the effect by wiping my sleeve under my nose. "I'm just never going to see my, my loved ones again." And the names pile up on top of Viktor's: Bigby, Rachael, Madam Malkin, all the shopkeepers in the Alley, even little Budge…

"Just as Mister Crouch won't," one of the Aurors snarls. "Because of you."

"I reckon the only one Crouch loved was You-Know-Who," I snap.

His hand is down at his side again before I even realize I've been slapped. More shocked than hurt—though it does hurt—I touch my cheek with incredulous fingers.

"...Oh my god, you're actually frightened of me," I murmur in amazement, staring up at his belligerent face. "What's happened? Did someone realize that the trial up there was just a glorified excuse to let Umbridge practice her lackluster oratory skills? Or has someone actually switched their brain on and realized that the Order and Muggleborns weren't actually ever a problem until Dumbledore said You-Know-Who was back? Weird, that."

"Stop talking!" I see it coming this time, so I'm ready to move with the impact and it doesn't hit as hard. Still, he's a large man and he's not holding back, and new tears leak from my eye on that side.

"Did you never hear anyone say Crouch was acting strange?" I challenge recklessly. "Firing his whole office a few years back wasn't odd? His illness and sudden recovery? I know Madam Bones suspected him!"

"DON'T YOU SAY HER NAME, FILTH!" the Auror bellows, and winds back to hit me properly. The blow is hard, sends the world reeling, and when it stops I'm on my backside on the floor.

"Is that the best you can do, you great buffoon!" I shout, feeling, as I speak, that he's knocked a tooth loose. "You're a wizard, you bloody moron! If you want me to shut up there are more effective ways to do it!"

His hand does go for his wand, but one of the others stops him. "She's already been sentenced," he says quellingly. "She's a Dementor's problem now. Merlin knows if she has a soul to even take…"

"Wouldn't that just solve everything," I mutter, staggering to my feet.

They drag me back to the dungeon then, throw me bodily into the cell and slam the door so hard the floor shakes.

"Nita?" Kay's eager voice sounds as soon as they're gone. "I didn't think I'd see you—I mean I thought… I'm sorry."

"S'alright," I mumble around the tooth that's tearing itself free of its last root. Swearing and moaning, I spit it into my hand in a blob of sticky blood.

Kay is pressed to her cell door, her face grey and shocked. "I thought it was a trial," she whispers. "Did they—hurt you?"

"No. Well, not physically," I amend. "They got Wendell to give a character witness though. My ego might never recover." Why am I talking as though it will even have a chance to? I'll be a soulless husk by the end of the week at the latest and never have an ego to worry about again.

"Wendell?" she repeats, horrified. She starts to giggle. "'I'm Wendell Abrams the sixth, wah. Nita was always mean to me, wah. I didn't like her at all, wah. She was better than me at Charms and Potions, wah.'" She splutters with laughter. "I'm so sorry. I know I shouldn't make light, but it's just… Wendell…"

In spite of it all, I start to smile too. My cheek is starting to feel swollen and sore where I was hit, but it's so good to feel something other than anger and fear. "'Nita once broke a boy's nose and didn't get a detention, wah,'" I supply, doing the same voice as she'd given him, nasal and whiny. "'Her deeds prove her depraved nature, wah.'" We laugh until we're both breathless and limp, and after, I feel… good. Not happy, certainly, and my situation hasn't changed in any real way. But… relieved. Wrung out. Clean.

"I didn't think they were going to bring you back," she says, and I nod my agreement, staring up at the ceiling. "Are they sending you to Azkaban or something?"

"No," I say, regretting that I'm about to ruin the mood. "Dementors are involved though. You know what a Dementor's Kiss is?"

"Oh, Nita… no…"

"Afraid so."

"Oh my god…."

"Can we… not talk about it? Let's talk about… about Hogwarts some more, or your family, or… I don't want to sleep tonight."

"We won't," she promises.

And we don't. I spend my last night talking to someone who should have been my friend for much longer than this. We talk about anything. The torches gutter out all at once some time near 10, but there's a thin slice of light from under the door at the end of the passage. The darkness makes it easier to talk, somehow. I tell her about Viktor, and how despite everything I'm glad I got to see him again at the wedding, and how I know he must be alright now because Umbridge quoted from an interview he gave, even though it was very selective.

Sometimes we fall quiet for a while, but that's okay too. The darkness is a balm. After having been so cruelly exposed, first physically in front of the Aurors and that witch, then emotionally in the Atrium, even though it was all half-truths and shoddy drama… I want to hide, and the darkness lets me. What Umbridge said up there, that's what people will believe about me from now on. I'm the fame-obsessed Mudblood who killed their beloved Mr Crouch. That's all I'll ever be to them.

But there are those who know better, I remind myself fiercely. Viktor will never believe it, nor Bigby, nor Rachael, nor Madam Malkin. Nor will Kay, now. And that's enough to be grateful for.

A/N

Sorry to everyone who wanted her to escape to Bulgaria with Viktor. I wanted that too. At one point that actually was the planned ending. Alas...

E.I. signing out