For my original Author's note, refer to La Default Chapter

By the by, sorry it took me so long to write this blasted thing! It has just been so hectic at work and when I come home I just want to crawl right into bed. Why the hell we need to get our Christmas stock in, in October I am sure I don't know! Anyways, let's hope this was worth the wait!

Amalita

Chapter Seven: An unknown fate...

The brave trio walked silently and swiftly through the dark, dank London backstreets, no one wanting to voice their fright on the mission at hand. They walked with a sense of purpose; their heads held high and their wands gripped tight in their hands, sweaty with nerves.

As Carmen stalked on silently, she could find no room in her head to think on the attack of headquarters, and found her head swimming with questions and images over what had just transpired between her and Remus on the back porch.

Had he really meant those things he'd said. Did he really find her; oh what was it, gifted, talented and beautiful? She wished she could have believed it, but she had worked so hard to condition herself not to ever believe a single word that came from a man's mouth. But Remus was different.

Oh he was a man, of that she was absolutely certain. She had sneaked enough glimpses of him coming out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to support that! But a different kind of man, kind, gentle and understanding. But was it real? Or was it a façade he put on in order to get...

Carmen felt a certain sort of disgust with herself, thinking about such stupid things at a time like this! For God's Sake, she could die before the sun rose, and she was thinking about the sort of crap a 13 year old wrote down in her diary! But they weren't easy to forget, those eyes of his...

"You OK?"

Carmen flinched as James' concerned voice broke through her reverie. She jutted out her chin and tried to look confident and strong.

"Yes, I'm fine." She said boldly, looking directly forward with her head held high. She could see James watching her out of the corner of her eye.

"You have nothing to worry about," he told her, "You brought down more Death Eaters in your first month than anyone else in The Order. You have a great talent for this kind of trade."

"Remus said the same thing." She said, without thinking.

"So that's what you two were talking about."

Carmen came to a complete halt, and spun round to face James, who was watching her with a knowing smile, her eyes wide. She opened and shut her mouth like a fish, trying to think of something clever to say that would dispatch the matter all together, but all that came out was a disbelieving kind of snort. She turned sharply on her heel, and kept on walking, faster than before, not stopping to look back.

James chuckled quietly to himself and jogged up to Carmen's side where she seemed determined not to look at him.

"It's not like that." She said after James stared at her non-stop for about 10 minutes.

"Like what?" he seemed to be enjoying himself. Carmen, who didn't seem to find it half as amusing whipped out her wand and pointed it threateningly at James.

"Don't get cheeky with me Potter," she grumbled, "You saw what I made of all those Death Eaters! I mean me and Remus we're not..." she couldn't seem to say it, "we're not as close as you seem to think we are." She said this very fast and her cheeks glowed scarlet.

"But you want to be? I mean, we ALL know that he sure does. But do you?"

Slowly, Carmen lowered her wand, her eyes softening as she considered James. Was he being honest or was he making fun of her? She heard James could be quite the troublemaker...

"Hey!" Frank called in an angry whisper, from about 5 miles up the street, "What are you two doing? We're here!"

Carmen and James exchanged a quick glance and stealthily hurried up the street to join Frank, who was eyeing something from around a corner. Slowly, Carmen turned her head around the wall and got her first glimpse of the official Death Eater headquarters.

It was a dismal, unwelcoming heap of brick at the end of a dark street down near the train tracks, where a candle flickering pitifully about the door, a dim orange glow illuminating the dusty, obscure windows. Many blurry shadows moved about inside, so it was clear the meeting had begun.

"So what now?" she breathed.

"We've got nothing to do except wait for the meeting to finish, then we'll break in and see what we can get our hands on." James said.

"That doesn't sound like a good plan," Frank said doubtfully. "I mean, what if they take all their information with them when they leave?"

"I know." James sighed, "I still think Dumbledore should have let us raid the place. But he seems to know what he's doing so," he sat down on the cold, hard concrete and lay his head against the wall, "we wait."


The seconds, minutes, hours, whatever they were, dripped by so slowly Carmen felt as if they had been sitting there for years on end. He back was stiff and sore, from sitting against the hard wall and her feet were numb with cold. She though back to her first assignment where she and Sirius had sat under the bridge drinking whiskey and singing All That Jazz, and wished she could feel half as cheerful as she had then, not to mention a little of that Firewhisky.

She turned to look at James who was flicking small rocks into a nearby, dilapidated cardboard box, and then to Frank, who was watching the Death Eater headquarters with dead, unfocused eyes, as if he were trying to remember where he had left his favourite tie.

Carmen sighed and rested her head against the wall closing her eyes and tried to think of this time tomorrow, when this mission would long be over and she was at home in bed with a glass of wine...


"Carmen. Carmen!"

Carmen's eyes jerked open with a start to find Frank leaning over her, gently poking her in the arm.

"S-sorry," she mumbled, "must have fallen asleep."

"It's time to move." He breathed. She gave him a swift nod of understanding and got quietly to her feet.

James unravelled his invisibility cloak, and threw it over their heads.

"Are we all set?" he asked. They both gave an affirmative nod."

"Alright. Let's move."

Cautiously, they made their way across the street to the now dark, abandoned shack, being careful the cloak didn't slip. Carmen could feel her heart pound in her throat and feel a sort of muggy heat coming from Frank, as he began to sweat with nerves. After what seemed an age, they reached the front door and Carmen took out her wand.

"Alohomora." She whispered, tapping the lock. A gold light shone from the end of her wand, but when she went to open the door, it remained locked.

"It's not working." She whispered, panic and also a little annoyance in her voice. Had she just wasted a whole evening for no reason?

"Here." James said, nudging her aside. He pulled out a weird kind of device, kind of like a Swiss Army knife.

"What are you going to, try and pick the lock?" Frank whispered irritably, "If Alohomora didn't work then there's no way that will!"

"Oh I don't know, I have a Bobby pin in my purse." Carmen whispered disdainfully.

"Will you both shut up!" snapped James, "It's a special knife Sirius gave me it undoes any lock even if the door is bewitched, like this one." Sur enough a small click sounded out meaning the lock had opened. James opened the door and gave them a smug little smile, stepping inside.

"Smart-ass." Carmen muttered.


James struck a match and lit a candle, and the three of them looked around with a sort of disgusted fascination.

"So this is what it's like to be a Death Eater." Frank murmured.

It was a bare, bleak room, its only furnishings a huge worn old table and many battered chairs, like the kitchen of The Order's headquarters. Only the table was painted black and had a lot of unpleasant looking marks and etchings on it, and the whole place itself had a sort of unnerving, haunted, evil, creepy feeling. Like breaking into an abandoned mental institution for the criminally insane in the middle of the night. The walls were covered with paper, on the right wall, was a beaten old door.

Carmen ran her fingers over the edge of one of the chairs, wondering vaguely if Voldemort himself had ever sat upon it.

This thought disturbed her greatly, so removing her fingers from the chair; she went over to observe the walls, while Frank and James went through piles and piles of paper stacked in hidden drawers.

It was the pictures more than anything that was so unnerving. Every article published by the Daily Prophet, small suburban newspapers, international papers, as distant as Mexico, even articles from small dirt towns in Alabama that mentioned Lord Voldemort's reign of terror, 'accomplishments' and murders had been tacked on the wall, the same haunting and troubled faces in every one of them.

But that wasn't all they had tacked to the walls. With a sickening jolt to her stomach, Carmen saw that they had identified many of Dumbledore's cohorts, and had them labelled up on the wall.

Every single person who had passed through the Order's headquarter doors had their face stuck up on the Death Eaters wall. School photos, wedding photos, anything that identified a member of the Order's recent appearance had been stuck to the wall. There was even a photograph of James and Lily at the beach.

Carmen lifted up a news clipping to see if she could find a photograph of herself. If they had everybody else they had to have her, when out of the window, she saw it. Two dark lumbering shapes making their way to the door.

"Oh shit!" she breathed, "James! James, Frank we have to bail! Now!"

James and Frank hurried over to the window and she felt them stiffen at her sides.

"Quickly!" James breathed, making a mad dash for the door on the other side of the room. "This way!"

Hastily, Carmen blew out the candle and she and Frank made a mad scramble for the door, which closed, just as the locks on the front door began to click.

The 3 of them blinding twisted and turned down a dark hallway that smelled like rotted garbage and a sickly sweet smell like rotted oranges. None of them dared to look back and at long last, they found their way to the back door, the sounds of angry shouts and the breaking of furniture sounding from the room behind them.

James frantically grasped at the knob and they dashed outside, fear rushing through them like blood. They should have known someone would've been told to watch the back door.

"Not so fast sweetheart." Said an angry voice, followed by a sadistic laugh, as someone grabbed hold of Carmen's arms, and ran the back of their hand down her cheek. She raised her head and saw that she James and Frank had been surrounded by 10 Death Eaters at the very least, all of them in black hoods and cloaks, their menacing eyes visible between slits in the cloth.

"Miss Pescetelli I presume?" the Death Eater asked in a sing song voice, grabbing Carmen by the chin and pulling her face up to meet his gaze, while the other Death Eaters sniggered appreciatively as he continued to touch and stroke her in the most inappropriate of places. Carmen felt the bile rise in her throat.

James and Frank struggled out of the arms of their captors and pulled out their wands, pointing them directly at the man who held Carmen tight, their chests heaving. Both looked furious.

"Let her go." James demanded in a cold, hard voice Carmen had never heard him use before. A few of the Death Eaters took a step back but Carmen's captor remained where he was, his cold gaze fixed smilingly on James and Frank.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he drawled, "Be a shame to waste such a pretty little mudblood." He lifted Carmen chin up to his gaze once more, a little more gently than before, "If she were a bit more of a dog, who could say?"

Carmen felt her blood rage with anger, anger she had not felt since the day Dumbledore had told her that her father had been murdered. Her head was pounding, her ears were ringing and she felt as if her blood were boiling.

Before she had time to calm herself she struck out like an angry cobra, wrenching herself free from the grip of her captor and kicking him hard in the stomach with her large leather combat boot.

Carmen wasn't a trained fighter in any sense of the word but her anger seemed to give her an invincible sort of strength. Half from shock, half from the force of her kick; the Death Eater fell to the ground, and banged his head hard on the concrete, knocking himself out cold. The rest of the Death Eater's, including Frank and James, stood still with shock. Carmen's chest was heaving; her breathing had become painful and rapid. The Death Eaters began to stir from their surprise, and looked menacing.

"Run!" Frank shouted, "Run for it Carmen!"

She bolted down the street, every inch of her body feeling as though they were made of led. Shouting and the sounds of fighting erupted from behind her and she felt a kind of cold dread in her stomach. She may have just gotten James and Frank killed.

As she continued to run faster and faster down the road, she turned around, trying to see some sign that James and Frank were OK. But all she could see were blurry shapes and shots of light bouncing around, before her foot met with unsteady ground, and her ankle twisted her off balance, head first down a flight of concrete stairs.


Carmen skidded across the rough gravel and ended in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the grimy steps, a cold malicious laughter ringing out from behind her. Slowly she propped herself up on her elbow and surveyed the damage.

A large wound had opened on her forehead as well as a particularly malicious looking gash on her collarbone. Her legs and chest had also been severely scraped, all of them oozing her dark red blood. Her arms, left cheek and palms were all heavily grazed, dirt and filth embedded into all the tiny lacerations, the sting bringing tears to her eyes. She tried to push herself up by her hands, but the pain was pounding throughout her entire body so viciously, she let out an agonized scream and fell back down, feeling defeated and ashamed.

As Carmen collapsed back down onto her chest she saw something glinting in a nearby bush, tangled with rubbish: her wand. Her stomach gave a frightened jolt. She felt so exposed, so defenceless without it, especially in a situation like this.

Slowly she began to creep forward on her stomach, trying to ignore the pain that thudded through her with every movement. Carmen stretched out her hand, her fingers tickling the handle of her wand...

"Good evening my dear."

Carmen froze, as the cold, cruel voice sounded out behind her, her gasp of fright lost in the clattering of a passing train on the bridge above...


Wow that was a BADASS chapter! I really am sorry; I know you've been waiting for ages for this chapter but for some reason I found this one really hard to write! But don't worry, because chapters 8 & 9 are so well written in my head they'll be on the site in one or two days, so you won't have to wait long! And they're the ones where everything really begins. Y'all know what I'm talking about! So relax! Assuming anyone, y'know...cares...

Amalita