Chapter Five: An Unexpected Meeting

A half-full moon shaded the silent Parson household.

Beth's father had gone to bed an hour or so before, but Beth lay awake, sprawled across her bed, flipping through the Ledger. Its vast musty pages spat clouds of dust onto her sheets; open, it was nearly as large as her pillow. The book had only been in service for fifty years, but it held information far more ancient than itself.

For the first time, Beth realized why Richard had been so upset about the loss of the Ledger the previous year, and why the Dark Lord was so desperate to have it back. It was thick with information - there were maps of the Ministry and the Forbidden Forest, lists of people and places, spells that ranged from complex to dire. In the hands of the enemy, it really could do a great deal of damage.

She thumbed through the book, stopping at a battered page near the back.

Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son
Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master
Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe

Beth's blood ran cold at the dark words. So Riddle had planned for his ascension years in advance ... it didn't surprise her, somehow. She wondered if he had killed his own father so that the bones would be there when he needed them.

A sharp rap sounded against her window.

Beth froze. Ever so slowly, she moved across the bedroom, shut the door, and flicked off the light switch. Bathed in darkness, she crept to the window and waited.

The rap came again.

Silently, she unhooked the window latch and stood back from it, pressed against the wall. The window creaked open - it could have been the summer wind, the gentle brush of a passing bat.

A set of pale fingers curled themselves around the window sill.

"It's all right," said Beth quietly.

A dark figure heaved into view. It filled the window and then dropped inside, one hand clutching a broomstick. The moonlight fell across his face.

"What light through yonder window breaks?" Richard whispered.

He was grinning from ear to ear as he propped the broomstick against the wall. Beth closed the window behind him.

"It is the east." He straightened beside the window and looked fondly at her across the dark room. "And Juliet is the sun."

"Technically," said Beth, "if we're going by the book, you're Juliet."

"Whatever," said Richard. He wrapped his arms around her.

Several minutes later, Beth sat on her bed rewrapping the Ledger and Richard was at the desk, munching a sandwich that Beth had retrieved from the kitchen. He glanced through the past few issues of the Daily Prophet by wandlight before folding them up and putting them aside. "Not much news, is there?"

"Nothing useful," said Beth. "Even your obituary was short."

"Was it?" Richard perked up. "What day was it?"

He flipped to the death notices and scanned his own quickly. He made a face. "They would have to mention the inheritance," he said distastefully. "Well, I think it's bland enough to throw anyone off the track... Was the funeral all right?"

"Very tasteful," Beth assured him, rolling her eyes.

"And no one thought it was suspicious?"

"No. You looked very dead." Beth shuddered involuntarily at the memory. "That's how the Draught of the Living Death works. Sending up the Dark Mark was a nice touch," she added.

"Think so?" said Richard, munching his sandwich. "I thought it couldn't hurt; add a bit more confusion to it all, maybe even convince someone the Dark Lord's back and it's not some hallucination of Potter's. Nott was all too willing to teach me how."

The name of the Secretary reminded Beth how dangerous the game had become. "Rich - is everything set up? Do you have someplace to go?"

Richard glanced up at her with a grin. "You sound like you don't want me to stay."

"I don't think my father would like the idea of a boy in my room," said Beth, "especially a dead one. You do have a place, don't you?" she pressed.

"I told you, I've arranged things in advance," said Richard, now sounding a little insulted. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. One was small and brass and looked perfectly ordinary; the other was much bigger, and perfectly straight at the end. It looked like a large, elaborate iron lollipop.

Beth reached out to take a closer look. "This is a key?" she asked, running her finger along the smooth iron.

"It opens the front door to my lodging house," said Richard. "The other is to the apartment."

"Number thirty-three," Beth read, looking at the engraving of the smaller key. "How do I get there?"

"You can't, unless I take you," said Richard, taking back his keys. "You couldn't even find it. It's very safe but it costs a pretty Knut. Let's just say I've more or less blown my inheritance."

Beth started to speak, then bit her lip. He had blown his inheritance anyway - as long as his parents thought he was dead, he was completely detached from his family and everything from his past. Even in the shadows, Richard seemed to read her face.

"I can always go back, you know," he said quietly. "When it's over. When it's safe. It may be hard for a few years ... I think they'll understand," he added, almost to himself, "in the long run."

He may or may not have been correct; but just then, "the long run" seemed very far away indeed.

-'-'-

Richard left soon afterward, after consuming several more sandwiches and assembling another few for the trip to London. (Beth couldn't blame him - he hadn't eaten for several days, after all - but she sincerely hoped her father wouldn't notice the disappearance of half a loaf of bread.) "I'll be contacting the members one by one," he muttered, stuffing sandwiches into his knapsack. "So don't tell anyone until I get to them. All right?"

"I'm not that stupid, Rich," she muttered back.

"Of course not. Quite the opposite." He accepted the wrapped Ledger and stuck it in his knapsack beside the sandwiches. "You did good."

"Take care of the Ledger."

"Take care of yourself," said Richard. His eyes grew sad and serious for just a moment. Setting aside his knapsack, he gently took hold of her arm and pushed back the sleeve to reveal the red skull burnt into her skin.

They both gazed at the emblem for long moments. In the darkness it seemed to twist and float, mocking, powerful...

"After I free the Society," said Richard softly, "I'll free you of this."

Their eyes met. Then Richard dropped a kiss on her forehead, picked up his knapsack and broom, and slipped out the window.

Beth watched until his dark shape disappeared into the clouds. She retreated into the bedroom and shut the window. Sighing, she rolled her sleeve back down so that she wouldn't have to look at the mark. Richard was smart, he was ambitious and driven, but there were some things that couldn't be undone. She expected that the skull was there to stay, and dared not hope that she was wrong.

-'-'-

Beth woke up in the middle of the night to a burning pain in her arm.

Her first thought, as she came groggily awake, was that she had dreamed the pain and it wasn't real. But it didn't go away - it was like a bee sting, like a brand-

The realization swept over her in a cold wave.

The Dark Lord was calling.

Beth fell out of bed, got caught in the covers, and struggled free. She grabbed her wand, tugged her tennis shoes over her bare feet, and threw on her school cloak overtop her pajamas. Taking a few deep breaths to clear her head, and praying she wouldn't splinch in her haste, she gathered her thoughts and Apparated to the Little Hangleton churchyard.

Moments later, her feet settled in spongy ground. She opened her eyes to find herself near the yew tree; several feet from where she had been aiming, but good enough to pass. Several wizards had already appeared; the occasional crack signaling Apparation broke the air as more arrived. Everything was oddly quiet. No birds, she thought, surprised to have noticed. And no one was speaking...

Someone came up behind her and tapped her shoulder.

Beth leapt a foot in the air and spun around. She recognized the small dark frame instantly.

"Evan!"

"Evening," said Evan Wilkes placidly.

"Do that again and I will literally kill you," said Beth, but in truth she was glad to see him. He was the only other person, as far as she knew, who had been committed to the Dark Lord in infancy. Although she had often questioned his motives, she was sure he wouldn't have chosen the Dark Mark for himself. Almost sure.

"How'd you get here so quick?"

"Floo to the village, flew to the cemetery." Evan looked her over. "You should have combed your hair."

"Shut up," said Beth. The night was colder than she expected. She wished she had stopped to put on socks.

"Here." Evan handed her a cloth mask, then tugged one over his own features. "Flip your cloak inside-out. I can see the school crest."

"Oh." Beth pulled off her cloak and turned it so the crest was hidden. She refastened it hurriedly. "Anything else?"

"Other than you're the only one here in trainers?" said Evan coolly, his features hidden behind the soft folds of his mask. Beth gritted her teeth. "No. You look just like all the rest of the murderous Dark wizards around these parts."

"Good," said Beth shortly. Over near Tom Riddle's cracked gravestone, the other Death Eaters were starting to arrange themselves into a circle. "Come on, we'd better go join the crowd."

The first time, the two of them had stood beside former Society president Jules Rothbard; now that he had been killed (and, Beth expected, devoured) by the snake Gina, Beth and Evan stood together with a very large figure on one side and a space on the other. About a quarter of the way around the circle, Beth noticed the familiar stooped figure of Ebenezer Nott. How many more would she recognize, she wondered suddenly, if the masks were removed?

A shadow fell amid the circle, and all motion ceased.

From behind a looming tombstone stepped the Dark Lord. Tall and cloaked, hooded and implacable, he glided to the center of the ring and began to stroll around the circle, hands clutched behind his back. His silence was ominous.

"I," said the Dark Lord, pacing languorously in the midst of them, "am not pleased."

A shiver ran through the ring of Death Eaters.

"Things have been happening without my approval. The Shaw boy, for instance, had access to something I want. A whisper has reached me that my mark was seen in the sky on the night of his death ... and yet I was not consulted."

He looked up, and his gaze was terrible.

"That was unwise."

The Dark Lord resumed pacing, and the Death Eaters at whom he had been staring relaxed into nervous tension.

"And Potter," said the Dark Lord. "Potter. They say that a pair of dementors was sent to his home - his Muggle home."

The Death Eaters shifted uncomfortably. Beside her, Evan raised his head ever so slightly. Beth guessed what had piqued his interest: Dementors, away from Azkaban and on a Muggle street, should have been the biggest news of the summer. And while there was no blatant surprise displayed, no comically theatric shouts, there was a definite air of uncertainty among the circle.

The Dark Lord's chilling voice snaked through the air. "I wonder who was responsible."

Beth felt an inexplicable pang of guilt. She was strangely sure that if the Dark Lord turned and looked her in the face, she would confess to it all on the spot.

"No confessions? It will far be worse then..."

The silence hung heavily for long moments.

"Very well." The Dark Lord raised his wand above his head and swept it in a circle. A blue streamer of light bled from the end, making a strange pale halo. "Legilimens."

The halo expanded and settled onto the heads of the Death Eaters.

The sensation was like a cold wind blowing from one end of Beth's brain to the other. Half-formed memories began to pop up in her mind, only to fall back down into the stores of her memory. There was a dementor on the train ... Melissa railing over gender discrimination ... piles of purple sleeping bags in the middle of the Great Hall ... her father, holding up a slug-chewed squash in disgust ... Aaron Pucey's finger splint ... Colin Creevey, peering into a cauldron ... Josef Poliakoff, leaning towards her...

Violently, she threw away that thought and immediately others took its place: a Blast-Ended Skrewt. A white feather with a message from her mother. Richard cold in his coffin. Professor Lockhart grinning like a fool. Uther Bole reclining in the Vase Room, tossing around a Quaffle. Professor Kettleburn...

Abruptly her mind stopped whirling. Beth got hold of her senses and realized that she had been staring, slack-jawed, for many minutes. All around her, dazed Death Eaters were blinking back to wakefulness. She glanced to the side. For one brief moment, she thought she saw Evan's thin shoulders quaking. Then the Dark Lord spoke again. He sounded displeased.

"So an outside actor chooses to attack Harry Potter. How foolish of them..."

Apparently he hadn't discovered the guilty party through his Legilimency. Beth felt a rush of relief. That meant she wouldn't have to watch anyone die tonight.

"You will find him for me." The Dark Lord seemed to be directing his words to a certain part of the circle; a few of the masked wizards nodded or bowed obediently. "The Dementors of Azkaban obey no one but the Ministry. Soon, of course, they will call me master, but for the moment ... you will find your answers in that hub of imbeciles."

Some of the Death Eaters dared laugh. A smile twisted on the face of their Lord: a foul thing, in a pale and thin-lipped face.

"Soon," he said again. In his voice was the whispered promise of a lover. "Very soon."

-'-'-

It wasn't long before Beth reappeared in her own front yard, slipped in silently, and crept upstairs to her bedroom.

She slid off her shoes and cloak, now damp with dew, and fell into bed, grateful that she was already wearing her pajamas. She was exhausted - part of it must have been the effort of Apparating, and the fact that it was three in the morning, but mostly she felt emotionally drained. The Dark Lord had the gift of making her feel strongly, whether fear or exhilaration ... when it wore off, it left her tired and empty.

She rolled onto her back and snuggled into the covers. Safe for another night. He hadn't questioned that Richard was dead ... that was good ... she felt herself slipping off. Her fingers curled around the ring that Mrs. Shaw had given her.

He had intended to someday give it to a special girl.

I have to remember to give this back, Beth thought sleepily, pulling the covers tight around her shoulders. Now that he's not dead anymore...

That was her last coherent thought before it turned fluidly into dreams.

- ... - ... - ... -
A/n: So apparently, not everyone knows what you get when you mix asphodel and wormwood. (hugs Kellie) I'm sorry you went into mourning for longer than you had to! Now go read the first potions class in PS/SS again!
p.s. I love you all.