Feast!
Chapter 2: Peel the Onion
In Knockturn Alley it was not unusual to see cloaked figures huddled in doorways, talking with low and swift voices. It was not a place to linger after midnight.
"What were you thinking of, Dolohov?" asked Rookwood. "What idiot notion made you follow me? Do you want to ruin everything?"
"What happens now?" he asked flatly, twisting a soft black cloth between his hands.
"You wait," Rookwood replied, drawing further into the doorway, as if afraid of being seen. "And you sort out your alibi should you find that you require one."
"But you said there'd be no investigation."
Rookwood smiled nastily. "There's always an investigation – I happen to be in charge of it. If I need a culprit I'll find one. You told me you liked to gamble -- what's life without a little risk?"
"What is the point of murdering squibs, anyway?" Dolohov spat.
He appeared angry, or perhaps upset. Had he lost his nerve?
"Fun," replied Rookwood, the word spoken with matter-of-fact callousness. "The prospect of power seemed interesting until you had to find a way to prove you deserve it, did it? If you do want to back out, go ahead, but don't be surprised if you find your entrails strung over a tree in Lincolnshire when you wake up one morning. Not that the thought gives me any comfort, because I'd already be dead. Go away to wherever it is you live, and wait. You'll know when you're needed – and whatever you do, do not try to have any further contact with me."
He tugged a mask from his robes and touched it lightly with the tip of his wand.
"Are you still here?" he asked, glaring at Dolohov over the blue flame that quickly consumed the cloth.
"Why did I ever listen to you?" Dolohov muttered.
"You can mull on that question while you walk home. Maybe you'll find the answer."
Rookwood turned his back, listening to Dolohov's footsteps get fainter and fainter. He looked at the sky, bright over Diagon Alley, and slipped an hourglass from his robes, barely twisting the top bulb as he walked a little way down the street.
Five stolen minutes.
Rookwood glanced at the doorway and saw himself and Dolohov deep in conversation, his own face pale against the shadows. No time to waste, he thought, and Disapparated.
He entered the Leaky Cauldron from the Muggleside, greeted by a draught of warm air, thick with the smell of smoke and Butterbeer.
"Over here, Augustus!" A wizard seated at a table near the back door was waving. Rookwood returned the greeting and with difficulty pushed through the crowd, stopping at the bar to order a firewhiskey.
"What a night, Croaker," he complained, placing the glass down and dragging a stool from beneath the table with his foot. "I thought I'd never make it. It seems that the…"
An anguished scream silenced the crowd and drowned the chime of midnight. Glasses frozen in mid sip, laughter turned to confusion as the revellers looked at one another uneasily.
Rookwood and Croaker were already on their feet and pushing toward the alleyway when a bright flash lit the sky. It roused the crowd from their shock and immediately a babble rose.
The wall to Diagon Alley was already open, and cloaked figures bathed in sickly light moved swiftly towards Gringotts. They walked quickly, not speaking. Rookwood's hand curled around his wand. His gaze darted back and forth, trying to identify the people he passed. The crowd thickened.
"Department of Mysteries," he said, seeing for the first time the blackened walls of the bank. "Let us through."
"What is it?" said Croaker, pointing at the skull.
"I don't know." Rookwood replied eyes narrowed as his gaze fell upon a figure huddled in the narrow alleyway that until recently the baker's shop had so effectively screened. "Lets get this place sealed. I'll be with you in a minute."
He had seen someone of great interest, she was young, maybe twenty and already her quill danced over the parchment held flat on her palm. He strode over and grasped her elbow, propelling her further into the shadows. Her quill falling on to the cobbles.
"You are?" he asked, not releasing her.
"Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet," she said, her parchment held in her fist. "Any comment on what has happened?"
"An investigation is underway. All information is classified by the Department of Mysteries and top secret. Your notes, Miss…?" He held out his free hand. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers and he snatched away the sheaf of notes, head bent, skimming the top sheet.
"Skeeter. Daily Prophet," she repeated, as though confronted with an idiot. "Got to have something for the morning edition. There are what, a hundred people out there. What shall it be…? Midnight Mishap? Squib brings the house down in spontaneous supernatural surge? It's never too late to…"
"I don't want to see anything, Miss…"
"Skeeter!"
"May I quote you on that? Mr…?"
"Official source. If your article runs beyond the fact that an investigation is underway, you may consider your career over."
"Are you trying to gag the Prophet, Mr Official Source? My editor will want something more than…"
Releasing her arm, he slipped a quill from the sleeve of his robes, pressing it and a single scrap of parchment into her hands. "Write this down. 'An Official Source last night revealed that next year's Quidditch World Cup may be suspended for 'security reasons.' He declined to comment further. When asked for confirmation of this, a Ministry spokeswitch replied, ´Such rumours are preposterous -- why don't you stop wasting our time and go and enjoy Halloween like everybody else!'"
It took her a moment to write it down, and he used the time to flick through her other notes. "Dress it up however you like," he added as she waited, quill poised, for more.
"I'll keep these," he said, stuffing the pages into his robes and turning away. He glanced back, and the expression of loathing on her face assured him that the morning edition would be bursting with speculation and scant on facts. The public would be in such a panic that they'd be peering round every corner in case a dark wizard was waiting to pounce.
Rookwood hurried back to Croaker, who was tying a length of shining blue ribbon around the site, looking perplexed at the crowd gathering behind. The sea of faces looked sinister in the green light.
"Press?" Croaker asked.
Rookwood nodded. "Did anyone see anything?"
"Nothing. The place was deserted – can we do something about that - thing? Gives me the creeps."
The pulsating mark hung above them emitting a disconcerting hum of power.
"It could be an important clue," he said shaking his head. "Besides, the light is useful." He turned to contemplate the oven standing alone in the rubble.
"Granny, Granneeeeee!" A girl, small enough to push through the legs of the crowd, ducked under the tape and burst through the line, pigtails flying behind her. Just as she reached the oven, a Ministry wizard grabbed her, swinging her off her feet and away from the heat. He carried her, sobbing, back to her mother.
It was then that it happened. The oven began to crumble, thin cracks splitting the glaze until it looked like black lace; then, unable to support its own weight, the oven sank in upon itself.
Dust billowed from the ruins, settling slowly. Through the thinning cloud something near the ground was moving
First a hand appeared a blackened claw that scrabbled with surprising ease through the broken stone. A withered arm was attached and in minutes a whole body was visible, recognisably human but only barely so. Skin clung to a small and shrivelled frame and where it was not cracked and black, it was raw and oozing.The most startling thing was its eyes. Though the lids were burned away they were bright and aware and full of terror.
"Evil…" the figure rasped, though how it managed to make the sound without vocal chords was unclear, "... burning ... let me die." It clawed at the air, lunging toward the gawping, horrified crowd who inched closer for a better look, breaking the cordon.
"Merlin…" Rookwood murmured. Not surprisingly, he saw that others too had drawn their wands. He snapped his mouth shut. "Get that cordon back up," he ordered a witch in Ministry robes.
"Who did this to you?" Croaker asked as it shambled forward.
It stopped, not sure where to look. So many wands. It remembered its last encounter with a wand only too well. A wand had brought it brought her here. Itshead turned, slowly, with the sound of splitting skin.
"To me?" it queried in a voice, harsh, discordant. "Nobody did this to me. I did this to me. I was a Squib, something fouler than even a Mudblood. I deserve this, filth that I am."
But the part that was still human, still Edna, wept. She had no strength, no body left to speak of, but her mind was still there, held by the spell that had kept her aware in the furnace as he questioned and taunted her while her hair frazzled and her ears melted. He now forced her to speak with a voice that was not her own. She couldn't stop it; nothing could break that control or stop what it said with her dried lips. "Filth! I and all like I was. I deserve to die along with the Muggle-born scum that dares to give itself the name of wizard."
As she fell silent the hushed crowd watched as her legs buckled and she dropped to her knees.
Surely she should have gone now that the Dark Lord had left her. Rookwood was puzzled. With one eye on the squib and the other on the Dark Mark, he pondered what to do. Was there more to come?
With a crack like splitting bone, Edna's head snapped round to stare at Rookwood. Her head lolled oddly but he detected awareness in her eyes. Slowly, her arm began to rise.
Merlin, had she recognised him?
A finger pointed. Even a half dead one could ruin him.
In a swift arc, he raised his wand and roared, "Finite Incantatem!"
A jet of light shot out at the Mark, which flared brightly, then exploded in a blaze of green and silver stars. Rookwood's arm was numb to the shoulder, but he had no time to worry about that. Where the stars landed a rash of fires broke out, scattering the crowd, which rushed in all directions to help extinguish the flames or escape the burning.
He leapt to the assistance of a Ministrywitch whose cloak hadcaught fire, dousing her with a jet of water. She smiled gratefully then drew her own wand and dashed to stop a green blaze from spreading up the walls of Gringotts.
Chaos -- utter chaos -- spread as the light cast by the Dark Mark dissipated.
Augustus Rookwood, Department of Mysteries stumbled back with the crowd, cursing as his foot slipped in something that reeked like vomit. All around him people were running, screaming – all of them unaware of his own inaction. With a pang he knew that his own role had changed, no more would he feel this thrill – always from now to be a sleeper.
Somehow the little girl had broken loose. He concentrated upon her form, bright, dashing through the crowd with only one aim in her heart. He saw her fall, counted each sudder as she sobbed over the corpse.
Absorbing strength from the power that livened the air, Rookwood stepped forward. He was a family man himself, a caring member of the Ministry and his care of this victim of evil might help his own defence against any who might question that. Inside he chuckled as he laid his hand on the shoulder of the child, drawing her away and placing his own body between her and the Squib.
Distracted by the rain of fire no one really noticed when Edna's body crumpled silently to the ground as whatever force had held it onto life faded. It fell in a pile of dust and bones, the singed skull rolling to lie at Rookwoods feet. He looked at in disgust, and kicked it aside.