Chapter 22: Piercing Cries

Dumbledore had not placed on her the requirement of reporting on her progress, trusting instead that she would speak with him when she was ready. He was, perhaps, a bit surprised that she came to see him only a week and a half after the beginning of her suspension, but the purpose of her visit was, in fact, to make a request that had nothing to do with her returning to duty.

"Do you know anything about Sharpie's family?" she asked shortly after her arrival. "Where they might be, for instance?"

She had spent the better part of a day thinking it out before speaking with Dumbledore, but there was a task she had finally set for herself that she was determined to carry out if it was at all possible. She only hoped that Sharpie had not been the sort of Death Eater who would kill off his family in order to hide his Muggle origins from Voldemort.

Dumbledore regarded her thoughtfully before answering. "I know where they were a year and a half ago," he replied slowly. "They posted a letter to me with a return address."

Meli frowned. "A year and a half ago?"

He nodded. "Mrs. Pierce was hoping I might have some information about Dirk," he said. "He went missing the night Voldemort returned; to all appearances, he vanished without a trace. I was unable to help her at the time, and…" He looked a touch uncomfortable. "Even when I discovered where he had gone, I was hesitant to tell his parents about it."

"They never knew he was a Death Eater, then?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "To my knowledge," he told her, "they don't even know that he's dead."

Meli swallowed then took a deep breath. "I'd like to be the one to tell them, sir," she said firmly.

Now he fixed her with a penetrating gaze, weighing her resolve and her reasoning and probably half a dozen other factors, as well. "How much will you tell them?" he asked after a moment.

"They deserve to know he's died," she replied. "I think they also deserve to know that he was a Death Eater, though I'm not sure I could bring myself to tell them, either. But they need some manner of closure, Headmaster, and I'd like to give them that much, at least."

ooo

Sharpie had never talked much about his family, beyond general references to the fact that he had one, and since family ties had been a sore subject for all of the Skulkers, none of the others had pressed him in the matter. It hadn't required much detective work on Meli, Crim, or Collum's part to discover that Sharpie was Muggle-born, though he had hidden it well from the start, and, since none of them had a problem with Muggles, they had never troubled themselves to learn more there, either. It was an accepted practice among the Skulkers to share what they would with whom they would and to keep the rest to themselves, and that, Meli felt, was where they had actually failed Sharpie in the end.

She had never seen his family, either in life or in pictures, and she had only a vague idea that he had grown up somewhere near the coast. She was not surprised, therefore, when Dumbledore gave her an address in Brighton, but she also was uncomfortably aware that, whether she had the right house or not, the person answering the door would be a stranger.

Meli took her time in getting ready for her excursion, choosing Muggle clothing that was just-so, a glamourie that was just-so, and a cover story that was more than just-so. She had never met the Pierces, and she had no desire to start things off on the wrong foot, particularly given the type of news she was bringing them.

The young woman who appeared in the Muggle section of Brighton was slim and delicate of feature, with a gentle grace about her that seemed unaccountably to indicate quiet grief. She looked around briefly to orient herself then walked steadily toward the destination written out carefully on a scrap of paper she carried in her left hand.

She never stopped nor hesitated until she came to the door of the house, but then it required fully five minutes for her to scrounge up the courage to knock.

The door was answered by a woman nearly twice her age, who had jaw-length white-blonde hair, startling blue eyes, and a careworn countenance on which time and worries had taken a heavy toll. She regarded her visitor wearily, too tired even to give a word of greeting.

"Mrs. Pierce?" the young woman said uncertainly.

The lady of the house seemed surprised, but she nodded. "Yes," she replied, in a voice as tired as the rest of her.

"My name is Ada Clare," the visitor told her. "I've come from Professor Albus Dumbledore."

Relief and hope sprang up in Mrs. Pierce's face, giving off a light that was almost youthening. "You have news about Dirk?" she asked, then went on without awaiting a reply. "Come in!"

Meli followed the unfortunate woman down a hallway and into the sitting room, where a tallish man sat near the window, reading his newspaper. He looked up at their entry, and she saw looking back at her Sharpie's pale gray eyes. Lance Pierce's hair and mustache were both gray, but she judged by their shade that he had once been blond. He stood up to shake Meli's hand when his wife introduced her then invited her to sit while Mrs. Pierce dashed off to find someone else.

"I hope you're not alarmed by Susan's excitement, Miss Clare," he said quietly, parting with a grave smile. "We've all been worried about Dirk, but it seems almost as if she takes all of our weight upon herself. She is one of those rare souls who will never cease to cry at the evening news because she feels the pain of loss as if those thousands of people abroad were her own family."

Meli smiled soberly. "I daresay it will never be a poor world with such hearts as that about," she replied.

Susan Pierce returned then, with a girl following her. This girl Meli thought might be about seventeen or eighteen, and there was no doubt of her being Sharpie's sister. She had pale hair pulled into a waist-length braid, pale gray eyes, and the same pointed chin; when she smiled reflexively at the sight of a guest, she even betrayed a hint of the same dimple in her left cheek.

"This is our daughter Épée," Mrs. Pierce said. "She'll be going to university next autumn."

Meli offered a truer smile. "What do you hope to study?" she asked politely.

"History," Épée replied. "I'd like eventually to teach at the university level."

They engaged in a bit more small talk, but no more than seemed to be required for the occasion, and at the end of it, Meli found herself the object of three desperately curious pairs of eyes. She had discovered through the light conversation that Sharpie was very much loved and admired by his family, and while she had no idea if it actually made her task harder, it certainly made it no easier.

She cleared her throat and vowed to take it like a Gryffindor—well, she amended hastily, a cautious Gryffindor. "As you no doubt have guessed," she began, "I've come from Hogwarts with some news of Sh—Dirk."

"You've just nearly called him something else," Épée pointed out.

She's a sharp one, Meli thought ruefully. More and more like him every minute. "We called him Sharpie in school," she said. "He always had a Sharpie marker somewhere in easy reach—it was a bit of a trademark."

"You knew him, then?" Mrs. Pierce surmised.

"A little," Meli allowed. "The truth is that…there is no one left who knew him well." She cleared her throat to ward off an involuntary tightening. "I honestly don't know how much you know about the goings-on in the wizarding world right now," she continued. "When Dirk started at Hogwarts, there was a Dark Lord on the rise. He was nearly killed and went into exile when we were third years, but there was always the chance of his coming back." She met each one's eyes. "He returned around the time Dirk went missing."

The elder Pierces both paled, but Épée, oddly, made no reaction at all.

She knows something, Meli realized. She's his baby sister—he might very well have taken her into his confidence.

"You must have found him, or some clue about him, if you're here, though," the girl said in a low voice.

Meli nodded and found herself casting about for the proper words. "We found him after a battle," she told them at last. "He and two of his closest friends from school were all found together, actually. They had been killed in a sortie—I'm very sorry."

Now Épée did pale as her mother burst into tears; Sharpie's father went very still, but the look in his eyes expressed every ounce of his shocked disbelief.

"How did he die?" Épée asked quietly. "There was not…much pain?"

Meli closed her eyes briefly, but she could not answer without looking directly at Sharpie's sister. "He died quickly," she replied. "I honestly cannot say how he felt—the curse used on him can be painful"—Agonizing, she amended silently—"but we know that he fought to his last breath. I know that sometimes pain can be set aside through sheer force of will…and I know that Dirk was very strong of purpose."

Mr. Pierce set his jaw and nodded in affirmation of her statement, while his wife mustered a broken smile through her tears. Épée furrowed her brow and bit her lip, the first signs of acceptance and grief surfacing in her eyes. "Well said," she murmured. "My brother was nothing if not that." She now looked searchingly at Meli, as if hoping to discern from the guest's countenance just how much was truly known about Sharpie; the guest in question kept her expression carefully neutral.

Meli ended her visit shortly afterward, and while Mr. Pierce remained behind to comfort his wife, Épée walked her to the door.

"May I speak with you for a moment?" she asked once they were out of the others' earshot.

Meli regarded her coolly. "Certainly."

Épée matched her look for look. "You never said a word about Dirk being a Death Eater," she stated. "And yet, if you found him in the aftermath of a battle, you can't help but have known."

How I hate being right, Meli thought miserably. "There didn't seem to be a delicate way of saying it," she replied softly, flicking her eyes in the direction of the sitting room. "When I came here, I was unaware that you knew."

Épée offered a wan half-smile. "He told me where he was going the day before he went off," she admitted. "Both of us knew that Mum and Dad wouldn't understand, but he wanted me to know—he wanted someone to know." She leaned forward slightly, as if taking Meli into her confidence. "He did it for us," she all but whispered.

The surviving Skulker stared at her. "He did it for you," she repeated hollowly. "How, pray tell, does that follow?"

The girl glanced back in the direction of her parents, then beckoned for Meli to follow and led the way into another room nearby, which proved to be a small study.

"Look," she said, still keeping her voice low. "I don't know even half of everything about the wizarding world—I'll tell you that for free. What I do know, though, is that Dirk's blood was thicker than his skull, and you may think what you will about that, keeping in mind that I'm his sister."

Meli smiled in spite of herself. "Not knowing the facts of the matter," she answered, "I'm happy to take your word for it."

Épée nodded, permitting herself a tiny smirk eerily reminiscent of Sharpie's. "He told me about this Lord Moldy, or whatever his name is," she went on, "and how he was all in favor of a world entirely of, by, and for wizards, with Muggles being either slaves or exterminated—or worse." She shook her head. "Dirk wasn't even sure he'd be safe in a world run by this fellow if it was known where he'd come from, so he set out to do what he could to prevent the worst."

"How?" Meli pressed. He can't have been a spy! she screamed inwardly. He would never have murdered Crim, and if he didn't report to Dumbledore, who the hell would he have trusted? He had as low an opinion of the Ministry as I ever had!

The girl sighed. "He erased all ties to us," she replied. "Made himself out to be a pureblood—which wasn't too far of a stretch, as far as I see, since I think he'd always kept it hidden that he came from Muggles. He told me that if this fellow lost, we'd be safe anyway, but if he won, Dirk meant to be in a position to protect us. He went in hoping to climb through the ranks, which would give him the right connections to hide us away and keep us safe."

This is impossible! The structure of words shattered as her mind spun in a thousand directions at once, every possible argument flashing across her mind's eye in a chaotic frenzy of sound and color, devoid of order but drenched in meaning. For every piece and fragment and shard that careened crazily about, there was an equally wild emotion that was as impossible to synthesize as the pictures and noise—a noise that built rapidly up from an ethereal sighing to a tumultuous rushing in her ears. She fixed her gaze on Épée Pierce, using the form of the girl before her as a stationary point on which to focus as she rode out the storm, until at last the sound and fury coalesced into a single, anguished realization:

I murdered an innocent man.

And yet, she saw immediately after, he hadn't been innocent. He had done far more than simply take the Dark Mark.

"I—I don't understand," she said hoarsely. "He killed Crimson Fell—he threatened Meli Ebony. Why—!"

Épée shook her head sorrowfully. "He said…we were more important," she replied. "I saw him right after he…found…Crimson. He—it took him an hour or more to tell me what had happened. He couldn't breathe without sobbing. But he said it was the only way—she was one of the Dark Lord's greatest enemies, and killing her would…would help him rise in the ranks." She met Meli's eye and shook her head again. "I don't know anything about what he said to Meli," she continued, "but I'm sure he had the same goal in mind."

Meli made no attempt to hide her anguish. Let the girl think what she would; she could hardly suspect the true identity of her visitor. "He never told anyone, though," she whispered. "Épée, if he had told the Skulkers about it, they would willingly have helped him! All four of them might still be alive, if he had only taken them into his confidence!"

"Are all of them dead, then?" Épée asked, her voice rising suddenly in pitch.

Meli nodded. "Everything I told you is true," she answered quietly. "He was found with Collum and Meli—they killed one another, Épée. The others died thinking he had thrown in his lot with the enemy."

The girl's distress was evident in her features. "I asked him why he didn't tell them," she told Meli. "He said if they didn't react precisely right, he would be exposed as a sham and be killed as a spy!"

"Oh, God," Meli breathed, Dumbledore's voice ringing in her ears.

How much is it worth to you, he had demanded of Snape and Zarekael, this genuine reaction that you deemed so necessary?

The two spies had forfeited the headmaster's trust, at least for a time; Sharpie had forfeited his life and the lives of three of his friends. Snape and Zarekael had achieved their objective, however, while Sharpie had defeated his own purpose and salvaged nothing worthwhile in the meantime. Most critically, Snape and Zarekael had correctly judged the thoughts and reactions of all parties involved, whereas Sharpie had struck out on all counts.

He had underestimated the thickness of Collum's own blood and the others' loyalty to Crim—and to him. The twins' parents were Aurors; Crim herself was an Unspeakable, and Collum and Meli were hardly lacking in connections. Had he but come to them, they would gladly have pooled their resources to protect both him and his family, but instead, unaccountably, he had chosen to rely on no one but himself…and everyone had lost.

"Why Crimson, though?" Meli whispered after a moment. "Why kill her? She was at least as hard to find as Collum would have been."

Épée bit her lip. "She was the one most likely to figure him out," she answered simply. "Followed by Meli, he said, but for some reason Meli was untouchable." She looked down. "He never meant to kill any of the others, and it nearly killed him to harm Crimson, but he'd got it into his head that he had to do it."

"And if You-Know-Who had lost?" Meli inquired. "Dirk had to know that he'd be tried and imprisoned."

Épée nodded. "He was willing to risk it for us," she stated. She looked up and met Meli's eye again. "And he knew he could die before the war ended in any case," she added. "So he left a letter with me, just in case someone came to tell us he'd been killed. You can take it to Dumbledore?"

Meli swallowed. "I can take it to Dumbledore."

ooo

How she held her tears at bay until she stood again in the headmaster's office, she never could afterward fathom. She managed it, though, and even when the tears finally came, they were silent and cold, without sobbing or flushed cheeks or any other violent accompaniment. When Dumbledore asked how her visit had gone, she wordlessly handed him a parchment envelope.

He watched her a moment in silence before opening it; the contents proved to be one full page of parchment and several smaller scraps that had been folded in with the larger one. Meli made no reaction when he unfolded and glanced at the page, but she was thoroughly surprised when he replaced the parchments in the envelope and returned it to her with the explanation, "I believe this is yours."

"He meant me to read it?" she asked quietly.

"He addressed it to you," the headmaster replied. "Whether or not you read it is, of course, your choice, but I believe it was Dirk's intention that you do so."

Meli shook her head slowly. "He had good intentions," she murmured. "But he was misguided in how he went about it." She sighed. "'He did what he had to do, sir, and it's something in this world, even to do that.'"

Dumbledore smiled gently. "I detect a note of Dickens in your musing," he observed. "Hard Times?"

"Bleak House," Meli answered. "Mr. Coavins sent men to debtors' prison, but he did it to support his children—to protect them from the trials of destitution." She shook her head. "And then he died, and the children had to look after themselves anyway." She was silent a moment, then took a deep breath and looked Dumbledore in the eye. "I know this isn't pertinent to my activities as Rasa, Headmaster, but I'd like to record it in my log, please. It'll already be publicly known that Sharpie was a Death Eater; now that I know the rest of it, I want that to be publicly known, as well."

She was under no illusions as to the previously known facts being recorded; when Snape had learnt from her that Sharpie had gone over to Voldemort, he would surely have logged it, and he and Zarekael had most certainly reported their carving of the Death Eater after Crimson's death. Now, however, she was the only person in the wizarding world who knew the full story, and if she didn't record it, Sharpie would only ever be known as a selfish, power-grubbing traitor.

Susan Pierce deserved better than that for her son, and Sharpie deserved better for himself.

Dumbledore gauged her for a moment, then nodded and set up the logbook and Dicto-Quill without another word.

She recorded, in painstaking detail, her entire visit with the Pierce family, from the various reactions her news elicited to the quiet conversation she'd had with Épée afterward to the envelope she had received and shown to Dumbledore. She left nothing out, and by the end of her narrative, it was impossible to say if Rasa or the headmaster was the more morose one.

"Can you account for his killing Collum Fell?" Dumbledore asked when she had done. "If his sister spoke truly, Dirk had no wish to do so, and yet he did."

Meli nodded slowly. "I've been working at that puzzle myself," she admitted. "All I can think is that he killed in self-defense." She smiled ruefully. "Collum wasn't going to capture or wound him, Headmaster—that much was painfully clear. Had he got off a hex, it would likely have been a deadly curse, and in a case like that…Well, as I can testify, when it's you or the other fellow, you don't stop to think that he was once a friend."

"But wouldn't the Kedavra have made more sense?" Dumbledore persisted.

She shook her head. "Sharpie saw me coming, sir," she replied. "He knew I'd survive because everyone was under orders not to kill me, so he remained in character and killed painfully." She swallowed the hard lump in her throat and continued, "I can only think that he hoped he could somehow convince me to let him survive, but I suppose we'll never know now."

"Would you have let him live?" the headmaster asked quietly.

Meli closed her eyes and sighed. "When he first took the Mark, yes," she answered. "Even after Crim, if he had just come to us and told us, I think I would have done." She opened her eyes again and stared at the desk. "After Collum…I truly don't know. I was in such a state that I don't think I would have listened. As I am now, yes; as I was then, though, I honestly cannot say."

ooo

She returned to her rooms shortly thereafter and stared blindly at the wall for what she later thought might have been an hour or more. It was a gradual awakening, but she did eventually emerge from that numb state, and then the question of what she was to do now reared its ugly head.

The envelope had remained clutched in her left hand the entire time, but it could not stay there forever. Sooner or later she would have to make the decision to open it, to set it aside, or to destroy it, and while she had no desire to make that choice at all, the fact remained that if she did nothing now, she would never do anything. Doing nothing, while appealing on the one hand, seemed too much like the coward's way out for a Gryffindor like herself to allow, so it was imperative, if only to prevent a great deal of annoyance, for her to do something.

Which brought her nicely full-circle to the question of what, exactly, she would do.

Meli had a good, long, hard stare at the wall for another moment or so then set her teeth. "The problem with Gryffindors," she sighed at last, "is that we're just too bloody much like cats."

Having uttered those rather opaque and yet somehow vicious words, she stalked over to the couch, threw herself down on it, and hurriedly tore open the envelope before she could second-guess herself and call the whole thing off.

The full-size page and each of the scraps were labeled with dates in their upper right-hand corners, making it easy for her to discern both the proper sequence of writing and the events surrounding what had been written. The letter on the page came first and had been written the day after Voldemort's return, while Meli was still in the hospital and Crim and Collum were making the final arrangements to disappear themselves. Meli took a deep breath and turned her eyes to the words that followed the date.

Dear Meli,
I don't know when you'll receive this or what you'll think of me when you do. I daresay you'll read it more as a concession than out of true interest, and I can hardly blame you for that. What may come in the days ahead, I can't say for certain, but I know that there are plans I have in mind to carry out which will make us enemies. I'm not so foolish as to hope you'll forgive me—I don't deserve that honor. I only hope that you will understand, or at least take my word for it, that what I do is for a cause other than my own advancement.

I suspected even before starting at Hogwarts that Muggles and Muggle-borns might be looked down upon. That is why I took such trouble to hide my origins and why I am much obliged to you and to Crimson and Collum for remaining silent. Once I became better acquainted with the happenings in the wizarding world, I was all the more glad for my family remaining secret because I knew that they would be in danger as long as You-Know-Who was about. I believed you, Meli, when you warned us that he wasn't dead but only exiled, and it was then that my present plans took early form.

I mean to join the Death Eaters, and I mean to get as close to You-Know-Who as I can. As the only wizard in my family, I am the only true protection they have if he should win in the end. I thought briefly of going to Snape for help, but I am not nearly so sure of him as you and Crim are; even Collum doesn't trust him, and he is more like you than I ever will be. I also considered Dumbledore, but he would never understand. He would think I was using my family as an excuse, and the last thing I need now is a lecture on proper priorities. I know what I'm about, Meli—I want you to understand that. I don't want power, at least not the kind You-Know-Who has to offer, and after what he did to you, I don't trust him to give even what he promises. He's in this for himself, and as you know far better than I do, he never cared for his family as much as for power; I care more for my family than for anything else.

I can't make up my mind to post this to you anytime soon. I'll leave it with my sister for now, and if I ever change my mind, it'll be a simple enough matter to retrieve it and post it after all.

I know what you think of Death Eaters, and I know what you think of murderers. I am soon to become both, and I understand completely that you will hate me for it. I have knowingly entered into this deal with the devil, in the hopes that my family will be safe, even though I forfeit my soul and the regard of my friends.

I am not a martyr.

I am nothing more or less than a Hufflepuff in Slytherin's robes. As much as we have despised the badger, Meli, it does have two admirable traits: loyalty and determination. I hope I may truly say that I have those virtues, at least, even if one loyalty is subordinate to another.

I do not ask you to think well of me, but I hope that one day you will realize that I have never ceased to think well of you.

Farewell,
Sharpie

Meli held the page between her thumb and forefinger for a near-eternity after reading the words scribed upon it, and she once more stared blindly ahead of her. Her thoughts turned back to her confrontation with Sharpie on Diagon Alley the day after Crim's death, and she now saw the entire conversation in a wholly different light.

His goal had been precisely what he had told her that day—to rise quickly through the ranks—but not for the reasons she had assumed. When she had seen in his eyes that he somehow wanted to be understood, what he had wanted her to understand—but what he couldn't bring himself to say—was that, even if they weren't precisely on the same side, he at least was not on Voldemort's side. In signing his initials, he hadn't meant to make the murder personal; he had simply overplayed his hand in making it clear that he and no one else had done the deed and that, therefore, he and no one else deserved a reward for it.

And she had, as she intended, most certainly sparked an emotional reaction when she brought up his Muggle family, but it wasn't the prideful anger she had assumed. She saw now that, far from being angry, Sharpie had been panicking, for she was unknowingly threatening to undo everything that he had sacrificed so much to accomplish.

According to Épée, he had been an emotional wreck after killing Crim, which told Meli that he'd had to force himself to do it, not because he hadn't the stomach to commit murder, but rather because his loyalty to his friends was still powerful. He had written vaguely in his letter about one loyalty being subordinate to another, and she had no doubt that, in the end, Sharpie had convinced himself that he had to sacrifice his friends in order to save his family.

She felt a sharp pang of regret at the thought. If he had only trusted his friends enough to ask their help—! Crimson was an Unspeakable, Collum a mediwizard, Meli a person with connections; if necessary, they could have faked the death of one or even both of the twins in a way that would have guaranteed Sharpie's success. Any number of other ideas came to mind, countless possible ways that his friends could and would have helped him if he had only asked…

It's my fault he didn't, though, she realized soberly. What was it he had said? "I know what you think of Death Eaters, and I know what you think of murderers. I am soon to become both, and I understand completely that you will hate me for it."

He never saw that I liked and trusted Severus, she thought. Somehow he missed that, and I never made the connection for him. All he understood was my antipathy for Death Eaters in general; how could he not have thought it would transfer to him as soon as he took the Dark Mark?

And yet he had held onto a shred of a hope that someday she might bring herself to understand and, if not approve, at least think better of him.

She understood, but it was a broken-hearted understanding tainted by deep regret and shattering self-reproach. Her friends were all she had in the world, and the Skulkers were the closest of all of them to her heart…and she had failed them, for in failing Sharpie, she had brought about the others' deaths, as well.

I could never bring myself to hate him, she recalled. But now I must ask if I can, or ought to, bring myself to hate myself.

Sharpie, of course, would never have seen it this way; his letter made that plain. He laid the blame squarely at his own feet, not indicating that he felt her to be culpable in any way. If he had survived the war and talked the matter over with her, she suspected that he would reproach her for blaming herself or holding herself in any way responsible; he was very much like Crim in that respect.

But Sharpie wasn't around, and neither was Crim, and Meli was left very much by herself in the matter of determining her course.

I don't know yet how I feel, she concluded at last. Perhaps I ought to wait until after I've read everything.

She slowly leaned forward to place the page on the coffee table and sorted the parchment scraps by date.

The script on the first scrap had the painful neatness of a person forcing steadiness to his hand in order to mask the maelstrom in his soul. It had been written shortly after Meli's sudden departure from Surrey, and she strongly suspected that Sharpie had penned it within a day following his initiation.

Do you remember me…
Or will you forget me?
I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming.
Am I too lost to be saved?
Am I too lost?

Today I have taken the second to last step. Now they
won't take me back; I can only go forward from here.
If I can just remember that there's already no turning
back, maybe it will make easier what I have to do
next.
God forgive me. No one else will.

Meli had no doubt about what it was that Sharpie had felt he had to do next. As well as Crimson Fell had hidden herself, he must have been looking for her for months, and once he was fully initiated as a Death Eater, he had no logical excuse not to begin his search. There was, of course, the emotional excuse, but having convinced himself that the Skulkers already hated him anyway, he had managed to overcome that objection—at least long enough to do what he felt was necessary.

The next scrap was dated the day before Meli had gone to London to identify Crim's body. In all likelihood, he had left it with Épée before the fateful meeting on Diagon Alley, and Meli felt oddly comforted by that fact. As distressed as Sharpie had already been, at least he hadn't had to face his sister after having had his most anguished fears painfully confirmed by Meli herself. He may or may not have chosen to tell his sister what had transpired…but at least he hadn't had the option at the time.

I tried to kill the pain,
But only brought more,
So much more.
I lay dying,
And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal.

It is over. If I ever could have turned back
before, I no longer have a choice in the matter.
Blood is thicker than water…but so are the
ties between friends. I never thought until
now—I never let myself think it—that the
price of my family's safety might be too much
for me to bear. I never thought my grief for
Crim and my hate for myself after—God, after
murdering her! I never thought this could bury
my fears for my family!

All I want now is to die. What was I thinking when
I took the Dark Mark? Harry Potter will win,
and everything I've worried about won't matter.

Everything I've done, everything I've given up,
all of my efforts—they're pointless. I have
destroyed everything I valued, for if my parents
ever learn what I've done—

There is nothing left for me now except to
continue on this course and pray that something
good comes of it eventually.

I earnestly hope that Meli or Collum finds me.
After what I've done, they'll be doing me a favor
if they kill me.

Meli furrowed her brow and blinked a few times to clear her vision before going immediately to what was scrawled on the final scrap, which was dated a fortnight before his death.

I WANT TO DIE!
My wounds cry for the grave.
My soul cries for deliverance.
Will I be denied…
My suicide?

He had written nothing further after that truncated bit, and Meli suspected that he had said all that he felt he could say in those words. Knowing as she did the origin of the song from which he had drawn all three excerpts, she felt it safe to conclude that Sharpie's wish had not altered in the time between December and June, except to intensify, possibly to the point of becoming an obsession. He might, as she had previously thought, have been trying to redeem himself in Voldemort's eyes by making an attempt at capturing Harry Potter and by killing Collum as he had done, but she was no longer certain of that. Sharpie had to have known that Harry was heavily protected, and he could not have been so foolish as to think that a Skulker on faculty would have failed to take into account the secret passages leading into the dungeons. Only the fact that Meli had left that particular passage unwarded had permitted him to go as far as he had, and only the need for Aurors to be elsewhere had kept him from being hexed into oblivion on emerging from it. Meli had nominated Collum, in his form as Monty, to patrol that corridor, knowing that it would be vulnerable if Sharpie had made its presence known to other Death Eaters or made use of it himself.

Sharpie, however, could have been counting on the passage being either booby-trapped or more heavily guarded, in which case his death was actually a bizarre case of "suicide-by-cop", as Andrea might have called it.

The Aurors would have fired to kill at that point, but Collum and Meli were more questionable. Suddenly she saw an entirely different reason for his having used a slower-acting curse on Collum: The Venarupturum was relatively quick and painless when compared with the other Sangriatus curses, but it permitted enough time for the victim to fire off one last hex…a deadly curse, for instance.

Granted, Collum's intention to kill Sharpie had appeared quite evident from the beginning of the confrontation, but it was possible that the Death Eater had thought he might back down. Unlikely, of course, but possible, in its way; while Collum had been the Skulker most given to harboring grudges, he had also been the one most ready to relent if his better feelings came to the fore.

Maybe, maybe not, Meli sighed inwardly. She could work out the logic of it any number of ways, but this was one case in which she could never be sure. That Sharpie had been depressed was obvious; that he had been suicidal wasn't too much of a stretch. There was, however, no solid evidence that his last stand had been a successful bid for death, and she saw no real profit in pursuing the point. He had died, and that fact would not change, no matter what his motives or Meli's thoughts on his potential motives; what mattered in the end was what she chose to do in light of what she did know.

She smiled slightly. It was strange, really; she had expected to feel more confused and angrier at herself, at Sharpie, at the world, after reading what he'd left for her to find, but instead it seemed that something within her had come to a settled conclusion. She still blamed herself, at least in part, for his feeling that he couldn't confide in the Skulkers—that was an issue that could only be resolved over time—but she felt herself oddly freed from the burden of his death.

The irony of it was that she should have felt further culpable, not liberated, for it had been her failure that had ultimately led to Sharpie's demise. But Sharpie himself had never said a thing about that; he took full responsibility for his choices, and he would not have blamed her for killing him.

Even, she realized suddenly, if he hadn't been suicidal. He would have understood that I was doing it out of— She let out a laugh of morose amusement. Out of loyalty and determination.

As she had told Andrea nearly a year ago, Dirk Pierce was nothing if not an all-or-nothing sort.

ooo

AUTHOR'S NOTE: All three quotes from the parchment scraps recorded in this chapter are taken from "Tourniquet", written by Ben Moody, Amy Lee, D. Hodges, and R. Gray; and performed by Evanescence.

And Cinammon, welcome back! I'm glad the story continues to keep your attention, and I hope you enjoy the rest that's to come!
AE