Chapter III
September 21. Every muscle in my body aches. Yesterday we spent 10 hours hiking, digging, and carrying loads of wands, spell components, and potion ingredients through the woods. This evening we moved all our supplies from the old cottage to our new hideout.
It was a little before noon yesterday when we reached the turnoff near Edinburgh and left the highway which we had been using as our guide. Since the muggle highway system was easily plottable, we knew it would be unlikely that the Death Eaters would look for us there. We flew as close to our cache as we could, but the only clearing we could land in was nearly a kilometer away.
The consequence was that we had nearly a two-kilometer hike each way instead of less than half a kilometer. And it took three round trips to get everything to the Hover Trunk we had brought with us. We brought shovels, a rope, and a couple of large canvas sacks, but, as it turned out, these tools were woefully inadequate for the task.
Hiking from the brooms to the cache with our shovels on our shoulders was actually refreshing, after the long flight up from London. The day was pleasantly cool, the autumn woods were beautiful, and the old dirt road, though heavily overgrown, provided easy walking most of the way.
Even digging down to the top of the large cauldron in which we had sealed our collection wasn't too bad. The ground was fairly soft, and it took us less than an hour to excavate a two-meter-deep pit and tie our rope to the handles which had been sealed to the lid of the cauldron.
Then our trouble began. Hermione and I tugged on the rope as hard as we could, but the cauldron wouldn't budge an inch. It was as if it had been set in stone.
Although the full cauldron weighed nearly 200 kilograms, two of us had been able to lower it into the pit without undue difficulty three years ago. At that time, of course, there had been several centimeters of clearance all around it. Now the earth had settled and was packed tightly against the metal.
We gave up trying to get the cauldron out of the hole and decided to open it where it was. To do that we had to dig for nearly another hour, enlarging the hole and clearing a few centimeters all around the top of the cauldron so we could get our hands on the chain which secured the lid. Even so, I had to go into the hole headfirst, with Hermione holding my legs.
Although the outside of the cauldron had been painted with dragon blood to magic decay, the locking lever itself was thoroughly rusted, and I broke the only screwdriver we had trying to pry it loose. Finally, after much pounding, I was able to pry the lever out from the cauldron with the end of a shovel. With the chain loosened, however, the lid remained as tightly in place as ever, apparently stuck to the drum by the dragon blood coating we had applied.
Working upside down in the narrow hole was difficult and exhausting. We had no tool satisfactory for wedging under the lip of the lid and prying it up. Finally, almost in desperation, I once again tied the rope to one of the handles on the lid. Hermione and I gave a hard tug, and the lid popped off!
Then it was just a matter of my going headfirst into the hole again, supporting myself with one arm on the edge of the cauldron, and passing the carefully wrapped bundles of supplies up past my body so that Hermione could reach them. Some of the larger bundles- and that included six sealed pouches of spell ingredients- were both too heavy and too bulky for this method and had to be hauled up by rope.
Needless to say, by the time we had the cauldron empty I was completely pooped. My arms ached, my legs were unsteady, and my clothing was drenched with perspiration. But we still had to carry more than 150 kilograms of supplies half a kilometer through dense woods, uphill to the clearing, and then more than a mile back to the brooms.
We had to stop every hundred meters or so and put our loads down for a minute, and the last two trips were made in total darkness. It finally dawned on Hermione to take out one of the wands and use magic to carry the last of our supplies. After such an exhausting time getting the supplies out of the cauldron, we had apparently lost our good sense. If we don't do a better job of planning our operations in the future, we have some rough times ahead!
On the way back to London we stopped at a small roadside cafe near Manchester for sandwiches and coffee. There were about a dozen wizards in the place, and an evening broadcast of the Wizard News (controlled by Goblins of course) was showing on a crystal ball behind the counter when we walked in. It was a news broadcast I'll never forget.
The big story of the day was what the Order had been up to in Liverpool. Lord Voldemort, it seems, had killed one of our people, and in turn we had killed three Death Eaters and then engaged in a spectacular - and successful - wandfight with the authorities. Nearly the whole newscast was occupied in recounting these events.
We already knew from the papers that nine of our members had been arrested in Liverpool last week, and apparently they had had a rough time in the Lancashire Wizarding Jail (Azkaban's capacity being stretched to the limit), where one of them had died. It was impossible to be sure exactly what had happened from what the news announcer said, but if Lord Voldemort had behaved true to form the authorities had stuck our people individually into cells full of Dementors and then shut their eyes and ears to what ensued.
That has long been Lord Voldemort's extra-legal way of punishing our people when they can't pin anything on them that will "stick" in the courts. It's a more ghastly and dreadful punishment than anything which ever took place in a medieval torture chamber or in the cellars of the KGB. And they can get away with it because the news media usually won't even admit that it happens. After all, if you're trying to convince the public that the Dementors are really benign, how can you admit that it's worse to be locked in a cell full of Dementors than in a cell full of Wizards?
Anyway, the day after our man-the newscaster said his name was Cladipus Shortfoot, someone I've not heard of before-was killed, the Liverpool Order fulfilled a promise they'd made more than a year ago, in the event one of our people was ever seriously hurt in a Liverpool jail. They ambushed the Lancashire County sheriff outside his home and blew him to pieces with an arcane missile. They left a note pinned to his door which read: "That was for Shortfoot."
That was last Saturday night. On Sunday Lord Voldemort was up in arms. The sheriff of Lancashire County had been a political bigwig, a front-rank in the Ministry, and they were really raising hell.
Although they broadcast the news only to the Liverpool area on Sunday, they trotted out several pillars of the community there to denounce the assassination and the Order in special news appearances. One of the spokesmen was a "responsible conservative," and another was the head of the Liverpool Goblin community. All of them described the Order as a "gang of racist bigots" and called on "all right-thinking Liverpoolians" to cooperate with the political police in apprehending the "racists" who had killed the sheriff.
Well, early this morning the responsible conservative lost both his legs and suffered severe internal injuries when a Compressiatus bomb (courtesy of Fred and George's secret lab) which was attached to his broom went off. The Goblin spokesman was even less fortunate. Someone walked up to him while he was waiting for an elevator in the lobby of his office building, pulled a hatchet from under his coat, cleaved the good Goblin's head from crown to shoulder blades, then disappeared in the rush-hour crowd. The Order immediately claimed responsibility for both acts.
After that, it really hit the fan. The Alderman of Lancashire ordered Ministry troops into Liverpool to help local police hunt for Order members. Thousands of persons were being stopped on Liverpool streets today and asked to prove their identity. Lord Voldemort's paranoia is really showing.
This afternoon three men were cornered in a small apartment building in Carlisle. The whole block was surrounded by Ministry forces, while the trapped men dueled with the police. News crews were all over the place, anxious not to miss the kill.
One of the men in the apartment apparently used the Patronus curse, because two Dementors more than a block away were picked off before it was realized that Dementors were being singled out as targets and uniformed Wizard police were not being attacked. This Wizard immunity apparently was not extended to the plainrobed political police, however, because a Ministry agent was killed by a burst of killing curses from the apartment when he momentarily exposed himself to hurl a Emotio Potion through a window.
We watched breathlessly as this action was shown on the crystal ball, but the real climax came for us when the apartment was stormed and found empty. A quick room-by-room search of the building also failed to turn up the Order members.
Disappointment at this outcome was evident in the newsman's voice, but a man Wizard at the other end of the counter from us whistled and clapped when it was announced that the "racists" had apparently slipped away. The waitress smiled at this, and it seemed clear to us that, while there certainly was no unanimous approval for the Order's actions in Liverpool, neither was there unanimous disapproval.
Almost as if Lord Voldemort anticipated this reaction to the afternoon's events, the news scene switched to London, where the Assistant Minister of the Wizard World had called a special news conference. The Assistant Minister announced to the nation that the Ministry of Magic was throwing all its forces into the effort to root out the Order. He described us as "depraved, racist criminals" who were motivated solely by hatred and who wanted to "undo all the progress toward true equality" which had been made by Lord Voldemort in recent years.
All citizens were warned to be alert and to assist the government in breaking up the "racist conspiracy." Anyone observing any suspicious action, especially on the part of a stranger, was to report it immediately to the nearest Ministry office.
And then he said something very indiscreet, which really betrayed how worried Lord Voldemort is. He stated that any citizen found to be concealing information about us or offering us any comfort or assistance "would be dealt with severely." Those were his very words-the sort of thing one might expect to hear in the Soviet Union, but which would ring harshly on most Wizards ears, despite the best propaganda efforts of the Goblin media to justify it.
All the risks taken by our people in Liverpool were more than rewarded by provoking the Assistant Minister into such a psychological blunder. This incident also proves the value of keeping Lord Voldemort off balance with surprise attacks. If the Death Eaters had kept their cool and thought more carefully about a response to our Liverpool actions, it not only would have avoided a blunder which will bring us hundreds of new recruits, but it would probably have figured a way to win much wider public support for its fight against us.
The news program concluded with an announcement that an hour-long "special" on the "racist conspiracy" would be broadcast Tuesday night (i.e., tonight). We've just finished watching that "special," and it was a real hatchet job, full of errors and outright invention and not very convincing, we all felt. But one thing is certain: the media blackout is over. Liverpool has given the Order instant celebrity status, and we must certainly be the number-one topic of conversation everywhere in the nation.
As last night's news ended, Hermione and I choked down the last of our meal and stumbled outside. I was filled with emotions: excitement, elation over the success of our people in Liverpool, nervousness about being one of the targets of a nationwide manhunt, and chagrin that none of our units in the London area had shown the initiative of our Liverpool units.
I was itching to do something, and the first thing that occurred to me was to try to make some sort of contact with the fellow in the cafe who had seemed sympathetic to us. I wanted to take some leaflets from our trunk and put one in the bristles of every broom outside the cafe.
Hermione, who always keeps a cool head, emphatically vetoed the idea. As we straddled the brooms she explained that it was sheer folly to risk calling any attention whatever to ourselves until we had completed our present mission of safely delivering our load of supplies to our unit. Furthermore, she reminded me, it would be a breach of Order discipline for a member of an underground unit to engage in any direct recruiting activity, however minimal. That function has been relegated to the "legal" units.
The underground units consist of members who are known to the authorities and have been marked for arrest. Their function is to destroy Lord Voldemort through direct action. The "legal" units consist of members not presently known to Lord Voldemort. (Indeed, it would be impossible to prove that most of them are members. In this we have taken a page from the Death Eaters' book.) Their role is to provide us with intelligence, funding, legal defense, and other support.
Whenever an "illegal" spots a potential recruit, he is supposed to turn the information over to a "legal," who will approach the prospect and sound him out. The "legals" are also supposed to handle all the low-risk propaganda activity, such as leafleting. Strictly speaking, we should not even have had any Order leaflets with us.
We waited until the man who had applauded the escape of our members in Liverpool came out and got on a Cleansweep. We flew by him and noted his broom number as we pulled out of the lot. When the network is established, the information will go to the proper person for a follow-up.
When we arrived back at the apartment, Ron and Snape were as excited as Hermione and I. They had also seen the newscast. Despite the exertions of the day, I could no more sleep than they, and we all piled back onto our brooms, Ron and Snape sharing the Nimbus with part of our greasy cargo, and went to an empty (and unplottable) field. We could stay there and talk safely there without arousing suspicion, and that's what we did until the early-morning hours.
One thing we decided was that we would move immediately to new quarters Ron and Snape located yesterday. The old cottage just wasn't satisfactory. The walls were so thin that we had to whisper to one another to avoid being overheard by our neighbors. And I'm sure that our irregular hours had already caused the neighbors to speculate on just what we do for a living. With Lord Voldemort warning everyone to report suspicious looking strangers, it had become downright dangerous to us to remain in a place with so little privacy.
The new place is much better in every way except the rent. We have a whole building to ourselves. It is actually a cement-block commercial building which once housed a small machine shop in a single, garage-like room downstairs, with offices and a storeroom upstairs.
The place has been condemned, because it lies on the right-of-way for a new muggle access road to the highway which has been in the planning stages for the last four years. Like all muggle projects these days, this one is also bogged down - probably permanently. Although hundreds of Wizards are being paid to help build new highways, none are actually being built.
The place really looks like hell on the outside. It's surrounded on three sides by a sagging, rusty chain-link fence. The grounds are littered with discarded water heaters, stripped-down engine blocks, and rusting muggle junk of every description. The concrete parking area in front is broken and black with old crankcase oil. There is a huge sign across the front of the building which has come loose at one end. It says: "Welding and Machining, J.T. Smith & Sons." Half the window panes on the ground floor are missing, but all the ground-floor windows are boarded up on the inside anyway.
The neighborhood is a thoroughly grubby light manufacturing area. Next door to us is a small muggle trucking company garage and warehouse. Trucks are coming and going at all hours of the night, which means the cops will not have their suspicions aroused if they see us active in this area at odd hours.
So, having decided to make the move, we did it today. Since there was no electricity, water, or gas in the new place, it was an ideal spot for laying low. I immediately set about establishing magical facilities for us to use during our stay.
The rest of my day was occupied in carefully covering all the chinks in the boards over the downstairs windows and in tacking heavy cardboard over the upstairs windows, so no ray of light can be seen from the building at night, so there is still no sign of magic activity inside.
The muggle amenities are still largely gone, but Hermione quickly converted the cauldron we had used into a toilet, and cast a softening charm on the floor to make it more comfortable for us to sleep on. Snape whipped up a quick batch of the strongest liquor (300 proof Wizardbrau) he could. Half an hour into the drinking, I proposed a toast to Hagrid, who was captured early on. Ron, drunk off his ass, set a new record for latency as he said not less than three hours later "To Hagarrrrr... besht fuggin' Ogre I everr knowed..." and then piddled himself.
Tomorrow I shall have a hangover, and a new purpose.
