Silent leges inter arma.
Amid arms, laws grow silent.
-Cicero, Pro Milone 11
Soundtrack:
Rise Above – Afro Celt Sound System
All Remains – Afro Celt Sound System
---
Two weeks went by surprisingly quickly. Fruit baskets, injunctions, paperwork, pleading and puppy eyes all had their due effect, and like acid rain trickling down to the fresh groundwater below, the news slowly reached the swift rivers of Azkaban gossip. The boy was getting out. Loopholes, legalese and lies- the Aurors didn't like it one bit.
A feeling of resentment and restlessness began to rise like a storm cloud on a sweltering June day. Adams was aware of it, but was one of the few not to participate. Through very subtle manipulation he had managed to get himself stuck with the job of delivering soup to the corridor where the boy was. He didn't mind it in the least - it was better than other forms of penance - laundry, paperwork, strict guard duty, or worst, suicide watches... In fact, he sort of enjoyed passing out soup. He barely admitted it to himself and would never do so in front of the other Aurors, but he was slowly growing more and more fond of the boy. He had a son about his age, his height at least. He kept wondering if the boy, perhaps, liked Quidditch just like his son did. It was the sort of idle dreaming only a father can do.
The boy seemed to pick up on the nuance of change in his attitude, and began to change as well. The blank stare at the far wall first broke to track him curiously, almost wantingly. The next day he was over by the side of his cell to take his bowl of soup. The day after that, he had collected all of the empty bowls and carefully stacked them - one atop another, each side perfectly even.
Adams paused as he came to a stop at the boy's cell, wheels of his soup cart squeaking. The boy scrambled up to stand ungracefully before picking up the bowls from the floor gently and passing them through the bars. It was an odd offering, partly one of appeasement, partly... something Adams couldn't quite identify. It scared him to think of the ramifications of the bowls, stacked so prettily, because they might just make the boy too human for Adams to cope with.
He muttered a "thank you" as he took them, awkwardly setting them down in his cart and then placing a full bowl of hot soup in the boy's hands. And for a moment he looked very long and hard at what was behind the mask, and for the first time saw something there.
The fear of what he saw made a lump form in his throat, but father's instinct eventually won out over it enough for him to clear his throat loudly and decide that something had to be done. "I'll bring you something - a present tomorrow," he said firmly, drawing back and starting to push his cart again. It was a vague promise, but he... well. He would think of something.
--
Tomorrow just always came too fast for Adams.
It was four-thirty and he was frantically pawing around his desk, looking for... something to bring. So far he had found a moldy square of chocolate from days long gone, some stationary from the desk's former owner, and a paper clip. The paper clip wasn't even a paper clip proper, but bent out of shape a long time ago by somebody's nervousness. He sighed. A depressing harvest. After looking over the pile a minute more, he finally picked up the closest thing to entertainment he had - his best pencil and a notepad. It was supposedly for official business, but in Azkaban, what was there of note? He felt no guilt giving it away. In fact, Adams hummed a little to himself as he stuck the pad and pen into his robes pocket. He'd tell the boy to think about what he wanted, and then write it on the pad. And then he could fetch whatever the boy wanted, a proper present from the outside world. Yes. That would do just fine.
His display of wanton glee earned him a stiff glaring from the other Aurors, standing like jackals around a carcass as they drank coffee and talked among themselves. They had very quietly decided that the boy deserved a little present from them, too. Adams knew, but promptly forgot. Willful ignorance was one of his special skills.
--
"Horses."
It was the next day. Adams was at his desk, another round of soup having been delivered - lunch, this time. He had also collected the little notebook from the boy. After all, he seemed so happy to receive it, first looking up a few times as if asking if it was really for him, then with Adams' reassurances immediately flipping it open and setting to work. Adams remembered chuckling to himself and expecting a long list of demands - blankets, pillows, food, a hot bath?
Instead... horses.
Perplexed, he flipped through the notebook again. Every page, front and back, was filled with pictures of horses. Some were galloping, some were standing still, some were jumping, some were laying stoically under pleasant trees. A myriad of coats and types galloped across every page - a dark Clydesdale, a buckskin Mustang, a grey Arabian. Each was carefully shaded, infinitely detailed, so much so that for a moment Adams was afraid to touch them. He finally did, petting the ear of a Shetland pony as if it were a living being.
"Horses..." Adams sighed again. "I can't get him horses." His tone echoed the same deep disappointment that a father knows when he figures out he can't give his children what they want for Christmas, simply because of money.
His daydreaming was interrupted by a hard tap on the shoulder. The group of other Aurors stood behind him, frowning and serious. Robespierre, the most laconic of the group and the one rumored to be the most dangerous, was the only one to speak. "I'm taking your job tonight, Adams."
Adams shirked away slightly - the group, large and powerful and silent, was more than a little frightening. "But - wh-?"
"New assignments from the Ministry just came in. You're back at your old desk job. And I get to take up your slack." Robespierre grinned widely - a sight which was not comforting at all. "So pack up."
There was a cold gleam in the eyes of the group which Adams began to identify. He had only seen it a few times before - once, really. He remembered the case very well... the serial killings in Diagon... He blinked, shook his head, shaking and bucking the bad memories off.
"Robespierre -" His voice was much more strident this time, losing its quailing tone.
"Shut up, Adams. Pack your desk." The words snapped through the air, and the glares became intense and vicious as ever. "You'll be fine here alone, won't you? We have to go find that boy, You-Know-Who's one, and give him a bit of a surprise. We've been planning it all week. I'm sure he'll like it very much." The smile returned again, fanged and cruel, and spread from Robespierre 's face to the group behind him. With it came a jackal's laugh from the back, an awful vicious snicker that continued as they went out.
Adams didn't follow. He just sat there, staring at the horses and his bent paper clip and rusty old desk in the flickering light. He was smart enough not to follow, after all - he didn't want to go back home in a body bag. But...
He would tell his family about the horses.
-
All is fair in love and war.
Killing and barbarity is nothing new in humanity, Adams reminded himself sternly. This was his walk out of Azkaban... his freedom. He had all his case notes and files and possessions neatly stored in a little briefcase. He swung it. He even began to hum. It would be lovely to see his wife properly again - to go back home, not just for a visit.
The more he thought about home, the less he thought about the boy. Selective forgetfulness - he was very good at it. You had to be, if you were an Auror, to not remember all of the victims... Instead, he thought about his wife, her cooking, her sweet kisses; his daughter, her laughter, the way she hugged him; his son...
Mm. Now there would be the problem.
He stopped humming, pausing as he began to go down a certain corridor. That way was the nearest fireplace, and with a little floo powder, well, home. And that way was also... Well. He was going home, nothing could spoil his good mood, right? He would just get home the soonest he could. Glowingly, he started to go on.
It was when he passed the fifth torch strapped to the wall that he began to slow down. The footprints made him want to look to the left so badly – the grim heavy-set lines that could have come only from an Auror's shoe, splattering slightly as they came down, all... red. No, no, no. Keep walking. Do not think about what red means - have to get home, have to get home...
He only had to get home...!
He looked.
The boy looked back.
Adams desperately tried to ignore all the blood. There was a lot of it, a puddle in fact, a crimson pool that the boy was lying in. A drop had so beautifully come out of the corner of his mouth onto the white mask, running along the porcelain cheek before drying there. The boy wasn't moving much. Adams did look enough to see that he was breathing, but the red and the white and the line of the drop drew him inevitably to the boy's face - the boy's eyes.
It was such a quiet expression of betrayal. Adams instantly knew it. The boy didn't want revenge. He didn't want anything at all. There was just emptiness, loneliness, fresh and on the surface there for him to see, and a clear whisper of dying hope in humanity.
The torchlight flickered.
Any words Adams thought of choked in his throat, but when he realized nothing would help, he turned and walked on. The next day, he gladly sent the Ministry his letter of resignation - and a book of pictures of horses.