Thursday 27 August 2020

In which the narrator is subject to the indignities of interrogation.

Three Aurors were present at my first interrogation: Potter of course, a scarred and grizzled older wizard who nonetheless deferred to him, and a younger witch, evidently one of the department's rising stars. I was sitting at a table opposite Potter, with other two standing behind him, arms crossed. Ms Mbewe stood behind me, although I could not turn to see her; my chair was holding me in place as though by invisible ropes. I felt like crap.

I recognised the older wizard from when I'd first been brought in. He'd been the one to search me for concealed magical items, Vanishing all of my clothes before jabbing me all over with a Probity Probe. When this had happened to me at twenty-five, it had been horrendous: I had been a skinny, awkward virgin and I'd just wanted to curl up and die. Now, at forty(ish), though still skinny I had thankfully managed to divest myself of my virginity and most of my shame. All the same, the search was far from pleasant. I couldn't help thinking that the main purpose of this process was to demoralise the people they brought in, as only a complete moron would hide a magical object of any power in their rectal cavity. Fortunately I'd had nothing more incriminating upon my person than some strong but perfectly legal sleeping potion in the inner pocket of my waistcoat, but the Auror had taken that, along with my glasses, belt, tie and shoes. When he had finished going through all my stuff, he threw my clothes back to me, for me to put on in the degrading Muggle way while he watched, as if I'd be trying to transfigure my shirt into an escape balloon or something the moment his back was turned.

"Hey," I'd said, gesturing to the little phial of sleeping potion he had taken off me. "I need that. It was prescribed to me."

The wizard had shrugged. "Too damn bad. No magical items allowed. That goes for your glasses too."

"Oh, come on."

"Did you think we wouldn't notice the charm on them? We need to strip them down."

"Can I have the potion back at least? I can't sleep without it."

"Manners?"

I'd scowled but capitulated. "Please."

He'd allowed himself a cynical, humourless chuckle. "You think you're going to be sleeping? No. No exceptions."

Now he was standing, expressionless, behind Potter, and I was sitting waiting to be interrogated, wretched after two nights with no sleep and badly wanting a dram of potion. Chippy bastard. He was the type that resented money and blood, and I knew that he would enjoy playing with me, every opportunity he got.

"Nott," Potter said. "You're involved in some pretty deep stuff, aren't you?"

I shuffled my feet. It still felt weird not to be wearing shoes, as though I'd kicked them off in the interrogation room and was making myself at home there. Not that I had even been taken to a separate interrogation room, as I'd expected from my previous experience. I'd been forced at wandpoint to stand facing the wall while the Aurors Transfigured the holding cell for this purpose. It was rather dispiriting, as by this point I would have welcomed even a minor change of scene. "That's a matter of opinion, isn't it?" I said at last.

"Perhaps," Potter said. "But you've broken wizard law, and on that point we can be definitive."

I said nothing.

From behind me, Ms Mbewe spoke. "If you have any specific charges against my client, please do elaborate. Otherwise I am afraid that we must assume that you have nothing."

"We're just going to ask some preliminary questions," said Potter. "We are not formally charging him at this stage."

"Very well," said Ms Mbewe. "In that case I am sure he will co-operate with you accordingly."

"We've found some extremely interesting things in your home, Nott," Potter continued, ignoring her.

"I'm glad you find me so fascinating, Potter." I said. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your sustained interest?"

"I was hoping you would tell us," Potter said.

"I don't think that's how it works," I said.

"We have yet to see a warrant, Mr Potter," Ms Mbewe said. "You cannot expect my client to answer questions like this when he doesn't even know why you have brought him here in the first place."

"I think he has a good idea of why he's here," said Potter. "And I'll be inclined to deal more leniently with him if he's honest with us." He turned to me. "Talk us through what you have, why you have it, where you got it from."

I grinned. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"I don't think you understand," Potter said. "You are going back to Azkaban. After what we've found at your house, there can be no question about that. What you decide to tell us now will determine whether or not you die there."

I mulled this over for a moment.

"You're in a position to guarantee that, are you?" I said, finally.

"It could be the difference between twenty years and a life sentence," Potter said. "If you give us evidence about who your suppliers are, who you sell to, we will make sure you don't get life."

"Twenty years?" I said incredulously. "You might as well put me out of my misery before I get there then – I nearly died last time. Twenty years would almost certainly kill me."

"Well," Potter said, "We might be able to get it down to less than that... depending on how much information you can give us, of course."

Of course, I thought. But I already knew I wasn't going to tell them anything. I'd be finished if I did, certainly within the business of selling esoteric magical artefacts, but there was a strong possibility I'd end up murdered as well.

Ms Mbewe said firmly, "Mr Nott will not answer any more questions until he has been formally charged. I must insist on that."

"Fine," Potter said. "I am formally charging him with possession of a Dark object." He glared at me and I knew that he knew exactly what he was doing; this did not narrow things down for me or Ms Mbewe in the slightest. "Now, answer me, is Dreycliff Hall your main residence?"

"Yes," I said, after a pause. I didn't want to do this, not at all, but especially not now. Right now I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep as though I'd just consumed a whole cauldron of the Draught of Living Death. I ached all over, my head was pounding, and my eyelids were being pulled irresistibly downwards. But I would do what I always did in difficult situations, whether it was serving a long prison term, sitting my NEWTS, or executing a challenging set of spells on a live Muggle: I would take the path that was laid out before me and I would see it through to the end, and I would worry about what would happen next afterwards.

"Are you the sole occupant?"

"Yes," I said. "Well, three house elves live there too: Dappy, Weenie and Peep."

"Right," said Potter. "How long have you been living there?"

"I moved there almost exactly five years ago, after I was released from Azkaban."

"From Azkaban," Potter repeated. "Tell us why you were there."

"Potter, you know that," I said. "You were the one investigating after I confessed. You sent me there."

"Tell us why you were there."

"I killed a Muggle," I said, lowering my eyes.

"During the second war?"

"Before the war. Well, before it was out in the open."

"You still maintain that you did not take sides in the war, despite your family connections to the Death Eaters?"

"Of course."

"How long were you in Azkaban for?" said Potter.

"Ten years."

"Did you take up residence at Dreycliff Hall immediately after your release?" asked Potter.

"Well, I had some things to take care of in London, and the elves wanted to get things ready for me, so I stayed in the Leaky Cauldron for a few weeks immediately following."

"When you say you had things to take care of, what exactly did you do?"

"It was mainly buying stuff. I needed a new wand, potion ingredients, clothes. All I had was the raggedy prison robes I was standing up in."

"Potion ingredients? What kind of potions were you making?" said Potter.

I shrugged. "Easy stuff. It had been ten years so I wanted to get back into things slowly. I definitely remember making a Pepper-Up Potion at one point." I'd tried my hand at few other potions, but I wasn't going to mention those. God, I could really do with something now.

"The wand you bought," said Potter. "Is this it?"

He held the wand out to me; if my arms had been unbound I could have taken it from him, but as it was, I was forced to just look. There was no question that it was mine. The fine, straight grain of the light wood, the distinctive scored markings on the handle like the markings on a sundial: I knew it intimately. I had done great magic with that wand.

"Yes."

"Thirteen inches. Pine. Dragon heartstring core."

"What of it?"

"Garrick Ollivander has confirmed that he sold it to you."

"Fellow sells a lot of wands, I've heard."

"To your knowledge, has anyone used this wand, apart from you?"

I didn't answer, because not sure if the answer would incriminate me.

"Come on, Nott, it's an easy question. Has anyone used this wand apart from you?"

"Dunno," I said, wishing I knew what the right answer was.

"You live on your own, don't you?"

"I said, with three house elves as well."

"You let them use your wand?"

"Not let, but it's there. They're there."

"Seriously? You're saying you think your elves used your wand?"

"No," I said defensively. "But I can't be sure they didn't, can I?"

"Only I would have thought that your elves would be forced to obey you. The contract between wizards and elves is extremely clear."

"The contract can be stretched, and broken. I knew an elf… well, you knew him too, because Dobby disobeyed his family. Tradition is no guarantee."

"Of course, although you do seem to be somewhat labouring the point."

"Just want to be clear."

"So you're not expecting that wand to have done any illegal spells?"

"Not that I know of," I said. "But you've brought me here for a reason, haven't you?"

"If you have nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. Going back a step, where did you get the money for all this stuff you bought when you got out of prison?"

"Well, I've never had to worry about money," I said. "There was plenty in my Gringotts vault, left to me by my parents." The older wizard shifted his position slightly in the corner, his expression somewhere between a grimace and a sneer.

"How much?"

"I don't remember."

"Just approximately."

"I don't know... a few thousand galleons? The goblins would know exactly."

"They do. After you made your first withdrawal of one hundred galleons on 18 August 2015, you were left with fourteen thousand, five hundred and twenty-six galleons, thirteen sickles and two knuts."

I froze. Goblins did not normally take sides in the affairs of wizards, but if the Gringotts goblins had given Potter that information, he probably knew about more recent things too. It wouldn't do, though, to show him that this worried me. My head hurt and my vision was blurring.This could happen, coming off the potions. Maybe I had been overdoing it in recent weeks.

"Oh, OK," I said. "More than I thought, then."

"What was your plan, Nott, when you got out?"

"I... er... didn't really have one." This was the truth. It was a strange time for me.

"Did you look for work?"

"Tried to."

"But you were unsuccessful in finding a job?"

"Correct."

"But you still weren't worried about money? Fourteen thousand galleons wouldn't go that far, not if you're not working."

"I had other sources of income."

"Really? What?"

"I inherited a small forest. It has proved to be an excellent source of wand wood. I have been selling to wandmakers and living off the proceeds."

"What happens when the wood runs out?" interjected the older man.

"I'm sorry?"

"What happens when you run out of wood?"

I looked at Potter. "Can he-? Do you want me to answer that?"

"Yes," said Potter coldly.

"And your name is…?

"Does it matter?" the old guy said.

"Not a bit," I said, although my tone insinuated otherwise.

"Answer the damn question then. What happens when you've chopped it all down, and it's gone?"

"That's not going to happen?"

"Why's that?"

"I only sell what can be regrown."

"I see," said Potter. "Who do you sell to?"

"Ollivander mainly. A few others."

"How much do you get from that each year?"

"It varies."

"What do you get in a typical year?"

"I really couldn't say. It depends."

"So Garrick Ollivander is a regular customer, isn't he?" the witch chimed in.

"I'm sorry," I said. "We've not been introduced. I assume that you know who I am, but I like to know who I'm talking to."

"Attica Jones, senior Auror. Could you answer my question please? Garrick Ollivander is one of your customers, isn't he?"

"That's right."

"And he spends about five thousand galleons a year on your wood."

"If you say so."

"I checked with him," said Jones. "But here's the thing: your income far exceeds that."

"There are other wandmakers. I sell internationally."

"We know you do," she said.

"Gregorovitch Zauberstäbe are also clients."

"They purchase less than Ollivander," the older wizard barked. "The name's Gavin Williamson, by that way."

"It's a pleasure, Gavin Williamson," I said, biting back my annoyance. I did not like where this was headed. "Ollivander and Gregorovitch are my most prestigious customers. You can't blame me for wanting to emphasise them."

"Of course not," Potter said. "But I'm really more interested in hearing about where most of your income comes from."

I bet you are, I thought. "I sold my house," I said. "That brought in a lot of money for me. Did your investigation not discover that?"

"Your house?"

"The house I grew up in, Thickthorn Chase. It was in the family for seventeen generations."

"Why did you sell it? You surely couldn't have needed the money that badly?"

"I can't be there any more," I said, my throat constricting. The emotion was real, because selling the house had been freeing and devastating in equal measure. The fact that it had also provided an ideal opportunity to launder the money from the Time-Turner I made was really an uninteresting side detail.

"Because you killed someone there?"

"Yeah," I said. I swallowed. "It's too hard, going back. The house was falling apart, it needed someone to take care of it, but it just… it couldn't be me." I laughed bitterly. "I thought I'd find it liberating, being rid of it, but instead I keep thinking about my father, about my family. It's not so easy to forget."

"Who did you sell to?"

"It's a care home now," I said. "Run by an older couple, Cattermole, I think their name is. The chap used to work for the Ministry."

"They didn't want to purchase the adjoining forest land?"

"I didn't offer it for sale. They wanted to open their…establishment, a place where magical folk of advanced years could live out their final days in peace and dignity. They didn't need the woods, and I wanted to keep them. Not just as a source of income; I was fond of them. Unlike the house, I considered them a friendly place."

"Sorry to keep harping on about this," said the witch. "But just to go back to the wand wood sales, I'd really like to pin down exactly where some of this cash flow is coming from."

"Well, there are quite a few smaller outfits that have made significant purchases."

"Such as?" Williamson asked. "Who's bought from you?"

"Baguettes Magique et Magnifique," I said. "They're French maker, bespoke only. Quickfire Creations, based in India."

"That's funny," Potter said, turning to the other Aurors. "Have you heard of either of them?" They shook their heads. "Interesting. So how is business for them?"

"I don't know," I said. "Good, I guess. They're good customers."

"Indeed. Very good customers. Which makes it very strange that neither of them has sold a single wand."

I looked back at Potter, forcing myself to remain calm. "I just sell them the wood. They're up-and-coming, I don't know-"

"You received in excess of two million galleons from Quickfire Creations in the space of less than a year. Where on earth would a new wandmaker who literally nobody's heard of find that kind of money?"

"That's really not my concern. They had the money, I sold them the wood."

"Does two million galleons buy a lot of wood?"

"It could," I said slowly.

"How big did you say your forest was again?"

"It's fourteen acres."

"It's funny," said Potter again. "That year no more wood seems to have been removed from your forest than usual. I'd have thought you would have had to have stripped it bare to raise that kind of sum."

"It was a particularly valuable shipment," I said.

"Really," said Potter. "What was so special about it?"

"My client does not have to answer that," said Ms Mbewe. "You have not explained how this relates to the charge of possessing a Dark object."

"I do not believe that Nott's forest could have produced two million galleons' worth of wand wood, no matter the quality. It's obvious that he was selling something else."

"You've no proof of that."

"We know you've been trading with the goblins."

I was about to object that this was not actually illegal and in any case had happened ages ago, but I managed to stop myself. I'd be playing into Potter's hands by doing that.

"You have also been seen entering the premises of Borgin and Burke's on multiple occasions." That too was not illegal, although not particularly reputation-enhancing.

"No comment," I said.

"Just the books we found at your place are incriminating enough: The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy, Dominating Dementors, Sonnets of a Sorcerer, The Imperius Curse and How to Abuse It." Shit. If they'd found those, they'd also have found the Muggle books I had guiltily stashed away for altogether more embarrassing reasons. I had devoured Margaret Atwood's entire oeuvre after reading an interview Hermione Granger had given shortly after becoming Minister for Magic, in which she had praised the author in the warmest terms. I had also procured The Luminaries, Atonement, and Song of Solomon for similar reasons. Wizards like me did not read Muggle fiction openly and I did not think it likely that these books being in my possession would pass unremarked. Granger would surely hear of my unusual reading habits and guess why I had collected these books in particular.

"You've got previous form with the Imperius Curse," Potter said. "One of your favourites, isn't it?"

I actually hadn't used the Imperius Curse on a human being since before I'd been sent to Azkaban and I said as much, but I could tell Potter didn't believe me.

"Spare me. You have books about it. Banned books. There aren't many reasons someone would have a copy of The Imperius Curse and How to Abuse It."

"The title is unnecessarily provocative," I said. "Have you actually read it? It's actually more about the theory of how that type of magic works."

"Theory," said Potter skeptically.

"Yes," I said. "I'm very interested in the rules that underpin magic. I know you don't much care for such things, being more of a doer than a thinker, but many people have an academic interest in all types of magic."

"You expect me to believe you never used the information in that book? Ever?"

"I didn't say that," I replied. "I just said I never used it on a human. And that's the only thing that's actually against the law."

"But if a human were to eat a piece of food, a mint perhaps, containing an Imperius curse, that spell would then be used against that human."

"Interesting concept," I said. "But I don't believe that the law explicitly covers such hypothetical circumstances."

Ms Mbewe coughed and I shut up. "The key term here is against," she said. "There is legal precedent for this. In 1987, the class action lawsuit against the manufacturers of Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent brought by families with children who had been killed or injured through ingesting the product was unsuccessful because it had not been created with the intention of using it against human beings. The fact that it could be used against humans was already well known (I myself defended Annalise Shafiq, who was accused of murdering her husband with it) and the mixture did contain a number of curses that would have been illegal had they been used directly on a human being, but as the makers clearly had not intended it to be used for anything other than pest control and had labelled and packed it with appropriate caution, the case fell down. Actual harm and intent were deemed essential elements where the question of the illegality of a piece of magic centres on its use against humans."

"I would like to see you try to argue that in front of the Wizengamot," Potter replied. "I am sure that Nott only had the purest of intentions when he made those cursed mint imperials."

"The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate: one, that Mr Nott made any such cursed magical item. Two, that any human had actually eaten it and suffered ill effects. And three, that Mr Nott had intended that person to eat that item with those consequences." Merlin, was she good. I felt slightly cheered, despite my pounding head.

Potter glared at her over my head.

"That book is illegal."

"No, sales of The Imperius Curse and How to Abuse It are illegal. Reading the book and owning it is not. Mr Nott formerly worked as a bookseller; he has unique access to books that have been removed from general sale."

"I am struggling to think of an innocent reason why he would have it."

"That is immaterial," said Ms Mbewe.

"Like I said," I added. "The theory is beautiful. Well-articulated. And it turns out... the patterns apply to spells too, as well as people and creatures."

"What do you mean?"

"There are variants you can use in combination with other spells." Potter looked blank. "I found a way to undo Permanent Sticking Charms using the principles outlined in that book," I said. "It's really interesting. Permanent Sticking Charms leverage the magic of anyone trying to remove them to strengthen their hold and counter magical entropy, so trying to get rid of them makes the problem worse. However, if you slip in an element of the Imperius, you can fool the Permanent Sticking Curse, push it in on itself. I mean Charm, Permanent Sticking Charm. Although I think of it as a curse or at the very least, a jinx. It's fairly extreme, isn't it?"

"There you have it," said Ms Mbewe, with a warning tap on my shoulder. "Now if you have any substantive charges to bring, can we please get on with it?"

"We know you've bought number of illegal items for your work."

"Illegal? I don't know anything about that," I said.

"I think you do," Potter said. "We found some of the things you made with them too."

"Conjecture," Ms Mbewe said briskly.

"We've examined your wand, Nott," Potter said. "We know you've done illegal spells with it, plenty of them."

"Priori incantatem is not admissible as evidence before the Wizengamot," Ms Mbewe said. "As you well know."

"Perhaps not," Potter said. "But while there is a slim chance that a third party got hold of Nott's wand and cast a bevvy of illegal spells with it, the simplest and most likely explanation is that he cast those spells himself."

"And here we see how the Ministry of Magic operates, despite one injustice after another," said Ms Mbewe. "They set upon their preferred explanation, and they make the evidence fit. Sirius Black – "

"Don't you dare throw what happened to my own godfather in my face," Potter said dangerously. "The Ministry did not abide by due process then, it cut corners."

"If the shoe fits..."

Potter turned away from her and back to me, and ugly snarl on his breath.

"Mr Potter," said Ms Mbewe. "Is this interview actually going anywhere?"

"I'll cut to the chase," Potter said. "We know you're just part of something bigger, Nott. We're onto the network of Dark traders you're caught up in. We know it extends to creatures other than wizards, and there are patterns here that give me grave concerns. We're tracking the trolls, the giants, the werewolves – they're all moving in ways that are unprecedented. The haul we seized from your residence – also unprecedented."

And therefore clearly related. I thought. Great logic, Potter.

I thought I saw the expression of the witch behind him twitch slightly, and I wondered if she was a Legilimens. Contempt is not a feeling I tend to bury too deeply, but all the same, it felt like a warning to stay on my guard.

"But it's not just about you. Like I said, there's trouble brewing," Potter said.

"What kind of trouble?" I asked.

"Troll cavalry divisions on the march through Hungary. Giants crossing the Greek Seas. The werewolves... well, we don't actually know where the werewolves are right now."

I stared at him, staggered. This was quite an admission. How on earth had Potter lost sight of the werewolves? You might get the odd one or two like Professor Lupin who had chosen to live quietly among wizards, and they were harder to detect, but the ones that travelled as a pack, the dangerous ones, were nothing if not conspicuous. No competent Head of Magical Law Enforcement would have allowed this to happen. Potter had been promoted too early, or maybe to the wrong job altogether. He was a man of action, not strategy, but with Potter's unique position in magical society, of course he had gone further than his ability warranted. I looked over at the female Auror, maybe not so young as I'd thought, and accidentally caught her eye. I wondered what she and her colleagues thought.

"You have to understand that this is bigger than you," Potter continued. "It's a very delicate situation. Things have the potential to go in ways that you wouldn't expect."

I said nothing. I had never made it my business to predict the future, had never bothered with the study of Divination. My own experience had taught me that families and homes could be destroyed almost instantly and without warning. Social order could collapse faster than anyone imagined. Far from being able to see into the future, most people denied the realities of the present when it wasn't what they wanted to see.

"You're not the only one we're questioning," Potter said.

"Oh yeah, who else have you brought in?" I said, interested.

"A number of people," said Potter. "Some of whom we know you've worked with."

"Really," I said, with scorn. Potter was certainly mistaken on this; I don't collaborate.

"The people you're selling to... you're putting immensely powerful magical objects into their hands. You know that. You know that you've got no control over what these people do with your work once they've taken possession of it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a powerful wizard, Nott," Potter said. "But you're not as smart as you think you are."

A/N:

I hope you're enjoying this so far. Please do leave a review with your thoughts - constructive criticism always welcome. I'm going to be taking a short break, but will be back with another chapter early next week.