Tuesday 1 September 2020

In which the narrator's interlocutors narrow the focus of their investigation.

I did not see Ms Mbewe for several days, although she owled me each evening to let me know her progress. I did not see Potter again either, although other members of his department stopped in to bring me food three times a day. They didn't speak to me directly, but I did overhear snatches of their conversation; the Ministry cells were much noisier than Azkaban. They were not so far from the corridors thrumming with Ministry employees, daily working life proceeding as usual, even despite the disruption to the Muggle world and the long weekend. I started to notice over the course of the next few days that the occasional observer at my cell door had become a steady trickle of gawpers, and it was clear that not all of them were there on official business. I supposed that word must have got out about my arrest, and that all of these people wanted a good look at me, a captive specimen of dangerous Dark wizardry. It might have been flattering, but I was quickly reminded how humiliating it was not to be able to do anything without being watched. I'd found the lack of privacy one of the worst things about Azkaban. I'd glared right back at the goggle-eyed tourists at first, but I soon found that I could not muster the energy for this, so they were treated to views of me in my natural state: slumped in the corner, staring at the wall, sinking into despair with my head in my hands. I was still suffering the effects of potions withdrawal.

August had given way to September by the next time I saw her, a time of year that always reminded me of getting the train to Hogwarts, of filling my trunk with brand new school books, feather quills and rolls of parchment, of the hope for a fresh beginning that never seemed to amount to anything real. Ms Mbewe came by my cell to tell me that the Aurors planned to interrogate me again, with a scant five minutes' notice; it seemed a fairly impromptu decision to conduct the interrogation today. I just hoped that I wouldn't make such a bloody hash of it this time around.

"Good afternoon," I'd said, as the three Aurors strode in.

"Face the wall," barked Potter, as the other two set about Transfiguring the cell. "Now."

It was already quite late the afternoon. I supposed Potter must have been seeing his kids off on the Hogwarts Express, and had taken the morning off. He was in a foul mood, not wistful or melancholic, but simmering with frustration that could easily bubble over into anger. There were rumours that Potter did not get on very well with his children, particularly the middle son. I was not above reading Rita Skeeter's pieces in The Daily Prophet about this, which were masterclassses in insincere "concern". I had not actually considered whether these articles contained any truth whatsoever, but it now seemed quite probable that they did. Back in my chair I looked at Potter drumming his fingers irritably on the table and concluded that this was not going to be an easy ride.

"Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what this is," Potter said without preamble, holding out a photograph of a Time-Turner.

I couldn't look round at Ms Mbewe. I wasn't sure what to do. It was one of the old Ministry ones, not one of mine, but all the same I did not like where this was leading. I could answer the question, to which any wizard with my level of education would certainly know the answer, or I could refuse and practically admit my guilt.

"I'm waiting, Nott."

"It's a photograph," I said pedantically, stalling for time. I felt both too hot and too cold at once.

"Well done," said Potter sarcastically. "A photograph of?"

"A Time-Turner," I said finally. Sweat was trickling down my back but I was shivering, and my teeth ached like they wanted to drop out of my head.

"And why do you think I might be showing you this?"

"I don't know," I said. This was true; I still didn't know what his game was.

"How about this one? What do you think this is?" Potter said casually, flipping over another photograph.

As he did this, I closed my eyes, just for a moment. I knew this would be a picture of my Time-Turner, and I knew the witch would be monitoring my reaction, so I braced my mind to conceal the shock of recognition. Sure enough, the photograph showed my prototype Time-Turner.

"Am I supposed to know what this is?" I asked.

"Perhaps you might hazard a guess," Potter said thinly.

"It's quite different to that other photograph," I said. "But I'd probably guess that it was another Time-Turner."

"How right you are. Would you also care to 'guess' what it does?

"Not particularly," I said, trying to imagine that the pain from my pounding head was going to a different body, or that I existed independently from my body, a pair of eyeballs six inches in front of a pain-wracked heap of sinew, skin and clothes, but I was excruciatingly present.

"You know perfectly well."

"I don't," I said.

"Tell me. Now."

There was a full minute of silence.

"We're just going to wait here until you answer, Nott. Don't try me."

I paused. This was tedious.

"Maybe clue is in the name?" I said. "Something to do with time?"

Potter looked as though he wanted to hit me, but forced himself to remain calm. "What's your interest in time?"

I shrugged. "You seem more interested in this than me."

"The fact that we found this in your home," Potter spat. "Does that interest you?"

I said nothing. I didn't know what Ms Mbewe would want me to say. Protest my ignorance? Refuse to comment? I just stayed silent; that seemed the safest option.

"Nott," he said. "What do you have to say about that?"

I tried to look around at Ms Mbewe again but could not move in my seat.

"Mr Nott does not have to say anything on the matter."

"No," Potter said, "But if he wants leniency, he'd better drop the wide-eyed innocent act now. It's ridiculous. This is one of the most dangerous magical objects I've ever seen, and we found it in your home, Nott."

In spite of everything, I felt myself perk up slightly. Potter had encountered horcruxes, infamous cursed necklaces and The Monster Book of Monsters, and he still found something I'd made dangerous enough to be of note.

"Now tell me, where do you think we found this one?"

It had been hidden within the servants' staircase that ran down the back of Dreycliff Hall, which had been the Wilkes family seat in Devon. I'd inherited it from my mother. These days I no longer visited my childhood home, Thickthorn Chase, owing to certain bad memories. I could feel the witch in the corner pushing at my mind, trying to get at the hiding place. I pushed back, using those ugly memories, and took a grim satisfaction in seeing her recoil slightly, a barely concealed look of revulsion on her face.

"I've no idea," I said.

"It'll be much better for you," Potter said. "If you tell us the truth."

"I am."

The witch in the corner coughed.

"You know very well where you hid it."

"I didn't hide it. I never saw it before in my life."

"You're lying."

Ms Mbewe interjected. "The burden is on you to prove that. I shouldn't have to remind you that evidence obtained through Veritaserum, Legilimency, or any other means of forcibly breaking into a suspect's mind is not admissible before the Wizengamot."

"We know the law," growled Potter. "And we know that Nott knows what he's on the line for." He tossed his head at me. "We've got the hard evidence. We have a narrative. You're cooked."

"What do you need me for, then?" I said. "Why are you sitting here asking me these boring questions if you think you have everything you need to put me away?"

"We just want to make sure that all the loose ends are tied up," said Jones in a voice like a Calming Draught. "We know you made some bad choices when you got out of prison, trusted the wrong people. We don't want you to do someone else's time."

"Oh, yeah, you're always thinking of me," I said. "The poor kid who got in with the wrong crowd."

Potter looked round at me. "It's not like you can really blame the folly of youth any more, Nott, is it? Gone pretty grey lately, haven't you?"

"It happens to us all," I said. My hair had started going grey in Azkaban. I hadn't been able to see my own face for ten years, and after my release I'd had to psych myself up just to look in a mirror and see the person I'd become. It was still a shock. My face was pockmarked and lined, my eyes perpetually tired, and my hair was noticeably thinner and now shot through with bright silver strands, a colour I had always associated with my aged father but which now was shockingly, unmistakably, growing from my own head, as though it belonged there. I'd wanted to scream; I didn't feel old. Ten years had just vanished from my life, and with nothing, nothing to show for it. I had become an old man: at best irrelevant, or a canker, an unwelcome remnant of an era better left forgotten, a blight on the brave new world that Potter et al were building, if one took a less charitable view.

Potter narrowed his eyes. "Not that quickly. Time travel has aged you, hasn't it?"

"Potter, I hardly think that you can use my personal appearance as evidence against me, just because I'm not lucky enough to look particularly youthful any more. I've had a rough few years."

I had been careful, not to risk too much at first – I'd gone back just a week or so at a time, where I'd make a small cut in my skin, and then I'd go back to the present. When I first did this, the cut always healed on the way back, but eventually I figured out how to go forward without time taking its toll on my body. I used to keep meticulous notes to help me work out what was effective, and eventually I figured out the complex calculus needed to regulate the strength of my Time-Turner's anti-ageing charm. I knew that my experiments had aged me some years beyond my true age, although I was not sure how many exactly. If anything though, I felt quite fortunate; experimental magic can do very strange things to one's personal appearance. At least I wasn't a freak like the Dark Lord.

"Things haven't been so great for you these days, have they? I can only imagine how much you hate having a Muggleborn Minister for Magic."

"What?" I said. "You think I care about that?"

"Of course it bothers you," Potter said. "The status you once enjoyed has been lost. Your family connections have gone from being an asset to a massive liability. Of course you miss the way things were. It's only natural."

"I don't miss it," I said. "It was a violent time. And I'm not a violent person."

"Right," Potter said sarcastically. "You killed someone."

"My father forced me to do that; it didn't come from me. I hate violence, I always have."

"That doesn't change what you did."

"I've paid my debt," I said stiffly. "As far as I can. And I am not pining for the 'good old days'. They were awful for me as well."

"You know what I think? I think you created that Time-Turner to bring your master back."

"Oh, fuck off. You don't really think that."

"It's not as improbable as all that."

"I have no master."

"So you say. But your father did. And Voldemort expected service to continue across the generations. I'm not convinced that you could have got out of serving him even if you'd wanted to. And I've not seen any convincing evidence that you didn't want to serve him."

"You investigated me last time," I said. "You know I never took the Mark. I was never even in the presence of the Dark Lord."

"I'm not so sure we didn't miss something." He grabbed my left arm and rolled up my sleeve. "This scar," he said. "It fully covers where your Mark would have been."

I looked at him in horror. "Not this again! Do I really have to prove to you that I'm not... that I never was a Death Eater... all over again?"

"Well, yes, Nott, you do. Why else would you have created the Time-Turner? It's a story that tells itself."

"It's not true," I said.

"Why did you create it then?"

"I didn't," I said.

"We know you're lying about that. What else have you been lying to us about, Nott, hmm?"

I didn't answer. Surely he couldn't seriously think that I'd created the Time-Turner in order to bring the Dark Lord back and volunteer myself as his slave? Was this just Potter's way of trying to provoke a response from me?

"What about the other one, then, Nott?"

I felt my stomach contract in horror. Deny it? No, better not to say anything at all. I feigned a look of puzzlement. Surely this was just a hunch of Potter's. As far as I knew, he hadn't been anywhere near the Malfoys.

"You thought we didn't know about that one, did you? I hate to break it to you, but you've not kept such a low profile as you maybe thought."