Chapter 31: You're No Son of Mine
The cage centered in middle of a dais was shaped almost like a bell, yet the bars of steel were just as sharp and cold as ever. Ringing the prisoner in a cylindrical fashion, as he was raised up into this odd cross between a cell and a viewing box, no doubt made the condemned soul within feel even more trapped.
Wrists in cuffs, and with dark hair hanging down to his shoulders, Igor Karkaroff cut a much more pathetic figure than when he had first been captured in the first big duel/raid following what was slowly being confirmed as the Dark Lord's fall. There were dark circles under his eyes. There was also now a scraggly beard to match how he was in desperate need of a haircut. Layers of dirt and grime masked how pale he actually was, deprived almost continuously of what little sunlight actually managed to reach Azkaban prison.
The dais on which the cylindrical cage was mounted had rings of desks surrounding it, fanning out and high, creating a ring of stands from which judges, wizards of note and status, reporters and guest spectators could watch the show. More than a few people jeered, laughed when Karkaroff was lifted into the glaring light of day that was just as harsh as the glare of judgment. A few people threw fruit, half-eaten Chocolate Frogs, a nearly empty carton of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. The latter actually landed close by Karkaroff's feet, yet he made no move to reach for it through the bars, hungry as he was. He figured the guards posted nearly directly in his face might whack or curse him if he tried.
"Igor Karkaroff!" The unkempt prisoner followed the ringing voice to match it with a mustachioed man, his tone accented and officious. From the shape of the hat on his head – something akin to a beret – the gentleman speaking seemed like one of those bigwigs who sat on the bench of the Wizengamot. "You have been brought from Azkaban at your own request, to present evidence to this Council. Should your evidence be proved consequential, the Council may be prepared to order your immediate release… Until such time you remain in the eyes of the Ministry a convicted Death Eater. Do you accept these terms?"
As the mustachioed man was speaking, armed Aurors guarding the cage had cranked part of the bars away, to reveal a space only just big enough for the prisoner's face to look out. Only now did Karkaroff get a good enough look at the gentleman opening the proceedings to recognize: it was Barty Crouch, Sr., an important and powerful man on the Council of Magical Law – the formal name for the Wizengamot.
"I do, sir," Karkaroff assented to the question.
"And what do you wish to present?"
"I have…. names, sir," Karkaroff offered. He had thought long and hard about this in his Azkaban cell, and decided that if selling out some of his former comrades might grant him with a reduced sentence, or better still, a parole, he would take the offer the Ministry was offering. The Ministry had been hoping for weeks to get some ex Death Eaters to flip and turn on each other. Many in the ranks might call that ratting out; Karkaroff saw it as pragmatic. After all, he had been under the influence of the Imperius Curse (or so he might have convinced himself of that). Regardless, he was willing to do whatever it took to reform and move on. Insurrectionists, pureblood supremacist sympathizers, Death Eaters themselves were still being rounded up every day, in the most widespread investigation yet seen in the Ministry of Magic's history. "There was a… a Rosier. Evan Rosier."
A white-haired gentleman seated next to Crouch began scouring through reams of parchment before passing a file to Crouch.
"Mr. Rosier is dead!" Crouch informed the prisoner.
"Dead?!" Karkaroff looked dismayed. A name of a dead man was no use to the Ministry.
Higher up in the stands, a crotchety old battle axe with one eye leaned forward to whisper to the gentleman in front of him, one with shoulder-length white hair. "Yeah, he took a piece of me with him, though, didn't he?" Mad Eye Moody laughed off the murder of Death Eater scum as a sort of joke, the way a hunter might boast about a particular trophy.
"I didn't know…" Karkaroff's voice broke, clearly shaken.
"If that is all the witness has to offer…."
"No…. No, No! There was…. Rookwood! He was a spy!"
This seemed to catch Crouch's interest. "Augustus Rookwood?" He was certain he had misheard. Rookwood was a colleague down in the Department of Mysteries – an Unspeakable. Their very title demanded a code of silence, and only the most ethical applicants were put through for the post, after rigorous testing. To think that espionage to the Dark Lord may have originated from there…. It chilled Crouch to even consider the possibility. It was mad, an unthinkable hypothetical! But disastrous, if proven true. "Of the Department of Mysteries?" Crouch hoped he and the prisoner weren't referring to….
"Yeah, the same! He passed information to You-Know-Who from inside the Ministry itself!" Karkaroff's yellow eyes and equally yellow smile appeared half-crazed.
Crouch studied him. "Very well…. The Council will deliberate. In the meantime, you will be returned to Azkaban…"
"NO! WAIT!" Karkaroff yelled, desperate. "Wait, please! I have more! What about Snape? Severus Snape!"
"The Council is very much aware of and has been given evidence on this matter." The wizard with shoulder-length white hair who had been speaking with Mad Eye now rose to his feet, speaking in a clear and authoritative voice. Dumbledore. Karkaroff might have guessed. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater, and prior to Lord Voldemort's downfall, turned spy for us, at great personal risk…"
"It's a LIE!" Karkaroff screamed, rattling the bars of his cage like a crazed animal.
"…. He's no more a Death Eater than I am!" Dumbledore finished, talking over Karkaroff while retaking his seat.
"Severus Snape remains faithful to the Dark Lord…..!"
"SILENCE!" Crouch wailed out, banging a small ink stamp on his desk in place of a gavel. "Unless the witness possesses any genuine information or name of consequence, this session is now concluded!"
"Oh no, no, no….." Karkaroff refused to have the council adjourned before he got this tidbit out. "I've heard about one more…"
"What's that?"
"The name…"
"Yes?" Crouch pressed.
"I know for a fact this person took part in the capture, and by means of the Cruciatus Curse, tortured the famed Auror Frank Longbottom and his wife….!"
"The name!" Crouch bawled. "Give me the wretched name!"
"BARTY CROUCH…!" Karkaroff bellowed, to gasps going up. One woman with curly blonde hair and sporting eccentric glasses had her mouth fall open in shock as she scribbled on a piece of parchment furiously. Karkaroff leaned his face through the bars, grinning wickedly at the Wizengamot bigwig's stunned expression.
"….. Jr. ….."
Suddenly, a man who had stood up high in the stands as Karkaroff was speaking leapt from his perch in an attempt to make a run for it. There was a flash and a BANG! from Mad-Eye Moody's wand that caused the youth to slip and skid, crashing in a heap onto a mound of papers directly in front of the belled cage.
Aurors were on the fleeing criminal in seconds, forming a posse ring and hauling Barty Crouch Jr. to his feet, as cries and gasps of horrors rose up, many wizards rising out of their seats to get a better look so they didn't miss one juicy, wretched moment.
Crouch Jr. was shouting obscenities. "Get your filthy hands off me, you filthy, pathetic little men!…." The Aurors muscled the son right in front of the box of the father. Barty Crouch Jr. sneered, his teeth in a skin-crawling grin making him look half-mad. At one point, his tongue darted out from between his clenched under bite, like he was some sort of snake. "Hello, Father…!"
Crouch Sr. could only regard his son sadly and with profound disappointment. "You were no son of mine…."
Crouch Jr. hissed, before letting out a shriek and attempting a fruitless lunge at his dad, but the Aurors restrained him, arrested him and led him away….
As for Karkaroff, he was returned to Azkaban temporarily while the Council turned to dealing with the one useful piece of information he had brought up. It was a long time before the flipped Death Eater heard anything further about his fate, enough that he began to believe he had been tricked into giving up his friends.