Splendide Mendax
or, The Foolish and the Weak
Brief A/N: The song at the end of this chapter is from 'The Wexford Lullaby,' a beautiful traditional song to which I am rather addicted. More notes at the end of this chapter.
"What do you mean..." Mark carefully, carefully, kept his voice under control, "I'm not coming?"
"First, we explain the situation to Hector, okay?"
"No, first you explain what you just said."
"Oh boy," Hector muttered, stepping back.
"Well, excuse me, I took it as a given. Thought you'd want to stay away from all that. I assumed you'd hold the fort, realize that you can't do anything to help us."
"Can't do anything?"
"Look, since the beginning it was your blundering curiosity and happy-go-lucky idiocy that landed you in trouble, with some wizard hauling you out of it."
Mark spoke slowly, his voice heated. "How dare you? I know how important this is! Do you mean the Leaky Cauldron? 'Cause I think I learned something from that –"
"That still doesn't matter. I firmly believe that this mission has a greater chance of success without you and your complete inability to help."
"Inability to – who do you think I am?"
"You're a Muggle, and more than that, you're a coward." Linus was sharp, harsh. "What did you do when Hollywyck was under attack, when Calliope was facing T.R. all by herself? You ran away."
"I was hiding – she told me to hide –"
"And stood by, doing nothing, while she wasted time and energy in rescuing you. What did you do when the Dementors came? You panicked and ran, you were sick, you nearly went into hysterics. Your actions make you a liability rather than an asset – you're worthless as a fighter, and this is too important, far too important, for you to screw up." He paused to take a breath.
"Linus –" Hector said, appalled.
"You arrogant –" Mark began.
"Nothing personal, but we can't afford to take you. You are still under my custody from the Wizengamot. If you run away, I'm still responsible for your protection. No." He shook his head. "No. Calliope, if I may be frank, is more important to me than you. You're not coming." Linus turned to Hector, as if Mark wasn't there. "Now, what happened is –" He began walking to the dining room, Hector followed mutely. "Do you remember a sister of mine named Benedicte?"
"Yes, why?" Hector turned back to glance at Mark, who was staring after them with a wide-eyed expression – angry and bewildered.
Hector started to say, "I'm sorry, if you need anything—" but Mark held up a hand. "No, go on. Hear what happened."
Linus, seemingly unmoved, sat at the dining room table and reviewed the previous days' events in brief: the meeting with Calliope at Hollywyck, the revelation of the gap in memory, his voyage to Hogwarts to find out more, Scurry's visit to him and the ensuing attack and kidnap.
It was a long story.
When Linus concluded, he leaned back, clearly exhausted, and Hector took his chance. "Listen, Linus, do you think you were a little harsh on Mr. Printzen?"
Linus shifted in his seat. "Maybe a little. Look, I'm tired, I didn't want to argue. I had to lay it down for him. And you aren't going to change my mind."
"A Dementor attack, you say?"
"Yes."
"And he panicked? Linus, everyone panics when they meet their first Dementor, and he didn't even know what it was."
"That still doesn't –"
"Thank you, Hector." Hector spun around in his chair. Mark was standing in the doorway behind him. His fringe was damp; he looked like he'd just washed his face. There was a glint in his hazel eyes. He sat opposite Hector, on Linus' other side, unsmiling. "Could I say a few words?"
"Sure, of course!" Hector said at once. Linus didn't seem to have the energy to glower. The dark circles under his eyes were very clear.
"So. I'm a coward. I'd load you down. You are responsible for me. If that's really what you think, you have every reason to dismiss me. If that's still what you think after I've had my say, then, I'll accept it – if Hector agrees – and stay here. If you agree it's best. It's true, I have – behaved in a cowardly manner, but now, we could have time to prepare. You're an Obliviator, and this guy we're facing, he's some kind of Obliviator. If you tell Hector and me what to expect, we're less likely to go into a panic and instead fight through it. Also, I've met this man. Hector hasn't. And what if, while you're gone, some law enforcement, maybe tipped off by the bad guy, calls on the house? What if I'm found here, alone? You'd be responsible – though I don't hold you – well… listen. Look at me when I'm talking to you – look at me."
Linus looked at him.
Mark's voice was low, hoarse. Linus had never seen him like this. "You're absolutely right, this is too important to run away from. But I won't, I promise, because I – I –" he faltered and took a deep breath, his face coloring: " I love Calliope."
He fixed Linus' gaze. "I love her. Wholeheartedly."
"That's ridiculous," Linus snapped. "You barely know her."
Mark's hands balled into fists. "Even if that is true, it doesn't change the fact that I will never – ever – turn my back on her, not when she's in danger."
"In danger? In danger? She's only in captivity because you got caught and she offered herself as a hostage in your place! You put her in danger just by knowing her, let alone by being in love with her!" He stood up.
"Linus, please calm down," Hector urged, but now Mark was replying with equal fervor –
"You cannot leave me behind, you cannot."
"That's quite within my power. I'll be busy enough with having to protect her. And I already said, you would be a dead weight."
"Not if it's her! I'll do everything I can. If I abandon the woman I love, then I don't deserve protection, and I hereby release you from any custody or responsibility towards me."
"Jesus Christ, Printzen, you think that'll be enough?"
"What more do you want?"
"Do you really value Calliope's safety?"
"Before God, yes!"
"Gentlemen! Please!" Hector tried to force his way between them. It didn't work.
"Then give me your word," Linus said, "that when we rescue her, you will not entangle yourself with her any more than you already have. As a criminal, as a Muggle, you can only do her harm."
"You don't know that!" Mark interrupted angrily.
"I know more than you do!"
"Why don't we work on rescuing her first, and then talk about romance?"
"That sounds like a great –" Linus paused. "What were we arguing about again?"
Hector glanced uncertainly from Linus to Mark, who irritably ran a hand through his hair. "About whether or not I am coming with you."
"Yes. Yes. That. You're…"
"I'm in love with Calliope, and I'll do whatever I can to save her… including obeying you."
Linus looked at Mark. Their eyes – gray and hazel – locked. At last, Linus said, "All right. I can work with that."
On Sow-Whet street, an owl alighted at a certain house, which was empty for the time being. The letter was addressed from Linus Ollivander to Dora Tonks. The owl then waited on the rooftop, on the lookout for any tasty furry critters.
A couple of hours later, Dora returned home. She frowned as she spotted the owl on the roof. Once inside, she found the letter and tore it open.
As she read, her face turned incredulous, then horrified, then very, very angry. Then, with unnecessary force, she stuffed the paper back into her pocket, growling "Linus you idiot," and ran out the door, to Hogwarts, sending her Patronus out ahead of her.
"His house will likely have anti-Apparation wards, but Scurry might be able to take us there. But she can only Apparate one person at a time, so the first should probably be me. Then Hector, and Mark last of all."
In the hallway, Linus was wearing a his Stone Cloak, while Mark stood in his own Muggle clothes, looking out the narrow hall window, with a brown cloak carelessly thrown over his shoulder. Hector was pulling on a black cloak with some trepidation.
"By the way –" Mark turned away from the window, "and sorry if this is a bad time, but is there any spell for instant killing that I should be aware of?"
Linus and Hector exchanged glances.
"There's three curses that you should be aware of," Linus began.
"Three death curses?"
"No – just one," Hector supplied, "The Avada Kedavra, and one spell for perfect bodily control –"
"Imperius, where your will is subject to the caster's, and Cruciatus, the spell of torture. It can't be thrown off."
"Oh, but death can be?"
"No. Imperius can be thrown off, if you know you're affected and resist hard enough. Together, they're the Unforgivable Curses."
"Well," Mark looked discomfited, "glad to know…" he turned back to the window.
"I have Calliope's linden wand," Hector showed it to Linus, "so that when we find her she can defend herself. I'm ready to go."
"Good." Linus nodded. "Mark, are you ready?" Mark did not answer. Linus stepped closer. "Mark?"
"…God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And the things that are despised, and the things that are not…" Mark took a deep breath, his eyes closed, his breath fogging the window. "God has chosen them to confound the things that are." He opened his eyes and looked at Linus. "Yes. I'm ready."
"All right." Linus turned back to the center of the hallway. "Scurry?"
With a crack, Scurry was before them. "Yes, Master Linus," was all she said.
"Take me, and then Hector, then Mark, to the same place in quick succession." He told her the address of Turpin Rowle.
"Yes, sir."
"Okay. Here we go." Linus stepped forward and took Scurry's outstretched hand. With the crack, the two of the them vanished.
Light flickered back into their eyes, but it was the light of a streetlamp – they were standing outside of a house, on the pavement of an absolutely deserted street. Linus looked down at Scurry. "Good job. Well done. This is the place."
Warily, Scurry looked to the house before them, a tall brick house very like the ones next to it, with juniper trees growing thickly on either side. "We mistrust that place, Master Linus."
"Don't worry, just get Hector and Mark here straight away."
"Yes, sir." A crack, and Linus was alone on the street. He shivered, or felt like he would, and thought that Hector and Mark could not come soon enough.
'So Mark's in love with Calliope,' he thought to himself. 'Why didn't I see it before? I wonder if Calliope realizes… now is not the time to think about these things,' he reprimanded himself.
Crack. Hector appeared beside him. Crack. Scurry vanished. Hector gave a low whistle. "So this is the place, eh?"
"Yep." Linus began to tap his foot, trying to ignore the house behind him, and the cousin beside him. 'I specialize in the mind, not the heart. Never the heart. Okay. He has a right to feel the way he does – if it helps us to save her I'll never say another word against him – but look at where just being friends with her has gotten us. If he went any further, he would be signing her death warrant. I am perfectly justified in what I have done. Besides, she can't possibly reciprocate his… affection.'
'I mean, she can't reciprocate. He's a foolish, overdramatic American Muggle. Being a Muggle shouldn't matter,' he was quick to correct himself, 'It doesn't matter. But it does. It makes every difference in our world…'
Crack. Mark stood there, a bit bewildered, looking around immediately and taking in everything about the street, including the name.
"Anti-house-elf wards?" Hector asked, looking from Scurry to the house. "I never heard of such a thing!"
"That's because house-elves are the one thing you don't ward against," Linus said grimly. "Scurry, you are dismissed."
She curtsied, looked anxiously at each man, and clasped her hands together (warding them from danger, Mark thought) before disappearing.
"Now, to get into that house." Linus stepped forward and held his wand out, like he was using it to scan for something. "There's spells on here that I don't recognize – but they were lifted recently. Someone entered and exited."
"The same person?" Mark asked.
"Don't know."
Hector ambled to the side of the road and picked up a pebble from a gravel driveway. "Old trick from childhood," he explained. "Toss a rock to test the wards." He stopped up towards the closed gate and gave the pebble an underhand toss. About a foot beyond the gate, the pebble changed direction – without changing momentum, the pebble was simply sent backwards, turned around. It fell at Hector's feet. "Huh," he said.
"Nothing worse than that?" Mark asked.
"Worse, you say – this isn't a spell I know how to break. Let's try the Finite Incantetum spell, Hector, you and me together."
"Okay." They stood shoulder to shoulder, wands raised. "Finite Incantetum!" they said together. The air before the house seemed to shimmer – Mark gasped – and then it fell into place again, just as nondescript as before.
"Damn!"
"Another try?"
They repeated the spell. Twice. Three times. Five.
"They say seven's the charm," Hector said, in all seriousness.
"What if we tried walking through – the three of us?" Mark suggested. "If we all walk in single file, how can it expel three of us in a straight line at once?"
Hector looked doubting, and Linus glanced at the pebble.
"We'll hold hands?" Mark offered.
It turned out the barrier could expel three at once. Hector had hardly stepped into it when Linus was suddenly marching past his ear, then Mark, then Hector himself followed like a bizarre game of Crack the Whip.
After they regained their balance, Linus started going after the barrier with every counter to every ward that he could think of, and Hector followed his example. But nothing changed. They threw the pebble over several times, and each time its reaction was the same.
At a break in the action, Linus stared at the house while Hector leaned against a mailbox. "There's one light on," the Obliviator said. "One. Someone must be awake. Maybe the one in charge of the ward. Maybe – maybe a challenge is what he's looking for. A fight. A declaration of war."
"Seriously?" Mark asked. "A, 'Hello, my name is Linus Ollivander, you killed my father, prepare to die?'"
"I know, it's the kind of dumb thing you'd come up with…"
Mark flinched, but just glared at Linus' back. "Oh, don't worry. You're sleep-deprived."
"But we can't do that. We'll alert the whole neighborhood!" Hector said.
"What else can we do?"
"Is there maybe a back door?"
"Right, a back door that he forgot to protect. "
A sharp gust of wind blew autumn down the street. It carried the sound of a church bell ringing – one, two, three, eleven times it chimed. Hector straightened up. "What do you think –"
"We're out of time," Linus sighed heavily, leaning on the neighbor's stone fence.
"The clock is upbraiding all of us with the waste of time," Mark answered, "but we can't give up. You know the most of this guy. Think. What stratagems does he employ? Passwords, maybe? Like swordfish? What's his favorite football team?"
"Quidditch," Hector corrected.
"All I know about him," Linus said, "Is his work, and how devoted he is to…" He stopped. He stared at the house. He walked up to the gate. He clasped his Stone Cloak at his throat. He laid his wand hand over his heart and stretched his left hand towards the gate. He said solemnly, "Splendide mendax."
The air in front of the house shimmered slightly. Mark couldn't feel the dissipation of magic, but he saw the relief on Hector's face as he said "Oh, that's great. That's the motto of the Obliviators, isn't it?"
Linus nodded. Mark looked from one to the other as they gathered in front of the gate. "What does it mean?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to know.
As Linus opened the gate he said shortly, "'Nobly untruthful.' Come on, let's go, and remember our plan."
They entered the yard at last in single file. A few complicated Unlocking Charms yielded the door to them. Linus and Hector lit their wands at once in the dark hallway.
"Hector, Mark and I will take the upstairs. You investigate these rooms, and then look in the cellar. If we find anything, Expecto Patronum." All this in a whisper.
Hector only nodded in reply, his face white.
"And Mark," Linus added, "don't touch anything."
The men moved slowly down the hallway. Linus' wandlight was reflected in a mirror at the end of it. Mark kept his hands clenched into fists at his side – and glanced at the mirror. He stopped, mesmerized. His own face became clouded, and beside it other images became clear…
"That's…" he murmured, starting to walk towards it.
Linus glanced at the mirror, then reached out and slapped Mark on the shoulder. "Don't look at it, probably a trap." He looked further down the hall. Seeing nothing worth exploring, he made for the stairwell. He glanced back at Mark and gestured as if to say, "Well, come on!"
But Mark saw, behind Linus, a symbol in gold light up on the wall. Mark had seen that sigil once before – right before his arrest.
"What is it?" Linus asked, seeing Mark's face.
Before Mark could say, everything went wrong.
First an orange light like a firework went off in every doorway. Mark staggered against the doorframe, gripping his forehead and babbling loose Shakespeare. Linus fell backwards down the stair, knocking his head against the wall and falling unconscious. Hector reeled away from the cellar stairs and lost his balance.
He was trying to stand up when a red bolt of light punctuated the darkness, and Hector and Mark both fell, unconscious, to the floor.
In less than five minutes, the gold sigils on the wall faded as Magical Law Enforcement officials forced their way through the door, and found three intruders, including two wanted criminals, Confounded and Stunned, on the floor of Turpin Rowle's flat.
It was October 30th, 1976 – the last night before Benedicte Ollivander vanished.
The lamps were lit against the autumn chill outside. Benedicte finished reading aloud 'The Star's Goodnight,' and looked down at her charge. To her happy surprise, Calliope had fallen asleep on her lap. "Aw, the little dear," she whispered. Then, a moment later, she tried to pick up the two-year-old 'dear' and groaned. "You're getting so big!
"I'll put the not-so-Shrimp to bed, Mum," she said to Philomel, who was looking through a cookbook with Linus to find a good cake for the birthday party tomorrow.
"All right." Philomel looked up, smiling at her daughters. "Have you and your friends settled your plans for tomorrow?"
"Yep – we're all going to meet in Edinburgh tomorrow to shop. They insisted on Edinburgh." Benny grinned conspiratorially at her mother. "I wonder why."
Without another word, she carefully balanced the toddler between her shoulder and hip and took her to her bedroom. Gilt stars spun on the wallpaper as they entered.
"And down to bed you go," said Benny, as she very gently, very quietly, set down her little sister. As she drew the blanket over Calliope, the baby shifted and kicked. "Shh, shh, you'll see me tomorrow, don't you worry." Stroking the black hair, she sang,
"The moon must sleep beyond the tree
"So weep sweet maid of Galilee
"The sun must rise before the cross
"To dry your tears and share your loss.
"The darkest hour of the starless night
"Must bow to the power of the Eastern light,
"That heals the earth, and makes us whole,
"Heart of my heart, soul of my soul."
She kissed her fingers, and touched the baby's forehead with a caress. Then she extinguished the lamp, and left her sister to her dreaming. Benedicte had to get ready for tomorrow.
The End of The Ollivander Children
Stay tuned for: The Ollivanders At War
Author's Note: ... first of all, everyone, I'm sorry.
Blame the movies and their cliffhanger.
If I had published this a year ago, before I started working with a beta-reader, you would be reading my rough draft, and at this point we would be on our way to wrapping up all the plotlines in a slick fashion that would take up about five more chapters and a tidy epilogue, and a few days in-story time, and we would all be happy.
But it would not be right.
As I worked through the rough draft with my beta reader, I found myself making drastic improvements, mostly by remembering the characters I had created in the first place, and removing blocks such as bad communication, unnecessary side trips, and the Idiot Ball. But when it came to this point, this kidnapping, I realized it could be way better. That my villain could be smarter. I frequently say, the villain makes the story. And what was the point of setting up Turpentine as a savvy politician, enterprising scientist, canny Death Eater - a schmott guy, in other words - only to have him fall for a high-school blunder of flubbing up a schedule?
You, my readers, deserve better. My characters deserve better.
And that's when The Ollivanders At War came into existence. It's still a work-in-progress, which is why I am... *deep breath* not publishing it for a while. But it will be published, and right here on . That's a promise.
Look at it this way: it's not the Three Year Summer. And if you don't remember the Three Year Summer, then you weren't there.
I am aiming for the first chapter of Ollivanders at War to be published March 26, 2011, Saturday. If this should change, I will definitely update; look for the news on my profile.
I ask, please, for your understanding and continued support, because believe me, your Story Alerts, and reviews, and Favorites, mean so much to me. I can't even tell you. So, in short, stay tuned. Please don't forget this story. Recommend it to others. Review, please, tell me what you think of this chapter! Check back in on March 26th, and I'll provide The Ollivanders At War then, or give the reason why.
March 26, 2011.
That's a promise.
See you later...