Persistence
Chapter Five
These Bloody Hands
--
The house looked calm enough as I apparated into the grounds.
The Ministry has many safe houses scattered around the country. Most are in muggle places, where the ordinary Wizards aren't usually around to observe things that the Ministry constantly maintains aren't there. Muggle-repelling charms are wonderful, and the modifications made by the Unspeakables provide a more solid security profile then almost anything else. Still, for the really big secrets, we need other places. Remote places, far away from populated areas, where something really messy (like an exploding house, or spattered remains of things that weren't recognizable to begin with) doesn't end up photoed and front-paged in the Daily Prophet. Places such as the Waltham forest, a ten thousand years old ancient woodland thousands of acres wide, nearly fifth of the area magical and shunned by all but the Ministry explorers and the Unspeakables.
The safe houses in the old forest now known as Epping were run by the Department of Mysteries, and were mere hearsay and less than that to most Ministry Officials. Then again, I hadn't been most Ministry Officials. Kingsley had always leveled with me, something that had entitled him to my respect. He had confided in me, telling me things that protocol had forbidden him to. Trusting me never to take advantage of the secrets for my own purposes.
I tried hard to think how I wasn't abusing his trust. Not really. All of it felt so wrong- but I was sure he would have approved, had he known.
I kept busy, telling myself that. Maybe that was why it took me so long to notice the dementors.
--
The dementors are known as one of the first magical creatures that had originated after mankind. Griffins and phoenixes, chimeras and dragons are all known to have existed even before Atlantis, and the fossils we always steal from the confounded muggle archaeologists conform to our knowledge of them as beings of ancient and primitive magical origin, when wizards weren't around to shackle the Spirits of Power and harness them for the source of their spells. Not the dementors.
There had been a land of wizards once, who had delved into powers better left alone, to save their nation from the invading empires. They had raised mountains, grown forests, torn apart the entire land to hide themselves- and they had succeeded so well that even after all these centuries no one is sure how exactly they had died out. The Illyrians are now as much a myth as the ancient Atlantians, maybe more- at least we can guess what had happened to Atlantis. All you can see in Albania now are ruins and less than ruins, memories of stone that remind us of a world vanished like the morning mist. But there is a rumour that says that Illyria had left a legacy... that the webs of stealth and darkness had settled into their very souls, leaving little but empty husks behind. The first of the dementors were born thus, some say. They had lost their souls, and they hunger-
I should have known they were there, from the first. I should have known. But the same occlumency that helped to keep me sane and controlled had interfered with my sensitivity, and in the steady calm of an occlumens I hadn't noticed the frosty chill that now threatened to settle over my mind. I should've been taken by surprise as they swooped down from the cover of the trees, three of them, black shapes mixing in the starless dark so well I had to strain my eyes to see them. They were only ten feet from me, and gaining, but the shadow had surged within me already. It was alert, always, and it had smelled the air and sampled the night and had known that something was wrong. My wand blurred into my hand, my mind clearing-
And the chill came, a spear of jagged painful frost in my brain, death and remembrance fighting in my mind's vision as more shapes black as night burst forth into my blurring view all around me as if from empty air-
She looks up at me. Her eyes are full of pain, yet they dull as I watch. Dull with age, her eyelashes turning white, the brown in her eyes becoming mottled and flecked with something Other-
"Please," she croaks. "It hurts-"
"Shh. Shh." I try to soothe her. My breaths come ragged.
I stagger.
"James-" She chokes. "James."
"He's sleeping. He's all right. He's safe." I tell her. Truth, oh god. Truth. He wouldn't wake again. Nothing could harm my boy. Not anymore.
I am on my knees, somehow. I do not feel the ground under me. It's as if I'm falling, not down but inward-
"See- him- hurts-"
I take out my wand. Her skin tries to peel away as I caress her face.
"Hold on. Don't try to speak. The pain will go away soon. Soon." The despair sharpens, and weaves a bloody spear through my heart. I touch the wand to her neck, oblivious to the silent watchers at the door.
The rage blossoms, erupts. Blossoms in deathly silence. Blossoms green.
The gaping mouths I see, see through the tears that blur my eye. My heart is empty, and the soulless swoop down scenting weakened prey. They dig up the memories, all the blood and tears and the restless Dead that hound my dreams. They tell me the price of resisting. They sing of lonely despair.
My senses flicker, as the past and the present merge -
"Lily, take Harry and go! I'll hold him off -"
"Take me, kill me instead -"
Green light, green light, green...
And the memory of a memory, the shades on that fateful night, risen from the Sunless Lands answering the call of the Hallow. They swarm around me, all whom I have lost, all the death and blood and pain that had precluded the final triumph. The ones that I have lost...
Lost, but not forever.
Hope. I had hope. I hoped one day to finally board the train.
But not today, and not in their hands.
I had work, yet...
"Expecto Patronum!"
The spell surged forth, a blinding wave of white. The black shapes scattered, pursued by the white stag. Prongs hounded them, chased them ruthlessly and without tiring. They were gone in seconds, and the stag finally turned towards me-
And I saw its eyes. Knowing eyes, blazing eyes.
Death's eyes
There is an old legend in the Epping. The legend of a white stag, that heralds destruction and death.
Magic has strange rules, and sometimes even the caster is taken by surprise. I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the magical chill that was even now slowly dissolving away.
--
The front door was hanging from the hinges, the aged wood torn and shattered. It screamed of things gone wrong, but I had known that already.
The first things I noticed were the bodies.
The front room was littered with debris, bits and pieces of furniture. Five corpses lay on the floor, scattered around the room, and there could be no doubt that they were corpses. One I could clearly recognize as a female, half of her left breast still attached to her body. Others, I couldn't even begin to guess. Bloody and mauled lumps of flesh, that was all they were, their blood pooling still all around the room. I recognized the claw marks that had been left on the walls. I recognized the reckless abandon in the bloodshed, the sheer animal wildness of it. The scene wasn't anything I hadn't seen before.
Werewolves.
I'd had to deal with several of the rogue packs after the war had wound out. Hunting them had been my job for a time, job I couldn't have trusted to the younger Aurors who had so much more to live for. So I had observed the warm blood still trickling from the dead woman's jugular and known it for the sign that it was. A fresh corpse, half-finished, abandoned in order to hunt better or more difficult prey.
The rush of wind, when it finally came, found me harder prey than it had expected.
"Arresto Momenta!" My wand blurred in a semicircle, sending a wave of power surging forward.
You don't spear a werewolf, not even with silver. The sharp end goes in and does the job, yes, but the time it takes for the werewolf to die is sufficient enough for it to eviscerate you with considerable ease. Only people like Lockhart could've thought up something like that- what an experienced hunter working alone does is to meet the first charge, crush it, and when the beast pauses on basic animal instinct to better gauge the distance to the disillusioned prey- strike! A Killing Curse does an admirable job, even considering the power needed- conjuring a silver object needs considerable concentration not easily mastered at a moment's notice.
Of course, all that is assuming that there is only one werewolf. The werewolves smell and hear sharply enough to know exactly where you are, even under a sight-masking spell. Any curse visible or uttered aloud gives your position away to any pack member watching, and even a silent and invisible spell can't really hide from their superhuman senses. A hunter hunting a pack without backup is just a hunter about to be dead. You don't match three or four unbeatably fast magical creatures with simply human reflexes. They shred you apart sooner or later, however quickly you throw your spells around.
Unless you can use spells that really don't limit the damage. Or you expect the attack.
Unfortunately for them, it was both this time...
The other two now circled me, joining the first who had shaken off the freezing curse, the eyes mad with bloodlust and animal rage, their nostrils flaring to locate the prey. I looked at the three shaggy half-beasts, the hands and legs elongated, lean muscles straining and quivering with suppressed tension. The full moon had been the night before, and the features of the beast were still sharp in the faces.
There had been a time in the future when I would've hesitated to kill something still recognizable as human. That time will not be again.
They leaped at me, coordinating their attacks as naturally as only beasts hunting together can do. The front one leaped high, the one to the left crouching and breaking off escape. I could feel the one at my back coming fast at my jugular.
The anti-apparition wards were already down, and that helped. Still, they were dead either way. They had died when they had failed to kill me the first time.
They were already recovering from the rush, looking for the vanished prey. I stood back from the door a step, and they all whirled round, facing the faint footstep, facing me. I could see them tensing, the hindlegs crouching down, ready to spring-
The spell had risen in my mind, and the magic now eagerly answered.
A diagonal slash to the down and left with my wand, followed by one to the right. The Norse rune Kauna or the rune Kenaz, symbol for the living fire.
"Inferno."
The fire blossomed within me, a scorching heat trying to escape through my blood and veins and my blistering fingers- then past me, past my smoldering wand and burning its way through the air and smashing through the walls, a tidal wave of searing heat so blue as to be almost invisible-
The shockwave propelled me backward, and I apparated mid-motion, not the smooth and silent twirl but a violent leap to a safer distance that deposited me in a disoriented heap on the ground. I rolled and got up halfway, crouching, ready for any threat as the house burned. The safety wards were still active, and I could see the fires slowly subside under their influence.
The 'pop's came, loud and clear in the silent night as only the flames crackled. I was expecting them, and yet again strengthened the Disillusionment charm. Five men, two still coughing, black soot covering all the white masks. They all looked around, expecting attack, and then the two apparated away. The other three searched the area, looking for the threat.
The sight confirmed what I already knew. I had miscalculated. Badly.
--
The Ministry holds some very powerful magical objects, legacies from our ancestors who hadn't known many of the strange rules that limits our power in this age. Trinkets and old odds-and-ends from the old Shamans whose principles of operation aren't properly understood to this day. One such little artifact, for example, is the centre of the underage magic tracking system spread over the whole island. Most of such artifacts are kept underground, where none but the Division can see them.
Sometimes though, for one reason or another, some of these may be kept in Ministry-approved safe houses that the Department of Mysteries run all over the country. It may be because the artifacts get affected by the smothering wards in the Division, or maybe they interfere with the security measures. Or maybe because the Division thinks them unimportant enough. Those go to the safe houses.
One of the very many things I hadn't known when I had been fighting against Voldemort was how hard he had hit the Ministry before overtaking. He had hit us hard, hard and bloody. One of the biggest scandals in the Division was about how a cache of magical items had been stolen from the safe house at Epping, about a week into the start of my fifth year at Hogwarts. The Ministry investigation had concluded it as something completely disconnected to the mysterious attacks all around the country. They had believed it right until their Dark Magic Trackers had been deactivated a year later using some of those, rendering the Aurors helpless and the Unspeakables inconceivably paranoid. The disappearence of the Official who had given the original order to move the artifacts hadn't helped at all.
I'd thought about doing the stealing myself, as soon as I'd gotten my bearings. It was bound to mess up the Dark Lord's plans, and I had believed myself capable enough of finding out the secrets of the trinkets. The night was my chance at getting to those, hopefully undetected, a smooth job in-and-out. The dementors had spoiled it, and the werewolves. It looked as if this time Voldemort was a little more impatient.
This could be bad. This could be very bad for my plans.
I had to have more information. I needed to get my hands on one of the Death Eaters.
Hopefully before the others got back with reinforcements. Or the Syr moved in.
I took aim, carefully, at the masked figure closest to me. All of them were peering about, looking for the source of the fire. I prepared myself to let the Disillusion spell drop, as it would be only a burden to constantly power in a case the fight got... complicated. My hood would probably be enough in the night. The other two Death Eaters were further wide to my right and left, and no spell suggested itself that was wide enough to take care of all three. Not with certainty, against alert wizards who could shield.
On the other hand, keeping things simple can go a long way in these things.
"Stupefy!" I shouted, putting power into the spell. A jet of brilliant red burst forth from my wand, lifting the Death Eater into the air even as he turned. The other two whirled round, and twin blue curses sailed towards me as I fixed the location in my mind and stepped forward-
The world reoriented itself, the masked figure grunting as I drove my knee to the small of his back with all my strength. The apparition had been silent, but the other masked wizard had seen me and was already turning-
"Scindo!" He shouted at me, the blue streak coming out from his wand. The one I'd kicked was still staggering from the blow as I shoved him towards the curse and spun away as his shoulder was sliced open in a spray of blood.
"Percutio." I whispered. The invisible beam hissed though the air and he formed a Protego, hastily. I focussed on the thin shield, still shivering from the Percussion charm, and called up the hate and anger burning through me still-
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green light lit up his mask, the wind rushing in my ears, and then the body lay sprawled on the ground.
I wished that I could've seen his face.
The wounded wizard was rising up, his wand hand trembling but still pointed at me, as more 'pop's signaled the new arrivals. I moved fast, closing in to the injured Death Eater, and moved my head aside as a weak spell shot out from his wand. My hand came up, hard, the edge of my palm smashing into his elbow. He dropped his wand and tried for a punch, but my knee was already up and driving at his groin with all the strength that I could master. He groaned in pain in my arms, temporarily subdued, as I ignored the spells coming toward me and concentrated. The apparition tunnel formed, a tight tube of subspace to elsewhere-
Shift -
I threw the whimpering Death Eater into the ground, where he curled up into a ball. I looked around the clearing, the trees standing high and forbidding on all sides. How fitting that it would all happen it here again (or perhaps before…). How right.
"Subsisto. Subsisto. Confuto Apparatum!" A wide wave of blue surged from my wand, clear and crackling energy permeating the air and seeping into the very ground. Not the most elegant way to stop Apparition, but it would serve for now.
Petrificus. I watched as the paralysis spell took effect, seizing the Death Eater's body into its unrelenting grip and laying him flat on the ground. A gesture and his robe dissolved. His mask followed, splintering with a sharp sound. He tried to cry out for help as a shard drove into his chin.
Naked and helpless, lying paralyzed on the leaves that littered the dark forest ground, he looked pathetic. I circled him, and he tried desperately to follow me with his eyes.
"I want you to realize some things," I said in a voice that was as cold as I could I make it, and it wasn't an effort at all. "I've covered the ground with an anti-apparition ward. Any tracking spell you had in your robe is no longer working. You are alone here with me, and no one, especially your associates, is coming to get you. There will be no… rescue, especially because I will kill you if someone even tries to barge in here. You understand?"
I removed the paralysis from his mouth. He began to sob.
"You understand?" I pressed. I didn't have all night.
"Please, please, don't kill me-"
"Why do you think I'll kill you?" I took off my hood, just to unsettle him that little bit more. The more nervous he is, the easier it would be. For us both.
"You!" There was wonder in his voice as he gasped and choked as the paralysis took hold of him again. "You took us out? You? Alone?"
That sounded properly disbelieving. I smiled, showing all my teeth.
"Well, seems to me that I was enough for you three, wasn't I? And I even managed to kill one!"
"Please- please- don't kill me-" The fear was in his eyes again, as I had hoped. Being fifteen-years old made a proper torture inconvenient. "Look, I- I remember you, I was in my final year when you started Hogwarts! Don't you remember me? I'm Everett Whitehall- Ravenclaw-" I snapped his mouth shut with a wave of my hand.
"I'm not going to kill you, for Merlin's sake. I just want to know what you know. I need information. I want to know what you were doing there attacking the safe house. I want to know what your colleagues are busy doing. And you are going to tell me. Then I can remove your memories and I send you to the Aurors. You won't remember a thing."
"No- please- you don't understand-" He choked on tears, pathetically. "I didn't want to do this! I didn't! I- I have a daughter, a little girl- they'd kill her- if I tell you anything, they would know! They'd kill her!"
"They might kill her anyway," I snapped, disgusted. "You don't think you can ever get back to being a Death Eater after being abducted by someone unknown? They'd kill you on sight, thinking you've been turned- or worse yet, a polyjuiced impersonator. Better if you tell me all I know right now, and I assure you that Dumbledore would do his best to retrieve your daughter. Even Voldemort fears him- you think he won't be able to help you if you go to him? Tell me all that you know, and he'll bring you your daughter if she's still alive."
"No. No, I won't betray the Dark Lord! I can't! He would know, and he'd kill her! The Dark Lord always knows!"
"Look, you pathetic excuse for a wizard, you will tell me what I want to know or I'll rip his secrets right out of your mind!" I shouted, finally losing my patience. This wasn't getting as I had expected. Then again, I was new at this torture-for-information business. Hopefully I'd get better with practice.
"You work for Him, don't you," The Death Eater continued as if he hadn't heard me at all, "He sent you to kill Mortimer because he betrayed Him somehow. And He wasn't sure about me- I'll never betray Him! I love my daughter, I'd do anything for her, please-"
I stood back and centred myself, layering my mind with apathetic, unrippled calm. I could feel something inside my soul, the insidious Shadow, worming its way up to the surface of my mind.
I opened my eyes and smiled, and he must've read something in it, for he went still and gasped again, his eyes wide.
"You see," I whispered, squatting close beside him. "Here's what else you need to know. I suppose it's only fair that I tell you." I leaned down, staring at his eyes. He lay still, transfixed, the sweet taste of fear beating fast as his heart to my senses. "I have something inside myself, a shadow, a darkness, even I don't really know. And the fact is," I leaned even closer and whispered in his ear, "it doesn't much care what happens to you or anyone else... it only knows that I want you to tell me something. You will tell me, wizard. Believe it."
I stood and and looked at my wand. The tip sharpened, glinted even in the dark of night. Glinted silver.
I smiled as the world grew more real around me, sharper than the blade I held in my hands.
"I suppose we should start from the legs…"
--
The dorm looked calm enough as I entered, all the students sleeping peacefully. I dispelled the illusion on my bed and looked around. The only audible sound was Ron's snoring, familiar even after so many years.
I looked myself over and frowned at the disturbingly red stain on my right sleeve. I cleaned it with a thought, thankful that I'd noticed it. Memory charming my dorm-mates would've been awkward.
The night had been hectic, and the trip to the Library could've ended in a real disaster if I hadn't taken the Marauder's Map with me when I had left. Not that Filch could've really caught me, but squandering power in the corridors with all the portraits watching would've been really imprudent. Still, I'd gotten away with my trips, both inside and out of the school, and Lady Justice had been served. Two of the bastards were dead, and I had acted as her hand. And the shadow had been satisfied, after what seemed an awfully long time.
I stretched myself over the comfortable sheets, all the worries and wonderings gone for tomorrow.
Justice had been served.
Sleep came, peaceful and without dreams. The sleep of a man who had done all that he could have done, and hadn't faltered in his path.
The sleep of the just.
--
Note: The legend of the white stag in the Epping forest exists.