Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or ideas which you recognise as being from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series or any other trademarked or copyrighted work. The plot of this story is my own, but I have no intention of making any money from it.
Chapter 18
Life continued. It was ten days after her first meeting that Hermione was summoned once more into Voldemort's prescence. When the call came, she and Severus were having a quiet dinner at the flat.
She gave a sharp yelp of pain, in the middle of a sentence, and clutched her arm. Severus seemed fine.
"This probably means that he wants to talk to you alone, about the golems," he said quietly. "Go on, you're a member of the Inner Circle now. You'll be alright."
With a wan smile, she summoned her Death Eater robes and put them on, before closing her eyes and apparating with no fixed destination in mind.
She found herself on a beach of grey sand, which stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. Voldemort stood before her, so she knelt, bowing her head. "Arise, my daughter," he said, giving her mind a cursory scan as their eyes met. But she was prepared, and he saw nothing that she did not want him to.
"Make me a 'golem', as you call them," he commanded.
Picking a random memory from her mind, of her childhood teacher, Hermione did so. Within seconds, standing before her was a very ordinary looking man, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes. She had, however, been careful to replace the Muggle suit which Mr. Sandringham always wore with a set of emerald green robes.
Voldemort walked around him. "Interesting. I have tried to replicate these charms myself, as I saw them in your mind, and such a result I cannot garner."
Hermione felt that the best response to this was probably more fawning, so once again she threw herself on the sand, wailing about how she was unworthy and how if only she could serve him.
"Get up," he said shortly, and, anxious not to incur his wrath, she did.
"You say you can control two hundred."
"Yes. But the more there are, the simpler the command which I can have them perform."
"Let me see."
The rest of the evening, until late in the night, was spent with two hundred and fifty (he had pushed her beyond her self-imposed limits) identical copies of Mr. Sandringham walking round the beach. Voldemort was almost scientific in the way that he measured the maximum distance a golem could go from her without disintegrating back into earth (321 feet precisely), and the complexity of the spells that a golem could cast within that area. Then, once the moon had risen high in the sky and the beach had to be lit by tiny little white lights, conjured by the Dark Lord himself, he finally bade her stop all the other tests, and conduct one last one.
"Tell them to kill each other."
"My lord, that instruction is too complex for so many! I can tell them to kill, but they will turn on us as well. It is too general a command." Hermione was by this point too exhausted to be properly fawning. She hoped that the "My lords" which she kept inserting at odd moments were doing the trick by themselves.
"That is a failing within your own inadequate mind, Helena."
Hermione really, really hated being called inadequate, but she was hardly going to argue. Voldemort was ignoring her anyway, continuing in his solliloquy.
"These golems must have a sense of self in order to be able to recognise that they are following the instructions, so must be able to recognise others of their kind. Like recognises like, after all. It is not such a stretch to go from 'kill' to 'kill anything which is like me'."
She didn't think it worked like that, but she decided she might as well give it a go. There was, of course, one problem.
"But will they not kill themselves first?" she asked, adding "My Lord," as an afterthought.
"Let us see."
Hermione, with some trepidation, did as he had ordered, concentrating on the collection of charms which made up the essence of what a golem was, and then flicking her wand with the order to "kill golems".
What happened next was precisely what Hermione had expected. Each golem, without ceremony, ripped its own head off and collapsed into a pile of sand on the beach.
"Interesting," was all that Voldemort would comment.
X
Another two weeks passed. Towards the end of April, Seamus went on another business trip, this time to France. But this time, the news was not so good. When he arrived at the address Hermione had given him, there was nothing but a burned out shack, the words "ell Cott" just visible on the remains of a singed signpost in the front garden.
He tramped across the muddy ground, towards the house, when suddenly he found himself at wandpoint. A short, squat wizard was pointing a thin white wand at him. Suddenly, the wizard spoke in English, in a gruff, loud voice. "You? English? What you want?"
"I'm looking for the people who used to live here," said Seamus nervously, backing away. This definitely hadn't been part of the plan. "Bill and Fleur Weasley? They were friends of mine from long ago."
The french wizard raised an eyebrow, wrinkling his nose. "Friends?"
That time, the accent was very slightly wrong, and Seamus had an inkling of what he was dealing with. He decided to go for broke.
"Yes," he said. "Friends. My name is Seamus Finnegan. Hermione Granger would like me to tell you that the first three of Henry the Eighth's wives, were divorced, beheaded and died respectively."
The French wizard changed suddenly to a tall, pink-haired woman. "And I'll remind you that the only one of the rest which matters is the last – because she survived his terrors."
She held out a hand, putting her wand back in its sheath up the sleeve of her violet robes. "Hi. I'm Tonks. Come and meet the family, Seamus Finnegan."
It was quite odd, reflected Seamus, to be side-along apparated when you had not travelled in that manner for almost ten years. They burst with a loud bang into a cosy kitchen, in which a pair of blue-haired twins were colouring, while their younger sister, her hair floor-length and blonde, played with dolls by the fire.
"Remus?" shouted the woman called Tonks. "I'm back!"
It was an even stranger feeling to be greeted by your ex-teacher as a comrade and friend, thought the Irishman. Ex-Professor Lupin unfolded from a chair by the fire, stretching his lanky legs and standing to meet them.
He kissed his wife. "I gathered that you were home from the loud bang, dear," he told her with a smile. "It tends to accompany apparition. And who's the guest?"
He turned to face him. "Seamus Finnegan, sir. Friend of Harry's. I was in your defence class, third year. It's very nice to see you safe."
"He knew the pass-phrase, Remus."
The werewolf nodded gravely. "Have you news?"
"Yes. But I'd also like to know – what happened to Shell Cottage? Where are Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour? They were meant to be my main contacts."
Lupin's face darkened. "Not all has gone well, this side of the channel. But time enough for that later, once the children are in bed."
He turned to these, introducing them. "Seamus, meet Amy and Alex, aged seven. They both inherited their mother's metamorphosis powers, hence the hair."
"I rather like it!" said the Irishman with a grin. This earned him twin beaming smiles, before they went back to their colouring books.
"They're Amelia and Alexander really," confided Remus, "but Dora refused to have names which couldn't be shortened easily, and we're used to the nicknames now."
He turned to the youngest. "Here we have Cora, aged three. It's short for Corialina – an old family name."
"Is Cora a metamorphamagus too?" asked Seamus curiously.
"Not exactly," replied Remus. "With the one exception of her hair. No matter how much you cut it or dye it, it always ends up floor-length and blonde within twenty four hours. She can't change that consciously though, or anything else about her appearance."
Cora, who had big grey eyes like her father, looked up vaguely from the dolls, waved at Seamus, and returned to her own pursuits.
"They go to the local Muggle primary school and kindergarten," said Tonks, in answer to a question which had not been asked. "They're bilingual in both English and French, thanks to that."
She sounded rather proud, so Seamus felt it was only polite to nod interestedly. "Wow. Do you still have ties to the French magical community, though?"
Her face lost its smile. "No. After the children are in bed."
X
Once this mythical time arrived, Seamus found himself ensconced with Tonks and Lupin by the fire. By some unspoken agreement, Lupin began the story.
"At the beginning, we moved in will Fleur's family, in their mansion near Paris. It's a beautiful city – Dora and I fell in love there."
"Maybe you did," interjected Tonks with a snort. "Why do you think I followed you to France in the first place?"
"Anyway, Bill and Fleur got married and moved into Shell Cottage, the remains of which you saw, and then Dora and I did, and bought our own house right in the centre of Paris, on the Rue de la Lune. At first, everything seemed fine. I worked in a small clerical capacity for the French Ministry, and Dora joined their Law Enforcement department.
"About three years in, when Dora was on maternity leave with the twins, one of her contacts in Law Enforcement called us. Apparently, Voldemort's government had called for our extradition as dangerous war criminals, and though the French government didn't officially allow it, certain pro-pureblood officials had granted permission for a group of Death Eaters to come through and assassinate us instead. I don't know how they found us – I suppose that Fleur's family was just too prominent not to be noticed."
Seamus had started at the names. Tonks, noticing, explained: "The taboo doesn't extend past the borders of the UK, you know. Even the one on Voldemort's name. The French Ministry isn't actually all made up of Death Eaters – just lots of purebloods with old-fashioned ideas."
Remus continued. "See, since the travesty of Grindelwald in the 40s, Wizarding Governments tend to have a live and let live policy towards one another, to avoid another conflict as far as possible. So as long as it was all done on the quiet, no-one would really object to two families being murdered. It was only by sheer luck, that this friend of Dora's was a secretary, and had seen a few documents she probably shouldn't. Bill and Fleur weren't so lucky. Fleur's family lost their position and a lot of their wealth trying to get justice for their eldest daughter, but the government had closed ranks by this point, so there was really no chance.
We did as Hermione had suggested before, and went into hiding in the Muggle world, here in France. The chateau has a wine cellar which I use for transformations. In the absence of Wolfsbane, I tend to find that an alcoholic stupor helps to numb the pain. Dora makes a living as a model in the Paris catwalks – of course, she's always whatever they're looking for that season. I supplement that with some teaching, mainly of English. We get by.
So, that's our story," finished Lupin. "I hope you've come to tell us that we can come home soon."
"Maybe," said Seamus. He was moved by their plight, and suddenly struck by how much older Remus looked. He was only in his early fifties, barely a third of his expected lifespan, but looked tired already. "I've come to tell you that we're going to have one last stand. Except this time, we intend to win."