DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns most of the characters and settings here—I own the rest.

Yes, the title of this chapter is taken from one of the Highlander films. I only enjoyed the first one. *grin*

It's also a little heavy on the language and violence. Be warned.

(For those who read this earlier, I have made one quick edit of a typo. Walden says "...the power vested in..." as he should.)

Feel free to leave a further review in the box at the end of the chapter...on with the show!

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
Chapter 29 – Endgame

"I'm here, Walden," Yaxley said; he'd appeared behind Avery. Possibly he'd been Cloaked or done a Notice-Me-Not—he'd been adept at both, Walden recalled, in both his Ministry and Death Eater careers.

"Good," Walden grunted, as he quickly drank the shot the barman brought. "'M tired of listenin' ta Avery."

"I say—" Avery began, and Yaxley waved at him to be silent.

"I know you two aren't friends," Yaxley said, laconically, as he waved the barman over and motioned toward the lager taps. "We have more important things to worry about than petty disagreements. Walden, you can stay at my house for the duration. Herbert, when we're done here, go find someone to shag and quit your infernal whining."

"More like pay someone," Walden said.

"What's the matter, Walden, are you sad because your Lucy-poo isn't with you? Or do you actually miss the Mudblood?"

"Ye must have a death wish, Avery."

"Shut it!" Yaxley accepted his lager from the barman and drained it quickly. "Pay your tabs and let's go, we can settle this elsewhere."

The three ducked into the alleyway behind the pub and Disapparated, reappearing in front of Avery's house, which was far out in the country in Cheshire, Unplottable, and rather dilapidated. After Avery and his wife Lucinda had divorced, she'd taken back her maiden name and all of her Galleons. He'd sold his part of their Somerset residence to her and used the proceeds to buy this place, which he'd never liked. It had sat empty during his years in Azkaban, and only recently, with the assistance of two elderly elves from the Placement Agency on Diagon Alley, had he begun to bring order to the rampant chaos. Only a few rooms were currently habitable, and one of them was a small, dingy guest room, in which Walden had been reluctantly staying.

"Smoothest Disapparation I've had in a while," Yaxley noted, brushing at his coat sleeve. Avery waved his wand over his inexpertly assembled Muggle-wear and Transfigured it to overly-ornamented wizard robes, which were a bit too large for him.

"Borrowing your da's robes again, Herbert?" said Walden, as he examined his fingernails.

"At least I'm properly dressed," Avery whinged.

"Nothin' wrong with me clothes," Walden replied. He was in a kilt and heavy jumper.

"All right, that's it. You two need to duel this out. I'll have to act as second for both of you, and try not to kill each other….or don't, I'm not chuffed either way," Yaxley added, as he slowly ambled over and sat on the front stoop.

Walden whipped out his wand and jabbed it into the hollow of Avery's throat, then grabbed his shoulder roughly with his left hand, holding him in place, all before the other wizard had managed to react.

"Avery, ye knobdobber, I'm nae tellin' ye anythin' about who I've been fuckin', or how, or even why, so ye may as well shut yer gob now before I shut it for ye," Walden said, in a low, rather calm voice. "And if what ye're wantin' is for me to fuck ye, that'll never happen."

"I'm not interested in that! I like witches!" Avery spluttered.

"Aye, the younger the better, and ye're nae bothered if they're related ta ye or nae, ye fookin' scunner, I know all about ye."

"That's because you were fucking my wife for years, you foul, disgusting baboon," Avery said. To his credit, he didn't look that frightened, but there was a quaver in his voice that belied his posturing.

"Nae for years, she was loyal to ye for a long time, nae sure why," Walden said. He hadn't moved his wand and Avery hadn't budged a bit.

"Can't say as much about your wife, though, the first one I mean, can we?" Avery said.

"I married the wrong witch, ye dumb cunt, it happens. Should have married Lucinda."

"Maybe the Dark Lord wouldn't have killed that Yankee slut, then." Avery was very perceptibly trembling at this point and had clearly decided he had nothing to lose.

"Don't ye ever mention her," Walden said, very quietly, almost too quietly for both Avery and Yaxley to hear. And then he pressed his wand so forcefully that Yaxley was surprised it didn't pop all the way through Avery's neck. "Ever."

"Walden, this really isn't the least bit productive," Yaxley called out. "Let him go, get your things, and come back to my place for the night. We'll have another meeting when you both have cooled down."

"Nay, ye said ye wasna chuffed either way, leave us," Walden said, with very little effort, although by this point, he had likely left some fairly serious bruises on Avery's shoulder—not to mention that his wand was sparking, causing Avery to jump and squeal a bit every time it happened. Two ravens appeared and flapped their way noisily onto Avery's porch railing; but along the way, one of them left a hefty pile of droppings very close to where Yaxley was sitting.

"Eurgh! Enough of this," Yaxley said. "When you're done, meet my elf outside my wards." He stood up, turned on the spot, and Disapparated.

"No!" Avery said, rather too late, "Don't leave me with him!"

"Isna that what ye want, Herbert," Walden said, in a mocking voice, "Just ye and me, alone together? I think it's what ye've always wanted, the way ye used to watch me and Lucius. Maybe ye'd like to get down on yer knees and pleasure me." His wand sparked again, and three more ravens appeared in the sky and began circling the area.

"No! I told you, I like witches! Leave me alone! Just let me go, and go to Yaxley's! I'll have the elves gather your things and I'll never say another word to you, I promise!"

"Yer promises mean nothin' ta me," Walden growled. "Where's yer wand?"

"In…in my robe pocket. Left side."

Walden flicked his wand ever so slightly and muttered "Accio." Avery's wand obligingly floated its way toward him. A second wand flick and "Incarcerous" resulted in an elaborately trussed-up Avery tipping over and falling to the ground with a loud thump.

"Stop this, Walden! We're supposed to be on the same side! I'm sorry I said those things to you! I've—I've just been lonely! When we have the Revels again—Yaxley said we could have them—I'll stay away from you, I promise!" He was practically blubbering.

"Fuck ye, Herbert," Walden said, as he plucked Avery's wand out of the air in one smooth movement, and snapped it in two with his left hand. He cleared his throat and raised his wand. "Herbert Devere Avery…by the power vested in….och, sod it," Walden growled, as he stowed his wand in its holster and pulled a long, wicked-looking knife from a second holster.

"No! What are you doing with that?" were Avery's last words.

Before Walden Disapparated, he burned Avery's ruined body and Vanished the ashes.

Several minutes after Walden's departure, a puzzled house-elf appeared on the porch and stared with its bulging eyes at the lawn, which was empty save for five ravens pecking at the grass.

It took Hermione a little while to realize exactly where she was when she abruptly awoke in Lucinda Wilkes' tastefully appointed guest suite. She slowly dragged herself out of bed and toward the bathroom, where she noted the contents of her vanity kit had been unpacked and augmented with soap, towels, and a fluffy white bathrobe. She took a long bath in the large garden tub and stared out the window at the Connecticut landscape. A light snow had fallen in the night and dusted the lawn and the bare trees that distantly ringed the property.

The previous evening, over an impromptu tea, Lucinda had explained to her that she and Lucius were co-owners of the property and that she had lived here for ten years, which made her lucky enough to have missed the worst of Voldemort's reign. Lucius had made a perfunctory visit when his parole allowed him to, and he'd brought several years' worth of back issues of the Daily Prophet with him, so she was fairly up-to-date on British wizarding news.

She apologized, with only a vague hint of regret, for having contacted Walden, and started to explain in a rather roundabout way that they'd been friends and chess partners at the Revels, before Hermione stopped her and told her that it was all right, that she knew, that Walden had told her all about it and she wasn't bothered.

"I am bothered about how he treated you, though," Lucinda said, as she offered Hermione the plate of biscuits again; Hermione waved it off.

"He told me, that same day when he mentioned you'd written, that he wouldn't, er…." The phrase had actually been 'play with her heart,' but Hermione was reluctant to admit it. "Er…string me along. And in a way I suppose he hasn't. He cut me right off."

"I suspect there is something else going on," Lucinda said. "He did that to me, twice. And there was a reason both times."

"That reason is obviously that we're too different, as he said," Hermione stated. "I'm going to complete a few tasks for the Alliance, ensure that Evan gets all his Hogwarts supplies and then gets settled with his sister and her wife in Hogsmeade…." She paused, and took a drink of tea. "Then I'm going back to Australia and tell my parents I've come to my senses." She gave a bit of sarcastic emphasis to that last bit. "I'm sorry. I understand he was your friend. But he's clearly found me wanting in some way and I see no reason to sit around on the shelf like a discarded dolly in a charity shop, waiting for some wanker to come and pick me up." She munched on a biscuit. "Plus, there's some sort of clandestine business going on with Yaxley and Avery and I have no desire to find out what that's all about."

"Herbert, you mean? What on earth is that reprobate up to now?"

"Yaxley sent Walden an owl hinting that he should meet with Avery and him for some sort of…I don't know…reckoning of how the trials went, but that Walden shouldn't bother to meet if what they'd heard about me, the 'Mudblood', was true." She grimaced at that last.

Lucinda grimaced in return. "Such déclassé language," she murmured. "I'm not surprised, Yaxley always was a little rough around the edges. I never liked him."

"I've never been thrilled about him myself, especially since he was responsible for our months-long camping trip, and apparently also visited my house after I'd sent my parents away," Hermione said, picking up another biscuit. "But all that's beside the point. Walden said he didn't want to meet with him, but then he was called to the Ministry right after he got that letter. So I know those two things must be connected, but nobody will say anything. Harry has been extremely closed-mouthed, and Kingsley wouldn't even look me in the eye."

If Lucinda was at all shocked that Hermione had mentioned the "savior of the wizarding world" and the sitting Minister for Magic in the same breath by their first names, she didn't show it. "Yaxley was well known for attempting to raise his status as a Dark wizard by any means necessary. He was a Hufflepuff, you know," she added.

"I didn't know!" Hermione said. "Not many Dark Badgers about."

"Very few of them in my experience. He's Sacred Twenty-Eight, and related to the Blacks, but his family was far from prosperous, so he used his Ministry job as a social-climbing ladder….and not very well." She paused. "I suspect he misses the status he had as an Inner Circle Death Eater, and is attempting to regain it."

"He's not exactly had much chance to do that in Azkaban for the last ten years, but he did just get paroled," Hermione said. "He wasn't on my docket, so I don't know the details of his trial or anything afterward."

"But you did have Herbert on your docket, didn't you?"

"Oh yes, and I apologize again, but I didn't like him, either. He was always looking me up and down in a very unpleasant way. I was glad to see the back of him."

"As was I. It was an arranged marriage, you understand; an alliance, if you will. He wanted an heir and I didn't provide one. And he had an unhealthy interest in our daughter."

"Oh. Yes. I rather—sorry, but I did think he seemed the sort. I didn't like the idea of him being at St. Mungo's but the Healers approved it. Er…what happened to your daughter? I recall an Avery being in Slytherin, a couple of years ahead of me; we were in an extra-credit Runes seminar together."

Lucinda sat her tea cup down. "Lucius assisted me in sending her away to California after she got out of Hogwarts. She's visited here several times and is doing quite well; she married one of those Information Processing wizards in San Francisco."

"Oh, that's a relief," Hermione said. "I'm always glad to hear that someone was able to completely avoid the war. I wish I could have, honestly."

"I'm sorry that you did not," Lucinda said. "But may I add that I and many of the others—and by that I mean wizarding society—are most grateful to you and your friends for your heroism."

Hermione blushed. "It's, er, been a while since I was formally thanked, but you are welcome. It's not as if we gave much forethought to being heroic. I just did what was necessary at the time."

"If you'll forgive me…I think it's possible that is what Walden is doing."