Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: Please keep in mind that this is rated M for a reason. In this chapter, we see some death and gore. Just so you know.
Shades of Gray
Chapter Thirteen: The Dark Side
Healer Caidin finished her rounds right on time. She didn't have too many patients, not like some weeks, just an older man who'd been hexed rather severely by his wife when said wife had found out about his nineteen year old mistress. Michael Robertson was sixty-eight, in relatively good health otherwise, and scared enough of his wife that he wasn't hollering to go home, so Healer Caidin felt secure in leaving him to the night shift. Even with her having the next day off, if anything unforeseen came up, his interim healers knew to floo her. Joanna stripped out of her uniform in the locker room, changing into a pair of blue jeans and a plain t-shirt; she'd promised her son that they'd have dinner in muggle London.
Joanna then made her way from Saint Mungo's to her babysitter's flat above a secondhand shop in Diagon Alley. "How was he today, Lorna?" she asked the recent Hogwarts graduate, watching her son color.
"Pretty good, Miss Caidin. He didn't want his nap at two, but he settled right quick when I reminded him you said you'd take him out into London tonight," the former Ravenclaw replied.
Joanna nodded and thanked the sitter. She then turned to her son. "Ian, you ready to go?"
Ian looked up and grinned. "Mum! We still goin' out to eat?" He jumped up and ran over to her.
She scooped him up and gave the boy a squeeze. "Yes, we are. Get your shoes and jacket so we can go." She sat him back on his feet. The boy immediately scurried to do as he was told.
Ten minutes later, they left Lorna's place, unaware they'd acquired an unwelcome tail.
Serena Moxon moved through the evening crowd, making sure to keep her targets well in view, prepared to stop and 'window shop' at a moment's notice, but her caution was unneeded. Caidin and her son headed directly for The Leaky Cauldron without stopping. Serena sped up a little, not wanting to lose them in the pub. She also wanted to make sure she was close enough to hear their destination when they flooed out. Slipping through the doors heartbeats after they'd closed behind the mother and son, Serena first looked towards the public hearth. When that didn't reveal her quarry, she then glanced towards the London door.
Damn, echoed through her head as she saw the duo disappear to the right of the door. I hate muggle London. She paused barely long enough to transfigure her robes into a muggle-style dress before following them. Luck was with her. The boy had halted in his tracks outside the record shop next door and was staring at it in awe. Serena brushed past them – neither noticed her. She used a small pocket-mirror to keep an eye on them while scanning the immediate area and formulating a plan. Maybe being muggleside won't be as big of a problem as I'd feared. She slipped into a small crack of a passageway between two buildings and waited. As long as they don't call for a motor-carriage, I think I'll be able to grab them before anyone notices.
Luck was with her and the healer and her son eventually moved past the record shop, heading for the nearest underground station. Just as they passed Serena's hiding place, she reached out and tugged them into the alcove with her. Before either of her targets could realize what was going on, she silently stupefied both, then activated her portkey.
An old man who claimed the narrow passageway as his home was the only witness to the kidnapping, but after twenty years of living on handouts and booze, it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever seen. In fact, he'd forgotten about it completely by the time the sun had descended and the city had grown dark.
It was closing in on ten o'clock at night. The weather was overcast, but warm – the dementors had yet to migrate as far south as Hadrian's Wall, so London was as yet unaffected by their presence. Two women, tall and pale, strolled purposefully through Hyde Park. The few people who deigned to notice them immediately found other things to do as both of them radiated deadly purpose.
"How much longer, Bellatrix?" the taller of the pair asked.
"Three minutes." Bellatrix returned her watch to its pocket. "You're certain you have the right building in sight?"
"Yes. He has the top floor in that one," she pointed to one of the expensive-looking apartment buildings across the street, not bothering to lower the omnioculars she was using.
"Remember, quick and quiet, Alecto. Our lord doesn't want any unnecessary damage this time around."
Alecto glared out the corner of her eye. "I understand. Just Scrimgeour. Leave his filthy mudblood piece of tail and their lamentable spawn alone." She returned her attention to watching the flat in question. "Okay, they're home." She fixed the image of the Scrimgeour sitting room in her mind and prepared to apparate as she handed the omnioculars to Bellatrix.
Bellatrix looked through them long enough to likewise fix the image in her mind before tucking the omnioculars into a pocket of her cloak. She nodded at Alecto and apparated.
The Scrimgeour family was home, but the only one currently up and about was Fiona – the man's muggleborn wife – poking around in the kitchen. She'd not heard the quiet pops from her sitting room and didn't realize anything was wrong until she landed on the floor, the victim of a silent petrificus. Alecto and Bellatrix immediately moved to either side of the kitchen archway and waited to see if the noise of her hitting the floor would attract any further attention. Almost a full four minutes passed before one of the three mini-Scrimgeours appeared.
"Mummy?" the child, who was approximately five, padded into the kitchen, blinking owlishly in the light. She caught sight of her fallen mother and backed right into Alecto.
Alecto didn't think, she just reacted. She immediately pushed the sprog away in disgust and whipped her wand out. "Reducto!" she hissed, and the child's head exploded like a blood-laden tick exposed to direct flame. The odd squelching noise it made was surprisingly quiet, the tock as larger chunks landed on the floor and bounced off the walls only slightly louder. The look on Bellatrix's face was enough to tell Alecto that she was angry, but Alecto didn't let it worry her. It was an acceptable deviation from their orders – the loathsome little parasite had touched her!
Bellatrix didn't get a chance to speak her mind before Rufus Scrimgeour's voice called out, "Fiona? You ever coming back to bed, dear?"
A moment later, he appeared in the doorway. "Avada kedavra," Bellatrix and Alecto managed the spell simultaneously.
Scrimgeour crumpled, his lifeless eyes staring at the gore-dusted contents of his kitchen. The Death Eaters apparated onto the flat's roof. "Mors mordre," Alecto summoned the spectral Dark Mark. They then apparated back to headquarters.
If any Death Eater could be considered Voldemort's right hand, Mycroft Selwynn was it. Not only did he never manage to wind up in Azkaban for any amount of time, but he was never named at any of the trials. The secret to his success where others had failed was threefold: Firstly, the only person among their ranks who knew his first name was Voldemort himself. Secondly, Selwynn, though a highly skilled practitioner of the dark arts, never allowed himself to be seen as anything more than a mildly eccentric, unobtrusive, polite, and kindhearted storekeeper who always had the time to chitchat with an adult and who always had a piece of candy for a child. Finally – and most importantly – Selwynn was a metamorphmagus who had managed to keep his abilities secret from everyone, even Voldemort. He had one face for his secondhand bookshop on Diagon Alley, and a different one for his after-hours activities, neither of which was his 'natural' face. No one in Britain, not even Voldemort, knew Selwynn's natural face; he had graduated from NMMA, the New Mexico Magical Academy, in the US. His voice didn't give him away, however, he was also skilled at mimicking accents; the other Death Eaters assumed him to be German, while the patrons of his bookshop thought him Irish. Again, only Voldemort knew the truth.
The pair of dark wizards apparated to the edge of the country estate where Amelia Bones lived with her niece. Silently, they slipped through a thin line of forest blocking the estate from view of the nearest town. Arriving at the edge of a manicured lawn, both wizards looked the house over. Selwynn fought not to wince as his lord expressed his displeasure vocally – the house was empty.
"Burn it down," Voldemort ordered after regaining control of his temper.
Selwynn bowed. "As you command, my liege."
It took him half an hour to dismantle the fire-suppression spells on the house, and a further hour to erase the wards, but by the time he and Voldemort apparated back to headquarters at midnight, the Bones house was a blazing inferno with a ghostly green Dark Mark hovering in the smoke.
The team portkeyed to the mainland coast where, in the daytime, a small speck on the horizon revealed Azkaban. The weather was, as always on this little spit of gravel, inordinately dreary, cold, and damp. Rowle coiled the rope portkey, shrunk it, and placed it in a pocket of his trousers before lighting a small fire in the center of the loosely-gathered group. From the pocket on the opposite side, he withdrew a small wooden box. He sat it on the ground before enlarging it. It grew to roughly the same size as a student trunk. Thorfinn unlocked it with a special key he kept on a chain around his neck. The rest of the team crowded a little closer to the fire as a sharp wind bit through their cloaks.
"Each pair is going to have a set of two-way mirrors," Rowle said, digging around in his box of tricks for the necessary equipment. He came up with four circular compacts. He handed the silver one to Amycus. "You're paired with Teddy Nott."
Amycus took the mirror and motioned for the weedy-looking teenager to come stand with him. Said teen was feeling mutinous at being called 'Teddy', but wasn't about to screw up, not when the purpose of tonight's action was to bring his father home. He stalked over to Carrow. Thorfinn sat the other three compacts on top of some other miscellaneous junk and opened a shoebox-sized leather-covered box. Inside were numerous identical crystal pendants, glowing slivery-blue. He removed two of them and slipped one over Amycus' head. Theodore halted Rowle from doing the same to him by grabbing the burly blonde's wrist. "What is it?"
"It's protection from the dementors that remain on the island, boy." Rowle had little patience for children and it showed in his patronizing tone. "Crystal's made of concentrated patronus energy." The boy released Thorfinn's hand and allowed the pendant to be placed over his head. Rowle picked up the next compact in the stack, this one made of bronze. "Next pair are the Goyles." Elmer steered his son with a heavy hand on his shoulder until they were standing where Amycus and Teddy had been a moment earlier. Neither made a sound as the mirror and pendants were handed over. After they returned to the relative warmth of the fire, Thorfinn grabbed the next mirror. "Gibbon, you're with Junior," he said. Much like Theodore had, Vincent Crabbe resented Rowle for using his 'kid name', but unlike Teddy, Junior couldn't claim the name as inappropriate – he was nearly a carbon copy of his father and shared the man's name.
While they were receiving their equipment, Draco sidled over to stand next to Yaxley. Yaxley wasn't his first choice for partner, but Draco had to admit to himself that he much preferred the man over Amycus. "Guess it's us, then." Yaxley didn't reply, not aloud, but his glare clearly indicated he thought the younger Malfoy to be severely lacking in brainpower. After receiving their mirror and pendants, they stepped back to the fire.
Thorfinn put away the box of necklaces and proceeded to unearth a potions crate from the mess of his trunk. He opened it, revealing double-rows of single-use vials and numerous small parchment packets. The kit contained only one type of potion, but the contents of the parchment packets had been dastardly hard to come by. He pulled the first packet out, read the label, and added the hair it contained to the first vial of potion. It foamed slightly. Handing it to Amycus, he said, "You're John Dawlish."
Carrow smirked and let out a wheezy giggle before downing the polyjuice. After it had taken effect, he transfigured his robes to better fit the taller wizard's frame.
One by one, the entire team, save Thorfinn, took the forms of aurors, with spare vials of keyed polyjuice secreted in pockets. Putting the potion box away, Thorfinn looked each of his team in the eye. "Our objective tonight is to take Azkaban. Our Lord wishes to possess the fortress. However, should this prove beyond our capabilities, He has indicated He would not be unpleased should we only be able to rescue His followers who languish there. To accomplish these tasks, your orders are thus: Be silent. Yes, you now wear the guises of individuals expected to be seen within the prison, but it is best not to have to rely on trying to actually be the people you now resemble. Are all of you capable of casting a slicing hex silently?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Use it to cut the throats of any guards you come across. Hopefuls," he addressed the teens of each pair. "You are expected to take no action without the permission of your partner, shields aside. Watch your backsides. If all goes well tonight, you will be given the opportunity to take the Dark Mark on our return to headquarters.
"In addition to silence," he continued, "your orders include to be swift. You should not need to take the second doses of polyjuice. Release our Lord's followers, certainly, but if any of the other prisoners ask for release, let them out, but be sure they know who to thank. You are encouraged to make them think that being released and not choosing to serve our Lord will result in… unpleasant ramifications." He paused to allow the team to trade grins. "Should you be successful in clearing the guards, send up green sparks from the roof and contact me on the mirrors. I will contact our Lord and let him know we were successful. If you are not able to do so, the chains on the necklaces double as portkeys back to headquarters. Should you need to use them, the activation phrase is 'falcon', and once you arrive – one of our number is monitoring the arrival point for just such an occurrence – I will be contacted. If I do not see green sparks or hear back from you or our comrades back in HQ within two hours, I will be forced to assume our mission failed and that you now number among the residents of Azkaban. Should this worst-case-scenario come to pass, I cannot say with certainty that our Lord will wish a second attempt anytime soon."
Everyone gathered around the tiny campfire knew that meant that if they were captured, the Dark Lord would likely leave them to rot within the prison, if only to teach them a lesson. Resolve to not fail seeped into the group and spines straightened. Thorfinn handed each of them a shrunken broom from his trunk. "I expect to see green within thirty minutes," he said, dismissing the group to their task.
He dug the partner to the two-way mirrors out of his trunk – it was wooden and contained all four partners in their own small frames, two on the right and two on the left, with a hinge down the middle. Rowle closed his trunk lid, cast a warming charm on himself and a small wind-barrier around the fire, before sitting on the trunk to wait.
The healer had been dumped on the small bed of one of the unused cells in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor. Altogether, the dungeon boasted a scant six cells, each with stone walls, ceiling, and floor, with a small wooden, iron-banded door. Anti-apparition and anti-portkey spells were laid on each. The cells were each about three meters long and two meters wide, obviously engineered to house more than one 'guest' at a time, with a stone basin set into the wall opposite the door. Next to the basin was the wizarding world's precursor to the modern toilet – a vanishing commode – also carved into the wall. The cell had never possessed furniture before, but since the Death Eaters had to walk a very fine line with their new 'visitor', one was brought in. It reminded Severus of the beds in the student dorms, even though it lacked a canopy and curtains. Currently, it was little more than a thick pad on a stout wooden frame.
Severus had used some minor transfiguration on his face to make sure that their captive healer wouldn't recognize him. It had nothing to do with being identified as a Death Eater and everything to do with the fact that the young woman had been one of his students. Normally, he didn't bother to disguise himself from the victims of the Death Eaters, but since he had to prepare the potions the healer would need, they would wind up working together; the absolute last thing Severus needed were the inevitable recriminations of 'I knew you were evil, Snape!' And so, he sported plain brown hair, cut short, topping a rounder face with a smaller nose and fuller lips. He couldn't do much about his voice, though, so he used an old trick – he fell back into the patterns of speech he'd possessed as a child, before voracious reading had inflated his vocabulary and smoothed out the grammatical imperfections. Severus sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled them to the elbow, then aimed his wand at the unconscious woman. "Rennervate," he incanted.
Joanna Caidin bolted upright and shouted, "Ian!"
Severus pushed her back down on the surface of the bed. "Calm down. Yer boy's okay, swear." He successfully managed to keep a grimace off his face when he realized that he sounded suspiciously like Hagrid.
"Who are you?" the woman asked, pulling away from his touch. "Where am I? Where's Ian?"
"Yer boy's fine, like I said. He ain't the first kid we housed, an' won't be the last. An' if ye do as yer tol', ye will get ta see 'im soonish. As ta where ye be, 'at's easy." He showed the woman his Dark Mark.
Caidin fell very still. "Wh-what do you want of me?"
"Same as ye do fer othern – yer healin'. Ain't like such as me c'n stroll in Mungo's, not an' stay outta Azkaban. Can't serve milord from prison." The longer Snape spoke, the more he had to fight to keep his childhood accent under control. "Ye do as yer tol', an' if milord's pleased, ye will get rewards. Displease 'im, though, an' ye might hafta watch yer boy skinned alive. Don' mean ta scare ye, just tellin' ye the lay o'the land. Follow orders an' ain't no reason ye an' yer boy can't walk outta here."
The woman closed her eyes and Severus knew she was weighing the truth of his words. After several minutes, she opened them again. "What do I call you?" her voice was flat.
"Toby," Severus replied. As this wasn't the first time he'd opted to use a disguise around a prisoner, the other Death Eaters would know who she meant should she ask for him. "Ye need sommat, ye ask fer me. If ye've done good, an' milord okays it, then ye will get whacha ask fer, within reason. Now, I can't let ye see yer boy, not yet, but anythin' else ye need?"
She shivered and started to shake her head, but stopped before it moved more than an inch to the right. "A jumper?"
Snape nodded. "Done. It'll be brought down with yer dinner. I'll send some blankets fer the bed, too. Won't do fer ye to get sick, not when yer s'posed to keep us in one piece." He stood and left the cell. Once the door had shut behind him, he dispelled his facial alterations. He then cast a set-spell on the door to the woman's cell; it would alert him if anyone tried to enter. Severus trusted the honor of the Death Eaters about as far as he could throw a dragon, regardless of the fact that the Dark Lord had flatly stated that they were only to interact with their new healer if they needed her services. Before calling out to the guard to let him out of the corridor where the cells were located, Severus dug a long chain out from under his clothes. On it hung multiple small gold medallions, most of which were portkeys to various locations. He sorted through the metal circles until he found one lacking a design. He transfigured it to depict a small bass-relief of a crossed bone and wand, overlaid with the image of a key, then spelled it to bring him to this empty bit of corridor outside her door.
Ron tossed and turned in his sleep. Memory combined with imagination to provide him with a brand-new horror. He was dodging spells, racing through the Department of Mysteries. He ducked through an open door to find himself falling through space. Saturn turned into a tentacled brain that reached out and stopped his eternal plunge.
Yes, it hissed in his head, fresh meat… He tried to pry it off his arm, but the tentacle burned into his flesh, turning into sticky strands of burning spider web. His pulse pounding in his ears, he looked back at the brain to find it was now an enormous arcomantula, twice the size of Aragog. Ron tried to scream, but he couldn't even breathe.
A spell sizzled out of the darkness surrounding them, hitting the spider right in its collection of eyes. Bill strolled up. "Honestly, Ronniekins, you'd think you could defend yourself against a simple brain. Maybe you ought to learn how to use yours, don't you think?" Bill laughed. "But that's the point! You don't! And you honestly think Hermione really likes you? She only tolerates you because Harry does."
Before Ron could reply, Bill fell through a hole poked in Uranus, and Ron was floating alone in the dark.
A flash of light drowned him and he was back in the Department of Mysteries, ducking curses. Luna flew through the air, slid across a desk, and crumpled to the floor in an undignified sprawl. Ron's eyes were dragged back to the tank of green liquid, but the tank was empty. Where are the brains? Something tapped his shoulder. Ron spun around to find he was face-to-tentacles with a brain. It wrapped its burning ropes around his head.
Ron finally managed to scream. He blinked at the orange of his bedroom, wondering what he'd been dreaming about that had his heart slamming so hard. When no one came running, he flopped back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. Okay, maybe I didn't scream.
He tried to ignore the distant thought that said he had, but no one cared enough to check on him.
After about half an hour, he was asleep again.
And he was running, dodging hexes and curses, a giant brain with octopus-like tentacles running at his heels like a well-trained dog.
A/N2: Is it bad that I enjoy thinking like a Death Eater?
And did I read the article on Yahoo News correctly? Mary Poppins out-dueled Voldemort at the Olympics' opening ceremony? *gigglesnort*
Anyway, thanks to everyone who's reading this! Keep in mind I enjoy hearing feedback; even concrit is welcome, but flames will be laughed at.