Chapter 31: Serving death
For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1. Also, am I the only one who thinks "death eater" does not mean what JKR thinks it means?
1988-08-09 11:00 UTC, location unknown
A bit after their breakfast was done, Hermione had come in and asked if she could play with Harry in their backyard. Sirius would have liked to ask the kids to go to her home, but they'd been doing that a bit too much already - imposing on the Grangers quite a bit. So he decided to tell them it was fine. He charged Kreacher with watching them and ordered him to instantly alert him if absolutely anything out of the ordinary happened.
They then moved their discussion to Nick and Penny's place, instead of continuing at Kithurst Close.
Sirius had been thinking about the discussion they had had at breakfast, and something didn't sound right.
"Hey Hobby, wouldn't it be better to make it all look like an accident or a natural death of some kind? Why make it a suicide at all?"
Hobby looked at Remus, saying "I was expecting you to come up with this, how come you didn't?"
"Oh come on!", said Remus, somewhat annoyed. "That only works for one or two deaths, but we're planning close to a dozen. So many 'natural' deaths shows a definite pattern, and it clearly means someone outside the victim group has really planned it well. No no no, if it can't point to us even indirectly, it has to be internecine".
Hobby looked at Sirius. "Happy?"
"Hmm yeah, I suppose it does make sense that it wouldn't work for large groups, especially when the people in that group have an obvious common factor of some sort", said Sirius.
But this gave him another idea. "OK, fine. But what if we make it look like something that is affecting everyone with a dark mark? Some degenerative disease that has slowly crept up on them unnoticed till now, and only now has manifested itself. We're not creating a new common factor, we're just using an existing one."
"Yes but that would only work if you were sure to find absolutely all the marked death eaters. And you'd have to include Snape in that too, and I'm not comfortable with that. All I wanted for him was to be out of Hogwarts by the time Harry got there, since he was really on our side all along in the bigger picture", said Hobby.
"Alright fine", said Sirius. "Shall we go and deal with the rats?"
"Yes. I've prepped a room for their interrogation. And we will do it one by one; no point taking chances!"
Nick would accompany them, while Penny stayed with Harry. They decided that as the best way to take care of this issue. Kreacher was also asked to stay near Harry, whether he was in Nick and Penny's place or at Kithurst Close.
They brought Yaxley in first. After stunning the rat and then transforming it back to a human (since no one else knew parseltongue, Hobby was free to use the password openly), they sat him down in a chair, bound his arms and legs, upto the wrists and ankles respectively, tightly enough to be just on the threshold of "painful", then woke him up.
Since he had been aware of himself and his surroundings even as a rat, he now stared at them balefully. Well it would have been a baleful stare if his circumstances were not so constrained.
Sirius walked into his field of view, and Yaxley became even more agitated. "I should have known you were in cahoots with the Phantom, you bastard", he growled out. "I will make sure others hear about this".
"Yeah yeah yeah", drawled Sirius. "You can tell Malfoy when you meet him, but most of the others, like Rookwood and the Lestranges, may not even have heard of the Phantom in the short time they were with us".
"What nonsense are you spouting? They're all dead - you bastards killed them!"
"Yes, and I am saying they are the only ones you will be able to tell about my connection with the Phantom", smirked Sirius. Whether he was actually enjoying himself or not, he certainly wanted to make Yaxley think he was.
The Phantom took a vial of veritaserum to him and indicated he open his mouth.
"Go to hell", said Yaxley. So the Phantom simply pinched his nose until breathing became a problem and he had to open his mouth. Then he poured a teaspoon of the stuff down his throat.
"Yes the correct dose is much lesser, but that's what you get for your attitude", he said.
They asked the standard "what is your name" question for completeness, though they had no doubt who he was. Then they proceeded to the questions that mattered.
"Who are the light side people you have killed?"
"One of the Prewett twins, and Bones". ("He means Amelia's brother", whispered Sirius to Hobby, at a questioning glance from him).
"How many muggles have you killed without reason?", asked Sirius.
"None", said Yaxley, shocking Sirius badly.
Hobby looked at Sirius and shook his head. "How many muggles have you kidnapped out of their homes and tortured and killed?"
Yaxley took a few seconds. The potion was compelling him to be truthful, and he needed to count in his mind.
"Seventy nine".
"How many of those were children below the age of seventeen?"
A longer pause, then "Thirty four".
"How many families?"
"Twenty two". This was much quicker.
"How many children age twelve and under?"
A pause again. "Twenty seven".
"How many of the girls and women were raped before being killed?"
"Thirty four".
Everyone was getting angrier and angrier. Remus looked like he was losing his earlier "no need to kill them" attitude, and looked ready to do the deed with his bare hands.
Nick was the only one who seemed to be calm, but if Penny was present she would have seen it was his occlumency making it seem so. Knowing all these things happened, at a "newspaper report" level, was one thing, but hearing cold numbers from the perpetrators was quite another. Nick suddenly wondered about his and Penny's own motivations in staying away from this conflict. There was so much we could have done if we had wanted to, he thought sadly. He'd have to have a long talk with Penny soon.
Remus looked at the Phantom. "I think that should do. Kill him and get rid of the body", he said callously. This was not yesterday's Mooney.
They realised they had not discussed the manner of death. Unlike a regular court, they did not have to worry about social acceptability of the mode of death, but their own squeamishness had to be taken into account.
They went into a huddle, though not bothering to whisper; they didn't care if Yaxley heard them.
"I think the simplest would be some sort of fast-acting poison. Muggle cyanide may be quite suitable", said Nick. "Or there are a number of potions I could whip up in a couple of hours".
"I don't want to delay this. I want him dead now", said Sirius. Remus nodded at that.
"A cutting curse, even the 'Snape special' version, would be too messy. Sure, magic would clean things up pretty fast, but repeated over time with several others, I don't want those images in my head forever", said Hobby.
"And the killing curse is out. I'm sure all of us have enough anger in us to fuel the hate required, and that would be fine if this was a one-off, but if we're going to kill all of these bastards, we can't do that. So many killing curses will affect us, later", said Nick. "In fact, I've never used a killing curse on anyone, in all my years."
"It seems to me that all these methods still leave us with the problem of disposing of the body. Of course the Crouch junior method is a good last resort, but I think the simplest way is for me to pop them into the veil room in the department of mysteries and chuck them into the veil", said Hobby.
Sirius had a problem with that. "You will be taking the mental load of all their executions, alone. I don't like that. Can you pop two people?"
"That mental load is not a big deal, but sure I'd appreciate the moral support. I can certainly pop two people, but it may be even better to turn him back to a rat before we go. And we don't turn him back to human when we get there - we chuck him in in the rat form."
"I think that is the best plan. I will go first with him", said Nick.
Once Nick and Hobby returned from the department of mysteries (having encountered no resistance of any kind, and in fact they were not even seen by anyone), they began discussing the next three.
Remus suddenly turned morose. "I don't think we could have used the killing curse after the first four or five anyway. Our anger would not be spiking like it is right now - we would have gotten inured to this kind of thing. I am beginning to wonder if we will be psychologically affected simply by listening to their responses".
Nick nodded. Despite his age, or probably because he had spent much of it somewhat aloof from the world at large - none of the ugliness of life really affecting him or Penny - he was feeling guilty already.
"There are four of us. In twos, that's six combinations, so we reduce our exposure to this crap by a sixth each", he said.
No one mentioned asking Penny to join them, even though they knew she was perfectly capable of doing so.
Hobby and Sirius went upstairs to the kitchen for a cuppa, while Nick and Remus continued the interrogation of the next one, Selwin. It went along similar lines, except that Selwin had not killed any of the light side fighters. When they were convinced of his guilt, they called Hobby down to do his thing - he was the only one who could turn them into rats with a parseltongue password, as well as the only one who could go directly to the veil room in the Department of Mysteries. He and Remus went to the veil and chucked Selwin in.
Travers was a bit of a surprise - he poked out his tongue when offered the veritaserum. For a moment Hobby was afraid he was innocent; it was hard to find someone who was guilty, who would be eager to take the potion.
But that was not the case. He was actually very proud of what he had done, and - either because he was so stupid he did not realise this was his last day on earth, or because he was smart enough to realise that and that nothing would change that - was happy to, in essence, boast.
His willingness to take the serum had another side effect. He was being interrogated by Sirius and Remus, but by the time they were ready for Hobby to take him, Hobby had just started a (late) lunch, so they waited for a bit.
By the time Hobby came down, the potion - since this was a normal dose - had worn off. So when the Phantom came down, and Sirius told him "straight into the veil room for him!", Travers sneered at them.
"I'd like to see him get past the wards and the protection that the DOM has. No man can get through those wards!"
The Phantom decided there was nothing to be lost, so he turned into Hobby. Saying "No man am I" and winking at Remus (he didn't think Sirius would have read it anyway!), he turned him into a rat, grabbed Sirius, and popped away.
An hour later they had done Rowle also, in the process finding that he had been responsible for the death of the other Prewett twin as well as Marlene McKinnon.
After this they broke up for the day. From now on they would do only one or two at a time, and even that with sufficient gaps in between. Much better for their sanity.
1988-08-11 22:00 UTC, Kithurst Close
They'd taken a couple of days break from the intense moments of two days ago, and were now discussing next steps. Hobby, as usual, had started things off.
"As I see it, there are three type of bad actors we need to deal with it: death eaters, sympathisers within the ministry, and then there are the dementors. Sympathisers outside the ministry get a free pass, or at least they're less of a problem in the short to medium term", he said.
"Of these", he continued, "I am regretting letting Umbridge off with an Azkaban sentence. She was a huge problem - in many ways worse than most death eaters because she was in a position of trust, but even that was not the big problem".
"So what was the 'big problem'?"
"Well, Padfoot, do you remember when we asked Yaxley if he had killed any muggles without reason, and, even under the truth potion, he calmly denied it?"
"Yes I was wondering about that", said Sirius.
"Simple. Either they think they have a god-given right to do so, or they were ordered to, and both of these qualify as 'reason'. It's the same with Umbridge. She believed she was doing the right thing torturing and killing muggle-borns and their families. The fact that she did not have a dark mark and was therefore not merely following orders, just makes it worse. I may give a death eater the benefit of the doubt, but not her - and this is pure logic talking, not anger or hate!"
"Hmm, so I guess she's next?"
"She, Fudge, and Pettigrew. I don't think you'll complain about any of them", grinned Hobby.
"So how do we do this? They're all in Azkaban, and if they suddenly turn up dead it may look suspicious", said Sirius.
"Yes of course. I think this calls for a slightly more involved plan. I originally thought it would be nice to have some 'rogue' dementors kiss them, which would build a case for destroying the dementors later. But there are two issues with that. First, I don't know how to destroy dementors; we will need to research that. Second, I don't want even a small amount of misplaced sympathy for these three. By going after the dementors who supposedly killed them, I'd be tacitly giving them - albeit too late - my sympathy."
Hobby left shortly after, with no conclusion reached on how to handle this.
1988-08-15 07:00 UTC, Kithurst Close
Sirius picked up the Daily Prophet in a bored manner. Nothing much had happened in the last few days, and even Hobby had not been around.
Then he glanced at the headline. His eyes goggled!
Three found dead attempting to escape Azkaban
Aurors who arrived at Azkaban for the weekly shift-change and administrative hand-offs, were shocked to find two bodies on the pathway between the landing dock for the boat, and the prison fortress proper. It was later determined that there was a third body there too.
The DMLE's investigation team has been trying to reconstruct the chain of events that could have led to this situation. (The Prophet will not call it a 'tragedy'; see editorial for more on that). The investigation was complicated by the fact that the only beings that may have information about what has happened are the dementors, and they don't really communicate the same way we do. An expert from the Department of Mysteries was also called in, but he was unable to add much.
The facts, as near as can be determined, are these. Cornelius Fudge, former minister, serving a fifteen year term for conspiracy to murder, corruption and other charges, and Dolores Umbridge, his under-secretary at the time he was minister, serving a life sentence for attempt to murder and other charges, were found kissed by dementors. Their posture indicated a desperate attempt to protect themselves by essentially covering their faces with their arms and hands, but, as is well known, that doesn't really work.
Subsequent examination of the cell blocks revealed that Peter Pettigrew was also missing. A search of the area near where Fudge and Umbridge were found revealed Pettigrew, also kissed, but in his rat form. A wand belonging to an auror who had been relaxing in the auror's ready room a couple of hours earlier, was also found nearby. The auror had been stunned with his own wand and was woken up only after all these discoveries were made.
The rest of the findings are somewhat speculative. We will try to lay out the reasoning, including the known facts and the guesswork, for our readers.
It is well known that Peter Pettigrew, infamous for betraying the Potters, killing over a dozen muggles, and then framing Lord Black, was an animagus, specifically with the form of a rat. Although the prison administration has been very careful about setting up anti-animagus wards over Pettigrew's cell, and the wards were still in place, it would appear that Pettigrew managed to get out of his cell by some, as yet unknown, means, and then transform, to evade detection. (As a result of this, the prison administration is considering layering anti-animagus wards over the entire prison, though it remains to be seen if that is even possible).
It is speculated that, once he had transformed, he had made his way to the auror ready room, waiting for an opportunity to strike. This happened when auror Jonathan Dunstan entered, made himself comfortable on one of the easy chairs in the ready room, and settled down for what he intended (according to a statement he made later) to be a quick nap. The prison administration informs us that this is normal and expected; that is indeed the whole purpose of the ready room.
Once auror Dunstan had nodded off, Pettigrew seems to have relieved him of his wand, stunned him, then left. On leaving, he may have transformed back to a rat, or disillusioned himself. (The prison administration is also considering disabling certain spells within the fortress; again, it is not certain if that is even possible. The Prophet will keeps its readers informed as we hear more).
At this point, for some reason, he appears to have made his way toward the cell block where Umbridge and Fudge were lodged. The DMLE investgators could not find anything that links Pettigrew to these two, although Gringotts records have not yet been examined for a possible connection. One speculation is that Pettigrew picked the only two people in the prison who might possibly have agreed to a plan of revenge against Lord Black, and/or some of his known friends and associates in the Wizengamot, such as Madam Bones. An attack on the boy-who-lived could also have been on the cards, since Fudge was known to be very close to the deceased death eater Lucius Malfoy.
When the Prophet asked why Pettigrew did not attempt to free Narcissa Malfoy, who would have been considered an even better candidate for an attempted escape with subsequent revenge upon Lord Black, we were told that Pettigrew may not even have known of this, since this news was barely a few days old.
In any case, Pettigrew managed to free both Fudge and Umbridge, and somehow escape the fortress proper, taking them with him. However, they could not avoid detection by the dementors, and not only were Fudge and Umbridge swiftly caught and kissed, but Pettigrew's rat form would also appear to have been chased down and kissed.
We at the Prophet will continue to monitor this situation and will have more information for you as we come by it.
Sirius smirked and turned to the editorial page, because that also promised to be juicy. He was a little annoyed at Hobby for not informing them of the plan and going it alone, but then again, he (Sirius) would never have accompanied him to that place anyway.