Corban Yaxley was among his fellow Death Eaters when the Dark Lord had fallen. Some of his brethren had given in to panic when their leader's body disintegrated under the Potter boy's spell. Eyes wide with terror and disbelief, they fled in random directions, leaving the field of battle in puffs of black, oily smoke. Others, enraged by the loss or simply too consumed by bloodlust to care, stormed out into suicidal attacks. Like ancient Nordic berserkers, they charged the ranks of the Order, aiming to take one or two lives before succumbing to some deadly hex.
Yaxley belonged to neither group. He was a pragmatic man and had learned to hedge his bets from a young age. Thus, he had prepared for any outcome, even the unlikely scenario of the Dark Lord's defeat. While this was, of course, an unwelcome development, sometimes you just draw the inside straight and have to fold.
Therefore, with the carefree air of a man out for an evening stroll, he apparated away to one of his many properties. A whole host of house-elves was awaiting him there, occupied with packing his belongings into hippogriff-drawn carriages. They would be transported to a seaport terminal and then shipped overseas to the colonial estate he had purchased in New Guinea. Yaxley himself would take a portkey there.
Such measures were dictated by necessity; after all, there was no place for Yaxley in a Voldemort-free Britain. The new ministry would undoubtedly hound the remaining Death Eaters down and sentence them to death or worse – rehabilitation. Therefore, it was simply not on the cards to remain in the country.
This did not bother him too much. He was at an age where the weather in New Guinea would be perfect for his aching bones, and, besides, if he was ever discovered there, the country had no extradition treaty with Britain.
Yaxley poured himself a glass of scotch and withdrew the portkey from the folds of his battle robes. It was due to go off at any minute, and then he would be safe; far away from the clutches of the Order. Idly, he wondered if any other of his compatriots had arranged similar plans. Maybe in a year or two, he mused, he would encounter some other fugitive Death Eater in a little tea shop in some remote foreign country.
Life, after all, liked to throw the funny die.
The portkey in his hand shuddered. Yaxley quickly released the glass. It fell to ground, the amber liquid spilling out and soaking into the chunky weave of an Axminster carpet. Yaxley gripped the portkey tighter, closed his eyes in expectation, and…
And the portkey, instead of transporting him to new, greener pastures, vanished from his hand. The next second, a most terrible pain descended upon the man, and he fell to the ground, right next to the now empty glass, and howled.
Even now, more than three years later, Yaxley could recall that pain in exquisite detail. It was comparable to a dozen searing needles being wheedled into a skull. It was pure, undiluted agony, and it made the stout man writhe and cry on the floor of his mansion. The pain didn't come alone; with every second of torture, certain memories – up until a moment ago, obscured by obliviate charms – became unmasked in his mind.
Later, Yaxley figured out that it was his attempt to flee the country had triggered this. The second that portkey in his hand activated, Voldemort's slumbering magic came to life and returned, along with immense discomfort, the memories the half-blood wizard had blocked in Yaxley's mind.
These memories spelled doom to all of Yaxley's plans. Instead of soaking up golden sunlight on the sandy shores of the Arafura Sea, Yaxley was to remain in Britain and help Dolohov with a certain plan Voldemort had conceived in case of his demise. Yaxley could not avoid this in any way; the dead wizard's magic compelled him to obey.
Yaxley had to admit that the plan – as well as the magic behind it – was brilliant. It was the quintessential dream of any dark wizard: to ensure retribution from beyond the grave. With Dolohov spreading the virus and Yaxley's machinations in the ministry, it had the potential to destroy both muggle and wizarding Britain.
It was Voldemort's gift to the people. His last gift.
The only problem with it for Yaxley was that it forced him to participate. He was a wanted man – all of the unapprehended Death Eaters were – and there was a significant reward for information leading to his arrest. His resources were limited; the mansion and the majority of his assets quickly seized by the ministry. He had to hide in rat holes and cover his face on the rare occasions he went out into public.
Still, he persevered. He managed to build a rapport with several officials inside the ministry. At first, he baited them with tempting offers. He had much to offer, including information on other Death Eaters and their hideouts, safe houses, stashes.
The fact that there had been a significant turnover in Ministry personnel was a boon. The new employees that came to replace those who had died or moved away during the war were damaged and, often, unfit for duty. Some of them had suffered in the hostilities and, therefore, believed the ministry's policies too soft. They were only too willing to abuse their stations of newfound authority to bend the law and crack down harsher on pureblood families.
Others were looking for personal gain. The amount of money and luxury goods being confiscated from wealthy estates was both mind-boggling and very loosely monitored. This quickly led to some spry individuals supplementing their personal incomes by tapping into these unregulated revenue streams.
Basically, that meant Yaxley had options when it came to recruitment. Soon, he found those that were willing to work on a quid pro quo basis. They followed his instructions, while he gave them information on which pureblood to shake down or how to launder ill-gotten money.
Altogether, he was able to do what Voldemort's magic demanded. Yaxley wove his web, ensnaring Ministry employees from several departments. His contacts covered Dolohov's crimes in the muggle world, and then, in a stroke of brilliance (and luck), Yaxley was able to get MCU disbanded altogether. The people who had worked there were then quickly and quietly dispatched by him and Dolohov; their crimes covered by the postbellum chaos, the new aurors who were still green and inexperienced, and their own moles inside MLE.
Yaxley was successful with his part of the plan.
Dolohov was not.
Voldemort, as Yaxley remembered, had split up his virus into two parts. One was placed into Dolohov, and the other… he had no idea where or what it was, but Voldemort had hinted that it would make itself known. Whatever that meant.
Well, it hadn't, and Dolohov had been searching years for it, all to no avail. Which infuriated Yaxley for two reasons:
One: until Voldemort's plan was complete, Yaxley was chained to this island, and every extra day he spent in Britain put him at additional risk of capture. He did not buy a plot of land in New Guinea to spend the dusk of his days in some grimy, humid cell in Azkaban.
And, two: all of this Dolohov's fault in the first place. Dolohov had been given a mission by the Dark Lord during the war, and had failed it in the most imbecilic way. Voldemort, who possessed as much compassion in his shriveled soul as there is water in Death Valley, promptly punished both Dolohov and Yaxley, who had the misfortune of merely being nearby when Dolohov gave his report.
It could have been worse, Yaxley thought grimly. The Dark Lord could have infected them both; instead, Yaxley just received the compulsions to assist in the plan.
Still, it was an unrewarding job. Always on the lookout, always wary of capture. Living conditions were never a certainty either, although for the past year he had managed to find accommodations in an empty house that belonged to a now deceased member of MCU. He stole food and toiletries from some old hag next door.
He also had to continue ensuring that Dolohov's crimes in the muggle world went unreported. Thankfully, that element of the plan had seemed secure after disposing of MCU. It was therefore a shock when, out of the blue, mudblood Granger had attacked Dolohov in Moscow, almost killing him in the process. Yaxley had no idea what Voldemort's magic in his body would do if Dolohov died and the plan failed, and he didn't want to find out.
How the mudblood had figured it out and almost apprehended his partner was a mystery, and it was sheer luck that she failed. Dolohov claimed he had infected her with a copy of the virus, which seemed plausible, as the mudblood had promptly disappeared after the fight. This worked to their advantage, because as long as she was missing, Yaxley and Dolohov were safe; the rest of wizarding world being completely oblivious to the fact that scores of muggles were dying via magical infection.
Still, ever since that assault, he had became even more cautious and ordered his contacts to inform him of anything that related to MCU or muggles. Which is why, when Rawlings's owl delivered a message that Potter and Weasley were poking around these issues, he grew worried.
It was probably nothing, he reasoned. The letter was a bit vague, and Rawlings wasn't the sharpest tool in the box anyway; he could have misread the whole situation. To add to that, even though Potter and Weasley were more or less competent at their jobs, they still didn't have the mudblood's brains, and she had yet to be found. So these questions about muggles and MCU were probably the result of them growing desperate and shooting in the dark. But, still, as was already said, Yaxley was a careful man. He covered his bases and always tried to keep an ace up his sleeve.
Which is why Potter and his friend needed to be distracted, because even a blind shot can score, and Yaxley had no intention of loosing, not this late in the game.
The best way to do this would be to give the aurors something else to focus on. Something deadly and dark. Something that would remind all them that their primary objective was to hunt down dark wizards, not squeeze purebloods for money.
And he had just the thing...
Stading in a nook off to the side of Diagon Alley, Yaxley tugged at the hem of his hood. It hung low over his face, concealing his aristocratic features in shadow. The hood didn't garner too much attention to his person on the busy street; the weather was sufficiently overcast to necessitate such garb.
Still, Yaxley didn't like this. Walking out into public made him nervous – it put him just one stunner away from being captured. One more reason to curse Dolohov.
Despite the gray weather, the street bustled with life. Families were out doing early holiday shopping, and little children – too young for Hogwarts – ran around with shrill happy cries and made impromptu contests about who could make the biggest splash by jumping into a puddle. Flashy signs advertised various wares and establishments. Bells jingled when a customer walked into a shop. A festive mood hovered in the air.
It was the image of carefree content; the picture of a people who could finally go out and enjoy life without the threat of an attack. The doom and gloom of the war was in the past; these people looked towards the brightness of the future. Yaxley was going to change all of that. He would remind these families that war never truly ended. One way or another, it always claimed its due.
No one was paying him any mind. He looked out over the street once again and breathed a heavy sigh. There was no point in stalling.
His hand crept into a pocket to retrieve a small wooden box engraved with an arabesque pattern. He opened it; there, on a bed of velvet, lay a tiny glass bead. A hypnotizing whirlpool of darkness swirled within its depths. Yaxley was very careful not to look at it. Instead, he withdrew a small bottle from another pocket, uncorked it, and poured three drops of concentrated acid onto the bead. The glass began to sizzle, and the darkness, feeling the walls of its prison weakening, pulsed with eager hunger. Feeling increasingly nervous from holding the deadly artifact, Yaxley hastily slammed the lid shut and then hurled the box with the bead as far away as he could, aiming for a crowd of people that had gathered at the entrance of some store.
There was no time to waste now. Dropping the bottle of acid onto the paved stones of the street, he whipped out his wand, thrust it towards the heavens and shouted, "MORSMORDRE!"
Panicked shrieks echoed throughout the street as the symbol of two decades of terror – the skull and the snake – rose to dominate the woeful skies. Yaxley, fully aware that any second now a horde of aurors would swarm the street, disapparated.
And not a moment too soon, because just several seconds later the glass casing of the bead relented and cracked. With a vicious, deafening roar, the darkness broke through. Exploding outward at supersonic speed, it tore through anything it met on its way, be it stone or flesh. It vaporized the people nearby, sparing no one, and demolished the brick and window facades of neighboring shops, burning them out from inside and sending bits of shrapnel – broken glass, stone and wood – flying in every direction.
With every death, its piercing, triumphant howl rose in volume. Unlike a muggle bomb, the darkness did not dissipate after the initial explosion. It stayed, like a victor surveying his new conquest. It stayed, and so did the skull-and-snake overhead.
They flew in the skies together, ghoulishly grinning down at the damage… at the bits of flesh and broken bone and the puddles little children had played in just a moment ago.
The same puddles that were now red with blood.