Posted: 11/22/2015

Beta: the artful scribbler

Present Incarnate

4th June, 1998

"Oh, my- Is it-? It's urinating!" Narcissa exclaimed.

"Holy Hecate!" Bellatrix snorted. "That's disgusting."

"Guess she 'as been tied up a while," Scabior said, giving the girl who was bound and gagged on the thick ornate rug a cursory glance. Bellatrix, Lucius, and Narcissa were glaring curses at him, but he could not care less. He shrugged aloofly and then once more disappeared behind the Daily Prophet in his hands.

"You don't have to stay," Lucius said, hoping he would leave.

"Yeah, I do," he told them from behind his paper.

"We're perfectly capable of guarding this-this...whatever it is," Lucius tried again.

"Like Potter? I can't leave 'er 'ere with you incompetent lot. One of yer old 'ouse-elves liable to drop in and nick 'er right out from under yer noses." After he'd done saying this, Scabior began to laugh wheezily and lightly slap his knee.

The Malfoys and Bellatrix all went rather red in the face, but held their tongues.

After a few moments, Narcissa couldn't help but ask, "Can you not move it to the cellar? Only this carpet has been in our family for generations."

"Nope. I told you to call the Dark Lord a 'alf hour ago. Now, you can do tha', or we'll just 'ave ta wait till 'e gets 'ere."

"For this! If we call him for this, he'll eviscerate us," Bellatrix sneered, eyeing the body on the floor like it might be a disease.

"'E wanted 'er yesterday," he told them. "And 'e ent' gonna be 'appy she's late."

"What in the hell is it?" Bellatrix asked.

"A present," Scabior replied cryptically.

"I highly doubt he'll consider anything this pathetic a 'present'," Bellatrix said.

"Shoulda seen wha' I brough' 'im a few weeks back," he retorted with an irritating chuckle.

The Malfoys were highly confused about the child. It was a child. They couldn't begin to fathom why the Dark Lord would want it. It was dark-skinned and wearing trousers for one thing, and for another thing it was...well, it was a child. They would have gladly retreated back to the third floor of the east wing - the farthest part of the manor from where the Dark Lord usually conducted his business - but they didn't want to leave Scabior alone. Everyone knew he had sticky fingers.

He kept insisting they should call the Dark Lord, but they could not justify it. Not for this...whatever it was supposed to be. The Dark Lord didn't seem quite as angry with them of late, and they did not want to do anything rash in case they aroused his ire again. Scabior was acting as though It was important to their master, though he wouldn't tell them how, and without a full disclosure they could not see why they should put their pure-blood necks on the line for the degenerate likes of him.

Draco walked into the room and, looking at the figure with a slightly sickened expression, asked, "Is that dead?"

"No," answered Bellatrix. "If you watch it for a while you'll notice that it's breathing." Then she added in an offhand manner, "And crying."

"And it just relieved itself on the rug," Narcissa supplied pulling her cup of tea to her thin disapproving mouth for a delicate sip. "Would you like some tea, dear?"

Draco shook his head and sat beside Father. He kept looking at the little thing in spite of himself. Its eyes were closed and it was perfectly still, save the gentle rise and fall of its chest. He could see that tears and snot had made shiny trails down one side of its face. Draco thought it was female, though he couldn't be positive. It was wearing a voluminous shirt, almost like a short, loose robe, so the shape of its figure was masked.

"What is it?" he finally asked.

"A present for the Dark Lord, boy," Scabior told him.

"Don't call him boy," Lucius commanded.

"Why not?" Scabior asked.

"Because I said so," Lucius replied, his voice ringing with authority.

Scabior slowly lowered his paper and in one languid movement pulled out his wand.

"And what exactly are ya gonna do 'bout it, Lucius?" he taunted.

Lucius wearily, longingly, appraised the wand and didn't answer.

Bella's face was red, but she also refrained from retaliating. She narrowed her eyes, leaned back on the sofa, and began to make a mental list of the curses she could use on him, had she her own wand. She spent a lot of time these days making lists. Lists of what spells she would cast as soon as she got another wand, and lists of the people she would hurt once she got her hands on it. So far, Scabior was at the bottom.

As though he couldn't resist rubbing their faces in it, Scabior used his wand to summon a chocolate biscuit off a silver platter that rested on a spindle-legged, inlaid table and he began to eat it.

Through a mouthful he said, "Some of the other Death Eaters are sayin' you lot are pretty damn worthless, but I know better. Ya got a good spread 'ere." He winked at Lucius.

He noticed their faces grow pink and smiled a little to himself. Good, he thought. Bleedin' snobs. They had always treated him like dirt, and he was delighted by their recent fall from grace. Everyone was.

Bellatrix silently moved him up one of her lists.

Narcissa contemplated pulling out her wand, but the impulse was a weak one and short-lived. She was fairly certain that she was more than a match for Scabior, but she really felt that wasn't the point. He was here on an assignment for their master, and she and her family were meant to be in disgrace. The torture and beatings, the protracted state of her family being wandless, and suffering the insults of their colleagues - even the ones whose blood-lines weren't nearly as pristine as their own - all of these different aspects came to together to create a diverse package of punishment. It wasn't as though it could last forever, so Narcissa kept her peace.

After all, The Dark Lord didn't want to kill them. He wanted to preserve as much magical blood as possible. As her husband and son had already pledged their lives to him, let him mark them, he had to consider their intrinsic value when dealing with them. Unlike many of the people who were currently in his service, they could trace their ancestry over centuries. They were perfect representations of every standard he held. Simply put, they were ideal.

The Dark Lord's voice sounded from the door outside the parlour where they were waiting. Scabior immediately dropped his paper and sprang to his feet. The others rose as well; Bellatrix patted her hair a little, nervously, and they all faced the door.

When he entered the room he turned his face to Scabior and the child at his feet first, smiling. He merely glanced at the rest of them, barely deigning to acknowledge them. He brought his pale long-fingered hands together and gently rubbed them together with relish.

Although he was still smiling his first impulse was to rebuke, "You are late, Scabior."

Scabior immediately fell to one knee. "My sincerest 'poligies, Master. We 'ad ta...rearrange our plans, so to speak. We 'ad to bring her in a van."

"A van?" the Dark Lord repeated. "Why didn't you just use side-along Apparation?"

"We tried, my Lord, but it wouldna work."

"What do you mean it would not work?"

"We all tried to Apparate with 'er, my Lord. Firs' me, then Puffer, and Greyback. None of us could do it. Finally we Imperio'd a muggle with a van and 'ad 'im drive us down 'ere. I'm sorry, Master. We got 'er 'ere soon's we could. Then I told the Malfoys 'ere to call you but they wouldna listen to me."

The Dark Lord briefly flicked his eyes toward them but didn't say anything. They all sighed in relief.

Those morons couldn't even get her here properly. He should have fetched her himself.

"Well, she's here at last," he replied.

He was in an excellent mood.

After rummaging through the thoughts of that scummy little thief, and then swiftly ending his life, he could only conclude that this little creature, Jane, could at last shed some light on a problem that had been nagging at him for quite a while: the mystery of how Dumbledore had seemed to divine his every move. He did not have a complete picture yet. Were the potions she was drinking and the spells he was casting at her somehow giving her the power to spy on him? And, if so, why would he use someone so young and stupid to spy? Why not himself, or at least someone older? And what had Dumbledore meant when he asked her if she had slipped away? Slipped away. He had repeated it to himself a quite a few times but couldn't draw any meaning from it.

It had been easy enough for him to track her down, almost ridiculously so. Cloaked by the darkness of night, he had gone to that narrow brick house of the thief's memory and used Legilimancy on two sets of neighbors. The people on the opposite side had only taken up residence of couple of months ago and hadn't a clue who he was looking for. After disposing of them, and their runny-nosed brat that wouldn't stop wailing the whole time, he had tried the neighbors upstairs. It was an older couple, and their minds were well acquainted with the child Jane, her caretaker Mrs. Carrington, and they had even seen Dumbledore coming and going many times. The woman, Mrs. Carrington, had moved to Canada a year ago to be closer to her daughter, and Jane had gone to a girl's home for disadvantaged youth. From that point he had to track down this charitable institution where she was living and that had not presented a challenge either. Oh, Dumbledore had been quite remiss in protecting his little charge. More likely he had just been arrogant enough to assume that her existence would never be discovered. The fool!

He was quite eager to question her. But he needed to be careful. He was loath to appear as though he didn't already know everything. He had considered torturing her and, if it came to that, he would not hesitate. But he decided to begin with some Veritaserum because it would not be prudent to start damaging her without all of his facts first.

"Get her up and untied," he commanded Scabior.

Scabior did as he was told. He used his wand to untie her ropes, took off the gag and then tried to pull her into a standing position. The little girl did not seem able to stay standing, although she appeared to be trying. Growing impatient the Dark Lord told him to set her down in a chair.

He pulled a chair up to sit across from her, and examined her.

She was just as odd looking in person as she had been in memory. The first thing he noted was a light blue bruise over the dark skin of her cheek. She wasn't brown exactly, more olive-toned like a person of Persian of descent. Perhaps she was a mixture of some sort. Her hair was bright black, short, cropped on top, and the curly texture didn't allow it to lie flat and smooth but rather made it frizz out. Her eyes were some odd, bluish green color and their shape was distorted and magnified by the thick, black-framed spectacles she wore. Her face was quite hairy. Her black eyebrows were bushy and came so close together across her brow that there was no real distinction between them. And on the skin above each side of her upper lip more black hair gave the impression of a thin mustache. Her lips were huge - puffy and as deeply red as a pot of poinsettias. Her upper lip was so full that it was shaped in a high arch. The last things he noticed were her straight nose and the small cleft in her chin. Judging by the fullness of her cheeks, the flatness of her chest, and the straight lines of her figure he would guess her age to be somewhere around eleven.

She sat there calmly while he took in her appearance. She rubbed some tears off of her face and her little hands trembled, but other than that she just waited, staring around the room, while he assessed her. In fact, he didn't think she seemed very surprised or traumatized to find herself in his company. She was either very brave or very stupid. As she was a Muggle, the Dark Lord assumed he could guess which it was.

Once he finished looking her over, the Dark Lord stood up and addressed Scabior. "She has a bruise," he accused. He had given the chief Snatcher very specific instructions about how he wanted her to be handled.

"Tha's Greyback's doin', tha' is. It were all fine, till he decided to start gropin' on 'er chest in the van. Then she goes all wild and start kickin' and bitin' us all, so me and Puffer, we threw 'im out the back and we 'ad to tie 'er up. Till then she were as calm as a flobberworm with a belly full of lettuce."

The Dark Lord pointed his wand at Scabior and tortured him for a few minutes. Why was everybody always making excuses? He noted, with pleasure, that the child clenched her eyes closed, muffled her ears with her hands, and hunched her shoulders up protectively. After he was finished, he conjured up a fat bag of coins and dismissed him.

Once the snatcher had taken his reward and departed, the Dark Lord prepared a cup of tea for Jane. He kept his back to her while he added the cream and sugar, but Bellatrix and the Malfoys had a clear view of him as he added a couple drops of the clear potion to her drink. When he was done he gave it her.

She examined the drink for moment.

She knows, he thought.

Wisely she brought it to her lips and they watched as she blew on it for a moment, and then gulped down the whole cup in about four large swallows.

"Fanks," she mumbled as she set the cup down on the table next to her chair. Her voice was more low-pitched than he would have guessed for her age and sex.

He sat down again and looked at her in silence for some moments, waiting for the Veritaserum to take total affect.

"Tell me your name."

"Jane Wellington," she said. She kept her eyes trained on the window.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

"I want to know how you met Dumbledore."

She took a deep breath and let it out. She was silent a moment before she answered.

"I's were in a 'ome. It were...no good. So I's find 'im, Dumbledore, and asks 'im to 'elp me."

"What do you mean you found him?"

"Well, I's...I's be knowed where 'e's were playin' tenpin every Saturday, yeah? So, it were at a place close by where I's lives then. So I's just takin' the tube there one day. I's waited for 'im outside an' then I goes up to 'im an' I says, 'Oy, Mr. Dumbledore. I's needs to speaks wif you.' 'E were right polite, yeah? 'E's jus' listenin while I's be tellin' 'im all bout my bad 'ome an' 'ow I's found out bout 'im. 'E's asks me where I's livin' and then 'e says 'e needs to fink about it. So I just wen' 'ome that day." She gave a heavy sigh. "I's waited an' waited, an' then a few weeks later 'e's comes up one evenin'. 'E's say 'e'll be 'elpin'. So, that's 'ow we started."

The Dark Lord was quiet a moment, processing what she'd said.

"Tell me how you 'found out about him'.

"Well, I's were out one day, yeah? I's used to be jus' doin' tha' when I's were bored like. I likes to just slip away, yeah?"

"No. What does that mean? 'Slip away'?"

"It wha' I's be call it."

"What is it?"

"Slippin' away."

"But what is slipping away? What does that mean?"

"It be wha' I's do. It why I's beed 'ere ent it? You knows wha' I's be doin' fer Dumbledore. Don'chya?"

"You were spying."

"Righ'. Well, I's callin' it slippin' away', yeah?"

"But how did you spy? How do you do it?"

"Oh, well. Is righ' easy, yeah? I's jus' lie down an do it."

"You just lie down? On a bed or-or the floor?"

"No, not tha floor. I's gotta be comferterable."

"So you lie down...on a bed, make yourself comfortable and then what do you do?"

"I's slip away."

"But what does that mean!" It was like trying to decipher a foreign language for Merlin's sake! Was she trying to be so obtuse?

"I's ent be knowed 'ow I's do it. I's jus' always could, yeah?. I's fought I's be dreamin' when I's were little. I's jus'," she looked around the room, as though an explanation might be lurking behind some furniture, "I's just be doin' it. I's gotta be, ya know, 'appy. No, not 'appy, really, jus' not sad or angry like. I's gotta be calm."

The Dark Lord was so confused.

"Well, was Dumbledore giving you the potions and doing the spells to magic you into a calmer state so that you could...do...it?"

Do what exactly? What had she done?

For the first time she looked surprised. "You mean you's don' know?"

Damn! He hadn't wanted to come across as ignorant about all of this as he most certainly was. He should have made the Malfoys and Bellatrix leave the room before he started questioning her.

"Know what?"

He was quite shocked when her face crumpled and, for the first time, she began to cry. "I's fought ya knowed!"

"Know what?"

The time for talk was clearly at an end.

The Dark Lord grabbed her by the back of her frizzy head, snatched her glasses off for good measure, and, just as he had done countless times before, made to plunge into her mind.

SMACK!

It felt as though he had tried to ram his brain into something very large and very solid. There was a gong resounding inside his skull, and the vibrations were making his hands shake. He sat back down and looked at her.

"I's be finkin' that ya knowed," she was really starting to blubber now. "I's- I's- I's impervious to magic!"