Chapter 26 – The Death Eater's Tale
"Nancy what are you doing here?" James asked, still in shock as he watched her move closer to him.
It was then that he saw she had her wand by her side but she quickly raised it.
"Expelliarmus," she called out and a scarlet light shot from her wand.
James was still crouched down by Seth and Greta with his wand alight but it shot out of his hand as Nancy's spell struck it and landed on the stone floor behind him.
"Accio wand," Nancy said and soon James' wand was in her hand and she placed it in her pocket.
"What are you doing Nancy?" James said in disbelief as she now just stared at him with an emotionless expression on her face. "We need to get them help!"
"My name is not Nancy," she replied in a stark tone. "It's Agatha."
"What?" James said bewildered and now realising he was all alone and had no way to defend himself. He was totally at the mercy of the girl who stood before him, whoever she was.
James suddenly noticed something weird happening to the girl's face. Her skin was starting to move and was turning paler. Her black hair was going grey and becoming thinner and abruptly she was growing taller. Her school robes now seemed tight against her larger body but in front of James no longer stood a young girl. Now she was an old woman.
"Who are you?" James said when he could finally get some words out, having been struck silent in shock as he had watched the transformation.
"I'm Agatha Blunt. And I'm here to make your family pay," the old woman said with contempt, her voice now much hoarser than before.
"I don't understand," James pleaded. "You've been behind all this? All my visions, the dreams, the voices. But why?"
"Because of Lord Voldemort. Because I loved him," she said with almost sadness in her eyes as she said the last part.
James didn't know how anyone could have loved Voldemort. He was a monster and a killer and the world was a better place without him. But right now the woman in front of him was about to do who knows what to him because she had loved that monster and James looked at her, dumbfounded and helpless.
"Let me tell you a story that began nearly eighty years ago when I was a young girl and I was a student at this school," the woman said, with her wand firmly trained on James. "I met a young boy in my year who like me had been sorted into Slytherin. His name was Tom Riddle."
James knew the name well and often wondered how a boy, who was said to have been very bright at school and a model student, had turned into Voldemort.
"Tom was a very independent boy," the woman continued. "He didn't really make any friends, not true friends anyway. There were those that idolised him and followed him but he never considered them as anything more than people at his disposal. But I on the other hand was someone he felt a connection to and someone he could confide in. He told me all about his upbringing and how he despised his muggle father and how he wanted a better life for himself and all witches and wizards. He said muggles were the scourge of our society and kept us from realising our true potential. I would have done anything for him and I would have followed him anywhere. After we left Hogwarts we remained close. Tom got a job in Borgin and Burkes and I worked further down Knockturn Alley in an apothecary. We would see each other almost daily to begin with but then he became more distant as the years went on and then one day he just disappeared. He didn't tell me where he was going. I was heartbroken but eventually I moved on with my life. I married, had a child and got a job at the Ministry. But not long after I had given birth to my son, he returned. At first I was reluctant to go back to him, having felt betrayed by him leaving all those years ago without telling me. But as the years went on I began to hear rumours of his growing following and how powerful he had become so eventually I went to him. He had changed. He was no longer the handsome boy I knew at Hogwarts, but deep down I still loved him and I offered myself to him and my services as a spy within the Ministry."
Whilst Agatha talked, James had been gazing his eyes around the room, seeing if there was anything he could use to defend himself should she try and attack him. But there was nothing. The room was almost completely empty. Though at the back of the room he did notice two beady stone eyes watching him. It was the snake statue he had seen in his dream and it was protruding from the back wall, it's head raised as if it was ready to strike.
"But then the incident with your grandparents changed everything," Agatha continued, never taking her eyes off James. "We knew there was a growing resistance to Voldemort's power and your grandparents were part of it. I was with him before he left for Godric's Hollow. It was such a simple task. Kill the Potters. They were no match for him and his powers but no one was expecting your grandmother's sacrifice to protect your father and backfire against him. I was devastated when I learnt what had happened and believed Voldemort was gone for good. The Ministry began rounding up the Death Eaters and eventually I was captured. I pleaded that I didn't know what I had been doing, that I had been under the Imperius Curse as so many Death Eaters claimed. Eventually after I had given them names of other Death Eaters they believed me and let me go, though I lost my job at the Ministry and my husband left me and our child to fend for ourselves. I changed my name back to Blunt and started to rebuild my life as best as I could but when Voldemort returned again I went back to him once more. Though I couldn't be of use to him as I had once been, he welcomed me back and found a place for me in his ranks, rewarding my years of loyalty to him."
James couldn't believe what he was hearing. This old lady who for the last year he had believed to be an eleven year old girl had slowly been acting out her plan for revenge against him and his family. All because she was deluded and supposedly in love. He kept glancing around the room as she talked. Hoping he had missed something. Something that he could use against her. But there was nothing. He felt so hopeless as he listened to her life story.
"But then that fateful day when your father killed him destroyed my world forever," Agatha went on. "Once again I had to deny being a Death Eater but it was easier this time as I had not been at the forefront of Voldemort's plans. I managed to slip back in society but not before retrieving his original wand, which he had discarded when he learnt it couldn't be used against your father due to it sharing a core with your father's wand. I kept his wand and one day vowed revenge on Harry Potter."
"So why do all this to me? Why put the Blood Curse on me?" James asked, genuinely perplexed.
"Oh you finally figured it out did you? What I had done to you?" Agatha sneered. "I had reservations about using his wand. I could have used something less conspicuous but it seemed so poetic. Getting hold of a Serpalax wasn't easy but luckily I still knew a few people who had been loyal to Voldemort who kept themselves in unsavoury circles. And then killing the muggle was easy. Watching her slowly dying after the bite was almost enjoyable knowing how pleased Voldemort would have been that a muggle was being sacrificed to avenge him. Then once I had the had the curse ready all I had to do was get into Hogwarts and that's where my granddaughter came into it."
"You took her place?"
"Simple enough with Polyjuice potion," Agatha replied.
"So what did you do with her? With the real Nancy?" James asked, wondering if she was dead too, just another victim of this woman's horrible plan.
"Don't worry I wouldn't hurt my own granddaughter. She's safe enough. Frozen if you like and out of the way where no one will find her. Once this is over I'll let her go. I'll have to modify her memory so as far as she's aware she's spent the last year here. But I needed to be here myself. So I could watch you and let my plan unfold. My biggest worry was the Sorting Hat. I thought it would see through the Polyjuice Potion and I was so nervous on that first day. I thought my plan could be over before it's even started but thankfully the hat didn't notice. Then all I had to do was place the wand in your trunk, wait for you to touch it and let the curse take its effect."
"And then you could control my visions? Make me see all those bad things. Make me think they were somehow my fault?"
"Exactly. I thought it wouldn't be long before you told your friends or teachers about what was happening but you were stubborn. You seemed to tell no one. That was a factor I hadn't accounted for. If no one knew you were having these dreams or hearing the voice how could they link everything back to you? But once I saw that incident in our Dark Arts class the other week with Polly and Noah asking Professor Payne about influencing someone's visions and dreams, I knew you had told them both what had been happening to you. So finally I had my witnesses who could tell Professor McGonagall and the authorities what you've been going through this last year."
"But why did you want everyone to think it was all my fault?"
"Because of this. The final part of my plan. When they find you in here with the body of that Mudblood they will put it all together and think you've gone mad and killed him. Especially when I use your wand to do it."
"What?!" James exclaimed.
"Killing your father wouldn't have been a fitting revenge for Voldemort's death. I want to destroy him. And what better way to do that than let him watch as his son is sent to Azkaban for murder. It will ruin him and your family and I can watch as slowly his life descends into a living hell and it all falls apart. He will never recover from it."
"So you're going to kill Seth?"
"Exactly and I'm going to make you watch," Agatha said as she stepped closer to him.
"And why is Greta here? What's she got to do with all this?" James asked hastily, trying to stall for time.
"Nothing. She found the wand amongst my things and then saw me coming down here. She followed me to see what I was up to so I had to stun her. I will Obliviate her memory so she remembers nothing of my involvement in all this."
"You're mad! You know that. All this for that evil monster. It sounded like he never loved you back!" James shouted at her.
"How dare you speak about him like that!" Agatha fumed.
"But it's true. Why did he leave before without telling you? Because he didn't trust you and he didn't care for you. He only took you back because you worked for the Ministry and were of use to him. He knew he could use you because you were so besotted with him. He probably thought you were pathetic."
"He didn't! He cared for me too!" Agatha now screamed.
James wasn't sure if this was the best idea but he had to do something. Agatha had seemed so composed and totally in control. If he could get her angry she might stop thinking straight and make a mistake and then he could take his chance and try and grab her wand. Then out the corner of his eye he thought he saw Seth's eye's flutter. He looked down at him and could see his eyes starting to open.
"Seth!" James cried out and crouched over him in case Nancy decided to strike him down now. "Seth are you ok?"
Seth opened his eyes and looked up at James in confusion. "Where am I?"
"Move out of the way Potter!" Agatha demanded, her voice full of fury.
"No. You'll have to kill me too," James said defiantly. "But then that will ruin your plan won't it? If I'm dead I can't be sent to Azkaban and my father won't have to watch me rotting away in that place."
"What's going on?" Seth asked panicking.
"Just stay down," James whispered to his friend before he turned back to Agatha, trying to come up with a plan. "I bet Voldemort never thought about you once all those years when he was gone. You thought he trusted you but clearly he never did. He was just using you all along. Ever since you first met at Hogwarts."
"It's lies! I was his one true friend. He counted on me. He trusted me!" Agatha shouted back.
"And you threw your life away for him," James continued, trying to make her lose control of the situation. "You lost your job. Your husband left you. And you wasted your life trying to get revenge for a man who probably wouldn't have cared in the slightest if you'd ended up in Azkaban or even died."
"You didn't know him. You didn't know how we were together. Deep down he loved me. He might have not shown it but we were soulmates!" Agatha fumed, wanting to hurt James even more now than she had done before and thinking maybe she could kill him and still frame him for Seth's murder.
Agatha raised her wand and decided she wouldn't kill James. Not right away anyway. She had something better in mind for him now. The Cruciatus Curse.
"I'm going to enjoy this," Agatha sneered with a smile but before she could cast the curse the door to the room burst open.
James turned as he saw his friends standing in the doorway looking on in shock and confusion and then he took his chance. Whilst Agatha was momentarily distracted he leapt at her, knocking the elderly woman to the ground but she still had hold of her wand and James tried to grab it.
"Deluminous!" Agatha shouted and suddenly all the green flamed torches in the room went out and the only light now was from the wands of Polly, Noah and Edward who were still stood in the doorway and their light barely penetrated the room.
"Seth get Greta out of here!" James shouted, having no idea where Agatha was now as she had wriggled free as they had wrestled for control of her wand.
"Stupefy!" Agatha shouted and a red light headed straight for the trio by the door.
"Protego!" Polly shouted back, blocking the spell.
The light from Agatha's spell had momentarily allowed James to see where she now was and he rushed at her again in the pitch black, managing to somehow find her and knock her to the ground once more.
Seth had now got to his feet and felt across to find Greta in the dark. He tried to lift her but she was too heavy for him.
"Greta," he called out as he shook her and he could see her eyes start to flicker.
Noah couldn't see anything in the black room but he remembered where Seth and Greta had been laying and he ran towards them.
"Noah where are you going?!" Polly shouted to him, still keeping one eye on the darkness, waiting for another spell to be fired at her.
Noah managed to find Seth and Greta and the boys were able to lift Greta up and carry her towards the door.
James was still trying to get Agatha's wand from her hand but for an elderly woman she was surprisingly strong and she had a forceful grip on her wand.
As Edward saw Noah and Seth emerge into the light of his and Polly's wand he ran to them, helping them to carry the stricken Greta out of the room.
"James!" Polly shouted into the darkness unable to see him or his assailant but she could hear groans as they continued to struggle against each other.
"It's over. Your plan won't work now," James said as he fought against the woman who was still refusing to give up her wand.
With her free hand Agatha managed to grab James' face and dug her nails in deep. James screamed out in pain, loosening his grip on her and allowing her to take control of her wand.
"Piertotum Locomotor!" she yelled out and a green flash of light shot from her wand towards the back of the room, briefly illuminating the middle of the room and showing Polly where they were.
Now everything was black again and James wasn't sure where Agatha was as he clutched the side of his face. But then in the distance he saw two large green eyes emerge from the dark. The room began to shake and bits of debris fell from the ceiling.
At first James wasn't sure what was happening but then he heard the sound of stone grinding on stone and the eyes were moving towards him. The grinding sound was now being accompanied by a hissing noise as the eyes continued forward.
James didn't wait around for them to get any closer and he ran towards Polly who still had her lit wand in her hand.
"Run!" James shouted to her.
Polly too could see the green eyes moving forward through the dark and it wasn't until James emerged and grabbed her to pull her with him that they both fled towards the door.
Noah and Edward were stood in the doorway waiting for their friends who were now running towards them in terror when suddenly the green torches relit and there behind them was the giant snake statue slithering fast in their direction.
"Kill them!" Agatha shouted, commanding the statue. "Kill them all!"