Chap. 37: Grindelwald, Lucius Malfoy, Harry and Rufus, the flop house, Hermione, and the Carrows.
Voldemort was soaring toward Nurmengard in the form of a black mist, and he was heading toward an employee entrance door when he felt wards, so the mist stopped, where Voldemort noticed the tower and a small but barely ajar window at the top.
The window was the merest slit in the black stone the prison was built from, and not big enough for a man to enter, where a skeletal figure was just visible through it, Voldemort noticed, who was curled beneath a blanket, but was he dead, or sleeping...?
As Voldemort forced himself through the slit of the ajar window like a snake and landed, lightly as vapor, inside the cell-like room, the emaciated figure stirred beneath its thin blanket and rolled over towards him, where its eyes opened in a skull of a face, and the frail man sat up with great sunken mismatched eyes fixed upon him, upon Voldemort, and then he smiled. Most of his teeth were gone...
"So, you have come," Gellert said. "I thought you would... one day. But your journey was pointless. I never had it."
"You lie!" Voldemort hissed as he aimed Bellatrix's wand at the old mage. (Partially from Chap. 23, DH)
"Do I, now?" Gellert said with a snigger. He wasn't totally lying, as he never truly "had" the wand's allegiance, and it was truly never his, since he didn't win it, he stole it.
"You took it from Gregorovitch," Voldemort stated, "and I, the greatest dark wizard to ever exist cannot be fooled so easily, old man."
"By what you've just stated, Tom," Gellert said, which made Voldemort snarl, "Albus was correct about you. Your narcissism will be your downfall, and yes, Albus does visit about once per year, and he does tell me things. You, Mr. Riddle, are naive about magic, and always have been. Your mugglish disregard of magic - thinking that only dark spells are worthwhile, is your huge failure. Even the Potter boy understands magic better than you! By the way, Tom, what in buggering hell happened to your ear?"
"LEGILIMENS!" Voldemort, now seething mad, roared out, and he entered Gellert's mindscape. There was nothing there but black, except for two figures aiming their wands at one another, where he watched as Albus obtained the wand before he was encircled by Fiendfyre inside the old mage's head, making him scream out.
When Voldemort came back to himself, he found himself crumpled on the floor, and there was a caterwauling charm blaring within the prison where he could also hear loud footsteps rushing up the stone stairs.
Voldemort, who felt as if he had been burned all over, shakily aimed Bellatrix's Walnut wand at Gellert, and said "Avada..."
Suddenly, a gravity charm hit the cell, which face-planted Voldemort to the flagstone floor with a wet smack, and Gellert down to his bed. Voldemort found that he couldn't move, and he felt like he weighed a ton. He couldn't apparate, either, so he turned back into the black mist, and as if he was a creeping centipede, he crawled up the wall and slithered back through the crack in the window.
Once outside, the black mist flew erratically through the air, like a lame and meandering dog, until it made its way over the wall, where a steep hillside was. Here, he turned back into his human form, midair, where he fell about six feet, and started tumbling down the mountain for about fifty yards until he hit a large Fir tree, and stopped dead, cracking a few ribs.
Here, he shakily stood, wiped the blood from his face, cursed aloud, and the one-eared dark wizard disapparated.
Lucius needed money for the cause, so he collected every dark artifact that he had, placed them in a trunk, which he then shrank down and placed in his pocket, and apparated into Knockturn Alley. He thought that he would have himself a drink, first, at The White Wyvern, and then head to Borgin and Burkes.
He had his hood up when he walked into the Wyvern and stepped up to the bar. The bartender did notice who it was when he spotted the greying blond hair underneath.
"We don't serve your kind in here, Lucius," Max Chadburn, the bartender, loudly said. "We don't serve kiddy diddlers!"
"WHAT!" Lucius roared, but that was all he got out, as a huge ringed and tattooed hand grabbed the hair on the back of his head, and face-planted him into the bar, knocking him out cold.
When Lucius woke up, with a broken nose, he was lying on a wide piece of tarmac, and there was a chain-link fence beside him topped in razor wire. However, in front of him was an old stone three-story building that had been painted white, with a large and gated arched door, and written above the door in large black letters, it said "Wagon Gate." He also noticed the bars on the windows in the floor above the archway.
Immediately, he tried to apparate, but nothing happened, and this brought a loud guffaw from behind him from several wizards. That was when he noticed a magic restraining cuff on each wrist.
As Lucius turned his head, he at first thought he was within an old stone fortress that was huge, until he noticed that those laughing at him were American Aurors.
"Welcome, Lucius," Warden Saunders said, "to Moundsville Prison, in West By God Virginia! Your ass is ours, now, boy, and we've been looking at interrogating you for a very long time."
"THIS IS ILLEGAL!" Lucius roared.
"Is it, now?" Saunders said as he motioned for the other Aurors to drag Lucius to his feet. "You'll find that the Ministry of Magic is well aware of your rendition, boy," and here, Saunders spat out a long string of tobacco juice, "where, in fact, they ordered it. You'll, of course, be turned back over to them when they're ready for you, if they don't just have you snuffed out here in Ol' Sparky, which is our electric chair, and they claim it hurts like a bitch, and much worse than the Cruciatus!"
The other Aurors all chortled out as Lucius' eyes grew wide, especially after he noticed that they had his trunk, which would bring him life imprisonment, itself.
"You're in the United States, now, nancy-boy," a rather large and tall Auror said, "and you'll find that you have no pull here."
"Take him inside, gentlemen," Saunders said after spitting again, and while motioning at a white steel door up a set of steps at the main prison, "delouse him, and do a body cavity search while you're at it. I'm sorry, Lucius, but that long nancy-like hair'll have to go; lice, you see!"
Lucius started screaming, as they dragged the man, with his heels bouncing along the sidewalk, off and up five steps, and to the white steel door, which closed with a resounding clang. Once he was "processed," he found himself in a six-foot by eight-foot cell, with a folded-up top bunk overhead, held by chains from the wall, which could take one's head off if it fell. Worse, he noticed a large sewer rat scurry across the hall outside his cell, and a few cockroaches scurried from under his mattress when he sat down.
In the corner was a single steel dirty toilet, with a sink made into the top of the tank, and they were using the "Reaper Row," which was the old death row cells. If Lucius could shite, he would have, then, but they had given him a harsh purgative potion when he came in, to make sure nothing was hidden up his arse or in his gut. Now, he was so weak that he could hardly move, and he was a trembling burr-headed mess sitting in the cold cell while wondering what was next.
Lucius would be the first of several to be housed there, as Moundsville, one of the hardest muggle prisons in the US, had just been closed the year before, and MACUSA had cut a deal with the muggle government to temporarily use the prison until Voldemort was defeated. In fact, it did look like an old stone castle and fort, with castellations, turrets, and all, and it was built, over time, from 1876. West By God Virginia, indeed! Worse, they were using the Death Eater's gold to fund it!
Harry was reading over a new bill when he heard a knock at his door, so he said aloud, "Come in."
Rufus Scrimgeour opened the door, stepped inside, and made his way over to the fine glass decanter sitting on Harry's sideboard, where he took a glass and poured himself two fingers of Cognac. After taking a sip, and giving out a smiling sigh, he took a seat across from Harry.
"They caught Lucius," Rufus said in his rumbling voice.
"Moundsville, West Virginia bound, I take it?" Harry inquired.
"Oh, yes," Rufus said with a snort, "and old Lucy didn't like it one bit. They shaved his head, and gave him the cell closest to Ol' Sparky to intimidate him on Reaper Row."
"Ol' Sparky and Reaper Row?"
"Their old Electric Chair and Death Row, Harry," Rufus said with a snigger, "which is a wonderful intimidation tactic, I must say. That was after a thorough delousing and cavity search by the way, where they shaved that mop of blond hair off'n his head!" Here, Rufus let out a loud chortle, and so did Harry. "We're aiming for Rabastan, next, who we're looking to do a runner over Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Rody, by the way, is being transported there, now, along with Rookwood, Gibbon, and Travers. We're hoping to catch the Carrow twins, next, along with Selwyn, Dolohov, and Rowle before long, as well."
"Well," Harry dryly replied, "their disappearances can be easily explained by simply stating that they were arrested and re-incarcerated. We don't have to say where, now, do we?"
"No, no, we don't," Rufus said with a wide grin, "and since they're being tried for the high crime of treason, they are high security, thus, no visitors. I must admit that your plan of making them disappear has worked out perfectly, and all the while their master is out on a wild goose chase. It was a brilliant plan, and you've got a good head on you, Potter. You know how to work the law and the political side of it as well."
Here, Harry sat back in his squeaky leather office chair and smirked. "No mercy, indeed!"
Voldemort was lying on a bed bug-ridden cot, where several had bitten him over the night, in a wizarding flop house in Bratislava after he halfway healed his ribs with Bellatrix's wand. He hardly had any gold and had to eat the slop that he was given in a bowl to survive, though they did give him a few potions. He also noticed a few small bumps upon his fingers, which looked as if he might have picked up scabies along the way. Fuckin' mange, Voldemort thought!
He had ten galleons to his name, and he needed a more compatible wand for him to resume his quest, but he would have to find another wandmaker, and he was told that they had one there, though they weren't of Gregorovitch's quality. He would visit the shop, though, and see if one chose him, and he might leave the wandmaker dead after he found one, and save his gold. That was until he heard a loud pounding upon the flop house's door, and a wizard's loud voice stating that they were from the ICW and were looking for him.
Voldemort clenched his teeth, stood, gave a rattling cough, and turned back into the black mist, where he slipped down the rickety back stairs, and out an open back door.
He thought that he might head to Berlin, where he knew a few dark wizards, and try to recruit a few followers while he was in the vicinity. He hoped that the ICW didn't show up there, as well!
Daphne was sitting in the library trying to do her History of Magic homework when she heard someone drop a huge stack of books upon the table beside her. When she looked to her left, she gave out a small sigh, as it was Hermione. Tracey was staring wide-eyed at the young witch and was waiting for what was to come.
Hermione withdrew her wand, and cast a privacy charm before she turned to look at Daphne with a huff.
"Just what has Harry been up to?" Hermione demanded. "I saw the Prophet, and what was that about with all this so-called 'wild magic' stuff, and that wasn't his wand, either; it was too long!"
"Hermione," Daphne said with a put-upon sigh, "there is such a thing as wild magic, but only a few wizards can access it. One has to be extremely powerful to do so, like a warlock and a sorcerer. Dumbledore, some have said, could do it, as well as Grindelwald."
When Hermione started to argue that Harry was just a normal wizard, Daphne held up her hand.
"No, that isn't Harry's old Holly wand; it quit working for him after the ritual, and he obtained a new one while still in New Orleans, which is longer. It's special, and I was told not to tell anyone about it; state secrets."
"STATE SECRETS!" Hermione screeched, causing both Daphne and Tracey to clench their teeth. "I've had enough of these so-called 'state secrets,' and I want to know, damn it!"
"You think that I, Lady Potter and Black," Daphne calmly said, "would reveal a state secret, and end up going to Azkaban over it?"
Tracey snorted and shook her head.
"But, but, but...," Hermione spluttered out while waving her hands about in the air over her head.
"No, Hermione," Daphne continued, "I will not reveal what the Minister for Magic and Harry have declared top secret."
Here, Daphne slyly canceled Hermione's privacy charm from under the table with her Oak and Dragon Heartstring wand.
"What about Rodolphus, for Merlin's sake!" Hermione screeched; drawing the attention of several, which she didn't notice. "Harry took him down with one curse, and broke Lestrange's shield like it wasn't there! Is he practicing the Dark Arts, I want to know, and know, NOW!"
Someone cleared their throat from behind Hermione, and it was Madam Pince. When Hermione turned around, her eyes looked like they could roll from her head.
"Miss Granger," Pince said, "out of my library, now, and don't come back until you can act more ladylike!"
Hermione scowled, threw her books into her bag, and stormed out of the library, leaving a stack of books for Pince to have to put up.
"I've never heard such screeching," Pince said, who levitated the books into the air, "in all my life! I am truly sorry, Lady Potter, that she interrupted your study. Please, you and Miss Davis, do continue!"
After Pince walked off, Tracey muttered out, in a low voice, while still looking at her book, "Is she stable?"
Daphne snorted.
Alecto and Amycus Carrow were on the run that night from the French and ICW Aurors. Both had disapparated while hoping to lose their followers, where they had landed upon the tin roof, and just behind the bell tower of the Mairie de Clichy that was situated under Rue Matre in the commune of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, which was the Paris Métro's Line 13. It was a northwestern suburb of Paris. There was an entrance there to the wizarding underground where they hoped to hide.
As the two were trying to catch their breath, several Aurors silently apparated around them, and before either could lift a wand, a red curse hit Alecto square in the chest, knocking her backward, where she careened off the bell tower, slid down the steep tin roof, fell past the clock, and hit with a rather loud splat upon the stone terraced entrance below.
Amycus, now horrified at what just happened, cried out, and disapparated; reappearing beside his sister. The Aurors followed, and when they noticed Amycus go for his wand, a green killing curse struck him square in the back, where he crumpled across his sister's corpse.
"Bring zim back to de Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France," the Lead French Auror stated, where they all apparated back to the ministry with the two corpses.
Amycus and Alecto were taken to the coroner's office, and laid out on two stone slabs, while the Aurors finished their paperwork.
The Lead Auror reappeared a couple of hours later, tied a toe tag on each corpse, hung a portkey around their necks, and sent them back to the morgue at St. Mungo's, in London.
The ICW and the European nations had enough, especially after reading what came out in The Magic Eye, and they would not allow Voldemort's infection to spread to the mainland. In fact, they were hunting him, now, who they had heard was in Slovakia.
A/N: And another chapter down to set up what is coming in the following chapters. Thanks for all the reviews!
BTW, the song in the last chapter, Chosen One, was not out back in 96, but I shamelessly used it anyhow.
sanbeegoldiewhitey pointed out that I had mistakingly written Hestia instead of Alecto, so thanks for that. Why I wrote that, I have no idea, since I mentioned them correctly before. It's been one of those days!