Every single Death Eater was aware of the Dark Lord's wrath when it woke them up at six in the morning, barely an hour after most of them had returned home. Sirius struggled into his robes and stumbled down the stairs, the hidden Mark on his arm on fire. He apparated to Headquarters at roughly the same time as the rest of the Inner Circle, everyone moving warily towards the open meeting room doors. He carefully reinforced his Occlumency shields, concealing all incriminating thoughts of Crouch and Moody beneath as many tangential memories as he could before bringing thoughts of the past two days' "victories" and desire for a shower to the surface of his mind.
When he entered the meeting room, he saw there was already one body on the table, a witch in robes identifying her as an employee at St. Mungo's. Her eyes were wide with terror but frozen in death. Lord Nott was slumped in a chair halfway down the table and looked semi-conscious at best, but he was breathing.
"Black. Come here," Voldemort said sharply, red eyes fixed on his.
Everyone standing nearest him unsubtly edged away, a few successfully disguising the movement as merely choosing chairs to sit in. Sirius meekly walked around the table. "My Lord?"
Long, pale fingers grabbed the front of his robes and yanked him down to Voldemort's eye level. Voldemort gripped his head in both hands and dove into his mind, hunting for Sirius' memory of the battle. Sirius immediately offered up what he was looking for, not bothering to hide his fear in the face of the Dark Lord's unexplained (no matter how anticipated) assault. Voldemort watched the entire battle at Foulness from Sirius' perspective, multiple times. Sirius made no effort to resist the probe, only to conceal his manipulations of the Imperius curse on Rosier by skipping his focus past them to the resulting and objectively dramatic events. After forcibly reviewing the final blasting curse half a dozen times, Voldemort released Sirius' thoughts, as well as his hold on his head. Sirius collapsed to hands and knees, panting.
"You saw the moment of death. You saw it. There were four life signs, always four, and you snuffed them out..."
"My Lord?" Sirius gasped.
"Get up and sit down," Voldemort said irritably. Sirius dragged himself into the nearest chair, shakily. "Bartemius Crouch lives," he announced.
There was an uneasy exhale around the table.
"He survived blasting curse?" Dolohov asked, astonished. "There vas nothing left..."
Voldemort silenced him with a glare. "He lives when he should not. Sirius employed a Homenum Revelio during the battle. There were no survivors inside the house. And yet, Crouch lives!"
Ever the peacemaker, at least so far as his Lord and his wife were concerned, Rodolphus cautiously said, "My Lord, we always knew the possibility of the aurors anticipating our strategy..."
Voldemort shook his head and flung a careless though mercifully short Cruciatus at his closest lieutenant. "He was admitted into St. Mungo's under a false name with injuries that he should not have. There is a spy among us. That is the only reason for the aurors to bother with such a deception."
Sirius recognized dully that he had inadvertently doomed himself with his habit of watching for human presence during battles. Moody's ploy to fake Crouch's injuries might have worked if his own head didn't contain the contradictory evidence. He knew where this was going. He got to work frantically adding complexity to his already substantial Occlumency web. He could only hope it would be enough.
"Vell, ve already saw three spies," Dolohov said philosophically. "Imperiused, turned against us in battle, now dead."
Voldemort was not appreciative of the Russian's blasé attitude and turned the Cruciatus on him next. "That is poor comfort when we cannot rule out the existence of others, fool," Voldemort snarled.
"My Lord, it is safest to act as if there is still a spy," Bella said, for once in her life sounding entirely serious. Her lips twisted into a bitter sneer. "Most likely one too weak to resist the Imperius."
"I agree," Voldemort said. "But I will not exclude the possibility of a willing traitor in our midst. Everyone who knew our plans to target Crouch will be interrogated. Bella, Antonin, Sirius, since you three are currently the only members of my Inner Circle who can resist the Imperius, I must interrogate you first, and the four of us will comprise the core leadership of our movement until further notice. Sirius, since you're closest... Believe me when I tell you, it brings me no pleasure to do this to you. Crucio."
The hot white pain lasted long minutes, so long Sirius could feel his mind starting to fray again, feel the temptation to flee as completely as he had last fall. He had more practice controlling his mind now, both from regrettable familiarity with pain and from his recent exploration of the Inferi ritual. And, Voldemort wasn't Bella. He concentrated on one idea, a concept that had decidedly not been true when Bella in grief and more than usual insanity had turned her wand against him: This is happening for a reason, and it will stop.
It will stop. He held onto the knowledge as he screamed.
It will stop. He held onto the knowledge as every muscle spasmed and contorted.
It will stop. He held onto the knowledge as his shoulder dislocated from the force of the muscles contracting around it.
It will stop. He held onto the knowledge as every other conscious thought dissolved into a mist of uncomprehending agony.
It will stop.
It will stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Please, stop.
Please...
Just when his concentration wavered and broke, the curse ended. Sirius was barely lucid enough to recognize that he was now lying on the floor. He listlessly watched a dark, form looming over him, moving closer, limbs reaching out towards his face. His head moved by a strength other than his own (Voldemort picked it up). An awareness other than his own perused his empty, shocked mind. Have you met with any aurors, Sirius? Or anyone in the Order of the Phoenix?
The question floated through his bruised consciousness. Sirius did not have the wherewithal to answer intentionally, but images of Alastor Moody drifted up, followed by images of the Potters, and Dumbledore. (It was the first steps of the path he had laid for the Dark Lord's Legilimency probe to naturally follow, although neither he nor the Dark Lord currently knew that).
Where? When?
The Potter home, decorated for Yule. The hazy feeling of pain and disorientation he felt now was nearly identical to what he had felt then from his refractory burn, residual Cruciatus damage, and Fleamont's potions. What little coherent thought Sirius currently had naturally settled to focus on his friends and Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. Those were the more pleasant memories.
Aurors. After that. Recently.
Aurors recently. What was recently? A bit more of his mind ground back into action and oriented to the present. Sirius had seen lots of aurors recently, mostly watching them through the eyes of Inferi. He had been too far away to differentiate aurors from Order members in the dark battle at Crouch Manor.
Who have you been with in the last month?
The Dark Lord, mostly. Hours and hours with the Dark Lord, practicing the Inferi ritual. Memories of the intoxicating sensation of blood magic washed over him, and his body shivered involuntarily.
Who else? the other mind questioned. Sirius finally recognized the presence as another mind, and quickly realized whose. "Crucio." His newfound awareness crumpled again, but the pain lasted only seconds this time. Because there was a reason for it. It had served its purpose.
Who else have you spoken with in the last month besides the Dark Lord? Visualize their faces.
Richard. Elaine and Winston Avery. Bella. Rodolphus. Narcissa. Uncle Cygnus. Evan Rosier had come by, as had Felix Mulciber, visiting Richard. Audrey, Ingmar, and Gloriana preparing for London. Antonin Dolohov, Lucretia Malfoy, and Theodosius Nott at a dinner party. People at meetings - their faces flicked by in a blur. The only unexpected vision over which the external awareness lingered was when Sirius shoplifted his cigarettes and obliviated the muggle proprietor of the store who opposed him.
Who have you sent letters to?
No one. Sirius didn't write anyone letters, not even Regulus except the one time to let him know he was alive and well after disappearing for a month. It was too risky to keep writing to him.
Communication mirrors?
Sirius used to have a set of those, when he was at Hogwarts. He used to lend one to James for them to communicate during detentions. He'd left them at the Potters' house, both times he'd sneaked out to come to Voldemort.
Patronus?
Sirius saw the patronus charm leaving the Crouch manor, too far away and moving too quickly for him to tell what kind of animal it might have been.
Floo call?
He had no one to call. He didn't like most of his family. He was friendless except for Narcissa and Richard.
Drop points?
Sirius could only sink into pleasant confusion at that, with no memories readily rising to the surface at the suggestion, and too little conscious cognition to figure out what the hell a "drop point" was.
Where have you been?
Richard's house. Headquarters. A clearing in Yorkshire. Hammersmith Bridge. The cigarette shop. Tintagel castle. Bella's house. Uncle Cygnus' -
Tintagel castle. Why?
His mind floundered again. Tintagel castle. Ruined. Raining. Why Tintagel? Why Tintagel? Memories welled up of picnics with Uncle Alphard and Regulus. Uncle Alphard had invented a device he thought might be able to trace evidence of Merlin's activities in the area, which had long been debated by scholars. Sirius and Regulus had played hide-and-seek in the ruins. Sirius was six and then seven and then eight, and then he never saw the place again until recently. He liked Tintagel, the gentle merging of ruined walls with eroding cliffs, the scene overlaid with the sound of the sea. He had chain smoked half a dozen cigarettes there.
The Dark Lord held his mind awhile longer, slowly coaxing him back to true consciousness and sampling the memories that drifted by before finally releasing him and declaring him a "good and faithful servant." When it was over, Voldemort fixed his shoulder, and Rodolphus helped him get up and sit in a chair, head resting on his forearms on the table. He tuned out the sound of Voldemort torturing Bella next.
That was close. Very close. He was lucky the memory association web had held. Thank Merlin Voldemort hadn't thought to ask about communicating via portraits, or Sirius would be a dead man.
The morning continued in the same vein, as Voldemort tortured his way through his Inner Circle. Or rather what remained of it, with so many of them imprisoned or dead in the past year. Walden MacNair apparently died in the battle, the Death Eater who had been Imperiused to attack Bella, and of course, Sirius had killed Rosier and indirectly Uncle Cygnus. Other than Sirius, Bella, Rodolphus, and Dolohov, the only other Inner Circle members still alive and free were Augustus Rookwood, Sullivan and Megaera Travers, and Lord Nott, assuming the latter retained his mental faculties when he eventually regained consciousness. Voldemort had taken out the sharpest edge of his morning anger at the news of Crouch's survival on the unlucky messengers. Nott had been the St. Mungo's woman's contact person.
The interrogations uncovered no additional spies or Imperius curses, unsurprisingly. The Dark Lord was considerably calmer once he had reassured himself there were no spies on the Inner Circle (hah!), and ordered a break while he rehabilitated Rookwood sufficiently to send him back to work. It was really a shame Moody or someone had never bothered to put an Imperius on Rookwood, but he supposed the Order liked having a way to feed Voldemort misinformation. Sirius and Bella listlessly got rid of the dead body, moved Nott to a cot in his infirmary, and cleaned up the stinking puddle of urine soaking the man's vacated chair. Rodolphus earned himself an extra round of the Cruciatus when he suggested they might want to take Nott to St. Mungo's. Voldemort must have viewed it as criticism.
No one felt like eating the food the Lestranges' concerned house elf brought.
The interrogations resumed in the afternoon with Marked Death Eaters in the Outer Circle. Here, the Dark Lord uncovered two more men under the Imperius curse: William Rowle and Felix Mulciber. Rowle's mind was weak, according to Voldemort, and broke when the Dark Lord encountered the subtle signs of the Imperius curse and angrily lashed out. He could pursue the curse no further. Megaera Travers quietly killed the catatonic body after receiving an impatient nod of assent from Voldemort.
Sirius' heart climbed back into his mouth as he watched Voldemort furiously ripping through Mulciber's mind an hour later, after the young wizard had successfully begged for and been granted a break from the ongoing obliviations in order to answer his master's call. The Dark Lord uncovered the Imperius command for Mulciber to send other Death Eaters after Bella and barely restrained himself from destroying Mulciber's consciousness then and there as he had Rowle's. Fortunately for Sirius, Mulciber had exchanged Imperius curses with so many other Death Eaters over the past few months it was impossible even for Voldemort to know who had cast the operative curse. He flayed Mulciber's mind afterall. Mulciber... Felix slumped senseless to the ground, and Voldemort literally shredded the body. He was probably so vicious because of the humiliation of having foiled himself so completely by giving his enemy's weapon free range to target the Death Eater ranks, Sirius concluded numbly as he wiped a spatter of blood off his cheek.
Dolohov cleaned the room this time.
Most of the Unmarked were assisting with the obliviations, but Voldemort dispatched messengers to summon them regardless, determined to continue purging his army no matter how long it took. Lucretia Malfoy was exempt from the obliviations this time because she had been caring for Narcissa. Neither woman was exempt from the Dark Lord's wrath and paranoia. Narcissa appeared tired and squinted even against the candlelight. Lucretia supported her a little as she walked. Voldemort was mindful enough of Narcissa's condition not to torture her, at least. As it happened, Legilimency proved dangerous enough, not because she was under an Imperius curse, but because Voldemort's ungentle invasion of her brain did something no one had expected: she arched away from him with a strangled cry, fell, and started to convulse.
"Cissy!" Bella cried, hastening to her side.
"Narcissa!"
Voldemort lowered his wand, and yet the convulsion continued. For the first time since Sirius had met the powerful wizard, he looked genuinely baffled.
"My Lord, what did you do?" Bella asked urgently, tears in her eyes.
"I did nothing. Only looked into her thoughts. Does she have a history of epilepsy?"
"Of course she doesn't!" Bella said hotly, forgetting who she was talking to.
Lucretia gasped and paled. "No, but Bellatrix, the pregnancy, the headaches... she is suffering the Curse of Maternal Cerebritis."
"Who cursed her? I'll kill them!" Bella said.
"The what?" Sirius asked anxiously. He'd never heard of it.
"Eclampsia," Voldemort said, seemingly to himself. "She must be delivered of the baby, or she will die. Get her to St. Mungo's, Lucretia. Bella, no one cursed her. It is a known complication of both magical and muggle pregnancy."
Bella met his eyes frantically, gaze switching from him to Narcissa and back. "My Lord, I will accompany my cousin to St. Mungo's," Sirius said quickly, even as Lucretia directed her wand to prepare Narcissa for transportation.
Voldemort lifted an eyebrow. "That is women's business, and we have work to do."
"I know, but..." he took a deep breath. "I would not trust Narcissa's safety to Lucretia Malfoy -"
Lucretia stared up at him in outrage. "How dare you? You lived in my house, and you accuse me of -"
"Because I would not trust her to welcome a granddaughter as heiress to the Malfoy estate," Sirius said over her.
Lucretia gaped at him, then at Narcissa's unconscious form. Her face purpled in rage. Unaccountably, Voldemort chuckled. When Lucretia turned a shaking wand towards Narcissa's gravid belly, her lips forming the words to a deadly curse, Voldemort was the one to stop her, throwing her casually back against the wall with a snap of his wrist. "I knew lovely Narcissa's little secret already, discovered it months ago in her mind," he said conversationally. "It amused me to pretend I didn't, to watch your little political antics. But no longer. Lucretia, magical blood is sacred regardless of name and sex. You shall not endanger the child in whose veins runs the blood of Black, Malfoy, Rosier, and many other illustrious families. Sirius, take your cousin to St. Mungo's. I will correct her mother-in-law's moral failings. If you find the chance to assassinate Mr. Crouch while you are there, seize it. And... Bella, since Sirius shall be making his first public appearance in months, be so good as to arrange an alibi that will preserve his and Narcissa's, and your father's, unblemished reputations."
"My Lord?"
"Young Sirius has been sheltering with his uncle, the same as Narcissa, I think. Tragically, the home was attacked. Cygnus Black heroically defended his loved ones against the invaders, allowing Sirius and Narcissa to escape to safety. A pity the Ministry's incompetent handling of the matter in London left so many families exposed..."
"Yes, my Lord."
Sirius hastily conjured a blanket to wrap around Narcissa and levitated her.
"Now, Lucretia, shall we discuss whether or not you were visiting your daughter-in-law when her sanctuary was attacked?"
He fled towards the door, Narcissa's fragile form floating at his side. He passed through the hushed Death Eaters awaiting their own interviews in the outer rooms. He shirked his mask and transfigured his robe to something casual and patterned with light blue, something he could believably have been wearing around the house. Then he embraced Narcissa and apparated her to the lobby of St. Mungo's.
"Help! My cousin's dying!"
"Is that..."
"Sirius Black?!"
"He's covered in blood!" Oh, yes. Sirius glanced down at his robes. Funny, how he had thought to change them from Death Eater black, but had forgotten to do anything about the gore staining them after Felix' murder. He was getting far too used to wearing blood.
A healer and the triage witch rushed him. "I'm fine," he said quickly. "It's not my blood. Help Narcissa. She's pregnant, and she had a seizure when they attacked..."
The healer obeyed him, casting a slew of diagnostic spells over Narcissa. "Maternal Cerebritis... we need to get her upstairs, quickly."
"Mr. Black," the triage witch interjected, grabbing his elbow before he could move away. "Were others with you, where you were? Do they need help?"
He shook his head. "They already killed my uncle..."
She nodded, eyes full of compassion. "I'll notify the aurors and send them to you."
The healers took Narcissa from him soon enough, off to a maternity ward to cut the baby out of her so they could stabilize mother and child. Before he could follow, another healer grabbed him and shoved him into an examination room. He recognized the man, actually, Healer Jorkins. He had been there the last time Sirius was hospitalized.
"I'm fine," Sirius told him automatically, as Jorkins began casting his own panel of diagnostic spells.
"The tremors, stress hormone levels, muscle breakdown, tears in the shoulder ligaments, and huge amount of Dark magic in your arm says you're not," the healer told him bluntly.
"I... Okay, so I was hit, but it's not bad this time."
"I'll be the judge of that. This looks like... did they get you with the Cruciatus again?"
Sirius winced and nodded, thinking fast to figure out what story was going to be plausible with whatever Bella might be doing at Uncle Cygnus' house. He probably shouldn't name any specific curses, just non-committedly affirm whatever the healers guessed. "They didn't hold it as long this time, though. Uncle Cygnus got them off me..."
The door burst open again, and Sirius almost had a panic attack when he saw it was an auror he didn't know come to question and examine him. He was certain they were going to realize he was a Death Eater, whether through inconsistencies in his story or by recognizing the hidden Dark Mark or the meaning of the rune scarred into his palm. Fortunately, both Jorkins and the auror interpreted his reaction as a natural response to suffering through more Cruciatus torture. The auror stayed just long enough to help Jorkins determine his arm wasn't going to fall off any time soon, ask where the purported attack had happened, and listen to Sirius' stammered request to talk to Alastor Moody, who he knew and trusted.
Luckily, Jorkins didn't pressure him to be admitted to the hospital, at least after Sirius affected a paranoid belief that the Death Eaters would be sure to track him down here, and he therefore couldn't stay for long. Jorkins gave him a calming draught and a few other potions for post-Cruciatus care, and a change of robes, and led him to Lucius Malfoy's conveniently private and guarded room to rest in a chair.
Lucius greeted him politely but didn't recognize him. He was interested when Sirius clarified he was Narcissa's cousin, but he didn't understand when Sirius told him Narcissa was delivering the baby upstairs. He kept saying Narcissa wasn't a delivery woman, no matter how Sirius tried to rephrase himself. Eventually, Lucius got distracted crawling around counting the floor tiles. Sirius decided he couldn't be bothered correcting the bizarre behavior, and curled up on the chair to take a nap.
Author's note: Fun fact "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees was top of the charts at the time that these events take place. When you lose control and you got no soul... you kill a bunch of your minions. I think that's the most explosive Voldemort fallout we've had yet. The Occlumency technique Sirius was using is similar to what he showed Dumbledore way back in chapter 2 and works by reinforcing the associations of potentially dangerous thoughts with benign memories, like flipping all the switch levers on a railway ahead of time, rerouting for instance the "Alastor Moody" train to "Christmas" every time. It only worked because Voldemort didn't know exactly what he was looking for and so couldn't be very specific with his queries in order to "throw the switches back." For instance, it wouldn't have worked if he had asked Sirius about talking to a portrait. It may or may not have worked if Voldemort had asked if Sirius had cast the Imperius curse on any fellow Death Eaters. It probably would not have worked if Voldemort had asked point-blank if Sirius had communicated with an auror to sabotage the Inferi-Crouch mission. Anyhow, that's my continuing take on how Occlumency could work without being too incredibly obvious about hiding things. It's Voldemort's flaw that he's overconfident in his own Legilimency abilities, assuming because he's so powerful no one can resist him by force, no one would be able to trick him through subtlety either.
Thanks for the reviews, and look for the next update on Saturday as usual.