Chapter Twenty-Two: All That Knowing
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18:43 Senior Auror Tonks: What's your connection with Augustus Rookwood?
18:43 Macnair: I ain't bloody got one.
18:44 Senior Auror Tonks: So why were you meeting Rookwood in the Hog's Head? Were you aware of his plans?
18:45 Macnair: No! I don't know shit.
18:46
18:47 [shuffling of parchment]
18:48 Head Auror Robards: You participated in the attack.
18:48 Macnair: I didn't. I didn't know.
18:49 Head Auror Robards: Four people are dead, Macnair. You'll be lucky to step foot outside of Azkaban again if you don't start talking. Rookwood. Brycetown. You will tell us everything. I will get the order for Veritaserum if you don't.
18:50 Macnair: I told you. [emphatic] I don't know shit about Brycetown. Couldn't find it on a map.
18:50 Head Auror Robards: And Rookwood? Why were you meeting him?
18:51
18:52 Head Auror Robards: Did you know he intended to kill Albus Dumbledore?
18:53 Head Auror Robards: Well? Start talking. It's your last chance.
18:54 Macnair: I don't know anything. D'you hear me? You can't hold me like this! [struggles] You can't hold me! You ain't got shit on me. Where the fuck is my attourney!
18:55 Senior Auror Tonks: You waived those rights when you were released from Azkaban, Macnair. You're not entitled to anything. You signed the paperwork. Here.
18:56 [shuffling of parchment]
18:57
18:58
18:59
19:00 Head Auror Roberts: Illegal possession of a wand. Conspiring with multiple former Death Eaters. Causing injury to Aurors, bystanders, and destruction of property. Accomplice to murder. You're in such violation of your early release that you've blown it clear out of the water. There is nothing, nothing, keeping you from returning to Azkaban to serve out the rest of your sentence. If I'm not mistaken, that's life. Unless you talk to us of your own free will. Do you understand?
19:01
19:02
19:03 Macnair: We weren't bloody conspiring. I didn't blow up that pub. I didn't do shit.
19:04 Senior Auror Tonks: Walden, please. You didn't blow up the Hog's Head? All right. So tell us about the wand. Tell us about Rookwood.
19:05
19:06
19:07 Macnair: I ain't got anything to say.
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[break]
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20:40 Head Auror Robards: We'll try this again. State your full name for the record.
20:41 Macnair: Walden Aeolus Macnair.
20:41 Head Auror Robards: Do you understand where you are and why you are here?
20:42 Macnair: I am in holding at Auror Headquarters in the Ministry of Magic. I was involved in a spellfight in Hogsmeade, arrested, and brought here for questioning.
20:43 Head Auror Robards: To aid in the questioning, you have been given Veritaserum by emergency Wizengamot order. Do you understand that from this moment on you are compelled to answer, and to answer truthfully, and that that truth is bound by magic?
20:44 Macnair: I do.
20:45 Head Auror Robards: Excellent. Let's get on with it, shall we?
20:46 Senior Auror Tonks: Yes, sir. Macnair, what is the nature of your relationship with Rookwood?
20:47 Macnair: We served the Dark Lord together. We fought beside him, in the first war. At the Battle of Shadow Hogwarts. We have served time in Azkaban together. We were released together. He is a friend. He keeps me well supplied with wands and magic when it has been banned by the filthy, overreaching arm of the Ministry.
20:49 Senior Auror Tonks: Yes. We recovered a wand from your possession. Twelve and a quarter inches, willow, with a kelpie core. Did Augustus Rookwood supply you with this wand?
20:50 Macanir: He did.
20:50 Senior Auror Tonks: Where did Rookwood obtain this wand?
20:51 Macnair: I don't know. He said it was untraceable.
20:52 Senior Auror Tonks: So you are not aware that Rookwood was illegally removing wands from the graves of deceased witches and wizards?
20:53 Macnair: No.
20:54 Senior Auror Tonks: Why were you meeting him?
20:55 Macnair: He needed protection. He asked us to hide him. Mulciber, Gibbon and myself.
20:56 Senior Auror Tonks: And did you offer to hide him?
20:56 Macnair: I did.
20:55 Head Auror Robards: And why did he need to be hidden, Macnair?
20:57 Macnair: The Ministry was after him. He said they were blaming him for everything. For the attack on the Department of Mysteries, For the raid at his house. The Dark magic in Brycetown. And he was right. The Aurors showed up at the Hog's Head to take him away.
20:58 Head Auror Robards: And then he blew up the Hog's Head.
20:59
21:00 Senior Auror Tonks: Sir, I think it has to be a question.
21:01 Head Auror Robards: Of course. And then he blew up the Hog's Head, did he?
21:02 Macnair: He cast a Confringo and there was an explosion.
21:03 Head Auror Robards: I see. I see. Very convenient. And did Rookwood murder Albus Dumbledore? Were you aware of his plans to do so?
21:04 Macnair: I was not aware of any plans or actions by Rookwood to kill Dumbledore.
21:05 Head Auror Robards: Was Rookwood responsible for the attack on Brycetown?
21:05 Macnair: I don't know.
21:06 Head Auror Robards: What of the Department of Mysteries? Is he guilty of attacking and destroying it?
21:06 Macnair: I don't know.
21:07 Head Auror Robards: You don't know. Well, what about you, Macnair? Are you guilty?
21:08 Macnair: I am not guilty. I have never set foot in Brycetown or the Department of Mysteries. I did not kill Albus Dumbledore.
21:09
21:10
21:11 Senior Auror Tonks: What do you know of these events? What do you know of Rookwood's involvement?
21:12 Macnair: Nothing. I am not aware of any involvement.
21:13 Senior Auror Tonks: Bullshit. [inaudible] You expect us to believe—
21:14 Head Auror Robards: He is under Veritaserum, Tonks. He is compelled to speak the truth.
21:15 Senior Auror Tonks: Assuming his defenses aren't up to par, sir.
Harry cursed and threw down the parchment. It rebounded against his desk, springing back into a tight roll that obscured the rest of the interview. Useless as it bloody was. He dropped his face in his hands, his fingers digging into his eyes beneath the glasses. As if that would push away the horror. Blind him to the pain. Useless. Useless. Useless. The word echoed through him, each reiteration heavier than the last. The weight on his shoulders was almost unbearable.
They had nothing. And he was drowning.
He shouldn't have come in. He should have stayed at the flat with Ella. Tried to reason this out with understanding. There was no understanding here. He'd come because standing still was unbearable. But there were no answers where he'd hoped to find them. Rookwood was as gone as ever. Mulciber and Gibbon were dead. And Macnair… Macnair was useless.
Robards had already told him as much when Harry had resolutely stepped into this office that morning, hoping the glass walls would keep out the dark cloud that trailed him everywhere. They didn't. Too transparent. Too solid.
Too insubstantial.
"We interrogated him," Robards had said, in response to Harry's questioning look. He raised the transcript, pushing it across the desk. "Tonks and myself. We got an emergency order for Veritaserum. Have a look. But he doesn't know anything."
"How can he not know anything?"
Robards shrugged. "He got his wand from your lad, so that's definitely interesting. But he's not involved in any of the attacks as far as we could tell. And Rookwood didn't confide in him."
"But, sir—"
Robards sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking up at Harry. "We're barking up the wrong tree. We'll have to get at Rookwood some other way. He'll be floundering now that his allies are gone." He frowned. "You should be resting, Potter. You look like shit. Go home."
"I can't." Harry felt his hands tremble and curled them into fists. "I need to do something, sir. I…"
"We are doing something." Robards appraised him across the desk. "Look. I appreciate the enthusiasm. Godric knows, we need it. But I have Tonks and Spinnet leading search teams for Rookwood today. You're not responsible for the world, Harry. Take a day off. Go home. Be with your wife."
Harry said nothing, watching Robards in silence. His mind whirled. Robards leaned forward, steepling his fingers across the messy surface of the desk.
"Is there a reason you can't go home, Potter?"
And he wanted to scream then. There was a well of anger and hurt and bitterness swirling inside him, threatening to tear him apart. How could he go home, stand still? Sit back while Alicia and Tonks searched for Rookwood in his stead. And they had no idea what could be waiting for them if they found him. No understanding of the potential danger. And he wanted to tell Robards then. Everything. He'd be responsible for it all otherwise.
But what would he possibly say? That he was a… horcrux? That there were three more out there, waiting to be hunted down and destroyed? That Rookwood was involved in a plot far more nefarious than they had imagined, and Voldemort… could return? Could be alive already? And if he was, the only thing Harry could possibly do to stop him… was die.
And no matter what Ella said, he reckoned it wouldn't be as simple as the story she'd once known. There was a difference, he knew, between walking into death blindly, and charging into it, expecting to see the light again. There were no guarantees that he'd return. Not now.
And he couldn't say that. Couldn't voice the heavy thoughts that swelled around him, like crashing waters at high tide. So he merely reached across the desk and lifted the rolled up transcript of the interview before rising to his feet.
"No. There's nothing."
The flat was dark when he let himself back inside, lit mostly by the fading embers of the fire. He rubbed Snowy's head in greeting at the door, and then straightened, his ears tuned to the soft murmur of voices drifting from the kitchen. He followed it, finding Ella seated at the small table with Robert and Daniyel, who all glanced up at him over their half-empty mugs and the scattered mess of papers and notes that nearly obscured the wooden tabletop.
"Harry!" Ella said, half-rising to greet him. "You've been ages. We were worried—"
"I'm fine." He slumped into the remaining empty chair, rubbing at his eyes. The others said nothing. Robert reached forward and slid the teapot in his direction. Papers rustled.
"Thanks," Harry said wearily. He flicked his wand at the counter, and an empty mug soared into his hand. He filled it and took a sip of the warm tea.
"What did you find out?" Ella asked.
"Nothing." He sighed. "Rookwood's still missing. And Macnair was questioned under Veritaserum and doesn't know a thing. Not about this."
"Can we question him again?" Daniyel asked. "We can do it. Ask more directly…"
"Maybe." Harry rubbed his eyes wearily. A perpetual shadow of pain had settled deep into his head. "But I read through all the transcripts. With what they already asked him, I doubt we'll learn anything useful."
"So why was he meeting Rookwood then?"
"Looking for protection, apparently. A place to hide."
"He won't have that now," Robert reasoned.
Harry shrugged. "I'm sure he's got other sinkholes to vanish into."
"Slippery bastard," Daniyel said helpfully.
The kitchen fell into a weighty silence. It seemed to eat through Harry. To burn through his chest and settle in his limbs like lead.
"So." He set down his cup, and it made a light clink against the walnut surface of the table. His hand felt too heavy to move. "Have you all made a plan, then? Had a productive discussion? That's why you're here, isn't it? This horcrux thing. You know everything…" He trailed off, his voice twisting roughly through something thick and bitter. His stomach tightened. They knew everything. And he'd carried on. Like an idiot. For years. So sure of the ground on which he stood. And all this time, they'd known…
"Harry…" Ella said gently.
"You should have told me!" His voice rose with sudden anger, burning through him and echoing in the small kitchen. Snowy made a startled motion behind him, his claws skittering against the floor. Harry couldn't seem to bring himself to care. Couldn't tell if the sudden outburst was Voldemort's anger, or simply his own. "All of you! You should have told me about the horcruxes. And the prophecy. You were there at Shadow Hogwarts. You watched him die. And you let us believe he was dead!"
"Harry, please." Ella reached out to touch his arm, her face paling. "We didn't know, all right? We thought he was dead. That it had all changed."
"There was no Union in the books, Harry," Robert added. "See for yourself. Everything that happened was different. A different prophecy. Even Dumbledore didn't know—"
"Well, he should have." Harry looked away bitterly, his hands trembling as he fought to regain control. "He should have."
"He's human," Ella whispered. Her voice shook. "Everyone makes mistakes."
Harry looked down, his eyes furiously studying the grain of the table, the anger and horror warring in his chest now saddled with guilt. Ella had stood beside him last night. Had held his hand and comforted him as he dragged the three of them to Shadow Hogwarts. The trip had been meant to offer reassurance. That despite how everything had fallen apart in a few short hours, Voldemort remained where they'd left him. Dead. Asleep in the earth. It was much easier to deal with the concept of horcruxes if his body was right there, as lifeless as when they'd left it.
But it wasn't.
And all he had to show for the discovery was a mounting sense of horror and a burning pain in his scar that he hadn't felt for over a decade. That, more than anything else, made it all profoundly, painfully real.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to be taking care of Ella. Helping her through chemo. Not falling apart. Not being carried home by her and Severus bloody Snape of all people across two continents in the dead of night because twelve years later, he still couldn't bear the pain of his goddamn scar. He couldn't even take Rookwood in a spellfight. If he'd only captured the man in Hogsmeade, then Voldemort's body might not be missing. Things wouldn't be nearly this bad or uncertain. But no, he'd made a bloody mess of everything.
He became aware of the heavy silence in the kitchen. It seemed to cling to him. Tarlike. And now he'd stormed in here, fresh off another failure, and made it all ten times worse. He felt hot shame spill through him, burning in his chest.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I didn't mean to—"
"It's fine." Ella lightly brushed her fingers against his hand and he took them and squeezed, then glanced up at her. She smiled. Robert and Daniyel both looked relieved.
"I'm sorry," Harry repeated, turning to them. "I didn't mean to throw a fit."
Daniyel shrugged. "No worries, mate. We get it. You feel like the world's fallen out from under you, right? We uniquely know that feeling."
Harry released a soft breath through his nose. Merlin, wasn't that the truth? He squeezed Ella's hand tighter. "I'm sorry, El. I'm being a tosser. Between Voldemort's missing corpse and Macnair being a complete dead end, I just feel so bloody useless."
"Well, stop that," she said easily, "because we have work to do."
Harry nodded, and when he spoke again, his voice had regained a trace of its confidence. A sense of purpose. "What have you lot decided?"
"Right." Robert extracted a simple Muggle notebook from amidst the pile on the table and shifted it between them, flipping it open. "We've been working on a plan."
Harry glanced over to read the sentences Robert had carefully penned along the lines.
Diary — gone. Ring — gone. Nagini — dead.
Hufflepuff's Cup — Bellatrix's vault. Liaise with Gringotts. Ministry search order. Robards?
The Locket — Sirius's house. Is it still there? Owl Sirius ASAP.
Tiara — Room of Requirement. Saturday.
"The Room of Requirement?" Harry frowned. "That mad room you mentioned that turns into whatever you like?"
Ella nodded. "Voldemort hid it there, thinking he was the only one clever enough to find it. Stupid tosser. When he was there, it turned into something called the Room of Hidden Things. It's this giant room where students have been hiding contraband for centuries. Which should have been a clue for him; but anyway, it'll be a bit hard to navigate, but from the books we know exactly where—"
"Actually, Ella, we don't," Robert said, frowning. "Harry's never been in the room. He hasn't had need to hide his tiara's not going to be on top of the warlock. It's just going to be… somewhere."
"Oh, I didn't think of that…" Ella looked uncertain. "But I'm sure it's still in the general area, isn't it? Let's see what the book says again."
She pushed aside several scraps of parchment that littered the table. Harry caught a flash of a list and an old Daily Prophet article, before Ella unveiled the edges of a blue book. She pulled it out. The image on the front featured Harry and Dumbledore, surrounded by a wall of fire. A sudden cold lashed through Harry's chest at the sight of it and he glanced away, his fingers digging into the surface of the table. For a moment, he saw a vision of a withered, blackened body.
"I hid a textbook?" he said, to push the image away. He was surprised by how steady his voice sounded.
"It's a long story," Daniyel offered, while Robert and Ella flipped through the book. Harry stared at the ruffling pages, mesmerized. Just a little afraid. "Let's just say Hermione disapproved."
"Of a textbook?" Harry tore his eyes away from the other book currently holding his attention and focused on Daniyel.
"I'll tell you all about it later," Ella said, interrupting them. "So the tiara is…" She traced her finger across the page. "...forward into one of the many alleyways… right past an enormous stuffed troll… left at the broken vanishing cabinet… large cupboard… Ah, there we go. Seizing the chipped bust of an ugly old warlock from on top of a nearby crate, he stood it on top of the cupboard… and… perched a dusty old wig and a tarnished tiara on the statue's head." She slammed the book shut. "So the tiara is in roughly the same spot, it sounds like. But these are horrible directions! Fuck."
"We'll find it," Daniyel said firmly.
"It's not going to be a quick trip, though." Ella frowned. "We might need hours."
"That shouldn't be a problem." Robert carefully worked the book out from under her hands and flipped it back open. Then he bent over his notebook and began scribbling neat lines of text. "We'll have reason to be there…"
"Saturday," Harry said, remembering the rest of the note. "You want to wait that long? Why?"
"Dumbledore's funeral," Ella said softly. She withdrew a rolled up scroll from atop the pile on the table and handed it to Harry. "McGonagall sent this earlier. We'll be on the grounds already."
Harry glanced briefly at the note. Reading it was painful, so he placed it deliberately back on the table, where the edges of the parchment snapped into a firm roll. "Fine," he breathed. His heart felt heavy as stone. "We'll go after… when it's done. And the others?"
"The cup will be most difficult, I reckon," Robert said. "Bellatrix's assets have been seized by the Ministry after she was locked up in Azkaban. If you wanted to involve Robards, I'm sure getting access would be easy, but…" He glanced at Harry who shook his head.
"And tell him what?"
"We could tell him everything," Daniyel volunteered. "Robards is trustworthy."
"You quit the Aurors," Harry said frankly. "You barely know the man."
"Well, I came back. Don't you trust him, Harry?"
"I do." He frowned, staring down at the rolled up scroll on the table. "I do. But telling him about the horcruxes? Voldemort?"
"Dumbledore wouldn't have liked it," Ella said quietly. "He didn't want anyone to know. He thought it dangerous for horcruxes to be common knowledge."
"All right," Robert said, "we don't tell him. I'll work on getting the paperwork. Hermione should be able to push through the approvals from Kingsley's office."
Harry felt his chest tighten at the thought of telling Hermione. Telling Ron. He stared resolutely down, avoiding their gazes.
"You are planning to tell Ron and Hermione," Ella said softly. "Aren't you?"
He nodded, still looking away. He didn't reckon he could take the looks on their faces just then.
"Good," she said, lightly squeezing his hand. "That leaves the locket. It should be easy enough. We just need to talk to Sirius and get into Grimmauld Place."
"Sirius hates Grimmauld Place," Harry mumbled. He had been in the decrepit old house exactly once and didn't fancy going back.
"Well," Ella said brightly. "He may like it a bit better now that we're getting something useful out of its wards. At least we know it's definitely safe from Rookwood there. No one except Sirius can get in. Hogwarts should be fine too. It's the cup I'm worried about."
Robert nodded. "We'd have heard if Gringotts had a break-in, but I see your point. I'll get the papers through right away. Harry… about Hermione…"
"I'll tell them tomorrow." There was no use putting it off. He might as well rip off the plaster. He glanced away from the scattered papers at last and met their eyes. They didn't hold pity, only steely determination. He was grateful.
"Are you sure only three horcruxes are left?" he asked the table at large. "There's nothing else? Nothing Rookwood could have taken? Voldemort's body is gone. Are we sure he isn't already alive?"
"I don't think," Robert said quietly, after a long silence, "that we can be sure of anything."
Harry nodded, watching them all across the table. He reached along its cluttered surface and grasped Ella's hand. She lightly squeezed his fingers.
"Then we better get to work."
A/N: Hope you guys are enjoying this development. And here I thought, with TP, I was avoiding the whole horcrux thing. Oops. haha. Happy Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and all that!
Rina