April 15, 1998
After the dementor attack, I had managed to escort Bran to his daughter's pub. Like her father, she was white-haired, but she had a jolly, sociable nature that one could find comfortable in a pub. Bran was shaken, but being up and out of the Undercroft began to lift his spirits. Though, when I said my goodbyes to him and his daughter, Bran still made the sign against evil that I was growing more familiar with.
But Alex was with me.
I did not feel lonely anymore.
Leaving Diagon Alley was an easy decision. I needed to put my trust in Alex and throw myself entirely to what he wanted. There was nothing awful about this. This was the way it was always supposed to be.
Lucina's children were back together and we would finish this together!
If I was on my way to the horrible fate Bran believed me to be, I would sow as much chaos as I could along the way. In that, Lionel was correct. I had been too sedate. Complicit in atrocities, even with good intentions. This administration had kept me from Alex. It tore us apart and never truly gave us a chance to be what we were now, close and together, united in purpose.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself to think back to the personnel files at the Ministry as I stepped out of Knockturn Alley, putting my hands in my pockets as I crossed the threshold to Diagon Alley. It was quiet here. The dementors had run off anyone who may have remained on the streets.
The horned shadow of Alex appeared for a moment on a nearby wall, looking pointedly at Gringotts.
When I was in the Ministry, I had access to a lot of documentation, much of it related to personnel within the facility as the rush to update addresses, various forms of proof of residence and efforts to prove bloodstatus began. Then came the hiring of Death Eaters to prominent positions in the Ministry, that meant new hire paperwork. The Minister would get a courtesy look at the information for his new department heads, many who had never held such positions before or were heading a brand-new department, like Umbridge. That was before I was removed from the Minister's Office, Percy had collected more recent information after I left and had shared it with me. Both of us had filed all of this away in parts of our minds in case our paper records were ever compromised.
Wait... Umbridge had a house somewhere...
There was a fiendish little idea growing inside of my head.
Lionel was right. I had information he and other resistors did not have. These people – no they were not people – did not deserve any sense of peace and safety.
Yes. I would need some sort of signature – something to sign my work in... I did not want there to be a chance of a scapegoat being made of my actions. I wanted them scared and clueless.
The wraith, Alex, moved along the edge of my vision. He pointed towards Gringotts bank down the road, an insistent sort of aggression to him that perhaps I should better learn to heed as thoughts of fear and terror left my mind. No. There was nothing in Gringotts for us. I had moved most of my money out months ago and left enough to keep my account open in hopes of better days.
I pressed onwards, making to leave Diagon Alley before the streets the half-hearted pulses of life began to return to the streets while ignoring the taps of bone on stone from Alex, who lingered just out of sight.
I focused on what I knew of Umbridge, she lived in a proper wizarding village, she would never associate with muggles. Her house curtains would probably be a garish pink... She was probably down south somewhere, I never had to fear crossing paths with her in Scotland – I had checked her address at one point to be sure when she was in the Minister's office. It had an oddly appropriate name for such a horrid woman to live in that had stuck out in my mind at the time... Tutsley! That was it.
When I reached the apparition point, I turned quickly on my heel while focusing on the village of Tutsley.
And did not go anywhere.
I was still in the alley.
My shadow stretched out before me and misshaped itself to something I had grown familiar with in the previous days.
"Let me do this. She's caused enough pain in the world."
To free myself from Alex's grip was a struggle, it was like he was grabbing my ankles and holding me in place, but eventually the grip lessened and the world around me shifted to accommodate my desires.
I stepped out of the alley apparition point, blinking at the sudden onslaught of country air and the sudden sensation of market noise in my ears. I moved away from the shopping district, finding the houses behind me a much more likely source of information and potential for destruction – those houses glimmered with the small signs of wizardry to mark the beginning of the wizarding settlement.
Tutsley had a bustling wizarding community, well situated away from the No-Maj part of the village. It was, as Percy would say, posh. The houses were virtually identical, it was like those associations we started in America when we had to try and blend in with the No-Majs once they began to encroach at the edges of our settlements. It was like that village the Malfoy's lived in, but the houses were all almost identical with small yards and personal decorations that almost looked the same, so regulated it was like they were all bought from the same catalogue.
Huh, I thought she would live in a swamp.
I'm really disappointed.
I stopped in front of a house at the end of the lane that had pink, lacy curtains in the window and her name embossed on the door, I could see it from the road while adjusting the hood of my cloak. I sensed no magic to protect the house. Umbridge must feel very safe and untouchable here.
The house was so pretty and picturesque that I almost felt shame at what I had come here to do.
I... I wanted to see it alight.
But how? With a spell? With a signature spell of some sort? A potion? I strolled away from the house towards the nearby park, my mind swirling with possibilities. If I was going to do this right, I was going to do it right the first time and never return here for any possible reason...
In any case, I wanted Umbridge home for this, if that really was her house. If it was not, I would have to move on and find a new target like Yaxley or one of those other purists from the Ministry who had so annoyed me during my tenure. For now, I would enjoy the brief glimmers of sunlight and try to ignore the ways my shadow moved through the trees as I walked through the park. Visions of Gringotts swimming through my head – an inexplicable desire to go to the bank, but I had no reason too... It was so strange.
It was like Alex was pulling and pushing me to go there and could not communicate the reason. Taking a walk would perhaps make him less restless.
After a few hours had passed, I saw Umbridge walk into her house, her expression so joyous it extinguished all lingering doubts from me.
My wand moved and a confringo leapt from the tip of my wand to her roof with such speed it collided with the house in the blink of an eye. The roof was lit up in moments, smoke rose upwards in a twisted like the gnarled branches of a tree.
Burning like a signal fire – a signal that none of these people would be safe from justice.
I left the town as Umbridge's shrewish screams echoed through the town.
Like music to my ears.
Oo0Oo0
April 16, 1998
I could still smell the smoke from the burning house and hear Umbridge yelling in an unhinged rage as she tried to put out the fire. Really, I felt quite good about the whole thing and I would take this action to my grave.
It was very petty, but I could sleep at night knowing Umbridge was uncomfortable and paranoid if someone would come back to finish the job. Yes, that seemed to have helped me do some small part for society. I think I had more in me – I could see what happened along the way.
For now, I had found my way into a vacant No-Maj house, judging by the lack of milk in the... freezer? Was that what it was called? - The family was out of town and I could spend the night quietly reading and strategizing. I needed ideas to pursue, efforts to find Voldemort to perhaps soothe the restless spirit that trailed behind me.
The Grimoire in my hands felt poisonous somehow, this book was not mine, my own family found me unworthy of it, the act of holding it often left me feeling like a thief. Reading the passages written by my grandfather, Atticus, the man who deemed me a bit of an embarrassment to the Graves family traditions of war and valor were of no help in that regard, but here I was, on a couch in some stranger's home with darkening charms on the curtains so no one could see the light I had turned on to read.
I refused to go near the devil box that sat in a place of prominence in the living room. It was a black void with black glass that was not anything close to a mirror and I did not understand the purpose of the box!
'In my line of work, I have encountered terrible things. Spells and forces that are signs of a wild land and injustice done, but none have shaken me as this one has.
It's called a Wraith.'
There was a pull to try and stop me from reading on, the sensation of hands trying to force the book closed as Alex tried to move my mind to an unfocused state. I was familiar with this tactic by now and quickly engaged in efforts to block my mind against the intrusion. It was not easier, Alex push, pulled and pounded at the walls of the resistance I had envisioned. He slid through the cracks in the wall in a rush of feathers as his bone fingers scraped at the walls.
No. I had danced to Alex's drum long enough. I was quiet, obeyed his whims and lost him in the process. Alex would have to endure my company by his own choice, but now I would not tolerate the secrets that could hurt us both any longer.
'These are spirits born of rage at the time of death. One who has time to contemplate the end of their lives and become angry about all they have lost. Wraiths wander in search of something, feeding on what sustains them as the soul struggles and twists itself to a new form. Becoming more of a monster than anything visibly human.
Alex was screaming. I had visions of being paralyzed, my ability to moved restrained by magic as I stared upwards at the wooden floorboards above me as a cold pain moved through my belly. My fate was clear – I would never see the sun again. I would never see the woman I loved again. The image of my sister, all harsh words and things I could not linger on...
No! Not this! Anything but this!
My hands were the only thing that could move. Memories from the Grimoire swam through my head in a colluding dance of dark magic and desperate hands. The fingernails were ripped off out of efforts to crawl free and I begged for the vision to end, but all it did was continue. There was blood, my lips were pulled back in a twisted snarl, my teeth bared as images of Thalia roared through my mind. A part of me already knew I would not survive this cruelty. I was going to die here. These were the final hours of my life.
It only made me fight harder.
'These monsters are created by blood. A ritual. When the dying draw runes or foul symbols in their own blood, it creates a gateway for the wraith to take hold. According to Eulalie Fortier, a prominent Voodoo spirit talker out of New Orleans, there are some spirits in this world that refuse to cross or linger on the material plane longer than they have too. When the business is finished, these things disappear, but they are angry. To cross, they want the blood of their enemies. They want those who hurt them to feel the fear they did in the final moments before death.'
There was more blood on the panelled wood above me. I knew what I wanted in this moment. My revenge would offer me peace – even if I was unsure of the possibility of rest.
'My next step in consultation was an old wise woman at the Chitimacha tribe not far from the city. Even if she knew nothing of this matter, it was a place to start and would give me some ideas. The village was down in a swamp, information I would never share with Ophelia, she often told me if I came home with a swamp disease, I could find another place to live. I quite enjoy the slight terror coming home from a trip brings me – pregnancy has made her gentler and a little bit forgetful, so I'm hoping she'll not insist on her theory of swamp disease.
Marianne Terrebonne, I assume this is the name her father gave her and not what her mother's people call her. She's an old woman who is covered in tattoos. I did not want to look to closely at them, it seemed disrespectful to openly stare and getting in here to see her was a combination of skulduggery and use of official papers. She had a reputation for being able to track strange magics and I needed her help.
There was a long talk, small talk about the city of New Orleans where she spent her youth, political chatter about the past and how her people had managed to keep their land and enough of their traditions to remain a functional society. I gave her some herbs I had bought in the city and told her that my great-great Grandmother Rebekah still lived and spoke of her work and magical talents – despite Marie's comparative youth. The old woman laughed and suddenly told me that the wraith I sought would never be found, for a corpse in an alley had been a victim of its vengeance.'
I knew that killing those who put Alex on this path would bring an end to this, but why was I having to fight so hard for information? Why was he actively trying to dissuade me from this knowledge, twisting my mind away from the passages and work that had been done to understand what he had become in the moment of his... end?
I turned the page – claws sinking into my shoulders as I gripped the page.
I... I recognized this handwriting.
My father was not an Auror for long, I was not sure he would have any entries in the grimoire. Maybe he might not have seen enough to add into the pages? I guess I was wrong.
'Bartholomew Jones was entranced by a wraith. I saw the thing over him while he cannibalized the corpse of his victim. When I put Jones down, the wraith appeared above him. The wraith looked like a human skull, peering out of a cloak and if I ever wondered for an overly long time what rested under a Dementor's cloak, that was exactly what I would have imagined. It was gross for reasons beyond the cannibalism.
Something about this has intrigued me for years. America has a rich cultural magical tradition beyond the native tribes, immigrants also bring their own beliefs, and mythology, when they come to the country. I was speaking of this with Lucina one night after we put the boy to bed and had to ask about the old magic of her Scottish homeland. Lucina got a bit pale before telling me about the wraiths of Scotland. She said that her great-aunt's gardener told her a story one Halloween about how a wraith would attach to a person, it would torture them to madness, drive them to live lonely lives. The only way to detach this monster, was to kill the targets of the wraith's ire, but the act of murder would split one's soul. Condemning the wraith to wander for the rest of its existence, leaving the anchor alone and insane with visions of the wraith's journey through the world.
Lucina elaborated that these were old stories, that no one truly knew how to disperse an attached wraith and very little was even known about them, all of these stories were guesswork from encounters with the spirits or those shattered minds they left in their wake. That very few, if any people, had seen the wraith attached to a person – no one was quite sure why that was the case.
How fascinating...'
I understood now. To be attached to a wraith, to have it bound to your soul, was to be forever taunted with insanity and the connection to it. I had nothing but old stories to rely on, and none of them had anything akin to a methodical solution. I ignored the pull and twist of Alex trying to take hold of my mind.
The sensation of claws faded and I was consumed with a sudden wave of tears for all I was going to lose.
Oo0Oo0
April 17, 1998
The small fire was the only thing keeping me warm in the small fireplace of this wild camping shelter near the seaside coast. There were little signs of magic around the place, such as a couple of bowtruckles in nearby trees, which stopped me from picking up the branches at the base of those trees. I knew healthy wood would burn wet and smoky. It brought me to dead trees with an array of dead branches to choose from.
So, I had a nice fire to provide me light and warmth while sitting on a discarded blanket someone had left behind, while I had another blanket I had brought with me wrapped around my shoulders. It was a homey sort of atmosphere and the solitude of it soon ceased being eerie and awkward. It was the most comfortable I had been in days and finding this pamphlet of Welsh bothies had been a boon. It had a bed, a small desk and enough cooking utensils to cook over the fireplace. The place was cozy, the bed was hard as a rock, but I could not bring myself to care for that. This place was perfect.
In my hands was Alex's journal.
I needed to know more of my brother, I needed to know what drove him and perhaps the answers for where I was being led were in this book, maybe there would be sense made of this journey through the passages.
"You won't find anything in there..."
I jumped at the sound of the voice – glancing around the little camping house and finding a figure sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. White hair simmering in the firelight as I took in his face. The grey eyes, lean, handsome face and strong nose that gave him a bit of an old-world look. The natural tan of his skin made him look very much like our father – even in the moving firelight.
My lips moved, but no sound escaped me.
Alex smiled, it did not reach his eyes, he looked too tired.
It was the first time I had ever really seen our mother in his face.
"Hello Audie."
"Alex..."
He looked down at his hands, examining his fingers, I noticed for a moment that his hands were covered in blood. Remnants of his time under the floor.
"Why?" I started, my voice rising quickly. "Why did you do this? Why condemn yourself this way?"
He shrugged, examining his hands. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"You could have gone home to Thalia!"
Alex's mouth moved, an expression of barely repressed pain before turning slightly to stare into the fire as if it had all of the answers.
"I could have done a lot of things, but I need to see this through." His shoulders straightened. "Listen. The wraith is not me. It is not the version of me I want you to remember."
"You were never around!" I snapped, "It's all I have!"
He looked down at his bloodied hands. "I'm sorry. I regret... I wish we had gotten to have that relationship you wanted, where I got to be your annoying older brother."
"I wanted a family. I... If you stay-"
"It's not me, Audrey."
"But-!"
The look Alex gave me reminded me of our father and I felt myself grow quiet.
"It's a twisted version of who I was and things I never got to accomplish. I want Voldemort dead; I want Harrow to die for killing me and for what he tried with you!"
"I wanted you! I wanted you in my life and-! And we both failed so badly at being a family!"
I tried to shove the horrible thought of never having my own family aside, the images of Percy and I's children, preferably daughters, one with his red hair, one with dark hair like my own. Percy's eyes hopefully, and that slight crooked expression of his mouth when he smiled. I'll never have that.
"When you left, I felt so lost. I know why you did and I respect it, it's admirable and you did everything you could to give Valencia justice, but I managed to stay in touch with Annette. I write her letters and now she writes back and she knows my leaving was nothing to do with her. Why did I go through so much of my life in pursuit of you? Did I want you in my life, or did I wish to try and remove the stain of not being enough?" I paused and took a deep breath, I could feel Alex's eyes on me, wide and seemingly nervous at what I was going to say next. "Why was I never enough? Why did I always come second or third or dead last in my own family? Why was I always the one to be the first sacrifice on the altar of power and politics?" I was on my feet now, my hands moving and expressing with a kind of violence I had never seen before as they swished through the air. "Where were you, Alex? Where were you when I needed you? You were chasing justice for others and could not find room in you ambitions for me!"
There was silence from Alex. He was looking at me and a dawning weight of comprehension on his face. "I love you. I always did. I... I was never good at showing it and I never thought it was something you needed. You were so quiet but seemed so secure I thought you would be fine."
"I was fine, but that didn't mean I wasn't hurting."
He stood up and smiled, I barely noticed the predatorial points of his teeth and he pulled me into a hug. He smelled of rotten meat and freshly turned earth – but that did not stop me from hugging him back as tightly as he held me.
His voice was low in my ear. "Make them suffer for me."
I was left standing, hugging only the air and the realization that I might truly be losing my mind.
Oo0Oo0
April 18, 1998
Tinworth was a beautiful little village on the Cornish coast. I could see the little houses down the path, painted in a white to partially blend with the sea. Some were in varying pastel shades that offered a lively seacoast living vibe that was comfortable and a bit like coming into a storybook. Moving between these homes were the little dots that I assumed to be the residents going about their daily lives – I hoped they were in any case, or I was in desperate need of glasses.
It was not the worst place the wraith had dragged me mid-apparition. I had been trying to find another Ministry Death Eater's home to burn off vague recollections of a town name, but instead I was now in a town that was in the total, opposite direction of where I had intended to go.
I had never felt so far apart from other people before – I longed for that life again. One of freedom to roam and opportunity to leave the apartment to do silly errands and see the world. I only did that now with the constant fear at my back of being found and arrested by the Ministry.
My talk with Alex last night, be he real or a figment of my imagination, had left me with a sense of clarity. I felt lighter. I had gotten to be angry with him. I got to tell him that I loved him and maybe that was a fitting end to our relationship. It did not erase Harrow's use of Alex's face, but I could remember the expressions of Alex that were distinctly him and put the horrible memory aside as a separate entity.
I turned away from the village to take the slim, worn path on my left, following it upwards towards the sound of the sea.
The waves crashed against the rocks in a soft, repeating roar as I stared out to the sea beyond. It was a gray, miserable sort of day and the salt of the sea air was laced with the smell of mist and rain. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the peace of it. This was the kind of environment I would not find in the city.
The knowledge of the things I had learned about wraiths in the last few days swam through my head. The memories of the dreams, the sensation of intense claustrophobia ate away at my senses. I could still feel the burning pain in the tips of my fingers, as if my own fingernails had been ripped away from the efforts made to claw my way free.
For a couple of nights now, I had glimpses of the end of Alex's life and the feeling of his burning commitment to kill Voldemort and put Harrow through hell for doing this to him. The sensation of Alex's laments and eventual glee for Harrow not killing him immediately left me disgusted.
Alex knew what he was doing. This was no accident or momentary lapse of panicked judgment.
I was the instrument of his revenge.
And there was nothing… brotherly about that.
Percy would not - he would not ask this of his siblings. I doubted they would ask it of him. I would never condemn Annette to this… mostly out of love but partially because I had some real concerns about her interest in dead things. She would turn me into some sort of magical experiment!
"You ask a lot of me," I could feel the wraith at my back, the feathers blowing past me and fading to smoke as they disappeared over the cliff side. "I follow your directions, which make no sense and try to ignore how you seem to have no idea what you're doing. None of the places you take me make any sense!"
I turned to look at the wraith, I knew it was out and free in the world. Not hiding, but present. It seemed to be swamped in the moss cloak that moved softly in the upwind of the sea breeze.
"You control me like a marionette." I stepped forward – the wraith was my brother but also was not and it hit me full in the face with a rank stench of rot and decay. It did not fear it anymore. "You control where I go and I don't know what you want from me! I wanted you in my life Alex, I got what I wanted and it's a mockery of everything we should have had! Now I have to deal with your anger at the choices you have lost because you went off to die?"
The wraith tilted its head, the thin glimmer of sunlight bounced off the beak of the vulture beak that peered out from the moss hood of its cloak as the antlers reached upward, peeking out from holes in the hood. The eyes of the vulture skull burned like hot coals and if I looked closely enough, I could see the shrivelled, waxy pallor of human skin beneath before the feathers and bone became prominent.
"Pathetic sight you are..."
I froze. The voice was unearthly and sounded like scraping bones. Memories of Percy flew through my mind – if this was the end of my life, I wanted to see his face again.
"Wanting some man to impregnate you with purpose..."
I backed away from the wraith for a moment – its voice seemed to come from all directions.
"When I can give you a greater one!"
I don't want a greater purpose.
The wraith grew bigger, more fearsome as it loomed over me, blocking out the faint streaks of sunlight, its voice howling along the wind, as if the two were one and the same.
"Show some loyalty to the family that is already here!"
"You're not my brother."
The waves crashed harder against the stone cliffs and the rage roared up inside me like a tempest.
"You've dragged me all over creation for what you want! You've got nothing left because you wasted your chance at happiness and now you're out trying to deny it to me! Why do you get to take your mistakes out on me! If I fail, you'll turn my brain to mush and deny me a final chance at happiness and love?" I reached out, shoving the wraith in the chest and moving it back slightly in a glide. "You're a pretty shit brother! I don't know why I chased you for so long! I don't know why I cared that much!" I paused; my voice dropped. "That wasn't you last night. Or was it and the wraith finally consumed you? I don't care anymore! I will not endure these manipulations from you any longer!"
The wraith seemed to shrink, but there was a light like embers in the vulture skull that acted as its face.
"I will survive you! When I am finished, when I have found a way to live with you! I will go home to Percy and have the life you never got to have because of your inability to walk away! I've learned from your mistakes!"
There was a loud crack of magic that left me covering my ears at the suddenness of it.
When the deafening silence fell over me, the wraith was gone.
There was no sensation of the wraith's presence, no heaviness or feeling of it at the edges of my mind. I was content with solely the sensation of my own anger.
I stood alone on the edge of the cliff.
Oo0Oo0
Author's Note: Um. So, I had this planned before recent political events.
Audrey does not understand televisions and that gives me joy. She's also close to Shell Cottage at the end there. Also, American wizards have Home Owners Associations – no I will not elaborate any further on that idea. Lol
Pay attention to where Alex seems to be pulling Audrey at this point – if it seems familiar, it's intentional.
Jack saw the wraith before Bartholomew was killed because he has a little bit of Sight. He will not always see them, but if he focuses enough he can. Bran's Second Sight is just in overdrive because he's blind.
'Til we have faces is from a CS Lewis book title - he chose the title from a quote by Oruel about how we cannot meet the Gods until we are honest about who we are - speaking with our own voice and not the voice of others as we express our true desires. Without a mask or persona in place.