Especially Our Enemies

The main entrance had been sealed, we discovered.

“They’re definitely here,” Percy muttered. “Come on. There’s a safe apparation point in the downstairs foyer. He won’t have disabled that.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Takes too long. He hasn’t had time.”

I closed my eyes and tried to block everything out. Apparating had always given me trouble, and even after all these years I had to really focus.

When I opened them, all my body parts were with me and I found myself in the lower floor of the British Museum. The others were still clustered around me.

“Sir, the lines for the elevators are cut.” Percy turned to the young officer who had come up.

“Then we’re taking the stairs,” he said, gesturing. He took out his wand. “Time to party.”

We threw open the doors to the stairwell and stormed up the staircase. I was not the first into the great court, and when I crashed into the man in front of me I didn’t know why.

“Oh god,” someone whispered.

“Everyone off the stairs,” Percy called. They moved out, but hesitantly. When I got clear of them I saw what had so horrified the Enforcement agents. The Lost Ones and I were far more used to such sights.

“How many, do you figure?” I asked, looking at the Muggle bodies.

“At least eighty,” Jordan said. “They must have been in a queue.”

“Let’s break it up into our teams and move through the exhibition halls. I want all you kids from Enforcement to stay to the rear, understood?” Percy asked. They mostly nodded mutely. Many of them were in fact kids, twenty-somethings who had just passed the qualifier and whose memories of the war were filled with childhood terror. I’m sure they would all prove themselves in stressful situations, but this was probably not the time.

“And somebody get Containment in here to make up a story for the Muggles,” I said. More quietly, I murmured, “If there are any left alive.” It felt uncomfortable to be giving orders, but there was once a time when I did just that, I remembered. I had thought those times were gone, when we put aside our own desires for the good of all.

“We think we know where they’re headed, but we want to secure all the galleries. I want a few people in the King’s Library across the way, and everyone else on the west side with us. We’ll move north from our respective positions. Then we’ll go upstairs as a group, from opposite ends, and move through the ancient Near East galleries and into the Egyptian rooms. Everybody clear?”

A chorus of affirmations sent us off. I followed Percy into the Egyptian sculpture room; no magical artifacts here, we knew. The museum was a labyrinth of interconnected rooms, complicated to move through. We sent a few people into the Greek and Roman areas, mostly to round up the Muggles who were crouching, terrified, in corners. Malfoy and Voldemort had swept through here, certainly: there were bodies leading down the corridor to the west stairs.

Something caught my eye as we neared the stairwell. Dangling from the staircase rail was a blue and bronze necktie.

I charged up the stairs, leaving them all behind. Percy shouted after me but I couldn’t hear what he said. My heart throbbed in my ears, and I lunged through the doors at the top of the stairs.

“Chaz?” I shouted, racing into the galleries. I felt my arm give a twinge, and I shook it.

“Dad!”

Everything in me howled for him. I ran forward into the funerary hall.

You know how in action movies there’s always a door that slams down, blocking the hero from his backup? As I came through the door, the fire gates slid into place, and I felt my stomach wrench.

“How good of you to deliver yourself, Mister Weasley,” Voldemort purred. “You’re just in time.”

Voldemort swept into the next gallery. I walked forward and saw Chaz sitting on one of the stone sarcophagi.

“You should wait here,” he said. “He’ll be back.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“He intends to die,” Chaz said softly. He glanced to one side and I saw Malfoy, slumped against a statue, his wand loose in his hand. Malfoy rolled his head towards me.

“Oh, Weasley,” he said. He sounded drunk. “You’re here.”

“I came up through the great court,” I told him, gripping my wand. “Was that your handiwork?”

“I didn’t really want to,” he said lazily. “But you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Don’t say anything to him,” Chaz said. “Voldemort is in his head.”

“He’s much stronger now,” Malfoy chuckled. “No unicorns to save you here.”

“The others are close,” I told him. “They’ll find a way through those doors.”

“They might be too late.” Chaz pointed. I looked down the darkened hallway. “He’s taking Professor Malfoy and me with him.”

“Why?”

“It’s the only way he can reunite all the pieces of his soul,” Chaz whispered. “But he needs the spells to be reborn.”

“But why you? And Malfoy?”

“In the First Dynasty, it was common to sacrifice your servants. Professor Malfoy will fulfill the same function in the underworld as he did here.” Chaz sighed tiredly. “I can read the spells.”

“And this stuff really works?”

“Sure.” Chaz smiled. “A lot of us are really pharaohs and scribes, walking around reborn. Most just don’t realize it.”

“So why does Voldemort want to do this if he won’t remember who he is?”

“It’s his only option. He’s functioning on a single piece of soul that’s been floating around bodiless for more than a decade. The last time he died he had the horcruxes to sustain him.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Professor Malfoy told me.”

I walked down the corridor towards Voldemort, trailing Chaz behind me. Malfoy stood, picking up one of the ceremonial knives in the smashed glass case beside him.

“They’ll join us,” he said. His eyes were glazed. “All of them. A glorious new army for my master. And you. All your blood-traitor family will at last be rid from this world.”

Not his words, I told myself.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I said softly. “They didn’t need to die.”

“I’ve killed so many people. Why not a few more?”

“But you didn’t, Malfoy. Percy, Jordan, Penelope…they’re all still alive.”

Malfoy laughed.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me I dreamed murdering them,” he said.

“No. We planted those memories. That’s how Voldemort is accessing your mind, through the same gateway. You’re not deciding anything for yourself.”

“I, too, have become acquainted with ambivalence,” he murmured. “Have you ever read The Invisible Man?”

“Never,” I said, trying to keep him talking. Malfoy shrugged.

“He offered me everything, you know,” he said, his eyes growing soft and glittery, like he was about to cry. “Everything but my freedom.”

“Careful, Professor Malfoy,” Chaz warned. “He’ll hurt you again.”

Malfoy winced. His fingers loosened around the knife.

“You could help us stop him,” I said. “And he wouldn’t be able to hurt you anymore.”

“With your help, I could do it,” Chaz said. “I know the spells.”

“I can’t,” he choked.

“Come here,” Chaz said, in a voice I didn’t recognize. Malfoy dropped the knife on the floor and walked to Chaz. At a gesture, he knelt. Chaz touched his forehead.

I was frozen, confused and staring.

“Tell me your name,” Chaz whispered.

“Draco Malfoy,” he said.

“No.” Chaz’s brow furrowed angrily. “Your real name.”

“Khu,” Malfoy said, entranced.

“‘Protected.’ And so you are.” I began to feel a chill rising in me. Chaz spoke again in that strangely wise voice. “I am Nakhti, strong. I can protect you.”

“You’re a child,” Malfoy sneered.

“Look into my eyes and tell me it’s not the truth.”

“It matters little.” Voldemort strode in purposefully, Harry’s body clad in a simple linen skirt and one of the antique jeweled collars missing from the smashed displays. “You can’t stop it.”

“You need me to read the spell of not perishing,” Chaz said.

“If I kill you, your soul will have to do it for me.”

“Are you so certain?” Chaz walked over to Voldemort and stared up at him. “Your heart is heavy, Tom. The spell of negative confession must be spoken by the soul for its own self. Will Amemet fall under your sway?”

Voldemort’s forehead creased.

“You’re a liar,” he hissed.

“And you’re a legilimens,” Chaz chided him.

“I won’t believe it.” Voldemort walked over to Malfoy and wrenched him to his feet. “Silence him.”

“No,” Malfoy said softly.

“What?” Voldemort glared into Malfoy’s eyes, and I saw his resolve begin to weaken.

“He wanted her killed,” Chaz said. “Because he knew the prophecy.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Your sister,” Chaz said, his eyes meeting mine. I shivered. Malfoy looked as though someone had twisted a dagger in his gut.

“He makes them come true,” Chaz laughed. “If he could just ignore them, he might be in power today.”

“Shut up,” Voldemort hissed, throwing Malfoy aside. He caught himself easily, his grace returned as Voldemort released his mind. Voldemort seized Chaz by the throat. My son showed no fear; I felt my stomach knot.

I started forward and Voldemort threw out his wand towards me. I couldn’t move. A body-bind is a hard spell to cast without the spoken key; even Malfoy seemed impressed. Chaz took the opportunity to wrest himself from Voldemort’s grip.

“And you,” he hissed, stalking towards me. “You’ve slipped away from me for the last time.”

“Don’t,” Malfoy said softly. Voldemort looked at him.

“You’ve grown weak, Draco,” he said. “You remember what I told you about forming attachments.”

Malfoy turned to walk away, much as he had in the woods.

“Stop,” Voldemort commanded. “You’re going to watch this.”

He raised his wand, and everything went black.