A Matter of Black and White
folder
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
35
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3,948
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Currently Reading:
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Category:
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
35
Views:
3,948
Reviews:
57
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
29-Where Ignorant Armies
CHAPTER 29—WHERE IGNORANT ARMIES
Dover in November was gray. The walls of the ancient castle were gray. The steely ships and the churning water and the salty haze above were gray. Even the famous white cliffs left a gray dust on Aurora’s white robes as she made her way along a narrowing ledge cut into the chalky face overlooking the Channel.
Somewhere above, a few tourists were exploring Dover Castle and the tunnels that wound like hollow bowels through the cliff on which it stood. The Muggle tour guides would say that the old tunnels had been used as a hospital and command center during the Second World War. They might even whisper that the deepest levels were still maintained as a government fall-out shelter in case of a nuclear attack. While the history of British Muggles living like moles across the Channel from Nazi-occupied France was certainly true, the rumors about a second government headquarters in modern times were not. Were the Muggle Prime Minister to search the tunnels for the equipment to withstand a nuclear disaster, the only thing he would find—if he could find anything at all—would be the slashing wand of one put-upon Ukrainian Death Eater.
To the non-magical viewer, Aurora’s trek along the windy, dusty ledge inexplicably leading to nowhere might have looked as if she were preparing to fling herself down onto the rocky beach below. Although Aurora had no such blatant suicidal urges, she knew she could easily end her days with a similar fate if she set off one of the wards to Antonin Dolohov’s secret lair. Retracing each step of her childhood visits, she disarmed one booby trap by pulling on a thick gray root growing out of the rock face and circumvented a dangerously narrow part of the path by walking through a chalky outcropping like she would Platform 9¾. Fortunately, her godfather had not changed any of these security measures. As she finally stood in front of the entrance to the Death Eater’s hideaway, however, she knew there was far less likelihood that he had not at least changed the password to his front door. What was more, she knew that a single wrong utterance would trigger the wards to toss her out into the sea. This left only one option.
She knocked.
A moment later, a magical door cracked open, letting loose a light mist of chalky dust. A round-faced man with crinkled sideburns poked his red nose and crooked wand out of the door. “Don’t want any. Go away.”
“Uncle Antie?” Aurora asked hesitantly.
The wizard’s eyes narrowed, crinkling his sideburns even further. “’Rorya?” In an instant, she was whisked inside and enveloped in a Ukrainian bear hug. “The image of your mother,” he exclaimed in wonder, holding her finally at arm’s length. “But how did you get here?”
She gave him her carefully rehearsed story. She had heard about the Dark Lord’s rise and had come to continue the family work. She had secured a post at Hogwarts where she hoped to learn valuable secrets. She even came with information about some of the (minor) wards protecting the school. She hoped they would be enough to earn the Dark Lord’s respect so that she could continue her family’s service. She didn’t know who to trust, but she hoped her beloved godfather would help her in her quest.
“You are a lucky girl, aren’t you, ’Rorya?” He said, patting her on the cheek. “There’s a meeting tomorrow night. Of course I’ll bring you. Just imagine it—a Dolohov and a Kiebitzei in the Death Eater’s circle again. Wolfram and Minka would be proud.”
Aurora thanked him. She hoped she could fill her parents’ shoes.
Dolohov lit a cigar and tapped a few ashes into a tray. “It’s terrible how you lost them. You more than anyone should want Dumbledore gone.”
She cast down her eyes in a look of silent anguish.
“You can’t imagine how it pained me to hear of their deaths, to hear how you were shipped off to that blood-traitor aunt of yours. How you must have suffered.” A solemn look formed behind the smoke of his cigar. “I swear to you, ’Rorya, if I hadn’t been in Azkaban, I would’ve killed her myself to get you back. I would’ve given you a proper upbringing. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a blood-betraying shliukha.^1^ I would’ve found her and killed her myself.”
She gave her godfather a kiss on the cheek. “What’s done is done, Uncle. Now we ought to think of the future.”
* * *
“Does it hurt very badly?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Does it last very long?”
“Long enough.”
Aurora unconsciously gripped her left forearm. In a few hours it would wear the brand of the Dark Lord. Even from the safety of the empty staff room, her skin already seemed to burn with the danger. She placed a tentative finger on Severus’s left wrist, just at the hem of his sleeve.
He retracted his arm. “You’re not helping yourself.”
Just then, Filius came whistling in to collect some papers from his desk, and Aurora turned back to the bookshelves that she and Severus had been pretending to browse.
“Aren’t you the slightest bit nervous?” she whispered when the Charms professor left the room.
“I’m not the one taking the Mark tonight,” he said dispassionately.
“Then why did you follow me here after dinner?” she hissed. She had been relieved to see her fellow spy after an agonizing dinner with her naively merry colleagues, but Severus’s lack of empathy was becoming exasperating.
“I didn’t follow you; I wanted a book,” he snapped, selecting his own volume from the shelf. “Don’t transfer your own anxieties onto me.”
The lie stung with more immediacy than her awesome, burning dread about the night ahead. Whatever solace she had taken in having him with her evaporated.
“Do you still think it’s worth it?” he asked, studying her over the pages of his book. “Do you still think you can do any good?”
Wishing him gone, she answered morbidly, “Qui vivra verra.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked with his usual antagonism toward languages which he did not comprehend.
“Time will tell,” she translated automatically. “It means,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly, “who shall live, shall see.”
* * *
Aurora Apparated to Dover at 10:30, time enough for her and her godfather to toast her parents and the success of the Dark Lord. By the time they were ready to join the other Death Eaters at the meeting, Aurora was regretting that single drink. Uncle Antie drank only the best cognac, and her head was already spinning—or was that just nerves?
“Does the Dark Lord know that you’re bringing me?” she asked as they prepared to Apparate.
Her godfather patted her on the cheek. “It’s our little surprise.”
“Of course,” she answered a little queasily. She wasn’t sure how the orderly Dark Lord would handle a surprise.
“Hold on now,” he said, drawing his Death Eater hood and taking her arm in a Side-Along Apparition.
They landed in the middle of an empty moor. Just ahead of them stood a ring of figures that resembled standing stones except for the occasional cloak that flapped in the breeze. As the pair approached, several of the Death Eaters stole glances from behind their hoods to glimpse the unexpected woman in white. One of these, Aurora imagined, was Severus. Despite their tense discussion earlier in the evening, she drew confidence from the knowledge that she had an ally—albeit a reluctant one—present. She wanted to scan the circle for his tall, angular figure, but the wizard at the center of the ring demanded her immediate attention.
“What have you brought me, Dolohov?” asked a cold, familiar voice etched into Aurora’s soul. “A stranger?”
Again, Aurora wondered about the prudence of her godfather’s surprise for his master.
“Not a stranger,” Uncle Antie insisted with an easy enthusiasm uncommon for the Death Eater circle. “An old friend.” He elbowed Aurora and whispered, “Show him the ring, ’Rorya.”
Her entire arm felt heavy now that the Kiebitzei Runespoor was finally wrapped around her ring finger, but she knew she must bear the great mass of metal like it was a part of herself. She offered her right hand to the Dark Lord.
The wizard’s eyes flickered with a moment of idle curiosity. Then, Great Holda, she realized that he was coming toward her. She sought the memory of her child self, of the Aurora who had been too filled with wonder at the presence of the Dark Lord to know any fear of him. The adult Aurora tempered this eagerness, though, with appropriate deference, and this time she remembered to kneel on the wet ground and bow her head in reverence. The Dark Lord took a final set of gliding steps toward her, a mist of cold, damp air following in his wake. Then she felt his icy fingers grasping her hand to study the ring.
“I know this crest.”
“Then you know the family that has lived to serve you, my Lord.” At this she summoned a lost place deep in her soul to meet those sunken red eyes with her own. He was the Great Lord, the powerful wizard she had once so longed to meet. She was living a forgotten dream.
The corners of the Dark Lord’s mouth twitched in recognition. “The little girl in the wood,” he breathed, the late night air turning his words into fog. He nodded for her to rise. “Not so little anymore,” he observed when she stood. He ran a gray hand over the gold of her hair. “Quite like your mother now, I’d say.”
“You honor me, my Lord,” she answered, forcing herself to relish the recollection of every cruel thing her mother had ever done in his service.
She wasn’t sure whether he had slipped deftly into her mind or whether her parents’ notorious service came instantly to his own nefarious thoughts, but he said, “Minka and Wolfram Kiebitzei were among my finest. They were quite…creative…in their service to me.” He peered at her the way he once had twenty years before. “You also seemed to show promise. I had great hopes for you, my namesake—yes, of course, I recall how you were named.”
She tried to exhibit the appropriate wonder that he should honor her with this memory.
“Tell me, Aurora, what has become of you after all of these years?”
She dropped her eyes. “I led a life apart,” she answered with what she hoped was appropriate humbleness.
“And did you remain true in that life?” he whispered, the cool fingers of Legilimency now distinctly prying into her mind.
She sought the memory of every Muggle taunt she had ever received and of every fight she had ever had with her aunt and uncle. “Of course, my Lord.” She braved a bit more. “Now that you have returned, I can be even truer. Britain is a tabula rasa for me. I can move about with ease and no one suspects me of anything. I’ve even secured a post at Hogwarts.”
The wizard’s eyes flashed at the tantalizing idea that she had slipped past Dumbledore, but he answered noncommittally, “I have eyes and ears at Hogwarts. What else can you do for me?”
Aurora tried to ignore the feeling that she was a traitor to her robes and played her next card. “I know magic that is unavailable to most witches and wizards.”
“Yes?” he asked with an expectant hiss.
“You see, I am a Holdahexe.”
She felt him reassessing her, this time not with amused recognition but now with the closest thing to respect that she imagined a megalomaniac wizard might give. “Go on.”
“Grindewald found having a Holdahexe useful,” she said, referring to the traitorous Holdahexe that had served the dark wizard.
“Grindewald failed.”
“Grindewald didn’t have an unconquerable soul.” She spoke this so softly that not even her godfather could hear, and she intently met the Dark Lord’s eyes.
This was it. He pressed heavily into her mind now. She evoked the giddy pleasure she had had in playing the Unforgivable Game, in participating in the great honor of which the Dark Lord had spoken. She recalled the electric feeling of holding the Dark Lord’s hand as he had cast the Killing Curse on the first of the Gideon brothers. Then she remembered the brother upon whom the “honor” had been placed, remembered how the Dark Lord had sent the Death Eaters away, remembered how her father had lingered in the woods to watch what had happened next.
“Your father was always eager to learn.”
Uncertain how her father’s disobedience might reflect on herself, she decided to remind the Dark Lord of her own assets. “I’ve learned magic even older,” she intoned.
She had piqued his interest; she knew it. Old magic meant Dark Magic, as far as he was concerned, and a Dark Lord could not easily turn Dark Magic away. He nodded to her, then turned to her godfather and spoke loudly enough for the entire circle to hear.
“You’ve returned a member of our happy family, Antonin. Congratulations.”
Her godfather bowed with a grin. “The innocent bird flies from its cage and leads the lost dove home as well.”
The Dark Lord chuckled. “If only you had flown the coop sooner.”
Her godfather bowed again to communicate that he would happily have done so.
The Dark Lord turned back to her. “You wish to join me and avenge your parents’ deaths?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Then offer your flesh to the Mark they wore with honor.”
Her arm felt as if she were lifting an iron cauldron, but she extended her left arm to him. He wrapped his thin fingers tightly around her wrist. Then he slipped his other hand under the cuff of her sleeve, sending a chill down her spine. At any moment she expected the burning brand of the curse that would mark her as his own. Instead, he drew the Holdahexe white fabric up to her elbow almost caressingly, the signifying power of her robes reflecting in his eyes.
He withdrew his crooked yew wand and pressed it into her skin. She looked away like she would if she were receiving an injection and awaited the pain of which Severus had spoken. The Dark Lord murmured the spell and she prepared for the worst, but all she felt was a slight tingle and the jabbing of the wand into her arm. He repeated the incantation, and again she felt only a tingle and an increasing pressure from his wand. He tried the spell a third time, his fingers tightening around her wrist and his voice betraying his agitation. Now she managed to look at her arm, but there was no snake or skull to be seen.
This was bad. This was very bad. Why hadn’t the Mark taken? Could it detect that she was an impostor? The Dark Lord tried once more. This time she could see his wand digging into her flesh and turning it red. At the moment of the incantation, the outline of the Mark seemed to well up under her skin, but, just as quickly, something shimmered across her flesh and erased the pattern.
She had seen this magic before. When she had been initiated into the Holdahexe, the old magic had washed over her with the same shimmering light. But how could she tell the Dark Lord that his magic had been trumped by that of a coven of witches?
The Dark Lord was clenching her wrist so tightly that her hand was turning purple. He peered at her arm in disbelief. “What magic is this?”
“I’m…I’m sorry, my Lord,” she gulped, trying to collect herself. “The Holdahexe’s magic is already written upon me.”
He ran his hand up her white arm with a kind of possessive wonder, then suddenly commanded, “Give me your other arm.”
She held her breath, wondering why her right arm would be any different from her left but hoping that it was somehow less imbued with Holdahexe magic. She knew that there was no way she could finish the night in one piece unless she left with the mark of a Death Eater.
To her amazement, however, the Dark Lord did not lift her sleeve. Instead, he raised her hand to study her ring. Perhaps it was the moonlight, but the Runespoor seemed to twitch in response to the touch of the Heir of Slytherin.
“This will do nicely,” he said at last. “You’ve always been one of a kind,” he breathed only to her. “It seems your link to me must be so as well.” Then he touched his wand to the ring until it glowed a soldering red. Though it burned excruciatingly hot, the pain was drowned out by a familiar jolt of power, an intoxicating feeling like the one she had experienced on the night that she had helped the Dark Lord perform the Killing Curse. Even she could not deny the addictive power offered to a Death Eater.
And then the power was gone, and the Dark Lord was raising her right hand in the air, introducing the other Death Eaters to their newest sister. She felt lightheaded when she stepped back to join her godfather and barely registered the rest of the meetings proceedings. However, when the Dark Lord declared that he had some “unhappy news,” Aurora was certain that she wasn’t the only person who didn’t like the sound of these words. The entire circle of Death Eaters seemed to grow tense and rigid.
“Derrick, come here,” the Dark Lord declared. Before Derrick could comply, he was magically whisked to kneel at his master’s feet. The Dark Lord yanked the Death Eater’s hood off and made a soft “tutting” noise that did not bode well for the young wizard. “Aurora, join me, please.”
Aurora gulped at this unexpected command. She took a step forward and was relieved to find that she was allowed to proceed via her own two feet.
“Aurora, do you recall how fond your parents were of games?”
All too well. “Yes, my Lord.”
“Then you’ll recall how indulgent I was in allowing them to play with their Muggle prisoners.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
“But I do have one rule,” he went on. “Do you know what that is?”
Aurora froze.
“Come now,” he said with all the soothingness of a snake. “Your father learned it the first night we met. Surely he must have taught it to you, young though you were.”
Aurora forced herself to recall the Walpurgisnacht story and remembered the wizards violating the Muggle cyclist. She took a breath and hoped for the best. “No sex with Muggles.”
The Dark Lord caught her eyes and snagged the memory of her father’s story from her head. He caught her by the chin, and a smile twitched across his thin lips. “You are a bright one, aren’t you?” he said just to her. Louder, he continued, “You see, Derrick, a Death Eater no more than an hour old knows the rules. Why don’t you?”
The young Death Eater trembled. “N-nobody told me.”
The Dark Lord shook his head. “Your mother and uncle should be more careful how they educate you. The Carrows could learn a thing or two from the Kiebitzeis. Aurora, would you care to educate Mr. Derrick for me?”
Aurora’s heart plummeted into her stomach when she realized what he was asking. The Game. He wanted her to continue the old Game—only this time she would be holding the wand. What must Severus be thinking—he who had seen her falter at conjuring a Patronus. Had he already given up hope for her?
The Dark Lord was watching her. She must act or be acted upon. She hadn’t come this far to be destroyed. It was only a game, she told herself. If someone lost, it ought to be the murderous rapist.
In a game, magic came easily. It flowed from oneself for fun. She aimed her wand at the kneeling Death Eater. The Kiebitzei ring glistened with its new Dark Magic.
“Crucio.”
* * *
AN: The chapter title is the last line of Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach,” which ends “where ignorant armies clash by night.” http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writings/doverbeach.html
^1^ shliukha–whore (Ukrainian)
Marilyn—I hope you enjoy the Dover reference. Just a little more patience. ;)
For all of my readers, thanks for hanging in there with me. My life has had a lot of plot twists in the past month or so without the aid of our Hogwarts friends, but writing again has felt wonderfully therapeutic.
Dover in November was gray. The walls of the ancient castle were gray. The steely ships and the churning water and the salty haze above were gray. Even the famous white cliffs left a gray dust on Aurora’s white robes as she made her way along a narrowing ledge cut into the chalky face overlooking the Channel.
Somewhere above, a few tourists were exploring Dover Castle and the tunnels that wound like hollow bowels through the cliff on which it stood. The Muggle tour guides would say that the old tunnels had been used as a hospital and command center during the Second World War. They might even whisper that the deepest levels were still maintained as a government fall-out shelter in case of a nuclear attack. While the history of British Muggles living like moles across the Channel from Nazi-occupied France was certainly true, the rumors about a second government headquarters in modern times were not. Were the Muggle Prime Minister to search the tunnels for the equipment to withstand a nuclear disaster, the only thing he would find—if he could find anything at all—would be the slashing wand of one put-upon Ukrainian Death Eater.
To the non-magical viewer, Aurora’s trek along the windy, dusty ledge inexplicably leading to nowhere might have looked as if she were preparing to fling herself down onto the rocky beach below. Although Aurora had no such blatant suicidal urges, she knew she could easily end her days with a similar fate if she set off one of the wards to Antonin Dolohov’s secret lair. Retracing each step of her childhood visits, she disarmed one booby trap by pulling on a thick gray root growing out of the rock face and circumvented a dangerously narrow part of the path by walking through a chalky outcropping like she would Platform 9¾. Fortunately, her godfather had not changed any of these security measures. As she finally stood in front of the entrance to the Death Eater’s hideaway, however, she knew there was far less likelihood that he had not at least changed the password to his front door. What was more, she knew that a single wrong utterance would trigger the wards to toss her out into the sea. This left only one option.
She knocked.
A moment later, a magical door cracked open, letting loose a light mist of chalky dust. A round-faced man with crinkled sideburns poked his red nose and crooked wand out of the door. “Don’t want any. Go away.”
“Uncle Antie?” Aurora asked hesitantly.
The wizard’s eyes narrowed, crinkling his sideburns even further. “’Rorya?” In an instant, she was whisked inside and enveloped in a Ukrainian bear hug. “The image of your mother,” he exclaimed in wonder, holding her finally at arm’s length. “But how did you get here?”
She gave him her carefully rehearsed story. She had heard about the Dark Lord’s rise and had come to continue the family work. She had secured a post at Hogwarts where she hoped to learn valuable secrets. She even came with information about some of the (minor) wards protecting the school. She hoped they would be enough to earn the Dark Lord’s respect so that she could continue her family’s service. She didn’t know who to trust, but she hoped her beloved godfather would help her in her quest.
“You are a lucky girl, aren’t you, ’Rorya?” He said, patting her on the cheek. “There’s a meeting tomorrow night. Of course I’ll bring you. Just imagine it—a Dolohov and a Kiebitzei in the Death Eater’s circle again. Wolfram and Minka would be proud.”
Aurora thanked him. She hoped she could fill her parents’ shoes.
Dolohov lit a cigar and tapped a few ashes into a tray. “It’s terrible how you lost them. You more than anyone should want Dumbledore gone.”
She cast down her eyes in a look of silent anguish.
“You can’t imagine how it pained me to hear of their deaths, to hear how you were shipped off to that blood-traitor aunt of yours. How you must have suffered.” A solemn look formed behind the smoke of his cigar. “I swear to you, ’Rorya, if I hadn’t been in Azkaban, I would’ve killed her myself to get you back. I would’ve given you a proper upbringing. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a blood-betraying shliukha.^1^ I would’ve found her and killed her myself.”
She gave her godfather a kiss on the cheek. “What’s done is done, Uncle. Now we ought to think of the future.”
* * *
“Does it hurt very badly?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Does it last very long?”
“Long enough.”
Aurora unconsciously gripped her left forearm. In a few hours it would wear the brand of the Dark Lord. Even from the safety of the empty staff room, her skin already seemed to burn with the danger. She placed a tentative finger on Severus’s left wrist, just at the hem of his sleeve.
He retracted his arm. “You’re not helping yourself.”
Just then, Filius came whistling in to collect some papers from his desk, and Aurora turned back to the bookshelves that she and Severus had been pretending to browse.
“Aren’t you the slightest bit nervous?” she whispered when the Charms professor left the room.
“I’m not the one taking the Mark tonight,” he said dispassionately.
“Then why did you follow me here after dinner?” she hissed. She had been relieved to see her fellow spy after an agonizing dinner with her naively merry colleagues, but Severus’s lack of empathy was becoming exasperating.
“I didn’t follow you; I wanted a book,” he snapped, selecting his own volume from the shelf. “Don’t transfer your own anxieties onto me.”
The lie stung with more immediacy than her awesome, burning dread about the night ahead. Whatever solace she had taken in having him with her evaporated.
“Do you still think it’s worth it?” he asked, studying her over the pages of his book. “Do you still think you can do any good?”
Wishing him gone, she answered morbidly, “Qui vivra verra.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked with his usual antagonism toward languages which he did not comprehend.
“Time will tell,” she translated automatically. “It means,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly, “who shall live, shall see.”
* * *
Aurora Apparated to Dover at 10:30, time enough for her and her godfather to toast her parents and the success of the Dark Lord. By the time they were ready to join the other Death Eaters at the meeting, Aurora was regretting that single drink. Uncle Antie drank only the best cognac, and her head was already spinning—or was that just nerves?
“Does the Dark Lord know that you’re bringing me?” she asked as they prepared to Apparate.
Her godfather patted her on the cheek. “It’s our little surprise.”
“Of course,” she answered a little queasily. She wasn’t sure how the orderly Dark Lord would handle a surprise.
“Hold on now,” he said, drawing his Death Eater hood and taking her arm in a Side-Along Apparition.
They landed in the middle of an empty moor. Just ahead of them stood a ring of figures that resembled standing stones except for the occasional cloak that flapped in the breeze. As the pair approached, several of the Death Eaters stole glances from behind their hoods to glimpse the unexpected woman in white. One of these, Aurora imagined, was Severus. Despite their tense discussion earlier in the evening, she drew confidence from the knowledge that she had an ally—albeit a reluctant one—present. She wanted to scan the circle for his tall, angular figure, but the wizard at the center of the ring demanded her immediate attention.
“What have you brought me, Dolohov?” asked a cold, familiar voice etched into Aurora’s soul. “A stranger?”
Again, Aurora wondered about the prudence of her godfather’s surprise for his master.
“Not a stranger,” Uncle Antie insisted with an easy enthusiasm uncommon for the Death Eater circle. “An old friend.” He elbowed Aurora and whispered, “Show him the ring, ’Rorya.”
Her entire arm felt heavy now that the Kiebitzei Runespoor was finally wrapped around her ring finger, but she knew she must bear the great mass of metal like it was a part of herself. She offered her right hand to the Dark Lord.
The wizard’s eyes flickered with a moment of idle curiosity. Then, Great Holda, she realized that he was coming toward her. She sought the memory of her child self, of the Aurora who had been too filled with wonder at the presence of the Dark Lord to know any fear of him. The adult Aurora tempered this eagerness, though, with appropriate deference, and this time she remembered to kneel on the wet ground and bow her head in reverence. The Dark Lord took a final set of gliding steps toward her, a mist of cold, damp air following in his wake. Then she felt his icy fingers grasping her hand to study the ring.
“I know this crest.”
“Then you know the family that has lived to serve you, my Lord.” At this she summoned a lost place deep in her soul to meet those sunken red eyes with her own. He was the Great Lord, the powerful wizard she had once so longed to meet. She was living a forgotten dream.
The corners of the Dark Lord’s mouth twitched in recognition. “The little girl in the wood,” he breathed, the late night air turning his words into fog. He nodded for her to rise. “Not so little anymore,” he observed when she stood. He ran a gray hand over the gold of her hair. “Quite like your mother now, I’d say.”
“You honor me, my Lord,” she answered, forcing herself to relish the recollection of every cruel thing her mother had ever done in his service.
She wasn’t sure whether he had slipped deftly into her mind or whether her parents’ notorious service came instantly to his own nefarious thoughts, but he said, “Minka and Wolfram Kiebitzei were among my finest. They were quite…creative…in their service to me.” He peered at her the way he once had twenty years before. “You also seemed to show promise. I had great hopes for you, my namesake—yes, of course, I recall how you were named.”
She tried to exhibit the appropriate wonder that he should honor her with this memory.
“Tell me, Aurora, what has become of you after all of these years?”
She dropped her eyes. “I led a life apart,” she answered with what she hoped was appropriate humbleness.
“And did you remain true in that life?” he whispered, the cool fingers of Legilimency now distinctly prying into her mind.
She sought the memory of every Muggle taunt she had ever received and of every fight she had ever had with her aunt and uncle. “Of course, my Lord.” She braved a bit more. “Now that you have returned, I can be even truer. Britain is a tabula rasa for me. I can move about with ease and no one suspects me of anything. I’ve even secured a post at Hogwarts.”
The wizard’s eyes flashed at the tantalizing idea that she had slipped past Dumbledore, but he answered noncommittally, “I have eyes and ears at Hogwarts. What else can you do for me?”
Aurora tried to ignore the feeling that she was a traitor to her robes and played her next card. “I know magic that is unavailable to most witches and wizards.”
“Yes?” he asked with an expectant hiss.
“You see, I am a Holdahexe.”
She felt him reassessing her, this time not with amused recognition but now with the closest thing to respect that she imagined a megalomaniac wizard might give. “Go on.”
“Grindewald found having a Holdahexe useful,” she said, referring to the traitorous Holdahexe that had served the dark wizard.
“Grindewald failed.”
“Grindewald didn’t have an unconquerable soul.” She spoke this so softly that not even her godfather could hear, and she intently met the Dark Lord’s eyes.
This was it. He pressed heavily into her mind now. She evoked the giddy pleasure she had had in playing the Unforgivable Game, in participating in the great honor of which the Dark Lord had spoken. She recalled the electric feeling of holding the Dark Lord’s hand as he had cast the Killing Curse on the first of the Gideon brothers. Then she remembered the brother upon whom the “honor” had been placed, remembered how the Dark Lord had sent the Death Eaters away, remembered how her father had lingered in the woods to watch what had happened next.
“Your father was always eager to learn.”
Uncertain how her father’s disobedience might reflect on herself, she decided to remind the Dark Lord of her own assets. “I’ve learned magic even older,” she intoned.
She had piqued his interest; she knew it. Old magic meant Dark Magic, as far as he was concerned, and a Dark Lord could not easily turn Dark Magic away. He nodded to her, then turned to her godfather and spoke loudly enough for the entire circle to hear.
“You’ve returned a member of our happy family, Antonin. Congratulations.”
Her godfather bowed with a grin. “The innocent bird flies from its cage and leads the lost dove home as well.”
The Dark Lord chuckled. “If only you had flown the coop sooner.”
Her godfather bowed again to communicate that he would happily have done so.
The Dark Lord turned back to her. “You wish to join me and avenge your parents’ deaths?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Then offer your flesh to the Mark they wore with honor.”
Her arm felt as if she were lifting an iron cauldron, but she extended her left arm to him. He wrapped his thin fingers tightly around her wrist. Then he slipped his other hand under the cuff of her sleeve, sending a chill down her spine. At any moment she expected the burning brand of the curse that would mark her as his own. Instead, he drew the Holdahexe white fabric up to her elbow almost caressingly, the signifying power of her robes reflecting in his eyes.
He withdrew his crooked yew wand and pressed it into her skin. She looked away like she would if she were receiving an injection and awaited the pain of which Severus had spoken. The Dark Lord murmured the spell and she prepared for the worst, but all she felt was a slight tingle and the jabbing of the wand into her arm. He repeated the incantation, and again she felt only a tingle and an increasing pressure from his wand. He tried the spell a third time, his fingers tightening around her wrist and his voice betraying his agitation. Now she managed to look at her arm, but there was no snake or skull to be seen.
This was bad. This was very bad. Why hadn’t the Mark taken? Could it detect that she was an impostor? The Dark Lord tried once more. This time she could see his wand digging into her flesh and turning it red. At the moment of the incantation, the outline of the Mark seemed to well up under her skin, but, just as quickly, something shimmered across her flesh and erased the pattern.
She had seen this magic before. When she had been initiated into the Holdahexe, the old magic had washed over her with the same shimmering light. But how could she tell the Dark Lord that his magic had been trumped by that of a coven of witches?
The Dark Lord was clenching her wrist so tightly that her hand was turning purple. He peered at her arm in disbelief. “What magic is this?”
“I’m…I’m sorry, my Lord,” she gulped, trying to collect herself. “The Holdahexe’s magic is already written upon me.”
He ran his hand up her white arm with a kind of possessive wonder, then suddenly commanded, “Give me your other arm.”
She held her breath, wondering why her right arm would be any different from her left but hoping that it was somehow less imbued with Holdahexe magic. She knew that there was no way she could finish the night in one piece unless she left with the mark of a Death Eater.
To her amazement, however, the Dark Lord did not lift her sleeve. Instead, he raised her hand to study her ring. Perhaps it was the moonlight, but the Runespoor seemed to twitch in response to the touch of the Heir of Slytherin.
“This will do nicely,” he said at last. “You’ve always been one of a kind,” he breathed only to her. “It seems your link to me must be so as well.” Then he touched his wand to the ring until it glowed a soldering red. Though it burned excruciatingly hot, the pain was drowned out by a familiar jolt of power, an intoxicating feeling like the one she had experienced on the night that she had helped the Dark Lord perform the Killing Curse. Even she could not deny the addictive power offered to a Death Eater.
And then the power was gone, and the Dark Lord was raising her right hand in the air, introducing the other Death Eaters to their newest sister. She felt lightheaded when she stepped back to join her godfather and barely registered the rest of the meetings proceedings. However, when the Dark Lord declared that he had some “unhappy news,” Aurora was certain that she wasn’t the only person who didn’t like the sound of these words. The entire circle of Death Eaters seemed to grow tense and rigid.
“Derrick, come here,” the Dark Lord declared. Before Derrick could comply, he was magically whisked to kneel at his master’s feet. The Dark Lord yanked the Death Eater’s hood off and made a soft “tutting” noise that did not bode well for the young wizard. “Aurora, join me, please.”
Aurora gulped at this unexpected command. She took a step forward and was relieved to find that she was allowed to proceed via her own two feet.
“Aurora, do you recall how fond your parents were of games?”
All too well. “Yes, my Lord.”
“Then you’ll recall how indulgent I was in allowing them to play with their Muggle prisoners.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
“But I do have one rule,” he went on. “Do you know what that is?”
Aurora froze.
“Come now,” he said with all the soothingness of a snake. “Your father learned it the first night we met. Surely he must have taught it to you, young though you were.”
Aurora forced herself to recall the Walpurgisnacht story and remembered the wizards violating the Muggle cyclist. She took a breath and hoped for the best. “No sex with Muggles.”
The Dark Lord caught her eyes and snagged the memory of her father’s story from her head. He caught her by the chin, and a smile twitched across his thin lips. “You are a bright one, aren’t you?” he said just to her. Louder, he continued, “You see, Derrick, a Death Eater no more than an hour old knows the rules. Why don’t you?”
The young Death Eater trembled. “N-nobody told me.”
The Dark Lord shook his head. “Your mother and uncle should be more careful how they educate you. The Carrows could learn a thing or two from the Kiebitzeis. Aurora, would you care to educate Mr. Derrick for me?”
Aurora’s heart plummeted into her stomach when she realized what he was asking. The Game. He wanted her to continue the old Game—only this time she would be holding the wand. What must Severus be thinking—he who had seen her falter at conjuring a Patronus. Had he already given up hope for her?
The Dark Lord was watching her. She must act or be acted upon. She hadn’t come this far to be destroyed. It was only a game, she told herself. If someone lost, it ought to be the murderous rapist.
In a game, magic came easily. It flowed from oneself for fun. She aimed her wand at the kneeling Death Eater. The Kiebitzei ring glistened with its new Dark Magic.
“Crucio.”
* * *
AN: The chapter title is the last line of Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach,” which ends “where ignorant armies clash by night.” http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writings/doverbeach.html
^1^ shliukha–whore (Ukrainian)
Marilyn—I hope you enjoy the Dover reference. Just a little more patience. ;)
For all of my readers, thanks for hanging in there with me. My life has had a lot of plot twists in the past month or so without the aid of our Hogwarts friends, but writing again has felt wonderfully therapeutic.