A crime to outlive him, part 3
Sep. 30th, 2006 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbOutside the castle the daylight was fading. Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione, started feeling as if they were loitering. An air of embarrassment rose among them, till Harry realised that it was up to him to break the silence: the others had come to stay with him. “It’s getting cold,” he said. “Shall we go in?”
Relieved, Ginny, Ron and Hermione got up. A thin, cold evening wind was settling in, and even their Hogwarts cloaks did little to stop the cold. They set off towards the castle entrance, Harry stumbling swiftly. The truth is that the fit of destructive rage that had ripped through him before his friends found him had left him weary and spiritless; his limbs coursed with a dull and weary fire, and he really needed a bed and a pillow more than anything else.
As they neared the castle doors, a strange and disquieting sight greeted them. There were Headmistress McGonagall, flanked by a few other teachers and half a dozen Aurors, marching out of the castle gates; and in their middle, alone and wandless, a lean and still handsome blonde woman in tears, carrying what was clearly a human body. The scene looked like an arrest, and yet oddly also like a ceremony; the slow pace of all concerned, the silence – except for the fair-haired woman’s sobs – and the solemn expressions of everyone concerned. “What on Earth is that?” asked Ron, as the little group of friends instinctively came to a halt.
“Looks like an arrest.. or a funeral,” said Hermione. “Wait a minute, you don’t suppose…?”
“That is Narcissa Malfoy. She’s crying,” said Harry.
“Then the dead body must be Lucius,” said Ginny. “They must have tried to attack the castle again.”
“What would they do that for? With Voldemort dead and the castle crawling with Aurors and teachers?” answered Hermione. “Besides, look at that body. It’s not remotely as big as Lucius.”
“In that case, you don’t suppose… Draco?” said Ron. Though they all hated the Malfoys’ son, this suggestion was upsetting to all of them. After all, you do not spend all your growing years in the company of someone without feeling it personally if they die early.
The small procession of teachers and Aurors had gone by, and Harry and his friends crossed the gates and entered the castle. And the first thing they saw was Draco Malfoy, in Hogwarts clothes, looking more glum than they had ever seen him before. One or two of them gasped in surprise.
“Potty and friends,” said the young man with an echo of his old insulting manner. “Just what was needed to make the day perfect. Come to gloat, haven’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, Ferret,” retorted Ginny before anyone else could get a word in, “we are only surprised you are alive. Who was it that your mother was carrying out just now? And what are you doing here?”
“As for what I am doing here, Weasel Junior – or should that be Mrs. Potty,” he sneered, and Ginny all but grinned – “I am a Hogwarts student. Not even the war and its end can change that, according to school rules. I am here to complete my NEWTs. My mother insisted.” He turned and walked away in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons.
“That’s true enough,” said Hermione grimly as she watched his retreating back. “There are no laws to throw out a student just because his parents are under arrest, or because he is a former Death Eater. And as for the murder of Dumbledore, we know that was not him.” She looked at the corridor with dislike; but the rest were in no mood to be glum.
“Poor Ferret,” giggled Ginny, “he’s losing his grip. His insults used to hurt once.” She turned a radiant smile at Harry. “Mrs. Potty! Honestly!”
“I dare say he had a thing or two on his mind,” answered Harry, smiling back as his heart skipped a beat. “Such as his whole family being ruined.”
“Yeah, and both his parents in Azkaban,” added Ron with a gleeful tone.
“Yes… yes,” said Hermione impatiently, “but the question remains. If it was not Draco whom Mrs. Malfoy was carrying, then who was it?”
And then her face changed. “There is only one person it can be.”
“Who do you… oh, my God, Bellatrix?” burst out Ron.
“Can’t be anyone else. Remember, they were sisters.”
“Sure. And as I recall it, she was about the right size for the body Narcissa was carrying,” said Harry, who had fought Bellatrix face to face and knew her better than any of his friends. “And who else would Narcissa weep for?”
“Got to be. She must have tried a final attack on Hogwarts…”
“…and got what was coming to her,” concluded Harry with savage relish. He had never forgotten, let alone forgiven, Bellatrix’ murder of Sirius Black, and her glee. “Pity I wasn’t there.”
“Pity you weren’t, Potter” said a familiar sneering voice from behind them. “Then you would know that your whole idea is wrong from top to bottom.”
It was Severus Snape; although, strapped on a wheelchair as he was, with much of his hair burned off by hostile spells, and half his face covered by healing poultice packages, he would have been hard to recognize if they had not heard the voice first.
Harry did not know what to think or how to behave. He had seen Snape kill Dumbledore before his own eyes – a sight that nothing could erase from his mind and nothing could make him forgive; but then he had also seen his heroic behaviour in the final battle, and heard from Lupin the full story of his duplicity, without which the Dark Lord could never have been defeated. So Harry just stood there and waited for Snape to speak again.
“Narcissa came here in peace, offering to help heal your mother. She took Bellatrix with her because she wanted her where she could keep an eye on her – she was afraid of her committing suicide. Then Narcissa was arrested anyway, and Bellatrix did exactly what her sister feared – she killed herself.”
“Oh, come on,” blurted out Ron. “Even if they allowed Narcissa Malfoy within a mile of the castle after what happened, they would never let a mad murderess like Bellatrix.”
“They would not, Mr.Weasley, indeed. We would not. Can you think of a way in which Narcissa and Bellatrix might avoid our objections?”
“Polyjuice potion!” gasped Hermione.
“One point to Gryffindor,” said Snape sarcastically. “Yes, polyjuice potion. Bellatrix came disguised as your uncle, Mr.Potter, as Vernon Dudley. And nobody had any idea who she really was till she drew her wand and killed herself as we were arresting her sister.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Of course, the Aurors and other Ministry authorities had given warning about the Death Eater escapees’ possible use of Polyjuice; but, in spite of the proverb, being forewarned is hardly the same as being forearmed. It had not prevented Rabastan and Rudolphus Lestrange from entering Gringott’s disguised as their own father and mother. Both elder Lestranges had been dead for some years now, but the secretive Lestrange clan had never seen fit to reveal their fate, and the goblins knew nothing. Now that turned to their advantage: with a cleverly devised set of largely authentic proxies and other documents – arranged long ago for just such an eventuality – Rudolphus and Rabastan drained the accounts of more than thirty Death Eaters, including a few who had died in battle without direct heirs.
Of course, with each new document produced, the goblins grew more and more suspicious. By the time the seventh proxy (from Lucius Malfoy and his wife and family) was produced, the elderly Lestranges were all but surrounded by a ring of staring, mistrustful goblins, some with wands in their hands. But what could they do? Document after document was subject to the most stringent magical tests and came up clean. When the Malfoy proxy was subject to a Truth Test, it suddenly produced a Howler in Lucius Malfoy’s voice, demanding to know why the Goblins were faffing around instead of performing their contractual duties. After that debacle (everyone in the bank building and for a hundred yards outside heard every word), the goblins became dispirited. They just took in the rest of the legal documents. And that was just as well, because it was among the last few of them that the most delicate ones – carefully faked by the cleverest Death Eaters – were found.
Like a few other pureblood clans, the Lestranges have a private language, derived from medieval French and wholly incomprehensible to any outsider. It was in this private tongue that Rudolphus and Rabastan addressed each other as they left Gringott’s – being careful to move as slowly as eighty-year-old muscles would allow, and to do nothing that did not suggest two old, irritable codgers.
“…and the thing is, the goblins hate the Ministry almost as much as they hate us. They were not going to just call in Scrimgeour. First they will hold a council of war, trying to see if they can find a way to turn this to their advantage. Then, when they come to the conclusion that there is nothing they can get out of that hole, they will send a message to the Ministry. By the time it gets to Scrimgeour, we’ll be in France with the loot.”
“When do you figure they’ll find the fakes?”
“As late as possible, I hope. They’ll get very angry then, and I’d as soon be very far away when they do.”
“Even so, pardon me, but it just is too good not to laugh!”
“Oh, my Dark Lord, I am with you. When I think of the Chief Goblin’s face…” And both Lestranges laughed, as they reached into their pouches for a dose of Polyjuice – charged, this time, not with the figures of an elderly couple, but with that of two of their younger nephews, now safely away at Durmstrang. They hid in a curtained doorway. Within a couple of minutes, two happy teen-agers could be seen practically skipping down Diagon Alley, laughing and making up rude rhymes about the Ministry of Magic and the goblins at Gringott’s. Many bystanders smiled at the sight.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
As a matter of fact, it was Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic himself, who discovered the forged documents. He had summoned the leading goblins to a conference, without too much in the way of manners, and demanded to see the evidence. An experienced former Auror, he went through every line with care as his unwilling guests sat around, glum and silent; and it took him relatively little time to identify the fakes. He then proceeded to inform the goblins of what they had done – with great clarity and force.
“…not only are you dishonest, you are a bunch of idiots! Not only did you hope to get some advantage out of keeping the knowledge of this highly significant transaction from us – don’t lie, Kannesix, what you did is obvious – but you allowed yourself to be diddled out of a good third of the money to which those villains had no right whatever, and, unless I read the facts very very wrong, out of a mountain of evidence that could have been produced in court! Well, gentlemen, goblins are supposed to be very clever indeed, but I have to say, I never saw such a bunch of stupid and outwitted schemers in all my born days! Have your standards been falling of late?”
The goblins sat under the shower of criticism, silent and sullen. They had earned it; there was no dodging the fact. The relatives of two known Death Eaters had turned up at the bank with a mountain of highly dubious proxies, and demanded to empty nearly thirty accounts, all of persons known or suspected to have been Death Eaters: alarm bells had of course rung. The goblins could not of course refuse to obey legal documents, but they could and should have notified the Ministry immediately, so that the Lestranges could be arrested or pursued. Instead, they had chosen to play a solitary game – and had ended up losing comprehensively, both to the Lestranges and to the Ministry.
“Lord Minister, a word. No doubt we goblins deserve your strictures. No doubt we have done everything Your Lordship says we have. But, my Lord, do we not have more urgent matters to attend to? The Death Eaters are on the run with nearly two tons of gold and Muggle money, plus the titles to various estates and a number of suspected heirlooms. I and the rest of the Goblins are eager to catch up with them.”
“Oh, so are we, Skendolkey. Never doubt that for a second. All the Ministries abroad have been warned, and the Aurors are on red alert. All our resources are committed to finding them.”
“That is good, Your Lordship. Even we poor Goblins, in our own small way, are using our own resources for the same purpose. Of course our effort can never match the Ministry’s, but…”
Scrimgeour’s attention suddenly focused. “Efforts? To what purpose, Skendolkey?”
“Why, of course,” retorted the Goblin with an attempt at an innocent expression, “to capture the Death Eaters and confiscate their resources.”
“And hand them over to the legal authorities, I hope?”
“Of course, as Your Lordship wants.”
“Alive, Skendolkey? Alive and in one piece?”
“As Your Lordship wants. But we would dearly, dearly like a little chat” – and the Goblin’s lips drew back to show his sharp triangular teeth – “with the gentlemen who have caused us so much public loss of face.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“They will not hand them over to us if they ever find them first,” said the Minister to the tall, freckled, red-haired young man who had been taking notes in the background, so unobtrusive that even the sharp eyes of the Goblins had barely paid him attention.
“Is that what you think, sir?”
“I would say it’s practically a certainty. You have seen their fury. Have them watched, Weasley. If they ever show suspicious patterns of behaviour, investigate them. And keep doing so even if they lead you up the garden path once, twice, three times.”
“Sir? Yes, sir.”
“Those Goblins want two things: they want the Death Eaters, and they want us not to be there when they find them. So they will set up a few meaningless incidents… start behaving as though they had found something important… only to disappoint our investigators when they find it’s nothing to the purpose. So never mind if things seem hopeless, Weasley. Those Gremlins are our best line to the Death Eaters. They will find them before we do.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Fire rose high in the night from Westerhorne Mansion, marking the last stage of Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange’s progress through England. They had taken and already conveyed abroad everything that could be salvaged from the wreck of the Death Eater party; and by destroying several of the Death Eaters’ homes and mansions, they made sure that what was left could not be used against them. A passer-by saw them grin at each other, then suddenly vanish.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
“Vernon? Vernon Dudley? Why would Bellatrix of all people come as uncle Vernon?” said Harry, shaking his head as if to dispel a cloud of flies buzzing around it. For a second, he had a strange resemblance to Vernon himself. Then Hermione touched him on the shoulder and pointed at a distant spot in the corridor… two female figures were coming walking towards them, one of them visibly leaning on the other, who was talking nineteen to the dozen.
Silence and unease spread across the corridor, from one person to another, like an oil slick. Harry fell silent first; Hermione, Ron, Ginny, looked at him, then at the two women; Snape looked away as if the sight hurt his one good eye; then Lily stiffened, looking at one figure among the five; finally, the insensitive Petunia noticed that something was wrong and stopped her interminable account of her neighbours and her son Dudley’s doings.
Snape broke the silence. “Hello, Evans. Hope you’re better.”
Lily shook, as if yet another stroke of confusion had struck her. She looked at the chairbound, bandaged figure and, after a slight hesitation, asked: “Sevie?”
“Yes, it’s me, Evans. Kind of older and sort of damaged, but me still.”
“Are you…?”
“Don’t worry. I caught a couple of spells too many in the battle, yesterday, but nothing old Pomfrey couldn’t handle. Well, Evans, here is your son Harry… the others are his friends… as you can see he is very, very much like his father. So I guess I’ll be going.”
There was something in the conversation that showed clearly that not everything that could have been said was being said. Harry was struck by how different Snape sounded. He remembered the Pensieve memories, in which he had seen his father abuse a younger Snape, and Snape, in turn, viciously insult Lily. Now his mother sounded concerned about Snape; and he sounded gruff and embarrassed, eager to be gone, and not in the least insolent or ready to hurt. In other words, he did not sound like Snape at all. And that had been from the moment that Lily and Petunia had appeared.
Snape was not the only one to be mortally embarrassed. Petunia, so talkative a moment earlier, was doing her best to imitate a wall fixture. Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione all knew why: for the previous seventeen years, she had abused Harry atrociously, and she knew now that if one word of what she had been doing to her son reached Lily’s ears, that was probably the end of her new-found relationship with her sister. Harry enjoyed giving her a brief but white-hot glare, making her cringe even more. But the moment was here and there was no dodging it any more.
“Harry.”
“Mother… Mom.”
Relieved, Ginny, Ron and Hermione got up. A thin, cold evening wind was settling in, and even their Hogwarts cloaks did little to stop the cold. They set off towards the castle entrance, Harry stumbling swiftly. The truth is that the fit of destructive rage that had ripped through him before his friends found him had left him weary and spiritless; his limbs coursed with a dull and weary fire, and he really needed a bed and a pillow more than anything else.
As they neared the castle doors, a strange and disquieting sight greeted them. There were Headmistress McGonagall, flanked by a few other teachers and half a dozen Aurors, marching out of the castle gates; and in their middle, alone and wandless, a lean and still handsome blonde woman in tears, carrying what was clearly a human body. The scene looked like an arrest, and yet oddly also like a ceremony; the slow pace of all concerned, the silence – except for the fair-haired woman’s sobs – and the solemn expressions of everyone concerned. “What on Earth is that?” asked Ron, as the little group of friends instinctively came to a halt.
“Looks like an arrest.. or a funeral,” said Hermione. “Wait a minute, you don’t suppose…?”
“That is Narcissa Malfoy. She’s crying,” said Harry.
“Then the dead body must be Lucius,” said Ginny. “They must have tried to attack the castle again.”
“What would they do that for? With Voldemort dead and the castle crawling with Aurors and teachers?” answered Hermione. “Besides, look at that body. It’s not remotely as big as Lucius.”
“In that case, you don’t suppose… Draco?” said Ron. Though they all hated the Malfoys’ son, this suggestion was upsetting to all of them. After all, you do not spend all your growing years in the company of someone without feeling it personally if they die early.
The small procession of teachers and Aurors had gone by, and Harry and his friends crossed the gates and entered the castle. And the first thing they saw was Draco Malfoy, in Hogwarts clothes, looking more glum than they had ever seen him before. One or two of them gasped in surprise.
“Potty and friends,” said the young man with an echo of his old insulting manner. “Just what was needed to make the day perfect. Come to gloat, haven’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, Ferret,” retorted Ginny before anyone else could get a word in, “we are only surprised you are alive. Who was it that your mother was carrying out just now? And what are you doing here?”
“As for what I am doing here, Weasel Junior – or should that be Mrs. Potty,” he sneered, and Ginny all but grinned – “I am a Hogwarts student. Not even the war and its end can change that, according to school rules. I am here to complete my NEWTs. My mother insisted.” He turned and walked away in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons.
“That’s true enough,” said Hermione grimly as she watched his retreating back. “There are no laws to throw out a student just because his parents are under arrest, or because he is a former Death Eater. And as for the murder of Dumbledore, we know that was not him.” She looked at the corridor with dislike; but the rest were in no mood to be glum.
“Poor Ferret,” giggled Ginny, “he’s losing his grip. His insults used to hurt once.” She turned a radiant smile at Harry. “Mrs. Potty! Honestly!”
“I dare say he had a thing or two on his mind,” answered Harry, smiling back as his heart skipped a beat. “Such as his whole family being ruined.”
“Yeah, and both his parents in Azkaban,” added Ron with a gleeful tone.
“Yes… yes,” said Hermione impatiently, “but the question remains. If it was not Draco whom Mrs. Malfoy was carrying, then who was it?”
And then her face changed. “There is only one person it can be.”
“Who do you… oh, my God, Bellatrix?” burst out Ron.
“Can’t be anyone else. Remember, they were sisters.”
“Sure. And as I recall it, she was about the right size for the body Narcissa was carrying,” said Harry, who had fought Bellatrix face to face and knew her better than any of his friends. “And who else would Narcissa weep for?”
“Got to be. She must have tried a final attack on Hogwarts…”
“…and got what was coming to her,” concluded Harry with savage relish. He had never forgotten, let alone forgiven, Bellatrix’ murder of Sirius Black, and her glee. “Pity I wasn’t there.”
“Pity you weren’t, Potter” said a familiar sneering voice from behind them. “Then you would know that your whole idea is wrong from top to bottom.”
It was Severus Snape; although, strapped on a wheelchair as he was, with much of his hair burned off by hostile spells, and half his face covered by healing poultice packages, he would have been hard to recognize if they had not heard the voice first.
Harry did not know what to think or how to behave. He had seen Snape kill Dumbledore before his own eyes – a sight that nothing could erase from his mind and nothing could make him forgive; but then he had also seen his heroic behaviour in the final battle, and heard from Lupin the full story of his duplicity, without which the Dark Lord could never have been defeated. So Harry just stood there and waited for Snape to speak again.
“Narcissa came here in peace, offering to help heal your mother. She took Bellatrix with her because she wanted her where she could keep an eye on her – she was afraid of her committing suicide. Then Narcissa was arrested anyway, and Bellatrix did exactly what her sister feared – she killed herself.”
“Oh, come on,” blurted out Ron. “Even if they allowed Narcissa Malfoy within a mile of the castle after what happened, they would never let a mad murderess like Bellatrix.”
“They would not, Mr.Weasley, indeed. We would not. Can you think of a way in which Narcissa and Bellatrix might avoid our objections?”
“Polyjuice potion!” gasped Hermione.
“One point to Gryffindor,” said Snape sarcastically. “Yes, polyjuice potion. Bellatrix came disguised as your uncle, Mr.Potter, as Vernon Dudley. And nobody had any idea who she really was till she drew her wand and killed herself as we were arresting her sister.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Of course, the Aurors and other Ministry authorities had given warning about the Death Eater escapees’ possible use of Polyjuice; but, in spite of the proverb, being forewarned is hardly the same as being forearmed. It had not prevented Rabastan and Rudolphus Lestrange from entering Gringott’s disguised as their own father and mother. Both elder Lestranges had been dead for some years now, but the secretive Lestrange clan had never seen fit to reveal their fate, and the goblins knew nothing. Now that turned to their advantage: with a cleverly devised set of largely authentic proxies and other documents – arranged long ago for just such an eventuality – Rudolphus and Rabastan drained the accounts of more than thirty Death Eaters, including a few who had died in battle without direct heirs.
Of course, with each new document produced, the goblins grew more and more suspicious. By the time the seventh proxy (from Lucius Malfoy and his wife and family) was produced, the elderly Lestranges were all but surrounded by a ring of staring, mistrustful goblins, some with wands in their hands. But what could they do? Document after document was subject to the most stringent magical tests and came up clean. When the Malfoy proxy was subject to a Truth Test, it suddenly produced a Howler in Lucius Malfoy’s voice, demanding to know why the Goblins were faffing around instead of performing their contractual duties. After that debacle (everyone in the bank building and for a hundred yards outside heard every word), the goblins became dispirited. They just took in the rest of the legal documents. And that was just as well, because it was among the last few of them that the most delicate ones – carefully faked by the cleverest Death Eaters – were found.
Like a few other pureblood clans, the Lestranges have a private language, derived from medieval French and wholly incomprehensible to any outsider. It was in this private tongue that Rudolphus and Rabastan addressed each other as they left Gringott’s – being careful to move as slowly as eighty-year-old muscles would allow, and to do nothing that did not suggest two old, irritable codgers.
“…and the thing is, the goblins hate the Ministry almost as much as they hate us. They were not going to just call in Scrimgeour. First they will hold a council of war, trying to see if they can find a way to turn this to their advantage. Then, when they come to the conclusion that there is nothing they can get out of that hole, they will send a message to the Ministry. By the time it gets to Scrimgeour, we’ll be in France with the loot.”
“When do you figure they’ll find the fakes?”
“As late as possible, I hope. They’ll get very angry then, and I’d as soon be very far away when they do.”
“Even so, pardon me, but it just is too good not to laugh!”
“Oh, my Dark Lord, I am with you. When I think of the Chief Goblin’s face…” And both Lestranges laughed, as they reached into their pouches for a dose of Polyjuice – charged, this time, not with the figures of an elderly couple, but with that of two of their younger nephews, now safely away at Durmstrang. They hid in a curtained doorway. Within a couple of minutes, two happy teen-agers could be seen practically skipping down Diagon Alley, laughing and making up rude rhymes about the Ministry of Magic and the goblins at Gringott’s. Many bystanders smiled at the sight.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
As a matter of fact, it was Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic himself, who discovered the forged documents. He had summoned the leading goblins to a conference, without too much in the way of manners, and demanded to see the evidence. An experienced former Auror, he went through every line with care as his unwilling guests sat around, glum and silent; and it took him relatively little time to identify the fakes. He then proceeded to inform the goblins of what they had done – with great clarity and force.
“…not only are you dishonest, you are a bunch of idiots! Not only did you hope to get some advantage out of keeping the knowledge of this highly significant transaction from us – don’t lie, Kannesix, what you did is obvious – but you allowed yourself to be diddled out of a good third of the money to which those villains had no right whatever, and, unless I read the facts very very wrong, out of a mountain of evidence that could have been produced in court! Well, gentlemen, goblins are supposed to be very clever indeed, but I have to say, I never saw such a bunch of stupid and outwitted schemers in all my born days! Have your standards been falling of late?”
The goblins sat under the shower of criticism, silent and sullen. They had earned it; there was no dodging the fact. The relatives of two known Death Eaters had turned up at the bank with a mountain of highly dubious proxies, and demanded to empty nearly thirty accounts, all of persons known or suspected to have been Death Eaters: alarm bells had of course rung. The goblins could not of course refuse to obey legal documents, but they could and should have notified the Ministry immediately, so that the Lestranges could be arrested or pursued. Instead, they had chosen to play a solitary game – and had ended up losing comprehensively, both to the Lestranges and to the Ministry.
“Lord Minister, a word. No doubt we goblins deserve your strictures. No doubt we have done everything Your Lordship says we have. But, my Lord, do we not have more urgent matters to attend to? The Death Eaters are on the run with nearly two tons of gold and Muggle money, plus the titles to various estates and a number of suspected heirlooms. I and the rest of the Goblins are eager to catch up with them.”
“Oh, so are we, Skendolkey. Never doubt that for a second. All the Ministries abroad have been warned, and the Aurors are on red alert. All our resources are committed to finding them.”
“That is good, Your Lordship. Even we poor Goblins, in our own small way, are using our own resources for the same purpose. Of course our effort can never match the Ministry’s, but…”
Scrimgeour’s attention suddenly focused. “Efforts? To what purpose, Skendolkey?”
“Why, of course,” retorted the Goblin with an attempt at an innocent expression, “to capture the Death Eaters and confiscate their resources.”
“And hand them over to the legal authorities, I hope?”
“Of course, as Your Lordship wants.”
“Alive, Skendolkey? Alive and in one piece?”
“As Your Lordship wants. But we would dearly, dearly like a little chat” – and the Goblin’s lips drew back to show his sharp triangular teeth – “with the gentlemen who have caused us so much public loss of face.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“They will not hand them over to us if they ever find them first,” said the Minister to the tall, freckled, red-haired young man who had been taking notes in the background, so unobtrusive that even the sharp eyes of the Goblins had barely paid him attention.
“Is that what you think, sir?”
“I would say it’s practically a certainty. You have seen their fury. Have them watched, Weasley. If they ever show suspicious patterns of behaviour, investigate them. And keep doing so even if they lead you up the garden path once, twice, three times.”
“Sir? Yes, sir.”
“Those Goblins want two things: they want the Death Eaters, and they want us not to be there when they find them. So they will set up a few meaningless incidents… start behaving as though they had found something important… only to disappoint our investigators when they find it’s nothing to the purpose. So never mind if things seem hopeless, Weasley. Those Gremlins are our best line to the Death Eaters. They will find them before we do.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Fire rose high in the night from Westerhorne Mansion, marking the last stage of Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange’s progress through England. They had taken and already conveyed abroad everything that could be salvaged from the wreck of the Death Eater party; and by destroying several of the Death Eaters’ homes and mansions, they made sure that what was left could not be used against them. A passer-by saw them grin at each other, then suddenly vanish.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
“Vernon? Vernon Dudley? Why would Bellatrix of all people come as uncle Vernon?” said Harry, shaking his head as if to dispel a cloud of flies buzzing around it. For a second, he had a strange resemblance to Vernon himself. Then Hermione touched him on the shoulder and pointed at a distant spot in the corridor… two female figures were coming walking towards them, one of them visibly leaning on the other, who was talking nineteen to the dozen.
Silence and unease spread across the corridor, from one person to another, like an oil slick. Harry fell silent first; Hermione, Ron, Ginny, looked at him, then at the two women; Snape looked away as if the sight hurt his one good eye; then Lily stiffened, looking at one figure among the five; finally, the insensitive Petunia noticed that something was wrong and stopped her interminable account of her neighbours and her son Dudley’s doings.
Snape broke the silence. “Hello, Evans. Hope you’re better.”
Lily shook, as if yet another stroke of confusion had struck her. She looked at the chairbound, bandaged figure and, after a slight hesitation, asked: “Sevie?”
“Yes, it’s me, Evans. Kind of older and sort of damaged, but me still.”
“Are you…?”
“Don’t worry. I caught a couple of spells too many in the battle, yesterday, but nothing old Pomfrey couldn’t handle. Well, Evans, here is your son Harry… the others are his friends… as you can see he is very, very much like his father. So I guess I’ll be going.”
There was something in the conversation that showed clearly that not everything that could have been said was being said. Harry was struck by how different Snape sounded. He remembered the Pensieve memories, in which he had seen his father abuse a younger Snape, and Snape, in turn, viciously insult Lily. Now his mother sounded concerned about Snape; and he sounded gruff and embarrassed, eager to be gone, and not in the least insolent or ready to hurt. In other words, he did not sound like Snape at all. And that had been from the moment that Lily and Petunia had appeared.
Snape was not the only one to be mortally embarrassed. Petunia, so talkative a moment earlier, was doing her best to imitate a wall fixture. Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione all knew why: for the previous seventeen years, she had abused Harry atrociously, and she knew now that if one word of what she had been doing to her son reached Lily’s ears, that was probably the end of her new-found relationship with her sister. Harry enjoyed giving her a brief but white-hot glare, making her cringe even more. But the moment was here and there was no dodging it any more.
“Harry.”
“Mother… Mom.”
