Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling, and the title for this chapter comes from the song "Police and Thieves" by The Clash.
Red by Rockinfaerie
From Genesis To Revelations
“Mr. Potter,
With regard to your blatant refusal in replying to us, and lack of compliance with our requests and colleagues, we must remind you of what it is you are risking.
You will recall from our previous letters, that we are aware o the high importance you place on your family, in particular your teenage son. We do not expect you to put his future at stake, all because of some inane, political rift.
However, your recent actions on “anarchic societies” have angered us. Your measures have done nothing but make us stronger. Every day more join us. It will not be long, Mr. Potter, before we have an army that even the tremendous might of your Ministry could not possibly withstand.
As we are sure you are well aware, our noble society has spread widely and rapidly. We have gained much support in our nearest neighbours, France and Ireland, and continue to educate and empower our fellows in Central and Eastern Europe Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, and have been long engaged with several contact groups in the surrounding continents, each with the same ethos as our own.
Shutting a few of our lesser members in Azkaban is futile. The Dark Lord has befriended the Dementors; they will not remain with the Ministry for long.
We have watched young James for some time now, and we must congratulate you on raising quite a talented son. He would make an excellent recruit, don’t you think? Or would you rather your son become a victim instead…?
Ignore us, Potter, and we will go away. There are ways in which we can co-operate, and no-one worthy will be hurt. Watch what you say and you and your son will live to be old men. There is no use trying to run. We are everywhere.
This is your last warning. We have been quite generous in the time given to you. If you do not comply with our simple request, we shall have the honour of meeting you, and you can be certain that we will be the last to do so.
Fear had made him sit stationery, his eyes itching, and cold sweat forming on his brow. He clutched the anonymous letter in his right hand, and wished again and again that he had not read it, that he had destroyed it in a fire or had torn it to shreds. For a moment he closed his eyes, but even then he could see those words.
It was far past midnight.
At first glance, it had seemed like an everyday formal, coherent, Ministerial letter, but once read it had become sickening; an unnerving ache in James’ mind, each sentence chanting dully on the walls of his skull.
There was no address, no date, and no signature. All that dwelled on the page with some hint of its recipient was a chilling insignia, printed in the same black ink as the handwriting; a sinister skull, with a serpent emerging from its wide, gaping mouth.
The skull sent a shock of familiar dread through him when he saw it; it was the same skull that glittered above ruined homes on the front page of the Daily Prophet; the same skull that decorated margins of the Slytherin copybooks. But he had never understood its meaning fully. Not long before, the Dark Mark was a vague and very distant shadow, only to be seen in grim newspaper photographs at breakfast time, but now he felt it hanging over him, watching him from its hollow eye sockets.
This society had killed his father, he was sure of it, but the perpetrators had left no Dark Mark in that vile alleyway to identify themselves. Everyone around him had assumed the half-blood organisations that his father had similarly denounced, to be the culprits. Outcast Muggle-borns, eager to prove themselves, had also been offered as solutions.
Numerous questions swarmed through him, and he gazed at the letter intently, as if the writers would suddenly reveal themselves.
He had been used as a threat, he thought with a shudder. This society had used James to make his father do their bidding. But his father had not. Hogwarts was, after all, perfectly safe, and James knew his father would not fall for that scheme, but it still chilled him, to think that this society was watching him, and knew that they could manipulate others through those they cared about.
And were they telling the truth? Did they really have support in so many other regions? Who were they? This was the main question that ran through his mind repeatedly, as his shock developed into anger.
Four more items remained on the desk, and grudgingly, he unfolded the next one.
It contained several sketches that at first he could not comprehend. He recognised the drawings as his father’s, and studied them carefully, to see if there was some sort of link to the letter.
The main image was that of a bare arm, and above the bend of the elbow was a tattoo of some sort. James brought the drawing closer, and saw with a jolt that it was the Dark Mark.
Above the arm was another drawing, this time of an oval mask, coloured in hastily with white crayon. The mask danced wickedly before him, and there were dark holes drawn where the eyes should be, slits through which the wearer could see. Beside the mask was a picture of a plain black cloak, with a large hood hanging from it.
There were diverse wand descriptions, and odd ingredients, and a collection of locations, all spread distantly “ some abroad, ranging from Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Hogsmeade, to Oslo, Cork, Prague and Milan. Edging around the bottom of the page was a rough sketch of a large snake, its tongue reaching up above it.
Among the scribbled pictures were blotted incantations, some that he could not pronounce. With each incantation there was a translation, indicating its potential outcome.
“Morsmodre,” James whispered, “is the Dark Mark, and…” he looked further down the page to see a phrase that appeared somehow familiar, “Avada Kedavra - ” his stomach lurched; this was a topic generally discussed, the main, unescapable weapon, which only recently had been covered in his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. “… is death...”
Those two words were written in green wax, and his father had drawn lines emitting from the incantation, plainly showing that it was highly powerful. Still feeling oddly intrusive, James continued to study the page, a huge pile of information condensed into a confusing heap. There were names of potions and poisons, a drawing of a Dementor, a rough map of a small town, and all over the page were sketches of the same pair of eyes, all crayoned red, as if they were drops of blood.
Inscribed at the bottom of the page was a rather short paragraph in his father’s tiny handwriting, and James squinted at the page to read it, the words melting together before his fatigued eyes.
“They call themselves “Death Eaters”. They are His inner circle, those He holds in highest esteem. They are Purists. They are vicious. They will stop at nothing to obey orders. In the unlikely event that disloyalty occurs, the miscreant is punished brutally. As they say, “Once a Death Eater, forever a Death Eater.” The Reign of Terror they have inflicted on us shall not cease. It is with unfaltering usage of the Unforgivable curses that they commit seemingly random acts of violence, all for the contentment of their deeply Purist leader, who calls himself…,”
The paragraph ended in two words James had never before in his life seen written, and had rarely heard spoken. He even gasped aloud as he read them, but felt somewhat ashamed that he had not thought of it before. Seeing it so simply put, as if it was an essay topic or an author’s name, James felt its mystery slide away. Apart from his father, the only person he had heard say it was Dumbledore.
Otherwise it was never spoken. He had heard some people claim that this man did not exist, that he was a myth, a personification of purist attitude and ill-begotten power. Others said this was foolishness, that of course he existed, and that they supported his ideas, and yet others said they could hear him, late at night, speaking on the wireless, or that he wrote about his ideals in the Daily Prophet. Whoever he was, he was either deeply respected or deeply feared, for his name was almost never spoken, as though by speaking it one could mistakenly conjure him.
“Lord Voldemort,” James whispered, for the first time in his life.
He had never before experienced the need to speak it, and it was as if he had not spoken at all, that it was his father who had spoken, his words echoing in the study. But this thought was not comforting; saying it had made the Dark wizard real, as though he too was in the study, listening to James speak his name.
“Voldemort,” he repeated steadily, trying to brush away the legendary, fearful aura that surrounded the word. There was no nobility about this fiend, nothing lord-like about him. Yet James shivered, sensing that he had somehow joined his father in defying the Dark wizard.
He shook his head quickly as he attempted to rid himself of that thought, and he reached for another fold of parchment, as the diagrammed page dropped with a flutter onto the desk.
James’ eyes widened as a feather fell from the folds, and picked it up to examine it. It was long, and scarlet, and somehow he recognised it, but he couldn’t think where it had come from. It smelled familiar; a smoky, dusty smell, and again he could not place it, or fathom why his father would have hidden it. Frustrated, he brushed it aside, picking up the next fold, half-eager, half-dreading to see what he would find.
As he unfolded it, he realised it was an envelope, and James turned it upside-down so the contents scattered on the desk. He smoothed his hair out of his eyes as he turned them over, seeing that the envelope had contained a small number of photographs. One displayed a human form of his father’s sketches; a cloaked, masked figure in the distance. The second photograph featured a large old house, and the third was in a crowded street, focusing on two wizards in the same dark robes, their hoods pulled up to cover their faces. The street was quite dilapidated, and this led James to conclude that it had been taken in the unpleasant Knockturn Alley.
Just as he was beginning to think that he had run into a dead end, James saw the last photograph, and at once wished he hadn’t. A seven-year-old Lucius gazed back at him, his big grey eyes smiling up at the camera, his face framed by innocent blond curls. In his young arms he carefully held a one-year-old boy with black hair, who giggled in his arms. Lucius waved back at James, careful not to drop his baby nephew.
James stared horrified back, for below the photograph his father had written a concise and abrupt conclusion, in gleaming red ink, and James felt as if the ink might as well have been his own blood, for he felt torn. He read both words over and over in disbelief, hoping that he might see something else there to render it untrue.
“Death Eater,” he read hoarsely.
He shook his head resolutely. The blond seven-year-old in the photograph continued to grin, baring all of his little white teeth. Lucius could not be a Death Eater. It made no sense, he told himself. But some part of him was giving in, resisting James’ efforts to push the last conversation he had had with his uncle from his mind.
Lucius had talked about a leader, certainly, but that leader could have been anyone, he bargained; Lord Voldemort was not the only leader, nor did he head the only organisation in existence. But Lucius had talked almost fanatically about Purebloods, and about how this made he and James were superior to everyone else, and that he would train James to respect his blood heritage, as if he were… and an then an awful thought occurred to him “ as if James were a… “recruit.”
His uncle had changed. His uncle had said that he had come into the power he deserved. James looked back at the list of incantations, and wondered what power it would take to utter them. He looked at the Dark Mark, and grimaced at the thought of what usually lay under it. The snake still edged around the corner of the page, and James wondered if Lucius had seen it. Then his mind returned to the letter, and to the mentions of James, called by his first name, and about how Lucius had said, for the first time that night, that his nephew was talented, and with growing degrees of apprehension picked up the letter and read it again.
With every word it sounded more and more like Lucius. He could hear his voice, his cold, recently acquired, distant manner of speaking, behind every word. His mouth was dry and his heart beat very fast as he refrained from dropping the letter to the floor.
It couldn’t be. It was a coincidence. It had to be. His family was not like that. Yet James felt an icy sense of understanding as he read further down the letter, and each sentence stabbed him with dreaded gain of confirmation;
Lucius had acquired the honour of meeting his father.
From an alley as his father sought to make his way home from work.
With the “Avada Kedavra.” This was not a "noble society" by any means. It simply involved one monstrous leader, and contained at least one obedient member.
Lucius.
The act had not been the vengeance of Half-bloods or Muggle-borns, but the viciousness of the tight, secret, Purist circle that his father had hoped to put a stop to. James' own family...
And his father was dead now, he thought bitterly. He looked to the photograph of the two children again, both cheerful and playing, and stared at the blond boy, hugging the black haired baby and laughing, and James felt his throat ache, and realised with a fresh torrent of horror and sadness that he had lost Lucius too.
The scattered papers tidied themselves into a small bundle on the desk, and James gazed at the plain ceiling, trying to clear his foggy mind and think of what to do. He must tell his mother, and show her what the papers meant. A thin cloth of rain had veiled the windows, and each drop reflected the warm light of the study. It had grown steadily colder during his stay, and he shivered, goose bumps dotting his arms.
There was still one last piece of parchment he had not looked at. He shoved this into his pocket, as he could not bear to look at another scrap of potentially devastating information. He also pocketed the photograph of himself and his father, and, after hesitating for a brief moment, the picture of him and his uncle, with the declaration that he was a Death Eater. He rubbed above his elbow, thinking of those members who were marked so darkly, and the actions that should weigh on their consciences.
Someone cleared their throat from the corner of the room.
James stood up, heart pounding, and his eyes flashed furiously to the speaker, a tall, blond man in perfectly presented dress robes, whose mouth was curving into a twisted smile, his pale fingers clutching a thin wand, his eyes leering wickedly at his nephew from the doorway.
“James,” he smirked. “Still here, I see…”
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