Maeve frowned at the door. She had knocked, expecting Narcissa to answer, but the door remained resolutely closed. Roderick shifted slightly beside her, for once managing to hold his tongue.
“I don’t understand it,” Maeve said after the fourth knock. A passer-by coughed loudly, making them both turn.
“You lookin’ for someone, then? Only them folks that lived there moved out a long while ago, stuck up gits that they were.” The scruffy man yanked on a frayed lead, which in turn jerked at the neck of a moth-eaten mongrel.
“Erm…” Maeve looked to Roderick.
“We’re from the council,” he said smoothly. “Squatters have moved in and we’re here to have a chat with them.” He loaded the word chat with all the menace of a council official who meant serious business, one who would not take any prisoners in his investigations. The man at the foot of the steps scratched his head and frowned.
“Squatters, is it? Never seen none of them. I’ll be on my way then.” And he was as good as his word, hauling the half-starved dog away with him.
“How could he see the door “ or even know that there is a house here?” Maeve asked, watching his retreating back.
“Probably a Squib; there’s plenty of them about. The fact that he didn’t know there was anyone here now means the place has been well and truly tied up in magic.” Roderick turned back to the closed door. “Why do you not have a key?”
“They disagree with me. Narcissa is supposed to be here. I shouldn’t need a bloody key.” She rapped again, with extra force, and finally noise could be heard behind the wood.
Narcissa stood before them, a model of haughty irritation and bearing the face of one who has been interrupted. “You should have a key,” she said with a rude glare. “I’m busy.” She declined to enlighten them as to the exact nature of her business, turned her back, and stalked away towards the kitchen.
“Such a temptress isn’t she,” Roderick said as they entered. “All that hauteur is quite the aphrodisiac.”
“She’s a menace to civilised society is what she is.” Maeve leaned on the back of the front door, closing it in the process. “So, what do we do about Ron? Is Meany still working for Voldemort?” With a swift movement she had de-cloaked and hung the green wool on the pegs.
“Shhh!” Roderick nodded vigorously towards the kitchen. “She may be attractive but she’s also a loose cannon what with her connections. We’ll find a suitably distant room and put an appropriate charm on it to keep prying ears out.”
“Upstairs, in the attic,” Maeve said immediately, and then almost as immediately changed her mind. “Or maybe one of the rooms on the top floor where we won’t be disturbed.” Her memories of the attic were not particularly good ones.
“Scared of attics are we?” he asked, leading the way. “Never had you down as one to be bothered by spooky places populated by bats and shadows.”
“I just don’t like the place. It’s forlorn.” She jogged after him, turning at the head of the stairs and watching as he started to push open a door. “No!”
He carried on, knowing that when someone yelled no in such a way he was sure to discover something interesting. She caught up with him as he stepped into the room and her eyes were drawn immediately to Sirius’ portrait. Roderick gave it a quick glance before looking around the vacant room. Disappointment was evident from his knitted brows.
“Empty room?” He turned to Maeve. “You tried to prevent me from entering an empty room?”
“Sorry,” she said, smiling in a way that she hoped conveyed a sense of dizzy confusion. “Wrong room.”
There was a groan, followed by a theatrical yawn and then a slow cough. Roderick spun around to look a newly-woken Sirius directly in the eyes. He regarded him silently for a second or two. “Someone must really hate that man to have consigned his portrait to solitary confinement Does he have another portrait?”
“That’s Sirius Black,” Maeve said, watching Sirius assess Roderick with glaring grey eyes. “There is no other portrait.”
“Black… oh dear. Black sheep of the Black family, was he?”
“That’s a poor pun ever by your standards. Good morning, Sirius.” Maeve nodded to the portrait. “So we can’t really talk in here,” she added in a low voice to Roderick.
“Oi! I am perfectly capable of keeping my mouth shut, thank you. Besides, who am I going to tell? I don’t think the pigeons can lip read.” Sirius glared at the cooing bird that pattered along the window ledge. “Who’s this?”
“Sirius Black, meet Roderick Rampton, my friend.” Maeve managed to inject some conviction into the last word.
“At this point I would shake your hand, old chap, but you’ll have to forgive me as you seem to lack the necessary appendages.” Roderick bowed instead and missed the poisonous look that Sirius threw at him.
“And you’ll have to forgive Roderick, Sirius, as he seems to lack the necessary tact to have a decent conversation with anyone.” She couldn’t help thinking that the portrait looked a little depressed “ or, at least, more depressed than was usual.
“Right,” Roderick ignored the snort of derision from the portrait and muttered a charm under his breath, sealing the room. “We have a missing Ron, a dead Harry and “”
“Sirius,” Maeve hissed again. “You never know who might come in and talk to him.”
The man in the portrait was frowning, clearly straining to hear.
“Don’t worry. I sealed him out when I sealed the room; can’t hear a word, bless his little oil-painted ears.”
“Still feels a bit odd,” she said, watching Sirius grow more and more puzzled. “He’s looking a bit bemused.”
“To recap,” Roderick attempted to bring their discussion to a point, “we have a missing Ron, a dead Harry, a living Harry, a missing Ginny.”
Maeve cut him off again. “A living Harry; Roderick, no one knows that Harry is alive apart from a handful of people. No,” she held her hand up, “don’t tell me; arachnids.”
“You catch on very quickly. So, why has Malachy Meany taken Ron and why did he do it as me? More importantly, where is he. Maeve “ are you listening to me?” He flicked his fingers in front of her suddenly distracted eyes. “What is it? Inspiration?”
“Did you send an Owl purporting to be from the Weasleys?” she asked. There was a thin veneer of bemusement covering her face.
“Why would I do that?”
She ran an agitated hand over her forehead. “Someone did. I never thought about it “ never realised the implications. No one knows that Harry is alive, no one but the people who are with him, and you, apparently.”
“What did the Owl say?” Roderick leaned towards her, his eyes sparkling at the prospect of more intrigue.
“It said that Ginny was safe and well. Oh my gods, Roderick.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” He patted her arm. “No need to get into a tizzy.”
“They sent it to Harry!”
“Ah.”
They quickly fell into two separate mindsets; Maeve’s was succumbing to mild panic, while Roderick’s ticked over rapidly, looking for an answer.
“It came here, which is a good thing,” he said finally. “It could have been someone trying to discover if Harry really was dead. The fact that the bird brought it to Harry’s dead body rather than his live one is rather advantageous for you, wouldn’t you say? They, whoever they are, don’t know that Harry’s alive; they’re just trying to prove he’s dead. Where’s the letter?”
“I don’t know, in the bin probably. But if it wasn’t from the Weasleys, who was it from?”
“I’d hazard a guess that one of Voldemort’s sinister minions sent it.” He smiled, enjoying the extra puzzle. “They probably had the owl tracked to its destination and will now report back that the body is here. Perhaps you should expect a visitor.”
Maeve shook her head. “Grimmauld Place is impenetrable.”
“Is it?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow. “Is anything? I’d say you were tempting fate with that attitude. I’m surprised Severus has allowed that particular preconception to flourish.”
“What do we do?” With the mention of Severus’ name she found she had a desire to see him, with all his decisiveness and cold control. “We have to find Ron.”
“No, we don’t.” Roderick took her shoulders. “Ron is just one more person in this war. It’s unfortunate that he’s friends with Harry Potter, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is just another victim. What’s more worrying is the fact that Malachy Meany is now showing his hand and could be acting quite apart from Voldemort. That threatens you, so we need to keep you safe. Severus would bury you beneath charms, but I think we need to put you somewhere else. How does the idea of Italy grab you? I know an isolated little farmhouse, horses, nice neighbours, Pinot Grigio…”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She looked affronted by the suggestion that she be packed off to a sunny clime while her friends and loved ones risked their lives. It was just like Roderick to suggest a holiday at a time like this. “Severus is coming straight back here after he has dealt with Nagini; I must be here when he gets back.”
Neither of them noticed that Sirius had become agitated in his portrait. He leapt up and down, waving his hands, frantically mouthing words that were lost.
“Has it occurred to you that he might be delayed? You need to make a move on the next Horcrux, or, alternatively, you could come with me to find the Deathly Hallows and speak with Dumbledore.”
She twisted her mouth in distaste. “I’m not convinced by these Deathly Hallows of yours. I don’t see how mere mortals like us could penetrate such a hallowed place.”
“But you, my love, are not a mere mortal, are you. You would be able to get us there.” He looked at her with a childlike quality, as if she were a mother refusing her child his favourite toy.
She sighed deeply at the reminder of who she was. “I want to have Severus exonerated, you know that, but it seems such a huge task when we have other, more pressing, huge tasks. Harry must be given the sword with the jewel, then we must destroy Voldemort, and then we can clear my husband.”
“What if it’s too late? What if Voldemort’s fall somehow condemns your husband.”
Sirius fell over against the backdrop of his portrait, his hands grabbing at air in his attempts to steady himself.
“That’s not possible. Severus is innocent and nothing Voldemort could do would damn him.”
“You don’t know that, Maeve. Humour me and help me gain access to the Deathly Hallows. We can have a chinwag with Dumbledore and then return to help Potter with the last Horcrux.”
“Why do you always talk as if you were born a century ago?” she asked, avoiding the question.
“My father’s library was very retrograde,” he said, grinning.
They both leapt apart as the frame containing Sirius’ portrait fell to the ground with an almighty crash, shattering the charm that Roderick had placed on the room.
“Perhaps that’s a sign that we need a drink,” Roderick suggested, walking over to the toppled frame and straightening it so that Sirius was tipped from head to foot once more. The fallen man struggled to his knees, looking out from the picture like a baleful dog whose master has just whipped it.
“You’ll need more than a bloody drink,” he growled, standing up and brushing himself down.
The unfortunate side effect of the charm that Roderick had used to seal the room was that, as well as keeping sound in, it also kept sound out. So the thunderous knocking at the door passed them by completely, as did the sound of several pairs of feet trampling through corridors. They did not hear Narcissa’s piercing scream or hear the feet retreating with the gentle thud of a heavy object dragged in its wake. They knew nothing of these events until they left Sirius grumbling darkly and made their way down to the lower reaches of the house.
The scene that greeted them was one reminiscent of a battlefield, albeit an interior one. The lower part of the stair balustrade was now a line of splintered, broken wood, the heavy front door swinging on one unsteady hinge. Daylight flooded into the hallway, reaching places unused to light for many centuries. There was a blood-spatter on the wall and a multitude of footprints had performed a confused dance on the floor. A heavy stench of dark magic hung in the air, growing thicker the further into the hallway they moved.
Maeve and Roderick had simultaneously drawn their wands, backing along the wall to avoid the broken banister. Instinct prevented them from speaking; instead they followed their noses, which took them towards the kitchen. It was apparent from the smashed crockery, upturned table and general air of a room in which a superior type of brawl has taken place that something unplanned and unpleasant had happened. Maeve gave a small gasp of horror as she noticed long strands of wispy silver fabric hanging from a shard of broken chair.
“Narcissa!” Her shout broke the silence, and Roderick immediately checked the kitchen door, ready to fell any foe that appeared there, but there was no response to Maeve’s cry. She touched the fabric, feeling a static remnant of something evil.
“She’s dead, Roderick. Someone has killed her.”
“Body?” He looked to her with a question mark for a face.
“I DON’T KNOW!” She breathed deeply for a few moments. “I don’t know. She’s dead, though, I can feel it in that material.”
The room spun a little as Maeve tried to think straight. How had someone breached the magic without simply being allowed in through the front door? Narcissa would only ever have allowed trusted people in, so this had to be someone they trusted or someone very powerful. Voldemort was supposedly not in the country, and he’d never attempted an attack on Grimmauld Place in the past.
“Maeve,” Roderick said gently, nodding towards the table. Its top, now on its side, provided a large screen beyond which part of the kitchen was hidden.
She followed his gaze and saw a snapped heel, a nail sticking out of its core where it had once been attached to a sole. With a sinking sense of the inevitable she approached the table and looked behind it. Covering her mouth, she nodded to Roderick, an acknowledgment of the fact that Narcissa Malfoy was indeed dead.
“She looks as perfectly beautiful now as she did when she was alive,” Maeve said slowly. “If a little colder.”
“Then what makes you think she’s dead?” Roderick asked, giving up his guardianship of the door.
“There’s a dagger sticking out of her chest and rather a lot of blood.” She staggered back a little into his approaching arms. “How much blood can one human contain? It’s covering everything. It’s in the grouting and all over the skirting and on her clothes and hands and the dagger and “”
“Stop it,” he said quietly, surveying the dead woman with a concentrated eye. “You know as well as I do that when we are hurt we bleed.” His arms encircled her for a moment, keeping her upright and steady.
“Move away from her, Rampton.”
Severus stood in the doorway, his wand pointing steadily at Roderick.
“Not what you think, Snape,” Roderick said quickly, keeping hold of Maeve.
“Do as I ask now and I will try my best not to disfigure you.” His demeanour suggested that disfigurement was the least of Roderick’s worries.
“Put your wand away,” Maeve said, pushing Roderick backwards. “It isn’t what you think.” Her face was pale and a thin rime of sweat had appeared along her forehead.
“Then what is it?” He remained solid, his wand not wavering.
“There has been a murder.” The words seemed to make the death far more tangible than the body had. “Roderick and I were talking upstairs in a sealed room so we heard nothing. When we came down, we found this.”
“Who has been killed?” His wand wavered slightly, its tip dropping as realisation grew. There was only one person who should have been here and who was not here.
“Narcissa.” Maeve made the word sound like a fly swatter killing a particularly irritating bluebottle.
Silence crept between them as Severus rearranged his features into the familiar disaffected facade. “Indeed,” he managed.
“We’ve no idea who it was or how they got in,” Roderick added. “But I did warn Maeve that someone may attempt it. The Owl from the Weasleys could not, after all, have been from the Weasleys, could it?”
Severus regarded him blankly. “Where is she?”
“Why?” Maeve felt a stirring in the pit of her stomach, a familiar creeping monster that rose quickly once roused.
“I shouldn’t look, Snape. She’s covered in blood.”
“Where is she?” he repeated, and then he saw the shoe. With economical movements he passed Roderick and Maeve, ignoring the verbal warning. His thin fingers reached for the edge of the table, gripping it for a few moments before bending towards the prone body. Maeve made a move to reach for him, a remonstrance on her tongue, a cry of jealousy just seconds from her lips, but Roderick grabbed her and dragged her away towards the door.
“Leave him be,” he whispered into her hair, pulling her out into the hall and the path of the fresh breeze that blew in from the Square. “A man should be given space in a situation like this.”
“Like what?” she hissed violently. “He assured me, he promised me, that nothing was going on between the two of them, nor had it ever.”
“Tut tut tut, my lovely. You’re letting the little green-eyed monster get in the way again aren’t you. Your husband is sharper than to let himself get emotional over a dead ex.”
“He ignored me. It was as if I wasn’t there. All he wanted was to see her.”
“You’re a big girl; act like it.” Roderick tried shock tactics to pull her out of her anger.
“A short time ago you wanted to get me away to Italy to protect me. No one wanted me to be a big girl then, did they? I wish you would all make up your minds. I’ve had enough.” She headed for the open door.
“Maeve, wait!” He followed her, grabbing her arm. “Did you think to check to see if Harry is still here?”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do care. It will be the first thing that Severus asks when he comes out of the kitchen. Go and check.”
She hovered, fed up with men telling her what to do, and then stomped off up the stairs, picking up a splinter in her thumb from the jagged wood as she did so.
Harry had been taken. It was evident from the lack of door on the room in which he had lain that he was no longer there. Maeve shook herself as she struggled with the identity of the body; not Harry; Albert. The body had been dragged from the room, a blurred outline on the floor showing were it had disturbed the dust. Bits of woollen blanket clung to the floorboards and a button had fallen off his shirt. The bed provided a seat as she sank down on its groaning mattress. What a mess. What an utter, complete, total mess. Without the body Severus would be unable to convince Voldemort that Harry was truly dead, and why would Voldemort steal something that was to be his anyway? And now her husband was hanging about the dead body of a woman he had professed to have no feelings for. Italy was suddenly an attractive prospect.
The house pressed in on her, its clammy walls and onerous atmosphere dragging at her soul. Severus would insist on dealing with Narcissa’s body and she would have to suffer the spectre of a cloak and dagger funeral. Perhaps Severus would use the opportunity to grieve for Albert; one funeral serving two souls. She looked up at the ceiling, tracing a pattern in the faded stucco work. Did true evil work like this? Was Voldemort just a smokescreen for the real darkness in people’s souls? Could her husband truly think so little of her that he would openly allow his shock at Narcissa’s death so much leeway.
Clocks ticked, a loud bang came from the front door, swiftly followed by an expletive from Roderick.
“Damned stupid thing,” he shouted as another thud followed.
She guessed he was re-hanging the front door in an attempt to stop an already bolted horse. The shadow in the doorway could only have been one person. His eyes looked as if they had been holding back a considerable force of emotion as he stepped over the threshold.
“Your friend is no carpenter.”
The attempt at humour dropped at her feet, where she allowed it to die.
“No, but at least he is loyal,” she said. “At least he doesn’t weep over dead lovers.”
“Don’t start this again,” Severus snapped. “Narcissa has been a victim of her own stupidity and short-sightedness. I was not bending to mourn over a dead woman; I was looking for some clue as to who would want to drive a dagger through her heart.”
Maeve looked away and tried not to accept that she just might have been a bit of a fool.
“I know the dagger that killed her. I bought it myself from Dirk the Goldsmith in the Highlands. I know who the last person she saw was by the imprint on the back of her eyes.”
“Nonsense! That’s just a myth. No one can read a dead person’s images as if they were a book.” She glanced at him scornfully, but realised he was serious.
Severus came and sat by her. “There are ways, spells, especially if the last person happened to be connected by blood. Blood ties tend to make more of an impression on us. The image is usually hard to see, blurred by the fading of the life that saw it. The longer a person is dead, the less chance there is of retrieving anything. Once a body has been dead for more then six hours it becomes impossible. Once the image has been seen it is gone and therefore completely useless. But it gives one person the knowledge. I know who killed her; I saw the look of pure madness in their eyes when they did so.”
“And who was this raving maniac?”
“Draco.”