Roderick had proved adept at clearing away mess; Maeve supposed he had been doing just that for most of his life, what with his mad father and his choice of career. When they returned to the lower floors most signs of the destruction had been cleared away; the hallway was as it was, the kitchen tidy with only missing crockery to show that there had been any disturbance. The stench of dark magic had faded to a discomfiting tang. Severus and Maeve’s eyes were drawn to the place where Narcissa’s body had been, but there was no sign of it now, only a darker patch on the stones where some magic had been employed to remove the blood.
“She’s in the drawing room,” he said, putting the kettle on. “One of us will have to transport her to the Ministry or bring the Ministry here. I’m not exactly fond of their methods, but they’ll be the best option for discovering the truth of this.”
Maeve circled the table, reluctant to sit down. “Severus knows who killed her,” she announced, pulling out a chair furthest away from where Narcissa’s body had been.
“Well aren’t you the clever clogs, Mr Snape.” Roderick placed three cups on the worktop. “And who did this deadly deed?”
“Her son,” Severus said smoothly. He gave Roderick a calculating stare, as if trying to make a decision.
“Draco Malfoy killed Narcissa? I don’t believe you. That child is a coward were killing is concerned. I’d be surprised if he could kill a cat let alone his own mother.”
There was a moment of silence as this sentiment circulated about them. Maeve would have agreed with Roderick a few months ago, but so much had happened, so many things had been done and said, that she believed everyone was capable of the most unexpected things.
Severus chose to ignore Roderick’s doubts and finally made his decision. “We cannot stay here. This place is no longer safe, and you can put the tea things away.” His lip curled at the notion of such civilities.
“Nice cup of tea never hurt,” Roderick said with petulance, displeased to have his opinions on Draco so roundly ignored. “No one will be back here now that the dead Harry has been taken. Not unless they gave in to the urge to turn you in to the Ministry. Imagine that; the finest Aurors on their way right now to pick up the miscreant Severus Snape.” He grinned, enjoying the discomfort that he had conveyed onto the taller man.
“Roderick.” Maeve fired a warning shot across his handsome bow. “I think we should go to the bunker,” she said, looking between Severus and Roderick, wondering if Severus would accept Roderick into their final place of safety. “We need to bring the others up to date with developments and discuss our next moves.”
“Oh, a bunker, how quaint.” Roderick clattered the cups away. “And how did you get on with Nagini, Snape?”
Severus glanced at his wife, who shrugged and said, “He already knew.”
“The snake is dead. It never could resist a nice fresh goat.”
Roderick smirked. “I know one or two disreputable gentlemen who””
“Roderick, for a few hours could you please attempt to be serious? We are sitting in a house with a dead woman, having disposed of yet another Horcrux, and you’re cracking jokes. Just stop it.” Maeve stood up now that a hot drink was off the menu. “I suggest that you inform someone you trust at the Ministry so that they can come and collect the body. Severus will remove any remaining charms on the place; it matters little now that the security has been breached.”
He had the grace to look chastened. “I’ll leave for the Ministry, but I will need directions to this bunker of yours.”
“Go with him,” Severus said, much to Maeve’s surprise. “Keep an eye on him. Do not let him out of your sight. I’m going back to speak with Harry; it would be best if he did not know about Ron’s disappearance. We all know how volatile he can be The Dark Lord will return soon and I must find the missing body before he does; Potter can help me search. It will keep his mind off the fate of his friend.”
“You trust me with your wife?” Roderick, despite Maeve’s warning, couldn’t resist pushing his luck.
“Not at all,” Severus replied in a voice as slippery and barbed as shot silk. “I do, however, trust my wife with you. Make sure he does nothing at the Ministry but report the murder, and then bring him straight to the bunker. We must make plans for the final destruction of the Dark Lord.” His face was awash with gloom.
“Are you just going to kill him? Remove a head from the Hydra and hope that another does not grow in its place? Bit naïve, isn’t it? Surely a new Dark Lord will rise, possibly as terrible as his predecessor. All those people killing in his name will happily kill for another.” There was an element of genuine curiosity to Roderick’s question. It mattered little to him who was in charge of the Death Eaters, but it did matter if he was to get in early and acquaint himself with the successor to Voldemort.
“There are plans to control the Death Eaters after the Dark Lord has gone. There are enough dissatisfied with him to prepare an alternative.” Severus was guarded in what he said, but his verbal adversary picked up on the implied plot.
“Such treacherous words, Snape. You seem to care little for your own neck now that your position in the wizarding world is worthless. One could be forgiven for thinking you had gone a little mad; why work for the side of good when the evil mastermind believes that you can do now wrong? Your bed is far better made in the house of darkness and yet you choose to inhabit the light. Strange politics you employ; they could get you killed.”
“Politics is all about killing, and making sure you are not killed. For every decision made, someone has to pay to a greater or lesser degree. I have made mistakes, poor decisions in the past, but now it is time to make the right ones. I hope the decision to trust you does not prove to be the wrong one, for if it is it is you, not I, who will pay the ultimate price.”
Roderick nodded. “In that case we had better deal with Narcissa, or what remains of her. Come along, my dear. Take my arm and we’ll head for the Ministry.”
“Change your appearance,” Severus said, addressing Maeve. “Take no risks.”
She nodded, working her mind into a clear map of concentration before altering her face into that of a nondescript middle-aged woman with greying hair. Severus nodded, which Roderick took as the cue to Disapparate. All Severus heard as they vanished was Roderick complaining about his companion’s dowdy new look.
The Ministry was awash with weariness and woe. Every official that Maeve clapped eyes on looked washed-out, exhausted by the workload. The amount of memos flying around almost obliterated the ceiling, turning it into a moving mass of frenetic paper, and the lifts moved ceaselessly between floors. The young witch on the desk looked at them with sleep-deprived eyes.
“Name?” she asked, her eyes sliding back down to the desk, their lids seemingly too heavy.
“Can you tell Welsh Eddie there’s a friend to see him?”
Her eyes snapped in their direction and she instantly became brisk. “He ain’t here. He ain’t been here since last Wednesday.”
“Probably not, but if you tell him that there is a Mr Random here to see him then I think he might make a miraculous appearance.”
“He ain’t here. I told you.” Her small tongue began licking at her dry lips. “S’what I’ve been told, an’ I only do what I’m told.”
“Well,” Roderick began slowly, “I’m telling you to get a memo and send it to him pronto so that we can both stop wasting each other’s time. I’ll wait by the doors. All right?”
“You can do what you like,” she said, looking blankly at the pile of unused memos beneath the desk. “I ain’t going to stop yer.”
Maeve suddenly burst into noisy tears making everyone in the atrium look in their direction. “Oh please, Miss,” she wailed. “He’s my cousin and I’ve come all this way from Snowdon to tell him some family news. I didn’t know any other way to contact him since he’s been off the mountain for so long. Please, Miss, have pity on a poor woman and just let him know we’s here.”
The woman hesitated, the sight of tears not particularly affecting her “ she’d seen plenty of those in the past few weeks. She was getting a little hot and bothered by all the staring faces, though, and came to the quick decision that it couldn’t do too much harm just to let the Auror know that they were there. It was then entirely up to him whether he came down to see the batty old woman and her companion. She wrote a hasty memo in a surprisingly neat hand, and it flew into the mass above them before winging its way to some far corner of the Ministry.
“’S up to him whether he shows his face… and I still ain’t saying for sure he’s in the building “ now there’s a queue behind you so if you could move along.” She narrowed her eyes in a very officious manner so Roderick pulled Maeve to one side.
They took up a position in a small alcove, which had the advantage of keeping them out of site of most people. The witch behind the desk was now working up a good rage at the poor person who had been behind them and Roderick shook his head.
“They should be able to deal with the pressure, these witches. Although they get bugger-all training these days, bit like the new Aurors; thrown into the job without much preparation.” He quickly recovered from this train of thought and looked at her, amusement all over his face. “And what on earth were you doing. Never knew you could do a Welsh accent “ rather sexy in a languid way. Could rather get used to it,” he mused, sweeping the atrium for signs of his contact.
“You said he was called Welsh Eddie so I thought it would add a little authenticity to the scenario. It wasn’t supposed to be sexy, just desperate.”
“Same thing really… Aha!” Roderick swept into the swell of people, side-stepping the small fry and moving in quickly on his prey. He fished out a man whose idea of sartorial elegance was a pair of holed jeans and a T-Shirt that had a luminous smiley face emblazoned on it. The two came to re-join her and she was allowed a closer look at this elusive Auror. It was immediately evident that the shabbiness didn’t end with his clothes; his face not only looked lived in but slept in as well, and by someone who wasn’t too fond of changing the bed sheets. Dark eyes loitered beneath a set of bushy brows, while the rest of his face managed to look interested.
“Eddie, need a favour, old chap.” By contrast to this vision of destitution, Roderick was perfection itself.
“Yeah, whatever I can do.” Eddie spoke with a sluggish West Country drawl that made Maeve’s Welsh accent appear positively supersonic. “You just ask it.”
“I need a body tidied up. It needs to be removed and placed in the morgue with as little fuss as possible. A little light investigation wouldn’t go amiss, just to make it tidy, but we know who did it.”
Welsh Eddie nodded slowly. “Can do. There’s so many bodies going in there at the moment, they’ll not notice one more. Not sure about investigating it, like. Bit pushed for time at the mo’.”
“Excuse me,” Maeve said, an edge of bewilderment interfering with her ability to take in the conversation properly. “I thought you were called Welsh Eddie?”
“That’s right,” he replied, nodding his head at her. “Never welch on a bet, that’s me. Famous for it. Ask Rod here. So, where’s this body then, and who is it. Do the family need informing?”
“Grimmauld Place, you know it?” Roderick was scribbling a small diagram on a piece of paper he had drawn from his cloak.
“That I do. Scruffy old dump last time I saw it, though I’d say it’s seen better days, and not too long since either.” He eyed the paper that Roderick was still scribbling on. Maeve was rather disconcerted to see that the smiley face on his t-shirt was now smiling directly at her even though Welsh Eddie’s torso was not facing her. It changed colour a few times and then stuck its tongue out.
“Instructions,” Roderick said, thrusting the paper at his colleague. “The charms should be gone but take care all the same. She’s in the drawing room. There’s no one to inform as far as I know.” He glanced at Maeve, who concurred that her husband was presumed dead and her son, well, there really wasn’t much to say about Draco.
“Female is it? How did she go? Clean, was it?” He perked up considerably at the prospect of details and rubbed his upper lip expectantly. There was a lascivious gleam in his eye as Roderick began to speak that was most unsettling.
“Not exactly. Dagger through the chest. We’ve cleaned up as best we can but be careful when you move her. Right, cheers for that, pal.” He slapped him on the back and the smiley face grimaced. “Got to dash. Any time you need a favour in return all you have to do is ask.”
He grabbed Maeve’s hand and headed for the doors, elbowing people out of the way in a most business-like fashion. Once out in the open air of London he seemed to falter. She sensed there was something coming that she might not necessarily like. A light rain began to fall, so Roderick pulled her back into a shop doorway.
“Have you thought any further about the Deathly Hallows?” he asked.
“I’ll think about it if you tell me what it is that’s so important to you about the Fitzwilliam woman. You forget, I know you; if there’s nothing in it for you then there’s nothing in it at all.”
Nodding, he did not reply, but there was a horrible look in his eyes that Maeve thought might just have been hurt. An urge to retract her words formed in her throat but before she could say anything comforting he had her arm again and they re-joined the bustling street.
“I need something to eat and then we can go to this bunker of yours. Italian do for you?”
They ate in near silence. Diagon Alley was unusually quiet without the customary bustle and Maeve noticed that several more windows were boarded up. People looked apologetic, as if by simply making a trip to the shops they were somehow bringing whatever malice befell them on themselves. No one looked at each other; they kept their heads huddled in their hoods and hurried on their way, wishing to make their time out in the open as short as possible. A young witch bumped into Maeve in her attempt to pass from one shop to the other without exposing herself to the openness of the street for too long.
“This is just awful,” she said. “Are people really so terrified that they will allow Voldemort to impact on their lives like this?”
“No one wants to die,” Roderick replied. “There’s been too many deaths for comfort recently. This is not just a monthly or even weekly occurrence; it’s happening all of the time.” He pointed to a scarred wall, black scorch marks showing where a recent skirmish had taken place. “Three people died there on Tuesday.”
“Are the Ministry pretending it’s not happening again?” She tried not to look at the cracked bricks. Several small bunches of flowers had been placed at the foot of the wall with attached notes. You could just make out the words To Daddy on one of them and turned away, sorrow palpable in her heart.
“They don’t have the capacity to deal with evil on this scale. They waited too long and now the balance has tipped. They throw inexperienced Aurors at the problem, but it’s not enough. When people start to join the side of evil because it is the only way they can stay alive then it has all gone far beyond anything the forces of law and order can cope with. They try and deal with the leaves rather than the branch, try to kill the perpetrators and not the mind controlling them. They don’t know how to. They are as frightened of Voldemort as everyone else.” He stopped at a dingy doorway that lay of the main thoroughfare. “Come on, I’ll treat you to the finest ravioli that Diagon Alley has to offer.”
Once they had eaten their fill of the ravioli “ Every square a different filling! “ Roderick paid the bill and ushered her back into the street. There was a commotion further down and a body was lying on the pavement. Aurors were already arriving but it was too late looking at the faces of the people surrounding the prostrate figure. There was no exaggeration in the fact that death in Diagon Alley was a daily occurrence.
“Let’s see this bunker of yours then,” he said in hushed tones.
“I can carry you if you’d like. It would be the quickest way.”
“But not the easiest for you. I think this air-riding takes a great deal out of you. No, we will Apparate and then walk. Take my arm.”
They disappeared from the scene in silence, leaving behind a new normality; the normality of evil.