“She is safe.” Jenny had chosen a Muggle bar for their meeting; a noisy, professional place filled with noisy, professional Muggles in the heart of their financial district. It had once been a warehouse filled with large wooden beams, raucous men and tonnes of tea. With the march of progress the beams and tea had gone to be replaced with sleek chrome and cocktails, but the men remained. Severus had discarded his habitual long cloak before leaving for the appointment, on her explicit instructions, and now sat, perched, uncomfortable, in black trousers and a black shirt. His upper body was covered by an even blacker coat that was made of thick wool and entirely unsuitable for any kind of interior setting.
He nodded tersely, observing the way delicate way that she sipped from her Champagne glass. His own glass contained water and he intended to keep it that way. Relief was the only intoxicant he needed and his body was now flooded with it. “Rampton?”
“Naturally,” she conceded. “An unusual, but utterly effective, ally. Yes, she is with him. I have sent them to Hogwarts so he can take up his new position of Headmaster with immediate effect.” Her hand left the glass and, palm forward, arrested his protests. “You will have to trust me on this point. Whilst it may seem absurd to give him such a position, he will be out of the way while we manipulate other matters. There is also the advantage that we can keep your wife safe too, and very definitely out of the way. I think Rampton believes I wish her harm, which is not the case, I merely wish her not to be in my vicinity.”
“And will there be a way for me to contact her?” His face contracted at having to expose such vulnerability to his cousin, but she did not seem to notice. They were trying to talk in quiet tones despite the volume of chatter around them, which meant he had to lean closer to those bright red lips of hers.
“I am sure, eventually, something can be arranged. Now, we really must discuss next steps. Forward planning is all well and good, but we have a very pressing problem in the shape of the Death Eaters.” Her voice dropped dramatically when she spoke the last two words, so much so that she was almost mouthing them instead of saying them aloud.
“Yes, we do, and I am not sure this is the best place to be discussing them. Perhaps somewhere more private?” A loud clap of laughter somewhere to his right made his eyelid twitch.
“Nowhere in the Wizarding world is private, Severus. Better to talk here, where their minds are full of share prices and hedge funds and speculating the possibly of another tragic event in their world. I assume you know what you are going to do with your massed forces now that you have assembled them together in one place with little to do and plenty of time in which to not do it?”
“I am going to have them destroy property,” he said, his gaze levelled somewhere in the middle distance. “I am going to send them out thinking they are going to kill people, but you are going to use your select few accomplices to prevent that. I am going to, naturally, be very upset about the absence of loss of life and instruct attacks on more elaborate landmarks “ nothing too irreplaceable, I think we can leave the Tower where it is “ and my anger will be palpable when these, too, fail. I shall be perplexed.”
“You have such interesting ideas. I was under the impression that your killer instinct was finely honed and ready to be deployed at His request. Death, Severus, is supposed to be your forte and yet I do not recall ever seeing a head count of those that you have despatched. “She swirled her glass and bubbles bounced to the surface like tiny incendiaries. “No matter. I understand what you need us to do, and I will not let it be known that it is on your orders. In the Muggle world they call it a tip off. Such odd things they come up with. I know a man in Scotland Yard. It will be arranged.”
Severus liked her approach to sentences; no fuss, no preamble, just words strung together economically and delivered at speed. He continued to outline is plans. “I shall order the first attack tomorrow. I have been compiling a list of the most hated public buildings in Britain and shall select my initial targets from there. It will do us no harm to create fear and panic and at the same time deliver the Muggles from some of the worst excesses of their architects. “
“Astonishing,” she said, although he wasn’t quite sure what she found astonishing.
“I shall let you know the targets first thing in the morning. As Minister for Magic it would be only natural to keep you abreast of these things.”
“Yes, quite. Now,” she leant against the back of her chair and smiled, “Darkacre remains a small matter to be resolved.”
“It is yours once all of this is over. I have no need of it.”
Her left cheek twitched as if to pull her mouth into a smile, but she managed to control the look of triumph. “That is very generous of you, Severus, though of course we both know that it is mine by birth right.”
“Yes, we do, however it is currently mine by deed and I believe that is what counts in a court of law. There will be conditions, nothing too testing, but I shall work them out and let you know.” He took a sip of his water and placed the glass carefully back on the table. “I believe that you own the land that Rampton’s place used to occupy?”
“I do. He wants it back, hence all the help I received in locating the evidence of your lack of claim to Darkacre. He wouldn’t do anything for the pure sake of it, as I think we both know.”
Severus didn’t know. It struck him that Rampton had done quite a lot of helping in Maeve’s direction just for the sake of it. “That land would be one of the conditions. It goes back to Rampton to dispose of as he would wish. You have no use for it. It’s too tainted for a property developer to look at, and there’s the small problem of Voldemort’s tunnels.”
“That seems reasonable. So, did we have anything else to discuss?”
“I don’t believe so, unless you wish to talk about the weather?”
“Such a dry sense of humour, Severus. It will get you into trouble.” She drained her glass, slipped elegantly from her chair and picked up her handbag. “I shall see you first thing tomorrow at the Ministry. We have a new empire to build.”
He winced as she winked at him and tripped from the bar in her impossible heels, dodging tables and men’s glances on her way to the door. Once again he felt himself in the grip of relief. It was a dangerous path he had chosen, death just a misstep away, but he had been walking on it for a long time now and it was the only real path he knew well enough to call his own. Ignoring the remains of his drink, he stood and pulled his coat tight, making at all the way to the door without one stranger’s glance in his direction. Anonymity was the domain of the physically unappealing and he had had more than one opportunity to be grateful for it.
Outside, London was emptying of commuters and he was looking forward to one of the faded armchairs at Grimmauld Place and a swift Scotch to see him on his way to bed. It was a warm evening that for once contained no rain and he hoped that the sun was being equally as kind to his wife, wherever she happened to be.
“Sod it.”
There was a pause in the swirling of dust, as if the house was sucking in its breath between broken teeth in an expression of deep disapproval.
“Double sod it.”
The front door crashed back on its hinges and a figure staggered into the hallway, all hair gone wrong and arms akimbo. Things slid off the top of the box that it was carrying and flapped to the floor, sending the dust swirling once again. It was enough to make anyone turn and flee, the dirt and muck and sense of dereliction, but Felicia Forfex was made of sterner stuff. She had been told to come and make the place look nice and look nice she was going to make it. Sure, hadn’t she been the one to turn that kip that her brother Michael had bought from a pigsty to a palace.
She dropped the box onto the large table that dominated most of the main room and surveyed the place with a grim expression on her face. It had taken her an age just to find the door, hidden as it was beneath a weight of enchantments. No one was really ever meant to see it, and now that it had banged closed behind her, she doubted she would ever find her way out again. The things she did to feel useful were often inexplicable, even to herself. Grabbing an armful of clean linen from the box she tried to get her bearings in the dark space.
Of course, she didn’t know who the visitor was, only knew that the new headmaster was coming and that he had a guest that wouldn’t be staying at the castle. Baffled her why anyone would choose such a dump over a castle, even if it was a partially demolished castle. She left the box half opened, using her free hand to pick up the dropped contents with an absentminded air as she took in the extent of the challenge before her.
“Well,” she said, addressing the walls, “let’s hope it’s not a young lady the new man is hoping to keep here, for I don’t think she’ll be very impressed.” Moving towards the stairs she couldn’t stop the quick succession of sneezes that tore through her and further shattered the silence. Risers creaked ominously under her weight as she headed upwards and she hurried in case the whole staircase gave way. The bedroom that lay at the top of the stairs was in disarray, as if something evil had slept here and then left in a monstrous hurry. She made a sign to whatever Gods were left to protect her from it.
She kept talking; chattering away to the ether to ward away the ghosts that supposedly lived here and yet the silence and closed in feeling was quite comforting. It made a change from Hogsmeade, where Death Eaters lurked around every corner, watching, waiting for someone to say or do the wrong thing. Any casual remark could be seen as sympathy for the Mudbloods and Muggles. A nod in the morning or a touch on the arm of a neighbour who might not be quite pure had to be thought about if you wanted to protect yourself and those you loved from harm. There was no reasoning with them, they made the rules and they changed them on an hourly basis and woe betides anyone who didn’t keep up. Still, there was one, in his Death Eater garb, who wasn’t quite like the others, a regular at the Hogs Head. He was less quick to draw his sword, more likely to nod and turn a blind eye. She shrugged away the image of his face and tried to concentrate instead on the face of her husband.
It had been weeks since she had last seen Remus, endless weeks of not having him to hug and comfort or cook for, and she dreaded to think what state his hair would be in. She stripped the bed, tugging at the musty sheets with vigour, and turned the lumpy mattress, not that it made much difference as the lumps merely reformed in uncomfortable rank on rank. Over a week since he had sent her a message, and that had been unbearably brief.
Order business. Have to go somewhere. Love you.
She had thrown in on the fire with anger, watching it crackle and die. It wasn’t easy being the one left behind struggling to fill your days with dull things and this was as mundane as it got. It was but a short distance to tears and self-pity. Only a few steps to sitting on the bed with her head in her hands bawling with the sheer grief of it all. This wasn’t what she had married, this bloody mess that Britain was trying to battle through. She could have had anyone she liked back home in Ireland, any fancy man that took her eye. And there was no Voldemort in Ireland, no Death Eaters or bizarre, cruel rules.
But she was a Forfex, and Forfexes didn’t blunt under a bit of pressure.
“Aye, bollix to it,” she snapped, dumping the linen on the bed. “I’ll make this nice if it’s the last thing I do, and if I ever get out of here I’ll congratulate myself on a job well done.”
The shadows had deepened to the colour of drying blood, their long fingers coated russet red with the touch of the sun going down. Roderick had insisted they make the trip the old fashioned way, on the Hogwarts Express, now pressed into a new life as a normal passenger train that just happened to go to Hogwarts on occasion. Draco didn’t look too thrilled, but with all the fight gone out of him he merely followed in their wake.
“Doesn’t it bother you,” she had asked, as they boarded at King’s Cross, “that the last time we got on a train it fell over and hurt a lot of people?”
It clearly didn’t bother him, and that they were the only passengers was seemingly not a concern either, indeed, they had had the refreshment trolley all to themselves and he bought copious amounts of sweets that she knew he would not eat. Draco ended up with them piled on the seat next to him, as if he had somehow slipped back in time to the schoolboy he once was, eager for sweets and the new school year.
Roderick had sketched expansive plans, his vision for the new Hogwarts, during their journey and she had been quietly impressed with his tone. Yet it seemed the re-building of Hogwarts was a long way in the future and she couldn’t really get her head around what that future might look like, even if it did involve fresh construction and a new curriculum.
Once they had pulled into the small station at Hogsmeade he had insisted she disguise herself. It had seemed the simplest thing to adopt the cloak of Selene Lupin. Already, that time seemed so long ago and in a different place that she was confident she would get away with it for the short walk between the station and the shack.
“I dislike that look intensely,” Roderick had grumbled, uncharacteristically truculent with her. “Mousy and bland.”
“I know you do,” she said with a sigh as he handed her down the new bag that she had bought just that morning. “I don’t like it either, but it’s better than arriving with a mass of red hair announcing my presence. You should learn to appreciate the mouse in all of us.”
“Spare me the soapy psychology,” he groaned, dragging his own bulging suitcase off the train onto the platform.
“You sound like Severus,” she replied tartly. They looked at each other for the briefest of seconds before bursting into laughter.
“You know how to wound a man,” he said finally, grabbing her arm and steering her in the direction of the exit. “In this case imitation is no flattery.”
“Horrid man.”
“Wicked girl.”
And the shadows grew even deeper.
They parted company as they reached the road that led to Hogwarts. Maeve had learnt the charms to find the door, memorised and ready to use in an instant. Roderick was genuinely distressed to be leaving her, muttering placations about it being for the best and how Hogwarts was no place for her at that moment and how they had to keep Draco out of sight. She humoured him; agreeing, nodding and even submitting to the double kiss on the cheeks without a murmur of protest, and then he was gone leaving her to the quiet chatter of dusk and her ghostly companion.
Her steps were hurried and Draco trotted slightly to keep up. Despite the fact she knew there would be no Death Eaters around, it was with immense relief that she found herself outside the forbidding building. It looked much the same as it always had, even from her time at Hogwarts, on the verge of toppling in on itself and covered in the scars of neglect. Muttering the charms, she watched as the dilapidated door appeared in the wall and with a quick turn of the handle she was in. Only when she had ushered Draco inside and the door was safely closed behind them did she allow herself to relax slightly.
Maeve didn’t notice the low sobbing at first, being too distracted by the cleanliness of the place and the sight of flowers dotted around in cut glass vases. It bordered on the pretty, even welcoming, and she was delighted to find her stay might not be so bad after all. And then the sobbing grew louder, more sniffly, as if someone was attempting to control it.
“Hello,” she called, her hand instinctively reaching for her wand. “Is there someone here?”
There was a scrabbling from above and then the sound of footsteps crossing the floorboards. Maeve instructed Draco to drop behind the sofa, out of sight, her hissed instruction obeyed without question.
“Who’s there?” she asked, moving towards the bottom of the staircase. “Oh!”
Felicia was framed in the small hallway at the top, looking fearful and very damp around the eyes. When she saw Maeve her own expression was one of sudden shock and she sat heavily on the top stair.
“Felicia!” Maeve took the stairs two at a time, not heeding the ominous creaks. “How long have you been here “ it was you, wasn’t it, that made the place so nice.”
She couldn’t understand why the poor woman looked so much more distraught now than she had when she first appeared. The closer she got to her, the more upset she seemed to become. It wasn’t until one name dropped from her lips did she realise she still wore her disguise.
“Remus,” Felicia croaked. “You look like just like Remus.”
“I’m so sorry; it’s not what you think.” She shook herself free from the glamour of Selene and assembled her own features. “It’s me. I should have thought, but I wasn’t expecting you to be here. What are you doing here so late?”
“I couldn’t get out,” she explained, still not too far away from tears. “I forgot the charm and couldn’t find the door. I knew roughly where it was but it wouldn’t appear so I tried to find the tunnel, thinking if I got to Hogwarts I could at least walk back, but then I couldn’t and there was a noise and then moaning and it must have been the ghosts, but they wouldn’t show themselves and the moaning got worse so I hid upstairs, but it was worse upstairs so I hid under the bed and was too scared to come out until you arrived because I was sure it was a soul in torment.” She punctuated her explanation with a deep hiccup and fell silent.
“Well, it must have been horrible for you,” Maeve said, her practical mind racing to try and explain what the moaning could have been. Felicia had never struck her as being the nervous or fanciful type so she quickly ruled out natural noises being mistaken for the supernatural. The shack would be filled with the sound of wind rattling through the roof or of floorboards settling, but nothing that would sound like a human in distress. “Why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll make a cup of tea or do you need to get off home? I could walk you to the village if you like.”
“A cup of tea would be good. I don’t have to rush off.” Felicia allowed herself to be helped to her feet and both women descended the stairs together as if there was strength in numbers. “There’s nothing to rush back to with Remus gone. It’s just me and with the house for company. You'll be the guest of the new master then.” She seemed to brighten a little at this idea, all sorts of opportunities for social visits presenting themselves.
Draco had come out from behind the sofa and was looking around him with some interest. It was the first true spark of life she had seen in him since the dreadful events at Grimmauld Place. His grey eyes were taking quite a lot in, it seemed, as they licked around the room. Felicia looked at him with a puzzled sense of almost recognition and then headed for the small kitchen area, assuming the role of tea maker despite Maeve’s protests. Once who wanted what had been decided, Maeve left her to it and went to stand by Draco, who was looking at the stairs with some intensity.
“Draco, is there something bothering you?”
His eyes topped their roaming and settled on her. “Have I been here before?” he asked, his voice dry from lack of use. “I’ve been to so many places that I forget.”
“I don’t think so.” She followed his gaze as it meandered towards the stairs. “Why would you have been? It’s possible during your time at school I suppose, but”“
He cut her off with an impatient shake of his head. “More recently. Something bad. I remember something, something behind a wall of water. I remember steam.” His delicate hand began to worry at his temple, as if he could somehow massage the thoughts free.
“That’s a lot of remembering,” she remarked, hoping that he didn’t choose this moment to remember more than she could cope with. “Perhaps it was just somewhere like this. Perhaps it’s the bunker you are picturing. ”
“Don’t be so stupid! When I say it was here it’s because it was here.” He almost shouted the words, causing Felicia to look across nervously as she filled the kettle. And then, as soon as the outburst was done, Draco did something Maeve thought she would never live to see. He apologised. Just like that.
“I didn’t mean to shout.” He hung his head. “My mind hurts sometimes with the effort of trying to find what’s missing. It’s worse because I know there’s something missing. I wish I didn’t. I wish I thought I was meant to be like this.” A small part of her heart went out to him then. Despite all that he had done and said in anger, the loss of his own mind was clearly so painful that no one could have failed to be moved by it.
“I understand,” she said, although she didn’t, couldn’t ever. “Don’t force the memories. Let them find you when they are ready.”
“There something here,” he insisted. “I know because I remember being here. The colour of the place, the smell of damp, the… the beastliness of it.”
And then the moaning started up again. Felicia dropped the mug she was holding and it shattered on the stone floor, shards of pottery flying everywhere. It was a hungry moan, a moan filled with despair and longing and hopelessness and it came from somewhere above them.
It howled around the house for a minute, just a noise with no distinguishable words, and then faded into nothing. Felicia’s eyes were wide with fear but this time she held her ground, choosing not to dive beneath a convenient piece of furniture. Draco covered his face with his hand for a second and then looked to Maeve for answers.
“Well it’s not the wind, that’s for sure, “she said, with a lot more nonchalance than she felt. Whatever it was, it was trapped and not very happy about it. Just once, she thought, it would have been nice to get somewhere, have a cup of coffee and go to bed without some kind of drama dogging her like a homeless stray. Just once, and she didn’t think it was too much to ask.