33: Cornered
Inevitably, it was Arcadius Croll who broke the hollow silence that had followed Remus’ grim announcement. And he sounded almost cheerful.
“So,” he remarked in a tone that was almost shockingly offhand. “Do you want us to beat you to death or would you rather I strangled you?”
There was a moment of stunned silence. And then…
“Arcadius Croll, you have got to be, without a doubt the single foulest…”
“Croll, you nasty little git! If you don’t…”
“We still have time, if we can find a way out of here we may not even need to…”
“A decent blow to the temple would probably down him in one…”
Felisha, Avin, Rebekah and Unwin all erupted in one spectacular cacophony of conflicting voices, accompanied by a hiss of shocked whispering from those around them. Avin had taken two steps forward before Remus had even managed to take in the chaos, seizing Croll by the front of his robes with an expression that did not imply much prospect of a polite exchange of reasoned views.
Croll’s hands shot up in protest. “Excuse me, but he asked for a volunteer! I’m doing him a favour!”
“But there are other ways!” Felisha had thrust herself abruptly to her boyfriend’s side. “Surely we could just knock him out…”
Despite being hoisted by his robe, Croll still managed to sneer. “Oh yes, a wonderful idea. And when he comes round after transforming into a savage, slavering beast, would you like to be the volunteer who bashes him on the head again?”
Zelia Phelan swept into the fray with a clink of beads and bangles. “Couldn’t we just tie him up?”
“With what?” Unwin Dempster waded in with a gruff snort. “Your jewellery? Our robes? Why don’t we all run around stark bollock naked while he rips our clothes and then us to shreds?”
“So you’d rather one of us became a murderer?” Alexander Aylward stated grimly. “That we kill him in cold blood?”
Croll glared at the tall security chief. “I’d rather be the murderer than the victim. And besides, he’s only a werewolf…”
SMACK.
Croll hit the floor with a crunch, the front of his robes ripped away to leave only torn remnants in Avin’s firm grip. Slowly, a stark red globule of blood dripped from his large nose onto the ground.
Felisha was nursing the knuckles of her left hand, damaged with the force of its impact with Croll’s face, but her eyes were utterly furious.
“How dare you?” she hissed. “How dare you even think that? Remus Lupin is ten times the man you’ll ever be, you prejudiced, appalling…”
“Oh yes, my terrible prejudice.” Croll cut into her sentence harshly as he wiped one hand across his large nose, smearing blood over his fingers. The stench of it lent a vicious tang to the stuffy air. “I do apologise for being so mean to the poor, sainted werewolf who’s about to slaughter us all!”
And that was the end of any hint of reason.
Felisha exploded into furious bellows and Croll returned in kind, stumbling to his feet with burning eyes and lashing retorts. No blows were exchanged but it was clear that several of the participants were tempted as the shouting began to spread, Avin pitching in his support for Felisha, Unwin wading in for Croll and then one after the other, the rest of the Institute staff began to bawl their views, some for one side, some for another, other poor souls like Aylward merely trying to restore the peace. But it was far too late for that. Hurled insults and vocal fury rolled in slashing waves across the stone walled rooms, drowning out the moderate, silencing the sane. The echoes multiplied their voices a thousand fold.
It was deafening. It was unbearable.
Standing just to one side and quite forgotten, it was all Remus could do not to clamp his hands across his ears and scream out in fury for silence. But one more shout would not be heard in such a turbulent chaos of sound; it would be no more than a whisper to be drowned in the storm tossed swell of battle. All were shouting but no one was listening or hearing a word.
And it was too much for Remus to handle.
One step, two steps back took him out of the edge of the fray. Silent, unnoticed, unseen, he turned quietly and walked with the slow, measured stride of the condemned until he reached one relatively quiet and blessedly empty corner of their mutual cell. And then, laying his back gently against the wall, he slid to the floor and dropped his face into his hands.
They aren’t going to do it. They’re going to argue until it’s too late.
I wonder how easy it would be to strangle myself.
Felisha and Avin’s defence of him was gratifying, of course. But for once, he did not want their protection, verbal or physical; he wanted their support. Time was slipping away “ he could feel the pull of the moon less than an hour from rising. Arguing about the matter was counterproductive “ Remus had always known that if his situation had ever come down to a choice of slaughtering others whilst transformed or dying himself, he would take death in an instant. The thought of living with even the vaguest memories of killing or biting in his lupine form, the knowledge that he was responsible for taking another’s life in such a brutal fashion…
He would rather be dead. He had always known that.
And with his death, his knowledge of the Order would finally be safe from enemy hands. That at least would make it worthwhile. And his life was a small exchange for more than twenty others.
Whether they would survive the night even with him gone was a whole other question. But it was also irrelevant.
He was not going to play Dolph’s sick game. He would not make sport of the slaughter of others. At least without him they stood a chance.
The roar of argument intensified. Remus sighed deeply.
Or at least they stood a chance if someone would only bloody take it.
“Remus.”
The soft touch against his arm was almost startling “ raising his face from the cradle of his hands, Remus stared up into the solemn eyes of Rebekah Goldstein. With a wan smile, his cousin slid down against the wall to settle at his side, her eyes flicking towards the war in the centre of the chamber with weary resignation.
“I think we both know how pointless that is,” she said quietly, her voice nonetheless crystal sharp against the blare of sound beyond. “Arguing isn’t going to change the facts.”
Remus managed a smile of his own. “Spoken like a true researcher,” he replied with equally soft clarity. He jerked his head in the direction of Felisha and Avin who were engaged in gesticulating and shaking their fingers busily in Croll’s face. “They mean well. And their affection is gratifying. It’s just hideously mistimed.”
Rebekah bit her lip. “We might still have time to escape, you know. Your death might not be necessary.”
Remus slowly shook his head. “Look around you,” he stated with weary reason. “There are no doors, no windows here. We have nothing to use to break through the walls and the only exit is blocked with bars that it would have been foolish not to curse. Unless we get help, we’re not going anywhere. And in a building full of Death Eaters, do you really think help can get here in time?”
Rebekah sighed deeply. “We’ll probably die anyway. Or perhaps we will be bitten and Kissed by their Dementors in order to join their little army. Your sacrifice could mean nothing.”
Remus met her gaze deliberately. “It would mean something to me.”
There was a long silence. Their eyes remained locked.
Wordlessly, he asked her, asked her to help him, asked her to do what no one else in the room seemed able to manage, whether willing to or not. And in her silence, he found the answer he sought.
His cousin’s expression was one of saddened pain as the weight of the task she was facing settled across her shoulders. Her smile was sorrowful.
“Do you know how many years I spent fantasising that you were dead and my mother still alive?” she whispered, her voice shivering slightly with depths of emotion rarely touched. “Do you know how often I wished you as dead as my brother? And now here I am looking your death in the eye and all I want to do is run.”
Remus smiled with equal melancholy. “You know it’s for the best. My death will save the lives of more than just those in this room. I wouldn’t ask this of you otherwise.”
“I know.” Rebekah closed her eyes for a moment. “I doubt my family will ever forgive me. I doubt I’ll ever forgive myself.”
Slowly, softly, Remus reached out and laid his hand gently over hers.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he murmured. “And even if your mind insists there is, just remember “ I forgave you.”
Rebekah’s eyes lifted to his once more. She smiled a final time, the corner of his lip twitching with grim humour. “You know I’ve never strangled anyone before,” she offered almost desperately.
Remus smiled too, a smile of sorrow, of reassurance, of resignation. “I know,” he replied with the same edge of sad levity. “But there’s a first time for everything.”
There was no sound now. The roar of the argument that raged on just a few yards away had faded to a dull buzz as Remus closed his eyes for what he now knew would be the last time in his life. He could feel nothing but the soft touch of Rebekah’s fingers as they closed around his throat, her fingertips a cool stroke against his skin, and he wished for an instant for another touch, another face to share this last and crucial moment.
But she was not here. She would never be here. For he knew that it would be over all too soon and she was far away.
Rebekah’s slow, tremulous breaths echoed against his ears.
“I’m sorry,” he heard her whisper. “I wish I could have known you better.”
And then, she began to squeeze.
* * *
Gotcha.
With a smile of grim pleasure, Nymphadora Tonks lifted the glass globe portkey from the bedside table of her room at the Three Broomsticks and hefted it gently in her palm. It seemed like forever and a day since she and Remus had stood with Felisha in the yard just below, tapping the portkey, one, two, three, and materialising moments later in the Feral Institute. It was hard to believe that such an eternity had passed in less than a single day.
And now she was going back. She was going to find him. She was going to get him out.
No matter what the cost.
She had made good time under the circumstances. Her progress down the slimy passage from Hogwarts to the Three Broomsticks well had been rapid if a little unsteady. The moment she had reached the shaft leading up to fading daylight above, she had closed her eyes and apparated “ a moment later, shaking away the squeezing sensation that had engulfed her body, she had gazed around at the upstairs landing of the Three Broomsticks, briefly cursing the protective wards and spells she had herself placed around her room that prevented a direct transport. And then she darted for her room.
It had taken only an instant to get inside. The door had swung oddly in her wake, slamming back open moments after she had harshly pushed it back but ricochet was nothing unusual “ a quick wave of her wand saw it closed and locked for good. Her breathing seemed harsh in her ears, rapid and almost multiplied as she hurried passed the messy four-poster bed she had dragged herself out of that morning and snatched her prize into her grasp.
Time to go.
She hesitated, allowing herself a final moment to run through her checklist, but she found and placed a mental tick against everything tangible she needed. Her heart was pounding, driven by a cocktail of fear, adrenalin, anticipation and determination but fuelled by something more.
I’m not going to lose you like this, Remus Lupin. I’m bloody not.
I don’t care if you love me or not. Just don’t die.
Slowly she lifted the portkey in one hand. In her other she raised her wand.
Ready, steady…
Wait.
It was a shiver, the barest touch of instinct, but it was enough. Tonks had been an Auror more than long enough to learn how to know when she was being watched.
This doesn’t feel right.
For an instant, she hesitated. Her eyes darted rapidly around the room, drinking in the unmade bed, the scatter of abandoned clothes, her broomstick propped in one corner. Everything was normal. Everything was as she left it.
But it felt odd. It felt wrong.
She didn’t feel alone.
Who’s there? She almost spoke the words aloud before remembering that she was hardly likely to get a decent answer.
And she was wasting time. Watched or not, she had to go.
Forcing her uncertainty aside, Tonks drew in one final breath. And then, she tapped the portkey with her wand.
“One, two, thr…oomph!”
For the second time that day, something solid and invisible barrelled into her. She felt the clutch of unseen hands as they clamped down over hers, covering the portkey in the same instant as her wand fell a final time. She could feel herself toppling from the force of the impact, could hear breathing from mouths her eyes could not find and then, as though a hook had yanked around her navel, she and her invisible leech were dragged away into nowhere.
Portkeys were disorientating at the best of times. But after this, Tonks’ balance stood no chance.
She caught a brief glimpse of shadows, of a dark and unlit room and then her foot slammed down on a too familiar rug and skidded almost frantically away from her.
And she was not the only one.
Hands appeared, flailing out of nowhere as material brushed against her skin; she heard three very different gasps of shock as she tumbled. She saw the outline of the desk jerk, heard quills and papers scattering and a thud against the wall, saw hints and edges of figures staggered out of nowhere. But before she had time to process any further glimpses, she struck the floor with bruising force.
And then there was a crash. The crash of shattering glass.
Pain, sharp and bright, pierced through her hand. Warm, sickly wetness seeped across her palm.
“Lumos!”
Unexpected light flooded the room. The now familiar contours of Felisha’s office were thrown into relief.
Along with several other things.
Hermione Granger stood, pale and gasping, against the wall, her wand raised to provide the precious light that now surrounded them. Against the desk slumped the top half of Ron Weasley, his red hair ruffled as he fought to catch his breath, his body invisible from the torso down. And at his feet, emerging from beneath his cloak, half tangled in the same rug that had toppled her, Harry Potter sat slumped against the floor with his glasses askew. His emerald eyes met her with a mixture of defiance and apology.
“We want to help,” he said shakily. “I told you that.”
Tonks almost screamed with fury. Her hand throbbed painfully.
She did not want to look at it. She did not want the confirmation of what her sinking heart already knew.
But inevitably, inexorably, her head turned anyway.
The globe portkey was gone. In its place, broken shards of glass littered the floor and the palm of her hand. Blood was seeping slowly from a series of sharp cuts to stain the glass to scarlet.
She looked up, her eyes cold. “Do you know what you’ve done?” she whispered icily. “Do you?”
Ron gazed at her in blank confusion for a moment before slow realisation dawned. Hermione’s eyes were already welling with horror. Harry’s had filled with guilt.
They knew.
And so did she.
Intentionally or not, Tonks knew she had just brought three teenage Hogwarts students into the midst of what was probably the most dangerous building in the country that night. And their means of escape lay shattered in her palm.
The danger had been inevitable. But at least she had known she had a means of escape.
But no more.
They were trapped.