The fiasco that had happened with Alastor Moody played out like this. Sure, that had been years ago, but they did things like this all of the time. Moody, or ‘Mad-Eye’ as many of them now referred to him, sported a glass eye and an artificial leg. Gawain had spilled his beans to his close friend. He’d given the whole truth, whatever that was supposed to mean. When it reached the papers, thanks to Benjy, it read like a Ministry hiccup. Goblins might as well have accidently placed gold in the wrong vault at Gringotts and tilted the scales.
Benjy enjoyed taking risks, stretching his talents to the limit. For years, he’d fooled folks by writing for both the Times and the Daily Prophet. His editors were in on it, of course, for that would have been a stupid mistake. He lived simply, too, in a two-bedroom flat. Bookshelves covered the walls and his writing desk was buried underneath papers and parchment rolls. An astray lay on the edge and the typewriter, his heirloom, clicked loudly as he worked on another article.
Gawain slipped inside to grab something to eat. He was surprised to see a young man with dark hair wearing dress robes. A girl dressed in a black gown stood in front of a rectangular mirror checked her reflection. She held her wand aloft and her hair changed from red to a darker shade of blonde. Benjy checked her appearance, nodded, and snapped his fingers, calling her over. He held a quill in between his teeth and zipped the back of her gown.
“Better,” said Benjy, distracted. “James, what’s the time?”
“Seven-thirty,” said James, checking his wristwatch.
“Ah, well,” Benjy sighed, resigned to another missed deadline. He turned back to his work, scribbled down notes, and got to his feet. He strode across the sitting room, found a jewellery box in his old Hogwarts trunk, and rapped the staircase banister with it. “Woman, are you finished yet?”
Nobody answered him. James sniggered. Minerva walked down the staircase, dressed in a set of red robes. Gawain smiled at her and shook his head. Her hair was tied back in its usual fashion.
“He’s dragging you along?” asked Gawain, raising his eyebrows. He stuck his hand into his pocket and found no cigarettes.
“Is this all right?” she asked the room at large. The girl, Lily, complimented her. James merely looked as though he was holding back a fit of laughter.
“Jesus.” Benjy opened the box, sifted through the jewels, and chose a red pendant. She spun around as he fastened it. It lay on her breast. “I tell you all the time: You look like a statue.”
“There’s a compliment in there somewhere,” said Gawain, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.
“The two of you ...” she said, pointing a finger between Gawain and Benjy. She held her tongue, rephrasing as James waited for an insult. “Take him.”
“I’ll pass.” Gawain felt his hands shaking. It’d been hours since his last smoke, and Benjy had none to spare. Gawain passed his hand over the mess, almost toppling over a burning taper. “None? You’re a disappointment.”
“Oh, now, we’re not friends anymore?” Benjy pulled a face and jerked his head. “Who’ve you got? Her? You should just walk into Azkaban now, my friend, it’s a long trek.”
“There’s food in the kitchen,” said Minerva. “He’s some cigarettes in the silverware drawer.”
“What? You’d fail miserably as a wife or a whore, shame,” said Benjy, shaking his head sadly.
“That’s better,” said Gawain, passing into the kitchen. He piled a plate with food and heard James and Lily laugh harder as Benjy earned punishment for his cheek. He fished a fork and cigarettes out of a drawer and leaned against the doorframe. “You’re pushing your luck, Benjy, you know that?”
“You ain’t got no sense, woman,” hissed Benjy, annoyed. Minerva pointed out his impeccable grammar did wonders for his pieces and handed him a travelling cloak and a red scarf when they reached the door.
Gawain had held his tongue for a long time. They’d been going off in secret for a while now, Minerva and Benjy. Benjy, who could have any middle-aged woman he wanted, probably younger if he’d managed to swing it right, did not randomly decide to escort a Hogwarts professor to a Daily Prophet gala. Minerva respected the press about as much as she respected the judicial system. That was a pity, really, seeing as she used to work for them. Gawain, a master at interrogation, had plied them both with questions. He got no answers.
These were confusing times. Gawain knew that they could not possibly be in league with You-Know-Who. Benjy, who had served in a Muggle war shortly after leaving Hogwarts, would rather die. He’d publicly said he’d rather slit his own throat than join ranks with the ones who called themselves the Death Eaters. Minerva, an undyingly faithful supporter to Dumbledore, wouldn’t dare let such ideologies cross her mind. Gawain knew that it was close to foolishness to trust anyone, but he knew in his heart this was the truth.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” asked Gawain, picking at his tender meat. It fell apart.
Minerva stared at him.
“You’re a bad liar,” Gawain said, glaring at her. He was not skilled in Legilimency. “Just say it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, checking her watch.
“I’m standing right here. All you have to do is ask me. I’ll drop everything, I’ve got cases, but I’ll go, if that’s what’s frightening you.” Gawain glared at James and Lily, kids who looked fresh out of school. He gave a harsh laugh. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you? That man “ that “ he is not some schoolboy! You’re all walking to your deaths! You want to know what he was like in school, kids?”
“Gawain,” Benjy whispered nervously.
“Stop it.” Minerva said firmly, catching her breath. Her hands were shaking. She ushered Lily and James forwards as Benjy fed them false identities, a convincing storyline. “We’ll be back. Get some rest.”
Lily and James said good night and James flashed him a grin.
“Don’t drink all my wine, a seeing as you’re a party of one, and if you touch my damn typewriter, Mad-Eye’ll see to it you have no hands,” said Benjy threateningly. They shook hands, Gawain’s twitched. “Happy New Year.”
Gawain watched them disappear, their travelling cloaks swishing around their ankles. Benjy had put his arm around Minerva’s shoulder and was undoubtedly reciting nonsense she needed to know about the editorial staff. Gawain chuckled, imagining a scandalous piece in the Daily Prophet the next morning about the Professor and their most talented writer. Feeling a chill and thinking about second helpings, he closed the door.
The rapping on the window woke him with a start. Gawain had no intended to stay the night. He had forgotten the hour and had fallen asleep reading through editions of both the Prophet and the Times. An opened wine bottle stood on top of the mess. With the articles by each other, some written on the same day giving different perspectives, it was easy to see that Benjy had painstakingly learned his audiences. One, written a few weeks ago, was a researched column of why schoolchildren saw, or thought they saw, zombies taking a night stroll. The other, a more reliable column, reported incidents of enchanted Inferi.
The noise continued.
“Why would you subscribe to your own paper?” asked Gawain.
He threw off the light blanket and sighed when cold coffee spilled over the papers on the table. He made it to the window, but there was no owl waiting for him. Without throwing out a security question, which, on second thought, sounded like a stupid question, he unhooked the bolt threw and the door open. James, Lily, Minerva and moody walked in. Moody’ s leg scraped the wooden floor and the three partygoers looked pale.
“Long night?” asked Gawain, smiling. When none of them said anything and tears welled in Lily’s eyes, he looked around. His voice was drained of emotion. “Where’s Benjy?”
James sat down on the couch with Lily and put his arm around her shoulder. Minerva sat on her other side and handed her a handkerchief. In her shock, Minerva looked as though she was beyond tears.
“He was right there,” she said softly, speaking to herself, a recitation, “and I turned around, ready to head back with him. I thought that he’d Splinched or “ or something. I saw his arm in the road, and it snapped and “”
She couldn’t say anymore. Gawain glared at them all and run his hand through his dishevelled hair.
“Where is Benjamin Fenwick?” Gawain demanded. He spoke directly to Alastor Moody, no longer waiting for an explanation. “Get Scrimgeour out of bed now! Get Alice. She knows the archives, and Frank, he’ll “ he’ll “ why are you standing there? Move!”
Moody walked over to the fireplace, took a pinch of Floo Powder out of a clay pot, and disappeared into the emerald green flames.
“You idiot, you fucking idiot,” Gawain whispered, shaking his head. He paced the room, thinking this entire scenario over in his mind. Why hadn’t he downright insisted to join their escort? He left the window open for that possibility, not ruling anything out. “Say he Splinched. All right. So? That covers here to London. You were coming back here?”
Lily nodded, twirling a lock of her natural hair. She picked up the drenched mug.
“Yes,” she said, “but people usually don’t split themselves into different pieces, no more than two, right? I mean, you’re coming from here and you’re going here. Even if you’re undecided, your mind has to decide on a location.”
“What are you babbling on about?” Gawain demanded. He dismissed her; she was too young. “You don’t know enough to make that call. You’re jumping to conclusions!”
“She’s right,” said Minerva, pulling herself out of her coma state. “Even if that had happened, it wouldn’t explain why we found “ we found “ his ears and his tongue, and his “ his liver.”
“Only pieces,” James cut in, sparing her the details. He saved all of them. It was of no use.
“This can’t go on any official record,” admitted Gawain, clearing his throat. Officially, they allowed a window of forty-eight hours before the dust had cleared. He looked at Minerva. She used to work within the Department of Magical Law, so, if she were thinking rationally, she’d see that. Gawain cleared his throat and said bracingly. “Something went wrong. People die all of the time, and this is why: we panic. It’s not him.”
“He wouldn’t have come back without Professor McGonagall,” said James. He knew nothing of it.
“You don’t even know each other,” said Gawain, close to laughter. “What? You think because this woman sat behind a desk marking papers for seven years of your life, you know her? Professors leave their classrooms and enjoy their summers, too, James. I looked at both of you. Neither you nor Lily knew she’d worked for the Ministry. Who’s Sampson Nettles?”
“He writes for the Times,” said Lily after a moment. She leafed through the damp papers and showed them an article on model trains. “He’s a freelance writer, he writes about trains around Christmastime. See? My dad likes him.”
“Very good.” Gawain nodded encouragingly, surprised. She didn’t understand. “You read our newspapers, too, I’m guessing? Who does his style remind you of? Perhaps I should have phrased it like this: Who was Sampson Nettles?”
“He mimicked a style?” asked James, confused.
“No!” Gawain slapped his forehead, wondering how long he’d stay detached before the truth hit him. Even if Benjy had survived, if he had indeed been sliced and diced, they had taken their time and dragged him away while the others had searched for the body. “Sometimes, wizards bled well anywhere and we take advantage of that.”
“Oh, my God.” Lily’s hand flew to her mouth.
James reached into his pocket and handed over a red lighter. Gawain turned the thing over in his hand and pressed it. A feeble flame ignited once, twice, thrice before it went out.