Running Close to the Ground

Part III: Game's Up

Chapter Eight: Guardians and Protectors

The sun is beginning to shine on me,

But it's not like the sun that used to be.

The party's over, and there's less and less to say,

I got new eyes, everything looks far away.

Well, my heart's in the highlands at the break of day,

Over the hills and far away

There's a way to get there, and I'll figure it out somehow.

But I'm already there in my mind, and that's good enough for now.

- Bob Dylan, "Highlands"

Northumbria, 1995

"After that, Weatherby, send another owl to the Colombian Minister for Magic. Tell him ... tell him..." Bartemius Crouch's eyes focus on me for a moment, then roll back in his head. He mumbles, "Thou sayst the king grows mad."

"The king?" I get the feeling that his son's Imperius curse is growing weaker, on and off, but he doesn't seem to be getting any more coherent.

"I'll tell thee, friend, I am almost mad myself. I had a son... The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices ... no, that's not right. I am almost mad myself... Let me not be mad!"

"Bit late to do anything about that." I take my handkerchief out of my pocket and wipe the spittle from his chin. "Don't take it so hard, though. We're all mad here. And I'd say that son of yours is a good deal madder than you are."

"My son ... twelve O.W.L.s, yes, very proud. Weatherby! Dost thou know Dover?"

"Yes, yes, I know Dover. Look, Barty, I made you some soup..." In vain, I try to focus his attention on the bowl of chicken broth. He hardly eats these days, and his eyes are sinking deeper and deeper into his face. I don't know how his son expects him to stay alive.

"There is a cliff..." He falls down to his knees and plucks at the hem of my robes, then looks up with desperation in his eyes. "I had a son. Weatherby ... Weather, ha! Neither rain, wind, thunder, fire ..." A look of intense concentration comes over his face, and at last he chokes out the words, "Must ... get ... away ... prisoner."

"We're all prisoners here, too." I wave my hand around the Crouch house, which borders on the luxurious, as prisons go. The carpets are thick, the armchairs cushioned, the fire blazing on the hearth. "Cheer up, Barty. Bit nicer than Azkaban, isn't it?"

"Azkaban," Crouch's voice is dull. "I saved him from Azkaban. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." For a moment, he almost sounds sane.

Damn young Crouch, I think. Going away and leaving me to do all his dirty work. Leaving me to guard his father and fetch and carry, to mop up his bodily fluids as he turns more and more childish, to take the blame from the Dark Lord if he dies on me. Leaving me to look him in the eye.

Barty seizes me by the shoulders. "Go thou farther off," he says solemnly, "bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going."

I take a deep breath. "All right, Barty. I'm going out for a little walk and I'll be back in an hour, all right? And don't let me hear you going. Is that a deal?"

When I return an hour later, the fire has burnt itself out and the house is empty.

Little Hangleton, 1997

It is New Year's Day. The ground is frozen hard, icicles hang from the rafters of the old Riddle house like jagged teeth, and somewhere, in another world, families are enjoying a long lazy holiday with the children home from school.

Slowly, with many curses directed at my sluggish tongue and the occasional burst of Crucio, the Dark Lord extracts enough information from me to draw a rough floor plan of The Burrow. I haven't bothered to tell him I can still draw a little with my left hand, although I half expect him to realize this at any moment. He has been using Legilimency whenever my speech falters, in short unexpected bursts that catch me off guard.

I concentrate on the questions he asks me, questions of fact, and try to bury the feelings I still have for the Weasleys.

"The brooms are kept outdoors? Never inside the house?"

"Y-yes, my Lord. M-Mrs. Weasley is v-very particular."

"And you are certain of the two youngest children's ages? They will not have obtained their Apparation licenses yet?"

"That is c-correct, my lord. But-but-but you told me it was the p-parents who interested you, not the ch-children."

"They will not try to Disapparate without the children. You have told me that much. They are," he adds in a tone of great contempt, "honorable people. And I think you have also told me that neither of the parents is skilled enough at Apparation to take a nearly grown child with them?"

"Y-yes. But there is one thing. R-Remus Lupin might b-be able to pull it off. He's a bit good at Apparition, and I hear he's a f-friend of the family. Y-you had better make sure he isn't v-visiting them when you attack."

The Dark Lord takes a step forward. "You are not shielding your ... friend?"

"He's no friend of mine," I say. "Tried to kill me, didn't he?"

"Look up," orders the Dark Lord coolly.

I shudder at his slit-eyed gaze, but I'm safe; I haven't lied to him. Moony always was one hell of an Apparator.

"Request p-permission to look down, m'lord?" I say, carefully measuring the amount of sarcasm I allow to creep into my voice. More than a hint, and he'll Crucio me just for the hell of it. None at all, and he'll wonder what I'm up to.

"After I am through questioning you, Wormtail. Now, are you sure your description of the layout of the house is correct? Your peculiar gift for incompetence has been known to evince itself in such matters in the past."

He's thinking of the time he sent Dolohov and his boys to attack Charlie Weasley's workplace in Romania, and I gave him a description of Bill Weasley's Egyptian office by mistake. Took me more than a month to pay for that one. "Egypt looks a lot like R-Romania when you're a rat," I explain. "Same p-pockets, same holes in the wall. People don't exactly take you out to see the Pyramids or the Sphinx, you know. Best you can hope for is a few crumbs of local cheese and a bit of creeping about at night."

"Stop babbling, you useless fool. There are no exits to the house besides the front and back doors and the fireplace?"

I have been practicing Occlumency for all I'm worth, but I feel my resistance weakening. Pain is a blunt instrument, I think, and take the plunge. "No, sir. Unless you count the unauthorized Portkey to Malfoy Manor."

"What?!?"

"Only joking, m'Lord."

"I am out of patience with your feeble attempts at jokes, Wormtail. Crucio!"

I shut my eyes and let the rising tide of pain blot out the image of two children jumping from the attic window.

* * *

I wake, for the first time in longer than I can remember, with a smile on my lips. He never did get the Weasleys.

Not yet.

The smile fades as the mark on my left arm begins to burn. What the hell does he want with me at three o'clock in the morning? Grumbling to myself, I throw on some clothes, brush Roo's sleeping face with my lips, and Apparate to the outskirts of the village.

The Dark Lord is conferring with Antonin Dolohov and Augustus Rookwood, who have been somewhere in Eastern Europe for months. They stand on either side of a silver-haired man whose arms and legs are bound. His hair and beard have grown long and matted and his cheeks are sunken, as if he has been living rough for some time, but he speaks with the clipped tones of an educated man and only the slightest trace of a foreign accent.

"Master - please accept my heartiest apologies - I had heard certain rumors of your return, but I was under the impression that they were a trap ... I am, of course, delighted to see that they were true, and that you appear to be in such, er, excellent health -"

"Spare me your hypocrisy, Karkaroff," says the Dark Lord shortly. "You fled from me out of cowardice, and you informed against your comrades to save your own skin. You will pay for this with your life."

A note of desperation creeps into Karkaroff's voice. "I regret everything I have done, my Lord, and I return to you with an open heart. And I have valuable information - straight from Albus Dumbledore's own mouth - I will tell you everything I know as a token of my good faith."

"You haff been living in a cave in Moravia for tree years," says Dolohov. "Votever you know, it is old news by now."

"No! I swear to you, there is something none of you can possibly know ... Let me speak to you in private, master, and I will make it worth your time..."

The Dark Lord waves his hand impatiently. "Later, Karkaroff. If I am in a generous mood at the time, I may listen. For now, you are to guard the prisoner, Wormtail, while I have a word with Dolohov and Rookwood about the mission they have just completed. No sleeping on the job, and if he escapes or comes to any harm before I have a chance to interrogate him, you will take his place and suffer his punishment."

"Yes, sir." I stifle a yawn and draw my cloak about me more tightly. It's going to be a long night.

"My Lord," says Rookwood, "I volunteer to guard Karkaroff."

"Do you take me for a fool, Rookwood? I have no desire to find him dead or demented before I have a chance to hear this ... valuable information for myself."

Before he walks up the hill to the old Riddle house with the others, Rookwood turns and whispers to Karkaroff, "Game's up, Igor. Don't think for a minute that I don't have a good idea who put me in Azkaban. If the Dark Lord doesn't kill you, you're going to wish he had after I get through with you."

I light a cigarette for myself and offer one to Karkaroff, placing it between his lips. "Old friends. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em."

Karkaroff appears to consider this remark beneath his notice.

I lean against a tree, wishing to Merlin that I had a hot cup of coffee. Preferably with a shot of liquor in it. It seems much too cold for June, but of course you always feel chilly at this hour of the morning. I close my eyes for a moment, and then I'm shocked into alertness by a blast of air so icy that the ends of our cigarettes stop glowing.

Oh shit. Dementors. And they've scented weakness. Karkaroff is unarmed and vulnerable after three years on the run, and I'm easy prey myself these days. Cursing the Dark Lord for setting guards who attack his own men as viciously as they do invaders, I reach for my wand.

Pain sears through the stump of my right arm as the Dark Lord rises again ... Lily shows her baby how to wave goodbye as I walk away from the house in Godric's Hollow for the last time ... Bertha Jorkins pleads for her life ...

I reach deep down into some unbroken part of my soul and remember the dream I had an hour ago, the pain of torture mingled for once with a rich, warm sweetness. And I remember that to the best of my knowledge, all nine Weasleys are still alive.

"Expecto Patronum!"

A silvery streak shoots out of my wand and chases down the dementors, swishing its tail almost joyfully as they flee. It settles back on its haunches and points its nose at the waning moon in a silent howl of triumph.

Karkaroff spits out the dead cigarette. "That's a strange Patronus," he comments through chattering teeth. "You don't look all that wolfish to me. I would have expected some sort of rodent, from that face of yours."

"Thanks for the compliment. And it doesn't represent me. It's somebody else."

"Some of the literature says that the strongest Patroni are those which draw upon the character of someone other than the spell-caster," says Karkaroff in a detached voice, almost as if he thinks playing the role of the professor one last time will help him shake off the effects of the dementors. "Personally, I have always maintained that this type is less reliable. Human relationships are fundamentally unstable. The safest course is to trust only oneself."

I remember two boys practicing the spell by the edge of the lake, one sunny afternoon long ago. We thought it was dead cool when they turned out to be a matched pair, though it seems bitterly ironic now. I bet Remus doesn't let anybody see his any more.

Almost as soon as the thought crosses my mind, the shining silver wolf dissolves into a thin mist, then into nothing.