Running Close to the Ground

Chapter Ten: The Second Betrayal

Gentlemen, he said,

I don't need your organization;

I've shined your shoes,

I've moved your mountains and marked your cards.

But Eden is burning;

Either get ready for elimination,

Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

- Bob Dylan, "Changing of the Guards"

The Dark Lord makes us all stand in the market square for more than an hour the next morning, with Snivellus' dead body staring us in the face, while he harangues us about loyalty.

"Those of you who count yourselves among my faithful followers are called upon to destroy a great impurity in our midst." His voice hangs in the air, high and chill. "It is the taint of guilt, purged from this one treacherous servant by death, but still, perhaps, alive in the hearts and minds of some of the rest of you. If you have harbored any secret thought of conspiring with our enemies, know that I can see your guilt! Be wise and take warning from his fate. And never forget that you are Death Eaters!"

"Pardon me, m'Lord," I mutter under my breath to Avery. "I mistook this for the Boy Scout Jamboree."

He didn't grow up in a Muggle neighborhood so he doesn't really get the joke, but he manages a shaky laugh anyway. What else can we do?

The Dark Lord lays down a new set of orders. "You are to monitor one another for signs of disloyalty. Pay attention to every word, every look, and if you see even the smallest thing that arouses your suspicion, report it to me or to Bella. And never leave the sight of your comrades, not even for a minute. If you see anybody going anywhere on his own, you are to denounce him as a traitor immediately."

We look around at each other and try to work out who everybody else is looking at.

"Know also that traitors will soon have nowhere to flee, for the day of our destiny is approaching and the final victory draws near. We will go after our enemy's lieutenants and protectors one by one, and then we will strike at him in his stronghold, yes, even at the heart of his power. When Britain is ours, we shall purify the land and cleanse the stains of treachery forever, and my faithful followers will be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams ..."

* * *

"Gone more than a bit paranoid, hasn't he?" says Rabastan in the Hanged Man afterwards.

"I'll say," says Nott. "Do any of you get the feeling he's seeing the writing on the wall?"

I nod. "I've been wondering if he was losing his grip for a while."

"D'you think he's about to give the order to attack Hogwarts? I can't think of too much else he could have meant by the bit about striking the enemy in his stronghold, even if he didn't say so in as many words."

"He's mad," says Rabastan flatly. "Has he forgotten the castle's defenses were supposed to be taken out by the traitor he just executed? We'd be walking into the jaws of a trap."

A vague idea begins to tug at the back of my brain, as if I know I've forgotten something important but can't remember what it was.

"I dunno how many of the protection spells are still up. We might be able to break through if there are enough of us. Bad news for the kids if we do." Nott looks troubled.

"And bad news for us if we don't," Rabastan points out.

"Oh well." Avery shrugs. "Not much we can do about it. The rats should go down with a sinking ship."

"I'm not sure you've got that saying right, Avery," I tell him out of the corner of my mouth.

He glances up at the bar where Lucius and Rodolphus are whispering. "The captains desert?" he asks.

"Something like that."

"N.E.W.T.s were over last week, weren't they?" Rabastan is saying to Nott. "And your son's a seventh year. He may not even be at school any more."

"He'll be there. Probably sleeping off the worst hangover of his life, if I remember anything about it. Where else would he be if he ain't here?"

But we have all heard enough about Theo to realize there is another possibility. He may have joined the Order of the Phoenix, wherever they are.

Nobody mentions this aloud, and abruptly, Nott changes the subject. "What this latest order boils down to," he says, eyeing a couple of Muggle women who are sharing a bottle of wine and laughing loudly, "is no taking a shit and no sex until further notice. The Dark Lord can't have us doing anything he hasn't been able to do in years."

Rabastan sniggers. "Well, I wouldn't give up hope yet. Maybe Roo likes threesomes."

"Fat chance, Roo's chosen Wormtail, hasn' she?" mumbles Avery into his drink, and I'm surprised to realize he's right. She hasn't spent a night with any of the others for ages now.

"Oy, Wormtail, has Roo said anything to you about whether she likes threesomes?" asks Rabastan.

"Maybe if the other two are Gilderoy Lockhart and Aidan Lynch," I answer. "Let's face it, two of us naked is a scary thought."

I look around at the others: Avery with his bloodshot eyes and broken capillaries; Nott, stooped and looking much older than his sixty-odd years; Rabastan, with the horrors of fourteen years in Azkaban etched into every line of his face. Lewis Travers bears the physical scars less obviously than the mental ones, but his pale, bespectacled face won't win any beauty contests - and I'm not even going to talk about myself.

There aren't any good-looking Death Eaters unless you count Lucius Malfoy. His eyes meet mine across the crowded pub: a man who has never crawled through a sewer or screamed for mercy at his torturer's feet, his cold, chiseled features untouched by the hell the rest of us have been through. He served two months in the most lightly guarded section of Azkaban for trespassing at the Department of Mysteries, and that was after the dementors had gone.

I want to smash his perfect aristocratic nose in with my silver fist, but that would be as much as my life's worth. I take my revenge with my other hand instead, the hand of flesh, the subtle instrument.

"Roo," I ask, "could you bring me a cocktail napkin and a pen?"

I draw left-handed, my fingers shaking as they often do these days. I smoke several cigarettes in between bits of sketching, trying to steady my hand long enough to do this last piece of work.

A pointy-faced caricature of Lucius takes shape on the napkin, musing to himself: "Let's see, fifteen hundred Galleons to buy my way off the island, another thousand to bribe the Wizengamot, two thousand to get my seat on the Board of Governors back, and twelve hundred for the Dark Lord's birthday present. Maybe I'd better have a go at being Dark Lord myself, it's bound to be more economical."

Nott snorts. "You know that's exactly what he's thinking."

Crabbe is sitting on the ground with his oversized feet stretched out in front of him. "Oy, Goyle, I don't want to be late for the Roman carnival ... uh, meeting, but I can't remember how to put my shoes on. Can you help me?"

"I think they're supposed to go on your ears, mate. That's what I always do," says Goyle, with a Muggle-style trainer hanging from each side of his head.

Idly, I sketch the High Street and a couple of crossing streets and the old Riddle house on the hill. Here are the Lestranges, just outside: "Rodolphus, which skimpy negligee should I wear to my, er, private meeting with the Dark Lord tonight?" "Whichever you like, darling, as long as I can wear the other one while you're gone."

I'm thinking Rabastan won't take the shot at his brother well, but he only laughs and buries his nose in his pint of beer.

Travers wanders off into the woods at the edge of the village. "So long, everybody, I'm off to hug a tree! I'll let you know if it has any messages for you!"

I draw the dementors around the outskirts of the village and give one of them the features of Bartemius Crouch, Jr., underneath his hood. "Mummy, the other dementors aren't playing nice! I want to go home!"

Rabastan, who never forgave Crouch for breaking out of prison and leaving him behind, hoots in appreciation. Avery chuckles and says "That's brilliant, Wormtail, but where are we?"

"Are you saying you want to be on here?" I ask. "It's not exactly the most flattering stuff, is it?"

"We won't take offense," says Nott. "We're mates, aren't we?"

I sketch the three of them slumped over a table in the Hanged Man and add my own caricature: portrait of the artist as a middle-aged rodent, waving his napkin like a white flag. "We're drunk and scared and we don't give a damn about the cause any more! Just get us out of here!"

I fill the rest of the streets with caricatures of Ruby Brown, Joe the pet-shop man, old Dot in the corner of the pub, and the other hapless inhabitants of Little Hangleton, wearing vapid grins. "We are Muggles! We're about to be slaughtered like lambs, but at least we're cheerful!"

Last of all, a cadaverous, slit-eyed figure takes shape under my pen. "You can call me the Dark Lord or you can call me Big V, just don't call me Tommy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see my analyst about that Oedipus complex."

The sound of nervous, forbidden laughter fills our corner of the pub, only to be cut off abruptly as an unnaturally tall and skeletal shadow falls across the doorway.

"He's coming!" Avery whispers, panicked.

"Occulere," I mutter, and the cocktail napkin goes blank. I slip it into my pocket. "All gone, no worries."

The Dark Lord approaches our table. "Excuse me for breaking up this merry little party, but I am not fool enough to allow friends to watch friends," he says. "Although, considering the way Wormtail has been known to treat his friends, I might almost be inclined to trust him to keep an eye on the rest of you."

I flinch, and the others move their pint glasses an inch or two away from mine.

"Lestrange," the Dark Lord orders, "you and Rookwood have guard duty together this evening. Nott, you and Goyle will keep an eye on each other, and so will Avery and Crabbe. Wormtail, you will help Malfoy deal with of what is left of the traitor. I want his body sent to our enemies as a warning."

"Somethin' uncanny about that Crabbe an' Goyle," Avery grumbles after the Dark Lord walks away. "Sheep in wolves' clothing, those two."

As usual, Avery's put his finger on something through the fog of alcohol and inarticulateness. They might talk a good game about Muggle-hating, but at heart they're just following Lucius Malfoy blindly. They'd keep following him if he led them in the opposite direction, or straight over a cliff. The way things are going, it doesn't surprise me that the Dark Lord wants the three of them separated.

Lucius doesn't look too happy about being parted from his lackeys, and still less happy about being ordered to help me dispose of a body. Can't say I'm thrilled about having the Lord of the Manor along for the ride either. What good is a partner who won't get his hands dirty?

"Excuse me for a moment," mutters Malfoy as soon as we're outside.

"Going to the loo?" I ask, smirking. "Hadn't I better come along for company? You heard what the boss said this morning."

Malfoy glares at me and rests a hand on his wand. "If you follow me, you are a dead man. And if you are enough of a fool to think of denouncing me to the Dark Lord, remember that he'll believe me before you. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear, sir." Malfoy ducks into a tea shop, and I wonder whether he plans to confer with Rodolphus, or whether he's willing to go as far as death threats to have a pee in private. Not that it matters. He's bought me a few minutes on my own, something I hardly dared to hope for.

I step into a narrow alleyway between two houses and slip the napkin out of my pocket. I have to do the enchantments out of order, as I have already hidden my drawing and I don't dare allow the scrap of paper to reveal its secret, even for a moment.

Funny how nobody in the pub seemed to notice my cartoon was, in effect, a map of a village that's supposed to be Unplottable. It's like I told Roo: you can get away with just about anything if you do it right under people's eyes.

"Animent incolae vici," I whisper, "aperiant malefico sollemniter jurato, revela eos locos et nomines malefico..."

The words and the motions come back to me, across the years and all the half-forgotten memories, as if the dead were speaking to me and guiding my hand.

Malfoy rejoins me, and we walk to the market square and untie the body. "We'd better let them know who killed old Snivelly and why," I remark, scribbling a note on the cocktail napkin. "The trouble with sending a stiff as a message is that it's kind of ambiguous. He could've fallen off a broomstick for all they'll be able to tell the difference."

Lucius reads the note and frowns. "This is your idea of a threat, Wormtail? 'This is what we do to people who are up to no good'?"

Heart racing, I will myself not to stammer. "If you think it's not good enough, write another one yourself," I say sullenly.

"Never mind," he says, waving a hand in irritation. He pins the note to Snivellus' corpse, and I begin to breathe again.

Moony will figure it out. God, I hope he does. He has to.

Game's up, Tom.