Mordant

Chapter Six: Devil’s Snare

Linus hesitated for a moment at the threshold of the Quill and Quirk, and then cursed himself for a coward. There were, after all, no laws against serving a werewolf a drink, and he felt sure that Bert Booker would be the last man in the world to turn away his custom. Whether he’d have anybody to drink with would be another question, but there was only one way to find out.

The hum of conversation fell silent when he entered the pub. The sound of his boots echoed on the flagstoned floor.

One of the staff writers from Witch Weekly whispered something to her colleague and tittered nervously, and three men sitting near the bar abruptly got up and went out. Linus recognized one of them as a bookseller who had been – so he thought – a casual friend.

“What’ll it be, Linus?” said Bert, who seemed determined to ignore this sudden depletion of his clientele.

“The usual,” Linus managed to say. He’d never realized before how awkward it was to be the only person talking in a crowded pub.

“Sure you don’t want the Christmas ale instead? This’ll be the last of it, and you’ve not had any this year.”

“All right. Pint of the Christmas ale. No, make that a half.” He decided that he would have one drink, consume it as rapidly as possible, and never return. That was the best way to make a statement without subjecting oneself to prolonged social humiliation.

He glanced around the room; it was full of people who had somehow managed to spread out themselves and their belongings to cover every available seat, although Linus would have sworn there had been quite a few places left when he went in.

Then Martin Lovegood caught his eye and waved him over to a table in the far corner, where he was sitting with a few of the Quibbler’s staff. Linus collected his drink, handed Bert two Sickles, and tried to restrain himself from overwhelming Martin with gratitude.

“Long time no see,” said Martin happily. “I’ve just heard the most exciting news. I’ve been in touch with an order of monks in Greenland who think they might have found the legendary Toenail of Icklibõgg. I’m hoping to send one of my staff writers out to authenticate it. Of course it’ll be difficult, we’re a little short-staffed at the moment because Don and Janet are hot on the trail of the Blibbering Humdinger in Alberta, but we’ll work something out. I mean, Greenland isn’t that far from Alberta, comparatively speaking, so they can stop over on the way home. Only I wonder how the Humdinger will take to the monastic life. I understand it normally drinks only champagne, though where it finds champagne on the Canadian prairies is something I haven’t been able to work out. Perhaps there’s a spring of the stuff. I should send Janet an owl and tell her to see if she can find it...”

There had been times in the past when Linus had been irritated by Martin’s habit of rabbiting on about his bizarre theories without the slightest regard for common sense or his audience’s interest. He vowed never to let it bother him again.

Kathy Hudgins, who had made no such resolution, bustled up to their table while Martin was still trying to figure out the logistics of sending so many staff writers on so many wild Snorkack chases. She rolled her eyes slightly when she figured out what Martin was on about and caught Linus in a fierce embrace. “How are you feeling? Was St. Mungo’s very horrible? Merlin, you’re so thin.”

“The lycanthropy diet,” Linus explained. “If they could take out the risking life and limb part, they could probably market it.”

Kathy snorted. “I wouldn’t put it past Witch Weekly to do just that. We’re doing an exposé on diet and beauty potions in the next issue of Madam, and you wouldn’t believe what goes into some of those things. They’re selling young women a bill of goods, and a hell of a dangerous one at that...”

“Their own fault if they buy into it,” grumbled Thersites. “If you think you can go around saving every little chit with fluff for brains from her own stupidity, you’re even more of a fool than you look.”

Before Kathy could retort, a booming voice called, “Well, HELLO HELLO!” and Kathy’s friend Amelia Bones joined them at the table. In addition to having an impressively deep voice for a woman, Amelia was slightly deaf, and she operated under the assumption that the rest of the world was slightly deaf too.

“Here’s the Griselda Marchbanks interview I promised you,” roared Amelia. “I’m sorry it’s so late, but you won’t believe how hard it was to track her down. For someone who’s a hundred and sixty-eight, she keeps busy ... You won’t publish this under my name, will you? If anybody on the Wizengamot finds out I’ve been moonlighting as a staff writer for Madam, I may as well A.K. myself right on the spot.”

Linus refrained from pointing out that if Amelia wanted to keep her involvement with Kathy’s magazine a secret, she probably shouldn’t speak in a voice that could be heard in the next town over.

“I’ll publish it under the name Horatia Ditheringspoon,” Kathy promised. “That’s what I call our political correspondent, and I haven’t written any material for her lately.”

Most of the articles in Madam were, in fact, written by Kathy and published under various pseudonyms. She said this was less trouble in the long run than correcting your staff’s mistakes and trying to think up ways to put off paying them, which was how Martin Lovegood spent most of his time.

“Did you figure out why Madam Marchbanks resigned?” asked Martin eagerly. “Because I’ve got a theory – this is just between you, me, and the lamppost, mind – that she might have eloped with Stubby Boardman, who’s quite innocent of course...”

“She resigned because of Umbridge,” said Amelia. “No mystery there.”

Linus, naturally, took advantage of this opening to recount the epic tale of his sufferings at the hands of the Werewolf Registry, and the new laws that reduced him to the status of a second-class citizen.

“Stupid, bigoted idiot,” said Kathy when he finished. “I can’t believe I was fool enough to have Horatia write up an endorsement for her when she was up for her first term in the Wizengamot.”

Linus, Martin, and Thersites stared at her. “You endorsed her?!?”

“Well.” Kathy took a large swallow of her beer and looked awkward. “It was a few years ago, and she hadn’t exactly shown her true colors yet – and with men outnumbering women three to one on the Wizengamot, I really did think any female appointee was a good thing, regardless of her politics. I’m not proud of it.” She reddened and muttered, “In fact, I’m starting to feel like this whole situation is my fault. Sorry, Linus.”

“It’s all right,” said Linus. “It’s not as if anybody actually pays attention to the endorsements in Madam.”

Kathy wadded up her cocktail napkin and threw it at him. “Thanks, mate.”

“Only trying to help.”

“‘S what comes of doin’ endorsements,” slurred Thersites. “Get to pretendin’ one on ‘em’s better ‘n the other ... this is the result. Politicians, Dark Lords, Dark Lords an’ politicians, they’re all knaves an’ fools. Only kind of magic they do is taking from the public ... that little ... little ... less than little wit ... that they have.” He slumped face-forward into his glass of Curiously Strong Ale.

“I think you owe an apology to Amelia, Thersites,” said Kathy coldly, but the cartoonist gave no sign of having heard her. (Linus, who had noticed long ago that Thersites had a habit of passing out at moments that were supremely convenient for Thersites, wasn’t so sure.)

Martin examined his inert employee and shrugged. “If he doesn’t wake up in time for the next Quibbler,” he said to Linus, “do you think you could do an artist’s rendering of the Toenail of Icklibõgg?”

“Sure, Martin. My pleasure.” Linus didn’t have the foggiest idea what the Toenail of Icklibõgg might be or what it was supposed to look like, but he suspected nobody else did either, and in any case he would have done anything for Martin at that moment. It was shaping up to be a normal evening, after all, and he was profoundly grateful for it.

 

                                                            *          *          *

“Healer McRae! Hope! HOPE!”

The other patrons in the shop turned and stared at Hope as the voice from her handbag grew louder. Grumbling, she extracted her Calling Card from its depths. That fool of a Miriam Strout again, she thought. The chief Healer on the Longbottoms’ ward was a kind, motherly soul, but Hope was privately of the opinion that she had the brains of a flea. She seemed incapable of handling the most minor of crises by herself, and she was forever bothering her colleagues during their off hours.

The Calling Cards, which had a small amount of Floo Powder incorporated into the parchment, were a recent advance in technology that allowed the Healers to remain in constant contact with each other. Hope regarded them as a decidedly mixed blessing.

The small image of Healer Strout in the corner of the card was looking distinctly breathless. “Oh, Hope – do come quickly – it’s Broderick Bode. He’s –” Miriam blurted out something incomprehensible about a pot-plant and burst into tears.

If Bode had knocked one of the plants over and Miriam seriously thought she needed Hope’s help to clean up the mess, she was so going to die as soon as Hope got her hands on her. The Alienist gritted her teeth and Apparated to St. Mungo’s.

The sight that greeted her on the long-term residents’ ward was as grotesque as it was bizarre. Broderick Bode lay stretched out on the floor, almost hidden by the undulating coils of what looked at first glance like an enormous snake, but which proved to be a plant. His face was purple and swollen; his hands were clutched about his throat, frozen in a desperate attempt to disentangle the plant’s tendrils.

Miriam was alternately darting forward with her wand out, casting every spell that came into her head at the plant, and retreating as the vicious tendrils crept closer about her feet.

“What is it?” shouted Hope over Miriam’s shrieks and the noise of the spells.

“The card said – a Flitterbloom – but I don’t think...”

Another tendril shot across the floor like a reptile’s tongue, and something from a long-forgotten Herbology lesson clicked in Hope’s mind. “Got it. Devil’s Snare. Incendio!”

Scorched black by a blast of fire from Hope’s wand, the plant retreated as swiftly as it had moved forward.

There was one thing to be said for Miriam; she was all right so long as there was someone else around to think for her. Together, the two women burned the Devil’s Snare to a crisp and attempted to resuscitate Bode, but they could find no sign of a heartbeat and after several minutes they had to concede defeat.

“It’s so – horrid,” sobbed Miriam, who had gone all to pieces as soon as it became clear that they could do nothing more for the patient. “And he was – getting better – too. They hardly – ever get better here...”

“I know,” murmured Hope, looking around the room. The other patients were mercifully oblivious to the horror of the scene that had passed; Frank Longbottom stared blankly at the ceiling, and Alice was toying with the curtains around her bed, humming tunelessly. Gilderoy Lockhart wandered up to the two Healers, smiled his most dazzling smile, and asked if he could interview them about their marvelous victory over the plant. The only person on the ward who seemed at all mindful of Bode’s death was the portrait of a supercilious-looking witch in sixteenth-century costume, her pale blonde hair arranged in elaborate ringlets. She turned up her nose with an expression of distaste and stepped out of her frame, no doubt planning to take refuge on a ward where she wouldn’t have to witness such unpleasantness.

Miriam pulled herself together and led Gilderoy back to his own bed, and Hope steeled herself for the grim round of paperwork and investigations that always followed an unnatural death.

 

                                                            *          *          *

The death of an obscure Ministry employee on a ward for severely damaged mental patients made little stir in the wider world; it was entirely overshadowed by the news that ten Death Eaters had escaped from Azkaban. This unprecedented event threw the Division of Magical Law Enforcement into a frenzy of damage control, and it was not until some days later that Linus was finally able to meet with Remus Lupin’s Auror friends on their lunch break.

Both of them turned out to be young – hardly more than kids, to Linus’ jaded eyes. One was a black man of about thirty, with a shaved head and an earring. The other, who introduced herself, improbably, as “Tonks,” was a girl who looked like she should still be in school; she had streaked her shoulder-length blonde hair with green and purple for some reason. Linus wondered what on earth the person who recruited them had been thinking, but then, being an Auror was the sort of job where you were lucky to make it into middle age with all your original limbs, so perhaps they were short on volunteers.

The girl, however, endeared herself to him by saying she liked his cat, and the man proved to have an organized, businesslike manner that impressed Linus favorably. He had brought copies of all of the entries from the Werewolf Registry dealing with living or recently deceased people, including Linus’ own.

“You’re a cartoonist, I believe?” he asked, proffering a set of colored pencils. “Could you try your hand at drawing the wolf that bit you?”

Linus agreed readily, and spent the next few minutes sketching the animal as well as he could from memory.

“Hmm.” Tonks examined the drawing. “Scraggly-looking tawny fur, darker on top and lighter on the belly, tail tipped with black, and the right ear half chewed off. Are you sure about all those details?”

“Pretty sure,” said Linus. “It may have been the left ear, but I don’t think so.”

“Sound like anyone we know, Kingsley?”

The black wizard frowned and looked through the sheets of parchment from the Werewolf Registry with elaborate care. “No,” he said at last.

The girl’s voice was sharp. “What d’you mean, no?”

“The closest match is Berowne himself – he’s got everything except the ear. That isn’t too surprising in itself; most werewolves tend to look like the one who created them. But I can’t find any other werewolves who match the description at all. And I take it you didn’t bite yourself?” Kingsley looked at Linus and smiled.

“I’m not that insane,” said Linus. “Yet.”

“Remus tells me the issue of Martin Miggs that you were working on was somewhat politically inflammatory, is that correct?” Kingsley asked. “Could you tell us more about it?”

Linus gave a short explanation, with illustrative sketches. Kingsley half-smirked at some of the jokes, and his younger colleague laughed out loud, but by the time he got to the final panel they both looked sober.

“In other words, you were implying that Dolores Umbridge was in league with – with You-Know-Who?” said Tonks.

Linus forced himself not to shout “Voldemort!” at her. Superstition always irritated him, but she was one of the few Ministry employees who had shown the slightest inclination to help him. “That’s about it.”

She whistled softly. “I’ve got to hand it to you. Sounds like you pissed off two very powerful people at one go.”

“Or one very unholy alliance,” said Linus, who had not changed his mind about Umbridge’s loyalties.

Kingsley shook his head. “There’s no indication they’re working together. But it’s true that the Ministry couldn’t be doing more to help ... him ... if they were trying.”

He and Linus spent a few minutes bickering about whether this was more likely to be accident or design, and then Tonks, who had been looking impatient, returned to the subject of Linus’ burglar. “It sounds like it must have been somebody who knew what you were planning. That narrows the field considerably.”

“Not only that,” said Linus, “it’s got to be someone who knew exactly where to find the cartoons, because they went straight to the desk in my study and didn’t disturb anything else. And that means they were in the Quill and Quirk earlier that night, or else they talked to somebody else who was.”

“Can you remember exactly who might have overheard you?” Kingsley asked.

Linus thought it over and frowned. “That’s the problem. The pub was fairly empty that night and we weren’t talking loudly enough for anybody at the other tables to catch what I was saying, so it’s got to be one of my friends.”

“Who was there?”

“I’m trying to think ... Martin Lovegood and Kathy Hudgins for sure. Kathy’s friend Amelia Bones sometimes joins us, but I don’t think she was there that night, and she’s sea-green incorruptible anyway. And there are usually one or two of Martin’s staff hanging about, but that night it was only Thersites Mason. Martin said something rather tactless to him and he ended up walking out, but that was well after I told them about the cartoons.” Linus frowned. “It’s impossible. Kathy’s Muggle-born and Thersites’ father is a Muggle, they’d never be in league with the Death Eaters. I don’t see how it can be anyone but Martin, but I don’t believe it. The man’s a bit of a flake, but I’d trust him with my life.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Kingsley. “We have no reason to think the Death Eaters are involved at all.”

“I do,” said Linus. “Have you ever seen that Umbridge woman in short-sleeved robes? I ask you.”

Kingsley sighed. “At Auror Headquarters, they generally expect more proof than that.”

Tonks changed the subject again. “What can you tell me about the people who work at the Quill and Quirk? I mean, in a pub people are always coming around to collect the empty glasses and things, but they sort of blend into the scenery and you don’t notice them half the time.”

Linus considered this. “Bert Booker was around for part of the conversation. I remember, because he asked me whether it wasn’t libel. But he’s owned the place for thirty years, and he thinks being a barman is one step lower than the priesthood. Anything he overhears from his customers is under the seal of the confessional, as far as he’s concerned.”

“Priests have been corrupted before now,” said Kingsley thoughtfully.

“What’s his bloodline?” asked Tonks, who had seemed more receptive than Kingsley to Linus’ Death Eater theory.

“Pure,” Linus admitted. “But I’d stake my life he isn’t the one.” He grasped at a hopeful idea that had suddenly struck him. “Perhaps Kathy told Amelia Bones, and then Amelia went somewhere else, and someone overheard her talking about it. I don’t think she’d ever let anything slip to someone she didn’t trust on purpose, it’s just that Amelia’s idea of talking quietly is –”

“A dull sort of boom,” said Tonks. “I know. I used to work down the corridor from her.”

“So your working hypothesis is that Kathy Hudgins left the pub and spoke to Amelia Bones, and after that, Madam Bones said something about what you were planning in some other public place that was still open at that hour – but quiet enough for her to be overheard by yet another person. And at some point after that, this other person set a werewolf on you,” said Kingsley. “Approximately what time frame are we talking about here?”

“Between twenty-past-eleven and midnight,” Linus admitted. “All right, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound very likely.”

“Anything’s possible,” said Kingsley, although it was clear from his face that he thought it wasn’t. “Could you give us the full names and addresses of all these people so we can follow up? Not Amelia Bones – we know where to find her – but Mr. Lovegood, Madam Hudgins, the other man – Mason, is it? – and the barman?”

Linus wrote them down, but he felt deeply uneasy as he did so. Informing against one’s friends to the Ministry was Simply Not Done in the world of the Quill and Quirk. But then, he told himself, arranging for one’s friends to be attacked by werewolves was Simply Not Done either.

“One last question,” said Tonks. “Are you ever planning to publish anything similar to the cartoons that were stolen?”

Linus shook his head. “I can’t afford to. This is the only job I can get.”

“If you ever change your mind, I’d advise you not to tell anyone about your plans,” said Kingsley.

It was a warning Linus did not need.