The Unknown Witness

Chapter Five: Revealing the Witness

They followed Claudia into the house. The first thing Harry noticed as he stepped into the hallway was how cold it was, even at the height of summer. It held a chill in its air, as if an evil had recently passed over its roof and the house remained in its shadow, forever holding a sense of foreboding. Or maybe it was the darkness inside that made him feel a little on edge. The house was on the verge of chaos, things knocked over still expecting to be picked up as if someone had run round in a whirlwind. Harry strongly suspected from Claudia’s nervous, unsettling nature that the whirlwind was seated right there in front of them.

Claudia immediately retreated to the living room where she sat hunched up in a corner chair, her trouser clad legs pulled up tightly to her chest as she rocked in a slow, meditative fashion. Her eyes were wide and just as vivid as Harry could remember. The ice white of her irises were gazing out into the room with a look of vague blankness, not able to take in the scene surrounding her but still desperately trying to absorb the air that held it. Wrinkles had begun to form around her eyelids: thin lines of laughter and worry that formed little crow's feet at their corners creeping into the face like the toll of time personified. Harry had barely been witness to the ageing process. Aunt Petunia caked on the make up with a shovel, the orange line of her foundation clearly visible while Uncle Vernon remained ageless behind his great moustache. But seeing Claudia at two different ages in such a short time span was quite a traumatising sight. However, in both the images Harry superimposed on each other in his mind, the same emotions accompanied it. Confusion. Uncertainty. Fear.

Hermione was clearly anxious, and Harry watched her as she first stepped in after Claudia. He remained at the doorway with an equally timid Ron, who was a little unsure what to do with his oversized limbs so reducing himself to examining his palms. Hermione, unable to watch a fellow human being in such a state, reached out and went to place a reassuring hand on Claudia's arm. But just as her fingertips made contact with the shivering shoulder, Claudia snapped it away, like a cat released from a trap and flashing with a fierce unexplained anger. She swatted the hand away in such a movement it made Hermione jump out of her skin and scuttle across the room as Ron and Harry entered it, keeping back from the older woman like she was an animal in a zoo. A zoo with bars she couldn't see.

'What do you know about the accident?'

Although this voice certainly went straight to the point of the whole expedition, it came from an unexpected source. Claudia had let the words tumble out in a flurry, her determination to get to the bottom of all her anxiety most prominent in the panic of her voice, shaking. She was a woman on edge and Harry wasn't sure whether he'd be able to cope with her. But he was definitely going to try.

'Claudia,' he said, walking across the room and perching in front of the woman on the steady coffee table. 'My name is Harry Potter.'

He took her hand again, and this time she didn't bat it away. Instead she took it firmly, like a handshake, letting her legs slide off the chair and resume a normal position with both feet on the floor as if she needed stability. Harry beckoned the others towards her and passed her hand to them each in turn.

'This is Hermione Granger…' he said as Claudia took her hand. Hermione smiled a little and bent in ever closer.

'Hi,' she said quietly, as if she was afraid to wake a sleeping child. Her smile suddenly widened, as if something had just clicked inside her colossal brain. 'Feel this.'

She took Claudia's hand and brought it up to her hair, although calmer than it used to be, still lying in wild curls on her sleeve covered shoulders. Claudia took the hair in her fingertips, rather like a baby finding security in the holding of a finger in a clamp-like grip. Claudia did not tug however, instead she smiled, the flicker of the emotion lighting up a face Harry had only witnessed in moments of extreme anguish. The difference was amazing.

'That must be the pain of your life, Hermione…' she said, wrapping a section of the hair around her finger before letting it cascade back into place. 'But it’s beautiful. Soft. Wavy.'

'Not first thing in the morning, I can tell you,' Hermione laughed. She took Claudia's hand and passed it onto Ron. 'And this is Ron Weasley.'

'Oh my…' she said initially as her delicate hand was swamped by Ron's ever growing one. 'You're quite a gangly one, aren't you?'

Ron let out a small chortle of amusement. 'Yeah. Mum says if I don't stop growing soon I won't fit into the house.'

Claudia returned the smile as Ron allowed her hand to identify him further, creeping up his arm and gradually settling on his hair. She ruffled it playfully.

'Its like fire…' she said, slightly taken aback. 'You're either thinking a lot under there or…'

'I'm a redhead.' Ron smiled broadly, as if he was proud of his most distinguishable feature. He took the hand off his unruly mop and handed it back to Harry who paused, a little unsure of what to do with it. Claudia sensed his trepidation and addressed it forthwith.

'I'm back with Harry now…' she said slowly as she recognised the hand she was holding. 'May I?..'

Harry didn't need to answer as Claudia set about familiarising herself with his features like she did just a few days ago. Or fourteen years depending on the perspective. Harry felt a creeping acquaintance with the motion of the hand as it swept up the side of his face and lingered on his scar, normally a movement formulated in the flick of a stranger's eye. But while that felt like an invasion of his privacy, this certainly didn't. He wanted her to do this. It was necessary, and he didn't seem to mind. He urged it.

She traced the outline of the lightning bolt as if she already knew its path. She dared not venture into its blotched red centre, but remained settled on its outskirts like a child at the edge of the playground: crossing that border would force her to acquire a whole set of problems she felt she couldn't face. She lingered for a minute, Harry not daring to breathe, then drew away, somewhat more settled than she'd been when they'd first entered the frame. She sighed.

'I knew you'd come back,' she said quietly as Harry and the others looked on, their faces etched with a mixture of concern and curiosity. 'I knew it. Yes,' she said quickly, replying to the previously-asked question. 'I can remember the accident, but very little in the hours afterwards. I do remember someone talking to me though. Its strange, I can't remember the words, only the emotions. I thought it was all a dream.' Here she began to stumble, her own doubt hindering the memory. 'But that was fourteen years ago. You were there. But you sound exactly the same. Your face hadn't aged a bit, I can feel it… you can't be the boy… it's just not possible…' She paused and looked blankly at him. 'Are you a ghost?'

Harry for a moment wasn't sure how to answer. He was confronted with the key to the happiness of everyone he held dearest: Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore even… yet he didn't know where to start. He stared at the unknown witness, and she stared right back in a way that seemed to delve into the deepest recess of his soul, as if she could read it through the pureness of her ice white eyes. The wave of sympathy that hit him was insurmountable. This woman had spent the best part of two decades with an ailment she could never fully understand, like a jigsaw with a million missing pieces. He hated it when he saw pity in other people's stares, seeing in the reflection of their glassy eyes a desperation to understand and soothe the problem away. As if they wanted to bring his parents back for him. Although she had no way of telling, he wouldn't wish to bestow such a look upon the unfortunate Claudia. The line between sympathy and pity was as delicate as love and hate, and he silently prayed that the line would never blur. He felt secure in boundaries. He had to speak. However, the ever-rational Hermione got there first.

'Claudia,' she said firmly, 'I think there are a great many things you need to understand. I know you don't know us. I know you can't trust us. I know we're only a handful of teenagers who shouldn't have a care in the world. But we do, we most certainly do. You probably won't believe us, I didn't believe any of it for the longest time...' Harry frowned a little at this slight revelation, wondering what exactly Hermione was referring to. She batted away his gaze. 'But please keep an open mind. We need an open mind. We need your help, Claudia…'

Harry took a deep intake of breath that stopped Hermione dead. She stepped aside, almost knowing instinctively that he should be the one to speak. Ron was compelled to crouch at Claudia's side and take her hand again, rubbing the back of it reassuringly with the thumb of his wand hand, as if the spread of the magic it cast would somehow make the words more accepting. Harry finally plucked up the courage to speak, to spill the secret that hardly any Muggle would ever hear. He was ready to cross the line.

'Do you believe in magic?'

***

Lucy had lost count of the time she'd been in her prison. The nights had formed the habit of blending effortlessly into the day with an air of such peace and serenity she could have been there for years. She'd given up trying to understand the necessity of her imprisonment. The fish was apparently taking its time to bite. She could feel the grime begin to creep and settle on her face, her delicate pores beginning to fill with such dirt and dust her face felt weighed down with its sinful presence. She could barely be bothered to open her eyes.

She groaned a little, a hunger pain slicing clean through her stomach as she heard the approaching footsteps of the guard, bringing only what she hoped to be breakfast. It was normally too tasteless to decipher. She sat up a little to watch the hooded figure linger at the door of her cell. He paused in the shadow's depth, almost as if he was considering an unconventional move before he tapped the lock once with his roughly formed stick, leaving a shower of sparks in its wake as the door swung open coldly for him to lay down the indistinguishable meal. The guard tutted with disgust.

Lucy looked up at the figure desperately for any sign of life or humanity beyond the black folds that held his identity. This was the closest she'd got to human contact for days. If it was human. It held the familiar shape of the species, most certainly, as arms were vaguely visible under the sea of black cloth as they fell back into place at the guard's tender sides. Definitely different from the kinsmen of the devil who were sapping away at her sanity. In the emotionless air that continued to supply her with the most wretched of existences, the guard seemed to fill it with his own. Obedience, straight obedience which Lucy got the sense was not all that it seemed. The darkness had certainly made her perceptive. She stared up at him, almost challenging him not to stare back under the disguise of his hood as if it were all a game. The guard turned away.

'I'm not allowed to talk to you,' said his voice, younger than she’d expected, somewhat detached from the physical being in the darkness of the cell. He had obviously sensed her desire for communication that poured out of every inch of her face, and cringed at the power it awarded her stare. “I wouldn’t risk my life talking to you. The master…'

She heard the voice sigh wearily, struggling almost against his "master's" chains as the desire to stand up against them became as apparent as Lucy's fear. She took a brave step.

'The master isn't here to see,' she said, timidly.

Lucy could feel the guard's frown upon her as if she was too feeble minded to fully comprehend. 'The master sees everything, Lucy. The Dark Lord has eyes everywhere, if he so desires it. A concept, of course, an inferior like you could never understand...'

The sparks of a normal conversation, relatively normal under the circumstances, seemed to be enough to ignite Lucy's sense of injustice and outrage. She ignored the fact he knew her name and felt compelled to spit back.

'Inferior?' she said through weakened, gritted teeth. 'Inferior? Would you care to expand on that?'

'It is irrelevant,' he said automatically, as if he'd been taught to ignore questions and lap up orders. 'And as for your inferiority, that is apparent in your inability to recognise your true status.'

'Which is?'

What was intriguing Lucy most at this point in the conversation was how forced the voice's vocabulary appeared to be. It was as if all this talking above his station was a struggle, an unnatural form of expression, wanting to lapse into a sequence of normality that the master had forbidden. Like a child wanting to escape their ignorance. He couldn’t have been more than a child. It was this that gave her the strength to push.

He blinked at her in the darkness, as if the line of establishment should have already been defined. 'It's simple,' he replied bluntly. 'You're a Muggle. We are wizards.'

Lucy felt a slight wave of nausea flicker across her insides as the words became clouds in the freezing dungeon air, floating upwards in their own quest for freedom. If she were able to see his eyes, possibly then she'd get at least a slight impression as to the seriousness of this most dramatic of remarks. Instead, the darkness granted her nothing. For a moment, she was left with just her own interpretation of the words as the guard remained stationary, waiting for her to react. Wizards and wands, sparks and spells. Somewhere it was making sense. She shook her head, a little unnerved, as if she wished to expel any thought that her sister might have been right out of her thoroughly confounded brain. Claudia.

She blinked at the faceless guard. 'Muggles?'

'Non-magical humans,' he sighed heavily, as if sickened by her stupidity. 'If you want the polite definition. I suppose down here it doesn't really matter. You're just a pawn. The first to be taken. The first to fall. You have no importance.'

He turned to leave, his cloak billowing out behind him as he twisted painfully on the spot, allowing his obligations to get the better of his nature as he moved to isolate Lucy once again. But Lucy's own quavering notes appeared to delay his departure.

'Whose pawn are you?''

He paused to consider this, but instead avoided its answer. But it was obvious Lucy was beginning to hit the raw nerves. He avoided her penetrating eye as her expression demanded more of a valid explanation. He continued to ignore it.

'Eat your soup.'

'So that's what it's supposed to be, is it?' Lucy almost laughed harshly into the air, feeling more in prime position in light of the guard's uncertainty. 'It's always been a bit debatable…'

She was pushing him too far, for either a wall was going to crumble or a dangerous rage rise from the depths. Neither seemed appealing as the situation tittered on the delicate edge of security. The guard hissed silently under his breath, almost snake-like in its bitterness as he kicked her food tray towards her, letting it slide across the freezing stone floor. Most of the contents of the soup bowl was laid to waste as it slopped over the sides and onto the ground, staining it with an unnatural red.

The guard stared at her for what felt like an eternity as any heat that was left in the liquid was eventually seized by the cold and turned into one of its own, heartless. In that silence, it seemed the air was electrified with a peaceful understanding that their positions in the world weren't all too far apart. Pawns to the unknown, unwilling possibly. If only they knew exactly what was being determined. The guard made to go.

'Thank you,' she said suddenly, piercing the air with an unexpected expression of gratitude. The guard seemed lax for a moment, trying to make sense of the feeling behind the words before she quickly added. 'What is your name?'

'You don't want to know my name…' the Guard replied, a little unnerved as if his name hadn't been important for a long, long time. He was still trying to resist. 'No one will know my name. There is no reason to. I doubt this acquaintance will last that long for either of us.'

Lucy shivered as his sense of pronounced doom, but chose to ignore it. She wanted an acquaintance in this dark as much as she longed for the light. Maybe it would provide her with it. 'I can't just call you nothing…'

The voice paused and considered this problem, and seemed to dismiss it. Lucy felt her heart crack in two as the swish of his cloak seemed to indicate the last of her hope making its bid for freedom. She closed her eyes. She was aware of the person with the voice stepping out of the cell, herself feeling too weakened to take advantage of its fragile opening. But as he swung the door shut and secured it with an incantation, he leant back into the bars and whispered, as if he couldn't dare let anyone hear him.

'Call me Damien.'

Lucy would have laughed out loud if she was anywhere but there. 'The son of the devil?'

She could now see his eyes, gleaming through the night. Pale. He addressed her yet again.

'You just don't know how accurate that is.'

And Damien was gone, leaving Lucy alone with the cold.

***

Harry told his story. He was familiar with its words, its phrases sliding off his tongue with astounding fluency, but hearing them all together with his own tones as the generators was a slightly unnerving experience. It was as if the ghosts that had formed so much of his invisible past sprung to life with his words, providing their own brand of pain as he pondered at their actions. He found it increasingly apparent that he couldn't explain one thing without the other, the presence of many unanswered questions making its telling more and more hindered. But still he told her everything: The concepts of magic, the school, the emergence of Voldemort and the events leading up to his initial downfall. Next to the aftermath of the Triwizard tournament, it was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do in his life.

Claudia had remained quite calm and collected throughout the telling of the tale. She still had a grip on Ron's hand, a light, delicate touch that seemed unobtrusive on anyone's part. It was merely a form of reassurance. She had sat there and let the words wash over her, like a revitalising shimmer of radiance that had after years in the dark finally shed light on the most baffling of subjects. She hadn't known what to expect as her young visitors divulged into their most dignified of lifestyles. For it seemed to her that magic held an air of nobility to its name. Not in a pompous way, by any means. It was as if it accepted itself, the good with the bad, like a human accepting their faults. They dealt with them and moved on, but never being able to gain perfection despite the vain hopes of the reluctant of mind. There were always to be two sides of the coin. Magic. She had always said it was magic. And she was right.

When Harry had first mentioned Sirius, the shock to her system was frightening. A spark of nervous anxiety had rushed up her spine, making her jerk in her seat while Ron squeezed her hand to try and calm her down. But she was already tranquil. His words were just confirmation.

'… There are a great many parts I still don't understand.' Harry was saying, a little mystified as to his own epic like it was the first time he'd heard it. 'I don't know why Voldemort wanted to kill my father, but leave my mother out of it. I still don't know why I was such a threat.'

'This is a story with so many twists that even when you live it you can barely keep it up' contributed Hermione, seeming to Claudia like another voice across the room. But somehow she was still able to radiate her smile. Claudia sighed in return.

'But nevertheless,' Harry continued. 'He did. We were the next target, the next pawn to be taken. They needed to be protected. Dumbledore, the headmaster, he suggested this ancient spell where our location would be concealed within a person's living soul, and remain there unless this “Secret Keeper” chose to divulge it. They had to choose someone they trusted with their lives, and mine.'

There the talking ceased. The silence engulfed the group in a soberly fashion, Ron's grip remaining amazingly tender considering the size of his growing limbs while she felt the others' burning stares upon her, something that transcended her limited senses. But still she didn't reply. She couldn't even if he wanted to, as Harry's next statement sent her into a spiral of total confusion.

'They chose Sirius.'

'But - ' she suddenly interjected, feeling a huge sense of injustice well in her chest as she ripped her hand away from the Weasley's. 'But I thought… '

'Thought what, Claudia?' Harry urged, as if this was the driving point of the entire tale. She could sense his desperation, clear as glass to her ears as it trembled through his voice. For the first time that day, Harry spoke with the tones not of a young adult with a task to fulfil, but of a child simply desperate for a way to prove the truth. Claudia was compelled to tell. She cleared her throat nervously as she sat up to address them.

'They must have changed. Sirius wasn't the secret keeper. He couldn't have been. He was seeking the other person out, back in the quad. He must have been the secret keeper… they were talking about trust and betrayal. He had him pinned up against the wall, then the other man pushed him off and staggered into the middle of the road…'

'Can you remember his name?'

Harry didn't want to prompt her. It would be dangerous to do so. She needed to confirm the name, the description as he was then, otherwise her evidence would be worth as much as Hermione's, Ron's, and his’ that astounding night back in the Shrieking Shack. Harry, perhaps on one of the few occasions in his life, began to pray.

Claudia could feel the burden begin to settle. The boy depended on the name. The name to cure all ills, to give him back what little family he had left, or that remained out of the Dark Lord's reach. All she had to do was remember the name.

She paused, her breath lengthening as she cast her mind back to the day to end all days. She could feel the oncoming winter chill rustling under the bench where the black dog did lie, the exact taste of the tuna and sweet corn roll that had a touch too much mayonnaise, prompting her to hand it to the black beast below. She could hear the voices, muffled in her memory, too disguised to clearly make out. She willed the cloud to lift, to float away into obscurity and expose the truth they so desired, that she desired. The name. The traitor…

'Peter Pettigrew.'

She spat out the name as if she'd plucked it out of a hat. It had drifted in on the warm summer breeze, the rustling making it echo briefly in her memory as her mouth instantly engaged to expel the treacherous words. She heard it repeated by many, many voices, in both waves of sympathy and gasps of awe by the various individuals who graced the scene after its destruction. But most importantly, she heard it spat through the gritted, bitter teeth of a dark haired man whose eyes flashed with the extremities of grief and vengeance - Sirius.

Peter was to blame. He was the rat.

'Peter Pettigrew,' she repeated again, as if to confirm it to three pairs of disbelieving ears. She could feel herself begin to shake again. 'He was y-your parent's secret keeper, Harry, w-wasn't he? That's what Sirius was t-talking to him about. He was so angry, so, so angry. I can feel it even now. He betrayed them to Voldemort, and Sirius was hell-bent on revenge. P-Peter blew up the street... he had the wand behind his back. Peter killed all those innocent people. He escaped.'

'How?'

She paused again, her memory visibly straining to Harry, Hermione and Ron, as her shoulders now convulsed with tearless sobs. 'I couldn't see, Harry…' she moaned, as if only now of all moments it was finally hitting home. 'I couldn't see. My eyes were burning… but I heard him get away. I felt him get away. He trickled across my ankles, I know he did…'

And with that, her face fell into her hands as the rocking motion appeared again, making Ron rise from her side with a flash of urgency and slip an arm around the older woman's shoulder, muffling her cries in the material of his cotton shirt. He held her like a child, stroking her hair while rocking with her quietly, soothing the motion from her erratic shakes to the more controlled sways that seemed more calming than dangerous to watch.

'I think we've done enough for today,' Ron said quietly. The pain in his eyes at the sight of Claudia's suffering spoke far more than any range of words. 'I think we've done enough.'

Harry felt dizzy in his seat at the revelations so few words had brought in the afternoon. He was right. This woman had so much to give, even though it seemed she'd already given her all. To take any more seemed cruel and heartless. He couldn't find any means to reply, but merely sat and stared at the crest fallen witness, still failing to soak Ron's shirt in the way she'd wanted for the past fourteen years of her life. Wormtail hadn't just taken her sight. He'd taken her ability to cry. And that made him feel sick to the bone.

'Harry,' said Hermione slowly, yet again acting the voice of reason. 'I think we should come back tomorrow...'

Harry didn't shift his eyes from Claudia, who had ceased her sobs but still clung to Ron like a scared and timid child. Harry supposed that entering the world of magic at this late and dangerous point, that it was an accurate definition.

All eyes were on Harry. Ron prised Claudia off and almost lay her back down in her chair, where she sat stiffly and continued to gaze into the abyss of darkness that was a substitute for her vision. It was Harry who had to address her.

'Claudia,' he said finally, as she leant in close to her once again. She didn't seem to sense his presence, or even batter an eyelid. She was passive. 'We are going to need your help. You can free Sirius. You have it all locked up in there, and it’s something you need to share. Not just for me, but for everyone. We'll take down the Death Eaters one by one if we have to, if it will clear the path to Voldemort. I won't let my parents die in vain.' He stood up, reached out a hand and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her eyes. 'We'll be back tomorrow. Take care.'

Harry turned immediately and stood in the doorway, waiting wearily for his friends. They said their good byes, both telling Claudia not to worry, that Harry knew what he was doing and that she would in the end be doing an eternal good. They felt Harry's helplessness alongside him, and so remained committed to the cause. Somehow, deep down, Harry knew they always would. He'd do the same for them. United, they left, the door closing with the gentlest of slams as they disappeared into the closing dusk.

They were gone. The people who changed her life in a matter of hours were gone and left in their wake more baggage than they could possibly comprehend. Yet somehow, somewhere, she found herself wanting to hold it. But for now, all she could do is sit and think. The whirlwind, for her, had just become an emotional one.

***

They'd been trawling round in the dark for hours. Street after street, turn after turn, everywhere looked the same. House upon house attached at alternate sides, restricted by mortar as they strived for independence with the occasional pebble dashing or ever growing trellis splashed with climbing roses. But they still couldn’t escape their purpose. Post war housing. The curse of middle England.

The journey from Hermione's hadn't taken them long - less than twenty minutes in fact - but it appeared the kids certainly had a run about town. Sirius had almost taken to curb crawling through the tedious process of following their track, Arabella mumbling to herself with ever growing disapproval as the traces of Veneficium rose and fell with the Medway's tide. Remus looked a little ruffled, having finally liberated himself from the hell's angel's attire, now recovering from the restricting experience in a pair of tattered jeans. Sirius shook his head in temporary disbelief at his friend's ageing attitude. Always the responsible one. He flexed his hands on the handlebars of the bike as fatigue began to settle into his weary, wearing bones. He used to be able to ride for days without a break, dangerous, yes, but somehow the exhilaration of having the coldest of winds whip at your heels whether sky-bound or not was as much recuperation as he ever would need. He lived on the air. It used to skim across his helmet and disappear in the slipstream behind, the feeling of passing through the life giving substance more than magic itself. He could move. He was free. But not anymore.

He gave up his freedom the day he gave up his bike. Even though it was exactly the same machine that roared beneath him now, his freedom was still in the past with that day. The day that marked the beginning of another life, another Sirius Black, a man with a purpose and a plan he could die to carry out. It was that day the pain began its feast, eating at the very corner of his soul in a place no Dementor could ever seem to reach, his sacred place. It was robbed from him just like the light was in the terror that Azkaban personified. But he'd even survived that compared to that day. The day down at Godric's hollow when he'd sped off down the lane that one last time to try and change a fate that had already been set. He could have Disapparated certainly, but when his instinct kicked in, he wanted to be one with the machine. It gave him the power to hope, so upon Hagrid's arrival he wished to pass it onto his godson. His responsibility. The one, no matter what Remus, Dumbledore, or anyone said, he felt he'd let down the most. Nevertheless, the pain continued to consume. And he would never fail him again.

'This is useless!' moaned Arabella, finally signalling for Sirius to pull in at the pavement at the pointlessness of their exercise. He did so obligingly, even though they'd been at a virtual standstill anyway. 'The readings are too muddled. Wherever these mongrels were heading, they were trying to get someone off track…'

'Either that or they got hideously, hideously lost…' added Remus helpfully, inspecting the magical graph that was illuminating the palm of Arabella's hand as she examined its diving lines.

Sirius had to stand in awe at the beauty of this particular instrument. Several golden spheres were hanging in mid air above a delicate looking plate, projecting various images onto its silver surface, including a map of the local area as well as any trails they managed to pick up. Streaks of red, green and blue shone brightly in the mild night air, a spectacular light show for the most minuscule of pleasures. Magic could be breathtaking sometimes. But right now, all Sirius could see was a mass of artistic scribbles.

'The reception is lousy…' Arabella sighed, tapping one of the spheres occasionally with her ebony wand to somehow clear the picture. 'They walked all over the place, down this street at least three times I'd say. They were looking for something, and having a pretty hard time finding it, I can tell you.'

Remus was staying silent, examining the projector with a deep sense of concentration that had always unnerved Sirius whenever he saw it grace the Werewolf's face. When Remus was thinking, it was never a good sign. A memory from the marauders.

'Any chance the picture could clear up?' Remus asked casually, frowning at the image.

'Not tonight, by any means,' replied Arabella, all ready to close up shop. 'Maybe in the morning when the naturally occurring levels have died down. Maybe it’s the water. Strong sense of the elements always make for inaccurate readings.'

'Hmm…' replied Sirius, letting most of the technical jargon go straight over his head. He was always the one instantly ready to pounce. Act now, think later. But this time, something caught his eye. A flash of the deepest shade of purple, indistinguishable against the plush colour of the midnight sky across the graph of the projector, mapping its own path across that of the runaways. It crashed a number of times, like the meeting of fates in a tale across the evening light as planes let their engine steam create their own clouds up above. He wanted to think. He wanted to consider the fourth estate as it suddenly entered the frame and altered the outlay ahead of them. But now he had to act, not change philosophy.

'Did you see that?' he whispered quietly just as Arabella was prepared to shut the instrument down. She froze for a minute, wand already poised to interrupt the charm stream that kept the projector operational as Remus began to follow old Padfoot's gaze.

'Yes…' he murmured. 'Yes… there's another path… it's weak, even I can tell you that, but it's there. Look at it…'

All three stood transfixed for an instant as the purple trace arched its own track, mainly around a similar spot on the map before suddenly shooting off, disappearing at such a speed its delicate hold on reality was almost obliterated. It was almost like the trace projected fear itself. It was unknown.

'It's too faint to be a wizard…' whispered Arabella, almost afraid that any further raising of her voice would disrupt the timid balance. 'And we would have picked it up before. Look, it doesn't have any areas of intensity…' she frowned, puzzled. 'It's as if it were man made. Wizards never project that shade. Purple. It’s a creation, a secondary colour…'

'But it's there,' said Sirius. 'And I suggest we track it down.'

Remus' frown deepened even more so. 'But Sirius, we need to find Harry. That's our priority. This is probably just some magical anomaly. Not everything is a give away, you know…'

'Look at it, Remus!' Sirius almost yelled, seizing the projector for himself and causing it to shake in his increasingly unsteady hand. 'Look at the way it crosses! The fates are intertwined. The producer of the purple has something to do with it. Look, the paths, they almost follow. 'He traced it with a finger to emphasise the point. 'And with this sorry tangle of trails, I think this is our only hope.'

'The mass murderer's got a point, Remus,' said Arabella with a hint of the tease ever present in the voice. 'But we're not going to get anything done in this light. I'll put a freezing charm on the graph's current status. We can pick it up in the morning.' She proceeded to do so with a flick of her wand. She quickly packed it away. 'Now,' she said. 'I suggest we go and find some sleazy bed and breakfast and get the grannies talking by asking for a double room.'

Sirius couldn't help but smile at Arabella's mischief as they all mounted the bike once again and sped off silently into the night. They failed to notice the rat jump ship and scuttle up the path of number forty-seven.

***

It was only when she finally headed for bed that Claudia thought of Lucy again. Her mind had been racing in a whirlwind of its own, oblivious to everything around it as she found her memory indulging itself on the surge of fresh information. At first it was blank, horribly blank, like the first fall of snow or an artist's canvas before the assault of colour. But as Harry's words seeped into her brain something seemed to make sense. The Marauders, the Time Tuner, the treacherous end. She was aware that many gaps had been filled, the missing memories from that fateful day when the world exploded piecing themselves together to form a cold, calculated conclusion. But there was so much let to tell, and so much left unsaid. There was a hint lingering in the air that something still needed to be done. Sirius Black's freedom still hung in the balance, and that was something she found herself desperate to change. She held the key. She was the witness. She had the fate of a world only imaginary just a daybreak before on her shoulders. And for now, in that one moment of calm before the inevitable storm, she felt prepared to burden it.

But as she wandered into the bathroom yet again to cleanse her face of a day's anxiety, the thoughts of the promising tomorrow became haunting ones of the day gone by. Still no word from Lucy. And for a brief moment, she felt a surge of fear flow through her veins, washing her blood with its pin prick sharpness and waking her from a semi-comatose state she'd been drifting in since Harry's hushed departure. Lucy, the non-believer. What had become of her now? She felt a creeping sensation enter her bones as the thought occurred she may be caught up in this too. In the danger and in the black. No, she dismissed it. Too convenient, everything interrelated and intertwined like silver spider's web, leaving a trail of deceit and confusion that would only close on them in the end. The sightless fly unable to detect the trap. But Harry would be back with the dawn, and for them she was prepared to have an open mind. Tomorrow was to be a life changing day.

She hadn't bothered for the lights. She had her own darkness to contend with as she quietly entered her uncomplicated bedroom and felt around for her night-clothes. Cotton and comfortable on the warmest of nights. She frowned at the sudden stuffiness of her abode and opened a window, a little ajar, expecting a gush of air so cool and sweet it may have eased the insomnia away. But what she got instead took her breath away.

The air was cool, certainly, but beyond any temperature she'd ever experienced. Cold, lifeless, empty. She gasped in the face of it, as she never sensed it coming, feeling her knees a little weakened as its freezing status seeped beyond her flesh. It was as if the air had crept under her skin, cooling her instantly to unbearable levels as she immediately sought back her summer day in the shelter of her light weight duvet. She turned, anxious, but pushed ever further by the noise down stairs.

'Who's there?'

A creak, that's it. A noisy house on an unusual night. Just the mind playing tricks. She settled down again as the noise returned with a vengeance. Bang.

'Lucy?'

She had no idea what guided her, a supernatural force perhaps, but as the noise manifested itself as a knock on the door, she felt herself drawn to it, no questions asked. Before she departed her bedroom, a swift search of the dressing table brought to her aid a heavy handled curling tong. Defence. She wielded it at arm's length in front of her, brandishing it with the essence of a sword just like Sirius back in the quad. She certainly wasn't a Pettigrew, hiding her schemes behind her back. She could gain maximum impact by being up front. But whoever made the noise on the other side of the door didn't even give her a chance.

She was halfway down the stairs when the door fell of its hinges. She was suddenly aware of a sea of bodies entering her hall, their frantic and desperate nature expelling from their bodies like the smell of rot and decay. She heard the occasional crash from the descent of an ornament as the strangers committed their undefined search, Claudia gripping the banister harder and harder with every tinkling destruction. She heard the swish of a cloak as it sliced through the air. She froze.

'Search this place form top to bottom if you have to…' said a voice, yet undefined. 'The master cannot afford to have his servants exposed.'

Several grunts of acknowledgement came form the direction of the kitchen, when a clatter of copper saucepans made their search even more apparent. The thought then occurred that she had not yet been seen. They believed the house derelict. They treated it as such, not bothering to check for any human contents before proceeding to rip out its heart and soul. If she could just sneak down the stairs and out the front door, judging by the draught still open to the world, then perhaps, just perhaps…

But her thoughts were dead. He stranger was moving. She could feel him shift his feet, dragging them slowly and measured across the hall carpet and place one firmly on the initial step toward her. The stairs. Her heart was screaming wildly in her chest, as its mad erratic beat seemed to match the movements of the man, timid to frantic in the skip of a second. She pressed herself against the banister, hoping to just blend in and praying for an uncertainty she knew would never be delivered. She sank to her knees, defeated before she began. A body, somehow, was behind her too.

'Who are you?' he demanded, in a voice that immediately caused Claudia to let out a desperate sob. He wasn't one for small talk. The man from below grabbed her face with one hand, his freezing fingers clapped chillingly round her cheeks as he dragged her to her feet, trembling under his monster grip. She didn't reply. She could feel something being poked deep into her back, so she didn't even dare to scream. She closed her eyes to the threat.

'Look at me, woman.' Said the voice again, his grip tightening and feeling like her jaw would cave in at any given moment. Her eyes remained shut. 'Look at me!'

At this point she couldn't refuse. She brought her face up under his formidable grip and exposed her pupils to the night, staring at the darkness in front of her, totally unaware that by some hideous coincidence her blank gaze met exactly with her aggressors.

He gasped, and she felt his grip weaken a little as the ice of her eyes hit home. The piercing, invisible stare that she could never see the benefits of was working its magic once again. Her aggressor shivered but was not in the slightest deterred. She felt him smile.

'We've got her…' he said, an evil hint of happiness creeping into his tones. 'I can't believe we’ve got her. Wormtail!'

He let her drop, as the footsteps of the summoned man approached. Weakened by his hold, as her legs gave way again, as she felt a familiar pair of eyes cast sight on her again. Never before had a pair of eyes managed to pierce her boundary of sight, but the pain of that stare, over a decade in the waiting, was enough to send her body rigid with fright. It buckled her defences and sent her tumbling down.

'We meet again.' he stuttered, his nerve not collected but seeming deadlier still. 'But your day would always come, Claudia. You will never escape the dark.'

She kicked. She moaned. She screamed the loudest scream she could ever have mustered but yet no sound appeared in the air. She was frozen. And as the grip of two heavier cronies tightened painfully round her useless limbs to remove her from the scene, Wormtail was in control. And ready for revenge.

'Take her away.'

***

To be continued…