- Rating:
- PG-13
- House:
- Schnoogle
- Ships:
- Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
- Characters:
- Harry Potter
- Genres:
- General Action
- Era:
- The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
- Spoilers:
- Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
- Stats:
-
Published: 07/14/2005Updated: 03/02/2009Words: 277,790Chapters: 39Hits: 116,863
Choices and Consequences
Batsnumbereleven
- Story Summary:
- Harry's heading back to Privet Drive for the summer after his fifth year. He's tired of being angry with the world, and now it's time for him to change his attitude. He might have lost Sirius, and have had the prophecy thrust upon him, but there are still people who want to help him, and who understand the burden he carries. He has to take responsibility for his life and find a way to defeat Voldemort. (Mild H/G)
Chapter 36 - 36
- Posted:
- 02/05/2009
- Hits:
- 584
The wind whipped around Harry and Ginny as they made their way along the road from Hogsmeade and approached the castle. They huddled close together as they walked, to ward off the chill and combat the flurries of snow that stung their faces as they struggled into the stiff headwind.
For once Harry's mind wasn't on the warmth and comfort that he drew from the redhead next to him or on the wish to be inside, back in the Gryffindor common room in front of the fire with her and out of the weather.
No, as they walked, Harry fumed.
He'd jumped in to prevent Ron having a blazing row with the Headmaster as they stood in the parlour of Madam Puddifoot's teashop, but had then engaged himself in the argument anyway.
The callousness and lack of co-operation within the wizarding world stunned him, and he stomped down the road seething at Dumbledore's unfeeling response to the crisis. He wondered how the Ministry could still refuse to act on Voldemort's return, despite all the evidence that Death Eaters and Dementors were targeting witches and wizards across the country. He raged internally at Dumbledore's refusal to press the issue further, at the lack of preparation among the citizens of Hogsmeade, at the Order for not helping out.
'What possible, reasonable reasons could they have for not being prepared?' he raged inwardly as they trudged onwards. 'Was this how Voldemort had come to power in the first place - because the wizarding world was so insular that each person was concerned only for their personal safety, and not that of their neighbours and fellow wizards, even in their own community?'
It had certainly seemed that way in Hogsmeade. Harry figured that there must have been some folk in the village that knew how to cast a Patronus. Were they all boarded up in their houses, afraid to face the Dementors and save their village?
If so, he could understand how the Death Eaters had gained such a grip on the country twenty years ago, even though they were comparatively few. The reign of terror that Voldemort had subjected them to worked so well because the wizarding world was so isolated. Even a village like Hogsmeade, which was the largest wizard-only community in Britain, only had around five hundred people living there and a fair number of those were on the outskirts, farming the land by primarily Muggle means.
The rest of the wizarding population was spread far and wide across the country, which made it almost impossible for the Ministry to provide security, but they could at least have made some effort to protect locations like Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and to have trained up prominent members of the community with the skills to defend themselves and their village.
Harry ground his teeth as the grim thoughts flitted through his mind. His anger was divided equally between the Ministry, for their complete lack of concern about the deaths, torturing and souls destroyed by Dementors, and Dumbledore for not doing more to help, whether simply with the residents of Hogsmeade or on a wider scale.
The two of them continued to pound the path back to the school in silence, but a group blocking the path ahead interrupted Harry's frustrated pondering.
As they drew closer, he could see that they were garbed as Death Eaters, the black cloaks not unusual among wizarding folk but the white masks obscuring their identities singling them out as Voldemort's followers.
"Well, well," a nauseatingly familiar voice rang out above the howl of the wind. "If it isn't Mister Potter and the little Weasley trollop."
The small group sniggered at the words that could only have come from the mouth of a Malfoy.
"Such a pity that the two of you have been abandoned by your friends," he continued. "I'm sure that you'll cause us a lot less trouble out here in the open than you did in the Department of Mysteries."
Harry looked around the group and drew his wand, noting that Ginny already had hers in her hand ready for action. He counted eight men in the group including Malfoy senior, and it looked very much as though the smallest of them was Malfoy junior, but with his mask on, it was difficult to tell.
"I don't think that drawing your wand is going to help," Lucius drawled as his pulled his mask off, confirming his identity to the two students. "You seem to be a little outnumbered here, Potter."
Harry spat on the ground at the silver-haired man's feet.
"So, you wangled your way out of a trip back to Azkaban? Big deal. I'm sure Voldemort loves you for exposing his return before he was ready."
All the men winced at the use of the Dark Lord's name, reminding Harry how fickle such power was. How could these idiots be afraid of a name when they spent hours torturing innocents? Apparently Malfoy didn't appreciate his snort of humour though.
"You think you're so clever, flaunting our Master's name," he growled. "You'll not be so cocky when you're at his mercy - he has none!"
"Ah! I see you still enjoy the pleasure of your "Master's" Cruciatus Curse!" Harry taunted him.
"You will mock him no longer!" Lucius roared and drew his wand.
He cast a quick stunning spell at Harry, no doubt expecting to catch him off guard, but the two students were already moving by the time he'd completed the incantation.
Harry and Ginny took up a position that they had practiced on a regular basis in the DA, which replicated the tactic that Harry and Blaise had used in their first Defence lesson of the year. Ginny positioned herself slightly behind and to one side of Harry, where he could use his shield spell to protect them both, but where she could still cast spells past his shoulder.
In response to Lucius's stunner, the two of them fired similar spells back at the group. Harry's was deflected by the quick shield that Malfoy senior threw up, and he quickly went into a defensive posture to protect against further retaliation. Ginny's spell went past Malfoy and struck one of his companions, sending him to the floor.
The retaliation was swift.
"Attack!" Malfoy yelled, and the six other remaining Death Eaters pulled their wands and started firing curses at the youngsters.
Harry noted that, despite the fact that the Death Eaters were fully grown wizards, they didn't seem to have a particularly varied arsenal of spells, favouring the stunner, cutting hex and Reductor curse, which Harry had experienced before and was able to deflect with relative ease.
He had to be more careful of Lucius Malfoy though, who had no qualms about using the Cruciatus Curse and Killing Curse, and for the smallest of the attackers, which he had suspected was Draco Malfoy, who likewise employed the Unforgivables.
He manoeuvred around those curses when they were cast, and concentrated on casting his shield charm as soon as he saw other spells heading his way, to try and make sure that none of the more minor curses that the other Death Eaters were casting were able to break through. From time to time, one or two of those hexes did manage to slip through, notably when he was dodging around the occasional shout of "Avada Kedavra", and the green bolt of light that accompanied it, and ensuring that Ginny was clear of the curse as well.
Behind him, Ginny was casting as quickly and powerfully as she could. Her Bat-Bogey Hex and tripping jinx were working well, and a number of the Death Eaters had fallen to the ground, either stunned or attempting to dodge her hexes.
With one small corner of his mind, Harry kept an eye on Ginny and ensured that she was never in any danger from any of the Unforgivables. That tiny fragment of concentration that was focused on her picked up some spells Harry hadn't come across. It distracted him very slightly, and a cutting hex got through the shield, taking a gouge out of Harry's shoulder.
The pain tore through Harry's shoulder and into his back as he felt the skin rip apart as though ruptured by an extremely sharp pair of scissors. He bit back a scream and tried to put the pain to one side as he focused more closely on the attackers, and used the sudden burst of adrenaline he felt from his unexpected pain to fuel an attacking spree of his own, casting a wide area soaking charm that blasted the masks off half of the Death Eaters.
He was a little surprised at the power of his spell had, but was more concerned about maintaining his defences. It did confirm though, that Malfoy Junior was among the attackers, and he didn't look happy about his identity being revealed.
"Sectumsempra!" Harry heard Ginny cast from behind him, another spell he'd not heard of, and watched as the flash of light closed the gap between them and one of the Death Eaters who had managed to retain his mask.
The effect of the spell was stunning. Not simply for its impact on the victim, whose mask was torn off as the spell cut through it and into his face, but for what it revealed. The man under the mask was Peter Pettigrew.
Harry growled in anger and sent a stunner directly at Pettigrew, taking the chance that another curse might hit him while his shield was down.
It seemed that today he was in luck. Although a number of spells hurtled in his direction as soon as the Death Eaters realised his shield had dropped, he was able to react in time to duck away from most of them, and even though he took another cutting curse to his already injured shoulder which made him gasp in pain and sink to one knee, the remainder of the curses either missed or were absorbed by a shield that Ginny had hastily erected.
Even better, Pettigrew fell to the ground, his small, watery eyes momentarily betraying the shock that Harry's spell had penetrated whatever defences he'd established. Harry gave a howl of triumph, and Ginny cast more curses over his shoulder. One of these dropped Draco Malfoy, and the number of attackers was now down to five.
From a short distance down the road, Harry could see two more figures rapidly approaching. He hoped desperately that they were coming to help him, rather than more Death Eaters, since he was starting to feel his concentration slipping as he tired and the pain from his shoulder intensified. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep going.
Seeing the figures approaching, Lucius Malfoy started to back off. Harry took that as a good sign and his spirits rose, since if the approaching cavalry were Death Eaters, Malfoy would probably have pressed the attack harder instead of retreating.
As the latecomers got closer, the Death Eaters broke off the engagement, and Malfoy Senior pulled what looked like a glass sphere from his pocket and threw it down at Harry's feet.
The sphere crashed into the roadway and white smoke billowed from it, obscuring Harry's vision. He could hear Lucius's voice above the maelstrom of wind instructing the Death Eaters to leave, as the smoke started to be blown away.
"Damn you, Potter! Our Lord will see you dead along with the traitor you've hired!"
The smoke cleared rapidly in the strong wind, but by the time Harry was able to see through it well enough to make out his enemies, they had gone. He didn't understand Malfoy's words, but what concerned him most immediately was that the Death Eaters had left three bodies behind.
The two men that had been running down the road towards them finally made it to where Harry and Ginny stood. Pushing down his hood, Professor Gaarder revealed himself, to Harry's relief, and he finally allowed his wand arm to drop. The other man kept his hood up, and Harry still couldn't make out his appearance properly, though his dark eyes and sallow looking cheeks reminded Harry of someone.
"Let's get you out of here," Gaarder insisted. He gave an order to his companion, who conjured a stretcher and piled the bodies of the stunned Death Eaters onto it. To Harry's satisfaction, one of the bodies that had been left behind was Pettigrew's, his silver hand reflecting the white snow flurries.
Before they even set off though, Ginny grabbed Harry by the arms and planted a kiss firmly on his lips.
"I guess I don't need to worry about you being able to handle Death Eaters, then?" he grinned at her, wincing slightly at the pain in his shoulder.
She reached under his robes and cast a minor pain relieving charm on his shoulder, which helped immensely. He replaced the grimace he'd worn with a smile.
"Damnit, Harry, that was scary!" she responded. "I understand a lot better now. I thought that it would always be like it was at the Ministry: running and fighting one on one, not taking on eight Death Eaters on our own!"
He held her tight for a moment and they both let the adrenaline drain from them, hardly feeling the sting of the wind and the chill that had settled in even harder as the sun set.
"Come on, you two," Gaarder ordered as he started to move towards the castle. "Talk when you get back."
Harry nodded briefly and took Gaarder's advice. He took Ginny's hand and they headed back along the road to Hogwarts, though he did take a moment while they walked to ask her the question that had been nagging at his mind throughout the confrontation with Malfoy and his squad of Death Eaters.
"Where did you learn those spells, Ginny?"
"What spells?" she asked, attempting to look innocently at him.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Sectumsempra, and those other curses I'd never heard of."
"Oh, those! I found them jotted down in an old Potions textbook that Snape gave me to use during detention."
"Did you know what they did?"
"Not exactly, but I thought it better to try them out on Death Eaters rather than during the DA - I might have hurt someone."
Harry chuckled at her logic. "I think you did! Fortunately it was Pettigrew!"
"You know what this means?" she asked as they reached the gates to the school.
Harry nodded. "I think so. It's just nine months too late," he added with a heartfelt sigh.
They were surprised that Gaarder and his compatriot didn't take them directly to Dumbledore's office when they got back to the castle. Instead they were herded towards the Room of Requirement.
"Why are we here?" Harry asked.
"Debriefing," said Moody bluntly from behind them, as he revealed himself from under the ubiquitous invisibility cloak.
Harry looked around the room. As well as the unknown, hooded man, they had also been joined by John Christopher, and Moody indicated they should settle down into the comfortable chairs that the room had provided.
"Where's Dumbledore?" Harry asked.
"He's not been invited," Moody replied sourly. "He doesn't need to know what we're doing, and he'd probably stop us if he did know."
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"We're outside Dumbledore's remit now, Harry," John explained. "This isn't Order business any more."
"Dumbledore's too slow to work," Moody added. "He's been reluctant to influence wizarding policy and culture over the years. It's time we took a more direct approach.
"This might come as something of a shock to you, Potter, but Dumbledore refused to get Black's name cleared because he thought that it would have too great an impact on society, not because it was too much trouble for him to see that the Wizengamot took up the cause."
Harry gave a grunt in response. He could feel his throat closing up at the reminder of Sirius's death, and didn't trust his emotions not to betray him if he spoke. It was bad enough that Sirius had unjustly served twelve years in Azkaban; knowing that Dumbledore could have done something just rubbed salt into the wound.
Ginny took his hand comfortingly and gave it a squeeze.
Moody's bright blue eye whirred in its socket as his face lit up with a rather intimidating smile. There was no humour in his face; it was more a case of satisfaction that he was finally able to act.
"Anyway, I've been planning this a while," he growled. "Your little escapade today simply gave me the best opportunity to actually start doing something."
Harry and Ginny looked at him with a little shock.
"You've resigned from the Order?" Ginny asked.
"Not exactly. There are other forces at play which mean that being part of the Order isn't really an issue any longer.
"Anyway, we've set up a separate little group. The four of us here, plus a couple of others that you don't need to know about. A proper 'vigilante group', not a tentative things like the Order."
The unknown man slowly removed his hood, revealing a familiar and none-too-welcome face to Harry.
"Karkaroff!"
"Yes, Mister Potter?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry snarled.
The former Durmstrang Headmaster's black eyes glinted with a mildly humorous twinkle before he answered Harry's question.
"My good friend Professor Gaarder requested my aid in setting up this little group," he noted with something of a sneer in his voice. "I hardly think that you need to be concerned with my presence."
The oiliness in the man's voice had disappeared to a certain degree now that he wasn't dealing with Dumbledore. There was still a flicker of trepidation in his eyes though, and Harry wondered just how committed the former Death Eater really was to seeing through this war.
His manner reminded Harry of Professor Snape, and he recoiled slightly as a result, but maintained enough composure to respond.
"I'd be less concerned if I knew you could be trusted," Harry replied snidely. "You spent years torturing Muggles and Muggleborns before you betrayed your fellow Death Eaters to the Ministry, then fled as soon as Voldemort was back."
Karkaroff's curling beard gave a twitch at Harry's use of the Dark Lord's pseudonym.
"See! Even now you're scared of just his name!"
"That's enough, Harry!" John cautioned. "Igor has sworn blood oath to the group. He can be trusted. The consequences of violating such an oath are particularly unpleasant."
Karkaroff turned back to Harry.
"Besides which," he continued, straightening his back to provide the appropriate effect, "I have no wish to live my life as an exile. I looked at my situation and realised that I could either spend my life running from those I'd betrayed, or I could return to England and face them head on."
Harry bowed his head. "I'm sorry, sir."
"Never mind that now, Harry," John interjected. "We need to interrogate your prisoners."
They all stepped back and allowed Gaarder to float the three bodies into the centre of the room where they could be closely monitored. Moody looked carefully at the bodies with his magic eye before turning back to his audience.
"This one's dead," he noted, pointing at the nearest of the Death Eaters. "He's ice cold! What on earth did you cast on him?"
Harry and Ginny looked at each other, identical expressions of fright on their faces.
"I'm so sorry!" Ginny wailed, and Harry shifted his body around quickly to catch her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
He held her for a few moments as her sobs receded, and gently kissed her forehead.
"It's okay, Ginny," he whispered comfortingly. "You didn't mean to kill him."
She lifted her tear-stained face to look Harry in the eyes. "But I didn't have to use that spell - I could have just used a Stunner, or a Binding Hex, or anything else," she blurted out.
"They were attacking us - it's not as though you killed him in cold blood!"
Ginny looked as though she was going to burst into tears again, but Gaarder interrupted anything else she might have said.
"Mister Potter is correct, young lady. You must not fear to turn the violence of such cowards back upon them. They rule by fear; they dominate by attacking those unable to fight back. Only by breaking the cycle of fear can we convince those who would submit that their best chance of survival lies in retaliation."
Moody nodded. "The Death Eaters only attack where they expect to be able to prevail, either through weight of numbers or by dint of magic. Look at their attack today. How many of them attempted to apprehend the two of you today? Four? Five?"
"I think I counted eight, actually, Alastor," Karkaroff put in.
Moody's good eye widened at this information, but he recomported himself quickly and only Harry really noticed his surprise.
"Exactly my point. I'm sure they expected to take you down pretty easily with an eight-on-two advantage, just as they cowed the villagers by releasing Dementors into their midst. It was only you youngsters that stood in their way.
"What we need to be doing is organising a proper defence to fight back against the Death Eaters, both legally and physically, rather than all this shilly-shallying around that the Order has been doing, and the downright appeasement that Fudge appears to condone," Moody finished with annoyance.
"Anyway, Miss Weasley," John Christopher jumped in, turning a kindly smile towards Ginny and attempting to return the conversation to its original purpose, "although you killed this man, it's quite obvious that you didn't intent to do so; that you did so in self-defence. You shouldn't feel upset or guilty about it, since I'm sure he had a similar fate, if not worse, in store for you."
Ginny looked up, apparently surprised at the amount of support she was getting from the adults. Harry kept an arm around her to keep her steady, as she released his fingers and brushed away her tears.
"If you're sure?" she said hesitantly, turning to look questioningly into Harry's eyes.
Harry nodded. "They're sure. So am I. Remember those Death Eaters that attacked Hermione's house?" he asked. "They would have killed or captured us, too. We have to defend ourselves, and if that means that those who are trying to kill us get killed themselves, then they deserve it."
Ginny nodded tentatively.
"I still want to know what spell you used though," Moody prompted.
"Sangricongelo," she replied in a nervous whisper.
"A blood freezing charm?" John asked with a chuckle. "I like it!"
Moody cast him an annoyed glance, and motioned for him to explain what he meant.
"It's used quite a lot be Healers at St Mungo's when they need to stop blood flow temporarily, for example to the brain, to operate on a patient with critical wounds. I'm guessing that Ginny here used it with more than a little force though, and with this idiot's whole body as the target," he said indicating the dead Death Eater, "rather than a small area. He's so cold I think you froze all the blood in his body," he added to Ginny.
"Which presumably stopped his heart, since no blood was getting to it," Gaarder added reflectively. "Hmm. I might just have to add that one to my arsenal," he suggested with a grim smile.
"If you're okay now, Miss Weasley, can we get back to interrogating these Death Eaters?" Moody asked, surprisingly softly, as he turned his attention back to Ginny.
She nodded, and the four adults turned back to the bodies in front of them, but once their attention was elsewhere she reached for Harry's hand again.
Moody pushed the floating stretchers that still held the body of the dead Death Eater off to the side, and concentrated on the other two.
"Don't know this one," he grunted, and again pushed the stretcher away from him, coming to Pettigrew. "Know him though. Bastard!"
He cast a series of spells over Pettigrew's body, healing the minor wounds that the former Marauder had sustained during the fight, and tying him securely to the stretcher, which he positioned at a forty-five degree angle against one of the walls. He also forced a small amount of Veritaserum down the captive's throat.
"We wait a few moments," he noted, and cast a couple of spells on the Room of Requirement. Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise as he noted that included anti-Apparation wards.
"Can't be too careful," Moody said, seeing his reaction. "Even if you aren't supposed to be able to Apparate out of here, I've had too many surprises even when I thought I had the suspect properly confined."
He motioned for Harry and Ginny to step back out of the way, where the captive wouldn't see them, then nodded to John Christopher.
"Enervate!" John said, in little more than a forceful whisper, and Pettigrew began to stir.
Opening his eyes and looking around him, his face immediately took on an expression of panic. Discovering himself captured and bound and unable to Apparate away from the situation, his eyes opened wider yet, and he started screaming for his release.
"Damn it!" Moody growled. "John, get me a sedative. Silencio!"
Pettigrew went quiet as Moody's spell took effect, but he still tried to scream, and thrashed around on the stretcher as much as his bonds would allow.
"Petrificus Totalus!" he cast at the animagus, while John pulled a flask out of his pocket.
Moody force-fed this potion to the terrified Pettigrew as well, and they waited another few minutes while the potion took effect. Finally, they could see Pettigrew's muscles relax as the sedative began to work. Moody cancelled the silencing spell and, although Pettigrew's eyes were still wide in fear at his capture, he had calmed down considerably and was no longer trying to escape.
"Right then," Moody started, with a snarl. "Are you ready to answer some of our questions?"
The now docile Pettigrew nodded glumly.
"Good. Let's start with the simple stuff - what's your name?"
"Peter Joseph Pettigrew."
"You're an unregistered animagus, with the form of a rat?"
"Yes."
Harry winced for a moment at the thought of Pettigrew transforming into his animagus form and escaping, but it appeared that Moody had already thought of that and had cast some spell on the prisoner that would prevent him transforming.
"You serve the Dark Lord, known as Voldemort?"
Pettigrew shuddered at the use of the Dark Lord's sobriquet, but nodded. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I was weak," he explained, the truth serum encouraging him to expand on his answer. "I trusted Augustus Rookwood when he said he could help me gain power. I didn't know at the time he was a spy for Voldemort within the Ministry, passing information to the Death Eaters. He took me along to a supposed meeting with his 'contact', and I was pressed into service with them.
"Once I was involved they held it over me as blackmail. They threatened to kill my parents and my sister. Eventually I was forced into taking the Dark Mark. I had hoped that I could run away and escape any involvement, but once I had the Dark Mark it was too late."
Despite knowing that Pettigrew was directly responsible for the death of his parents, Harry felt some sympathy toward him. If it were that easy for a weak-minded individual to be drawn into the Death Eaters' web, he wondered how many more relative innocents would be inducted? How many had already been forced unwillingly to work for Voldemort? Suddenly his desire for the former Marauder's death via some hideously painful torture seemed much less appropriate, and his stomach started to roil a little having stored up the anger for so long.
Ginny placed a hand on his shoulder in comfort, feeling his disquiet, and he covered her hand with his own to acknowledge it, but turned back to listen to Moody's interrogation.
"You were instrumental in returning the Dark Lord to corporeal form?" Moody was asking as Harry's attention refocused on the questioning.
"Yes!" Pettigrew's eyes shone, apparently both in triumph and pain. He nodded down at his arm, gleaming silver in the low light. "The Master provided me with a new arm to replace that I gave to him. This arm is much better, much stronger," he hissed.
A mixture of emotions crossed Pettigrew's face. Clearly he was pleased to be reminded of his success in restoring the Dark Lord, but at the same time reminded of his weakness, and how Voldemort had treated him once he had regained his power.
"And where is the Dark Lord now?"
"He is at his Headquarters, waiting for our report."
"Where is his Headquarters?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Do you know?"
"Yes and no."
"Do you know the exact location? Or only it's ownership, or name?"
"I don't know the location," Pettigrew said, sullenly, "only that it has always been in his family. It is only ever called 'Headquarters'."
"What was your mission in Hogsmeade?"
"We were to direct the Dementors to attack the village and Kiss as many people as possible, especially students. Once the Dementors were sated, we were to follow up with a selective guerrilla attack, taking advantage of the fear that would have spread through the village. If possible we were to capture one of the Potter boy's friends, or even better, Potter himself."
None of the adults were surprised by this pronouncement, though Ginny went a little white at hearing it outright.
Moody broke off for a brief, but urgent, whispered discussion with Gaarder, then changed tack slightly.
"How do you control the Dementors?" he asked, and the others in the room paid rapt attention to the answer.
"They respond to the Dark Mark," Pettigrew told them. "The spell used in their creation ties them to the Mark, and they are compelled to follow the instructions that those who carry the Mark give. Snape knows more about it."
Harry and Ginny looked at each other with raised eyebrows at this last statement, but it appeared that Moody and the others merely filed the information away for future use, and changed the focus of the questioning again.
"Who were your companions in this mission?"
"Lucius Malfoy was supposed to be our leader," Pettigrew spat, "but it appears that he was more concerned with his own safety and his obnoxious offspring than preserving his anonymity or concerned about the rest of us."
"Offspring? Draco Malfoy was there too?" Moody asked.
"He wasn't supposed to be, but Lucius insisted he come along as an induction. He hasn't taken the Mark yet, but it won't be long."
"Who else was in your group?"
Pettigrew named five Death Eaters that Harry hadn't heard of before, though from Moody's nods he apparently wasn't surprised at a couple of them. He brought the dead Death Eater in front of Pettigrew and asked him to identify the body.
"Bogdan Ivanovic," he told them. "He's a new recruit from Yugoslavia. Macnair got him to join last year. He had some hold over him."
The third man, still unconscious, was also identified as someone who had recently been inducted, and who had been at least partly unwilling to get involved, and Pettigrew went off on another brief rant about how Malfoy had underestimated how many Death Eaters they'd need to get the better of Harry and Ginny as they made their way back up to the castle.
"Your turn," Moody noted, and turned the questioning over to Igor Karkaroff.
Karkaroff's questioning unveiled more about Pettigrew's past: how at the Dark Lord's instigation, he had subtly convinced Sirius that he was too obvious to be the secret keeper for the Potters, and how easily he'd swayed James and Lily to use him as the secret keeper instead; how all the Death Eaters had been shocked at Voldemort's supposed death; how well it had worked that Sirius had come after him, and how easy it had been to frame his former friend.
He told them of Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers' descent into madness and their subsequent torture of the Longbottom family, but how he'd had to live his life in his animagus form for so many years, only able to transform back to being human when he made an occasional escape from the cage Percy Weasley had kept him in.
Harry's previous feelings of pity disappeared as Pettigrew explained how he had manipulated his parents and Sirius, and he concluded that although he might not personally wish to torture the animagus, he wasn't exactly going to plead for clemency.
It was around this time that Pettigrew's eyes went a little manic, then he stared off into the distance as if in a trance. He told them how he'd become desperate to find a way of living normally again, but had realised that it wasn't possible with the Dark Lord still dormant. Once he'd heard of Sirius's escape from Azkaban he'd panicked and made numerous attempts to escape, but to no avail until the night his former friends in the Shrieking Shack had confronted him.
After escaping, he'd spent some time in human form, and developed a longing to be able to stay that way. He heard of the possible whereabouts of Voldemort's spectre, and searched to find him and restore him: With the Dark Lord in power he might finally be able to live as a human without fear of being sentenced to Azkaban. He'd helped Barty Crouch Junior escape from his father's Imperius Curse and with his help had re-established the old Riddle house. Crouch's impersonation of Moody had been a masterstroke, and had made luring Harry to the graveyard at Little Hangleton very easy.
He summarised his involvement in restoring Voldemort's body to him and briefly told them how Voldemort had duelled Harry immediately afterwards. Much to Harry's relief, Pettigrew didn't dwell on this.
Karkaroff's questioning led up to the events in the Department of Mysteries the previous June and, although Pettigrew had no involvement in them, he was still able to detail the plans that had been put in place and what the contingent of Death Eaters had been expected to do.
Karkaroff then turned the interrogation over to Fabian Gaarder, whose steely gaze bored into the prisoner.
"How is it," he intoned slowly and carefully, "that Lucius Malfoy could be leading an ambush on the road from Hogsmeade to the school, when he has been sentenced to a life term in Azkaban?"
Pettigrew snorted. "You don't think he was going back there, do you? Funds that we procured from the Malfoy vault were ... disbursed ... to people who saw that he was diverted from that particular destination."
"Long words for a rat, Pettigrew," Ginny muttered under her breath at Harry's side, which earned a glare from Moody, but hadn't carried to the others in the room.
"Probably from spending so long with Percy," Harry whispered back, making her giggle a little.
Gaarder spent the next few minutes getting information about who in the Ministry had been bribed to look the other way while Malfoy and a couple of others were spirited away, and Harry wasn't surprised that Minister Fudge was at least guilty of negligence in ensuring that the sentences were carried out, and combined with his display of anger at Dumbledore when he found out that the Wizengamot had conducted their trials behind his back, could probably be accused of complicity in their escape. Pettigrew didn't know whether the Minister had a direct hand in the releases.
Harry noticed that John was making rather comprehensive notes of everything that Pettigrew said, perhaps to pass on to trusted sources within the Ministry or for the group's own use.
When he had finished interrogating Pettigrew, Gaarder stepped back and went into a brief conference with Moody, John and Karkaroff, then turned back to their prisoner and cast a sleeping spell on him. They moved him out of the way and replaced him with the other captured Death Eater, and repeated the process of binding, sedating, and dosing him with Veritaserum before bringing him round to answer their questions.
Harry was sure that what they were doing wasn't ethical, but given the way that Dumbledore had reacted to that day's events in Hogsmeade, and his lack of willingness to help the wider community, he didn't really care. It was about time that someone took action, rather than sitting and waiting for some sign that everything was in alignment.
This other Death Eater, who Pettigrew had identified as a man named Wilson, wasn't privy to a lot of the information that Pettigrew had already divulged. When Moody confronted him though, he admitted that he enjoyed torturing and raping those too weak to defend themselves, and that his reluctance to joining Voldemort's troops had only been because he was afraid of the legal repercussions if they were caught.
His attitude revolted Harry and Ginny, and they were pleased when Moody curtailed his questioning fairly quickly. Since he hadn't real information to give them, he was worthless when compared with Pettigrew. Moody put him to sleep as well, then turned back to where the youngsters stood.
"Okay kids, time for you to leave, I think. Unlike Dumbledore, I think you need to know as much as you can about the enemy, so I hope this little session has been informative."
"So what happens now?" Ginny asked in a quiet voice.
Moody stuck a thumb back over his shoulder at Pettigrew's unconscious form. "This one, we turn over to the Ministry."
"What!" Harry exclaimed. "Even after they managed to lose Malfoy?"
"Whoa! Hold on there!" Moody calmed him down. "We're not quite as dumb as you think, Potter."
Harry blushed, though still angry that there still seemed to be potential for even more Death Eaters to escape justice.
"First of all, we're turning them over to trusted sources: people who are smart enough to ask the right questions and to make sure that they get the right answers. We're also going to make sure that everything is documented and leaked to the press. There's also a little job for Gaarder and myself, as internationally renowned ex-Aurors," Moody told him, though Gaarder gave him a glare at that description
"Even if those our contacts in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are outmanoeuvred, we've still got to make sure that the truth gets out," Gaarder added unhappily. "I'm going to have to nip into the Daily Prophet offices and provide them with an interview, then do the same over at Lovegood's place for the Quibbler. That'll pique the public's interest if nothing else."
John laughed. "You realise that they'll probably end up with the headline 'Famous European Auror speaks out', rather than anything to do with Pettigrew?"
"They had best not," Gaarder responded with no humour in his voice. "I shall be making it rather clear to them the point of the matter."
"Anyhow, tomorrow's newspapers will be full of news for once, rather than idle gossip," Moody sniffed. "Expect outrage, panic and recriminations."
"From the Ministry?" Ginny asked.
"No, from the staff and students. Parents will be owling their children to come home, the kids will be panicking, and the staff will be rushed off their feet trying to control it all. On top of that, Dumbledore's not going to be happy that Pettigrew's been captured - it puts him far too closely in the spotlight, even if it's the Ministry that will take the brunt of the blame."
Harry winced at Moody's explanation. "I hadn't thought of that," he said. "What should I tell him?"
Moody surveyed him for a moment, then came to a decision.
"Best keep it simple," he suggested, "which means sticking as close to the truth as you can. Eight Death Eaters attacked you, and when Gaarder came to help, most of them Apparated away. You'd stunned one, and Gaarder took him away to hand over to the Ministry. No need to acknowledge that you know who it was, or that we captured any others."
"What about him though?" Harry asked, inclining his head towards the junior Death eater, Wilson.
"You know nothing about him," Moody insisted. "As far as you're concerned, all the other Death Eaters managed to escape.
"Now, I think it's time that the two of you got back to your common room. If anyone's looking for you, you can play up the attack, and say you only just got back. No doubt Dumbledore will send someone running to get Gaarder as soon as he hears the news, so we'd best get a move on and make sure everything is tidied up before he comes looking."
Moody walked over to the door with them and escorted them back out into the seventh floor corridor, leaving Harry and Ginny with a lot to think about as they made their way back to the Gryffindor common room and, ultimately, their beds.