Mad Dogs and Englishmen

You've just come home from the party. You slip into bed and close your eyes...all you need now is rest. Blissful rest. And then it happens: a fat ray of sunlight finds its way inside your room and hits you in the face like a sledgehammer.

"Ian!" you yell, but then remember Ian is dead - his body stuck outside behind the dustbins, the sweet stink of decay engulfing the whole stable area. The charm is wearing off. Bloody hell. You would've thought someone would have had the decency to bury him by now, but it will be two days before a new load of Mudblood workers arrive from the camps hidden outside of London. The Mudbloods left the night before Ian died, ran away in the dead of night. Later, you heard that they had been caught, but then you hadn't expected anything else.

You're left with Ian's rotting corpse and the sunlight that now fills the whole room - even hidden under the thick duvet you see the light, forcing its way through the eiderdowns and into your sore eyes. The pain makes you flinch but there's no escape, you can't move. "Fuck you, Ian," you groan into your pillow.

(Flies outside the window.)

After a while you get up - there's no point in trying anymore, sleep won't come anyway. Shaking, you pull the cloak over your head and feel the rough fabric against your clammy skin. Goosebumps. It's your only day off for a week, and you're standing here, six o'clock in the morning, in this filthy room while the sun invades everything. Specks of dust fly through the air while your head threatens to burst from the pain and smear your brain all over the wall. The smell finds its way inside and you retch.

You might as well move that fucking body - no good standing around here, staring at the wall like a dumb animal, and you move outside just in case you can't keep it down next time you feel sick. As a gesture to your old colleague, you decide to bury him.

(No one will ever say you weren't a good mate.)

The good thing about sleeping in a stable is that it's easy to find the tools you're looking for. With an arm feeble from last night's drinking you pick the spade down from its place on the wall right inside by the door and, dragging it behind you, walk around the corner of the shed. The sun hits you again, and with squinting eyes you see a leg sticking out from behind the dustbins. A wave of your wand and a body starts hovering in the air. You don't bother to look - you've seen it before. It wasn't a pretty sight then, and you doubt that has changed in the recent weeks.

The bodies are buried near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. You let the body slip gently onto the ground, and with a muttered charm, the spade starts shovelling the dirt away. Still reluctant to look at the dead man, you let your eyes trace the hillside. To the sound of the spade doing your work, you go for a stroll.

There are many graves here now, although only a few of them have any signs of whoever rests in the stony ground. Dumbledore's is one. One of the Mudbloods obviously took the time to come back under the cover of darkness, and placed a cross over the old man's bones. Two broken-off pieces of a plank, tied together with a rope. Dumbledore, it says, in a shaky handwriting. It is the scribbling of a child, or someone who never cared much for his handwriting until that particular moment when it was too late.

Further down the hill is a similar cross; this one has 'Mcgonagal' written on it. This one was definitely written by a child, and for a moment you snicker, trying to come up with a line the stern, old Gryffindor would've given whomever for getting her name wrong. "At least they cared enough to give you one," you spit out, remembering the way she used to look at you. Only the wind replies. Thistles grow on her grave now - what would she say about that? You push the thought away to the back of your mind. Nothing. That's what she would say. When you're gone, you're gone, and that's all there is to it.

Further down the path there's another cross. 'Lavender', it says, and you have no idea who that person was, so you just keep on moving to the next. 'Hermione'. Another unknown grave and you kick the cross. It falls down in front of your feet, and you keep on kicking it along the ground as you continue walking, your hands in your pockets. Your head hurts like hell, but the view over the lake takes away some of the gloomy mood. In the end, you push the cross into a bush of nettles with your foot. None of these marks have any use anymore, so why not take them down? They're just names now; everybody that could remember the faces behind them is gone.

(Sentimentality, that's all it is, and you have no such weakness. Not anymore.)

You go back to the smelly remains of your once-friend Ian. You take a look at him, and he looks just as bad as you expected. Puffed up, flies buzzing around his dark face, in his eyes. "You never were a handsome man, Ian," you mutter with distaste, "but this is taking it a bit far."

(It's not fucking funny.)

You grin at your own joke while inspecting the hole in the ground. A bit longer and it will be deep enough. While waiting, you glance up at the castle behind you. It's Sunday morning and the whole world is asleep; the Dark Lord in his four-poster bed, his men in various rooms spread all over the castle. Living the days of their lives surrounded by beauty, pillaged in the times of war. Loot. Even the Muggleborn sleep now, chained to their beds like exotic birds in a zoo.

You know what happens up there, but you're not envious. You wouldn't change your place in the wizarding hierarchy of post-war Hogwarts, because everybody has his or her own place to fill.

(Liar.)

The Mudblood workers will be taken back tonight, and they will die the deaths of traitors. But first... Maybe, if you're lucky, you will be called to the castle, into the dark belly of the dungeons where everything seems to happen in a haze. It's a mania, frenzy - it's a drug, and you can wait forever for the next fix.

But the darkness of the dungeon is far away out here, where the sun shines warm on your back and the birds sing. A quick glance at Ian and the feeling is gone by the sight of his mangled body.

You still don't know what it was he did that was so wrong. They came with the darkness, Lestrange and one of his men; you knew right away then, that this was serious - Lestrange never comes down to the stables and those who work there. Ian got up from his chair and followed them without a word, looking back at you with a strange expression on his face. "See you, mate," he said. The next day you found him between the dustbins, his eyes wide open to the sun and charms carved into his flesh. Carved flesh is cursed flesh, which means no food for the thestrals. This body is for burying - thanks to the charms they've put on it you have a hard time recognising his face.

You elevate his body and it hovers in the air, still for a brief moment, before slowly sinking into the ground.

(Don't think.)

You take the spade from the air, and lean against it while watching him. It's not Ian, this empty shell that lies in the ground like a broken toy. Ian is gone, back to wherever he came from. Then why are you so reluctant to put the charm on the spade and get this hole filled?

(The sun is warm, but it's already September - the ground is cold and wet from the dew.)

Ian was the one watching the house where the Mudbloods were kept that night, the night they ran away. The following evening, they took him away. You're no idiot - you can see the connection. What you can't understand is why. Was there ever anyone more dedicated to the Dark Lord's cause than Ian? Not among the lower ranks of Death Eaters, that's for sure - Ian wasn't a stranger to the idea of using Crucio when the Mudbloods didn't obey orders quickly enough. He didn't even need a reason.

You just don't fucking get it. It's kept you awake for nights now...and you thought you might sleep this morning, having dulled your senses and your mind with enough Firewhisky to kill a horse...but no. You're standing here, staring into a grave filled with the remains of a man you thought you knew. You'll be alone now. They will send someone from the Death Eater Youth League, eating his meals in silence while sending you short glances filled with distrust. Oh, you know the sort - you were one of them once.

(Not anymore?)

With numb hands you take the spade. The dirt makes a thumping sound as it hits the body. You would've preferred a coffin, but the Dark Lord doesn't waste good coffins on traitors, so you don't ask for one. The second time you hear the sound, you feel your stomach churn and taking a few steps away, you throw up beside Dumbledore's grave.

The whole world seems to spin, and you sit down on the ground. A flick of your wand, and the spade keeps on filling the hole. Ian will soon be covered, and there will be nothing left to remind you of him. Nothing but your own thoughts, and those you can't share with anyone, least of all the new kid - a spy, surely, placed there to keep an eye on you, to pick every little display of emotion apart in the search for treason. One miscalculated word, and he would run off to the Masters, licking their hands like a mad dog as they fed him leftovers from their table.

Then it hits you that you just buried the only friend you had left in this godforsaken world. But you shake your head, as if to make the thoughts stop, to deny them. Because it wasn't Ian - Ian is gone. It was yourself you put in the ground; the last shred of you that would listen to the begging Mudblood workers and leave the door open as night fell. Decency, humanity, mercy...all buried now, under a thick layer of rocks, sand and filth.

(My soul.)

It feels like something inside you is broken, and you sink down to the earth to rest your weary head. The smell of the earth is strong, playing with your senses, and you chuckle. Children dug this grave that you now lie upon, Dumbledore's grave no less, and it's as if you can hear his voice whispering to you. Soothing words, and the laughter of children, clear as the soft murmur of a stream.

*

You don't know how long it has been, but you hear voices. Harsh voices that have nothing in common with the whispers you've been listening to for an eternity now. Hands grab your body, a hand slaps your face, but you're not coming back,

(I'm gone)

and they take you away, whereto you don't know. You hear someone say the word "fever," but it doesn't mean anything to you anymore. Nothing they say means anything anymore, and when you're gone, you're gone, and that's all there is to it.