Stag Night

“Peter…Kitty’s got a surprise for you.”

“Whah?” The room was spinning. Peter’d been too nervous to drink much before they came to Tigerseye, but now, sitting on the sofa with Kitty on his lap, he thought that he might’ve had just a bit too much champagne. He couldn’t remember.

“Mmm, yes. More than one surprise,” she continued, her warm breath tickling his ear while her fingers tickled more sensitive parts. “Let’s go, then. Someplace more private.”

“Have to talk to James first,” Peter mumbled. Fear nibbled at the edges of his lust-induced lassitude. How could he have gotten so distracted? He needed to find out the location of the wedding or else…and he didn’t want to think about what “or else” meant.

“Don’t you mind about him,” Kitty answered. She slid out of Peter’s lap and stood over him, hands on her hips. “You come along now.”

“James? James!” Peter got to his feet and scanned the room. Panic brought him to his senses as quickly as any Sobering Spell. There was Sirius, sprawled on a sofa with Lydia and Mai, but James and that German woman were nowhere to be seen.

Peter got to his feet so fast that he felt dizzy. He stumbled across the room and, over Kitty’s pouting protests, threw himself at Sirius’s feet. His sweaty hands clutched his friend’s knee and his voice cracked as he cried out, “James is gone!”

It took Sirius a moment to turn his attention away from the giggling, whispering women and focus on his panicky friend.

“Peter, my dear sir.” Sirius grinned, his head lolling on Lydia’s shoulder. “How the fuck are you? I’m doing fine myself.”

“No! James!” Peter said breathlessly.

“Can’t fool me. You’re Peter, not James.” Sirius wagged a finger with drunken smugness and then, satisfied with his powers of deduction, he began sloppily kissing Lydia, working his way down from her bare shoulder to the plunging neckline of her gown.

“Your friend’s gone off with Elsa,” Mai said to Peter with a sly grin and winked at Kitty, who stood behind Peter.

“Come on, then. Up you get,” Kitty said petulantly. She dug her long, iridescent green fingernails into Peter’s shoulder.

“James gone? Is that so?” Sirius lifted his head and looked around the room. “She’s right, you know. This woman is bloody brilliant!” He grinned, pulled Mai closer and kissed her.

James gone? All Peter’s previous good feelings evaporated like water on a hot griddle. How could he have let himself be so… distracted? The Dark Lord expected something from him--soon The Master often dealt as harshly with disobedient Death Eaters as with his enemies.

“Where?” he blurted out and pounded Sirius’s knee in frustration.

“What are you on about?” Sirius gave him a vacant stare that was part irritation and part stupor.

James was gone; Sirius was barely coherent. Peter suddenly thought that he might turn this to his advantage. What did he have to lose? Sirius probably wouldn’t remember this conversation later and, if so, James wouldn’t find out that it had ever taken place.

Peter took a deep breath. “James told me about the wedding, you know, where it is--“

“Bloody hell! He didn’t. That bastard; after all I’ve…“ Sirius paused, letting his head fall heavily on Mai’s chest. His neck lolled at a relaxed angle that James would have envied earlier

“Too late for anything to go wrong, eh?” Peter stammered and tried to act jovial. Just a few clues and he could work it out. “So…James told me that it’s to be--that is, in a-a--” Peter faltered, his mind blank. What should he say? In a village? In a church?

“--Avebury!” roared Sirius, finishing Peter’s stuttered sentence for him. “He did tell you, then, that right ruddy bastard! He knows sod all about security!”

“Yes…Avebury,” Peter ventured cautiously, realizing that he had just saved his own life -- if Sirius were to be believed.

“Yeah. James was thinking about Stonehenge at first, but Stonehenge has too many tourists and the idiots at the Ministry wouldn’t allow that many Muggle repple- repoll- repelling charms there.”

“Isn’t the village right there--in the circle at Avebury, I mean? I would have thought that it would be difficult to secure a place like that. Won’t the Muggles--“

“That’s the beauty of it.” Sirius laughed and wrapped his arms tightly about the waists of both women. “Hippies! We’re all going to look like a caravan of fucking flower children to the Muggles. Moody may be a bastard to work with, but he knows his stuff… be patrolling outside the whole time…doesn’t trust anyone.”

“Moody’s going to--” Peter checked himself and went on with a laugh. “Doesn’t really matter, as long as we get James there on time.” He didn’t want to seem too interested. The location would be enough, he reckoned. And what if the Death Eaters attacked? Peter told himself that he’d look after James, though not necessarily his Mudblood bride. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that, or maybe if Death Eaters did attack, Moody really would protect the wedding party.

Peter got to his feet. Relief washed over him, like a cool rain that finally breaks the heat on a stuffy summer day. He’d done it! He’d tricked Sirius--granted, his friend was so drunk that he was barely conscious--and he felt that sweet exhilaration that springs from getting away with something really clever. In later years the lies would come easier to Peter, but the pleasure would be more elusive. The lies would become so tangled up in one another, so hard to separate from the day-to-day existence that might be called “truth”, that he wouldn’t feel this same pleasure, only panic at how the next lie should be framed.

“Any champagne left?” Peter said breathlessly.

“Let’s take it with us, shall we?” Kitty giggled. She plucked the bottle from the table and then dug her long fingernails into Peter’s arm. “If you’re a good boy, I’ll let you have some…”

“Take it with us? Where are…oh, yeah,” Peter said with dawning comprehension. The Dark Mark on his arm tingled slightly, but he told himself that it would look too suspicious to the others if he disappeared from Tigerseye now. Best to go through with it--not that he was complaining.

“Oy, Peter, need ‘nother little banishing charm-thingie to pick me up.” Sirius looked around in confusion. Peter was nowhere to be seen. “Where’d he go?”

“Never mind him, darlin’. He’s got other things to keep him busy,” said Lydia.

“Remus? Where’s the bloody Remus?” Sirius scanned the room and then looked from one woman to the other with a laugh. “Just the three of us, eh?”

“Here we go, darlin’,” said Lydia as she struggled to stand. Sirius’s arm, wrapped around her waist, weighed her down like an anchor.

“Come on, then. It’s going to take both of us to get you out the door,” Mai chimed in. She helped Lydia haul him up to a standing position. He wobbled between them, his head flopping back and forth between the women’s shoulders.

“You girls ready for me?” said Sirius woozily as the pair led him to the door.

Remus had seen the tiger vanish around a corner. He followed it along the narrow, dimly lit corridor past closed doors, lots of them. The doors looked all the same, giving no indication of who was inside, or what was happening. When he came to a point where the passageway branched to the right and to the left, he halted, out of breath and dizzy from too much champagne.

The inside of Tigerseye was as confusing as the mazelike alley leading to it--at least for visitors, who probably weren’t supposed to be wandering about unescorted. Remus didn’t want an escort. It felt good to get out of that room. He didn’t want to be there; he didn’t want to watch his friends slip away from him. But what did he expect? What man wouldn’t be tempted by these women? He especially didn’t want to find out what Madam had in store for him with her probing stares and pointed questions. He vexed her--he figured out that much--and she would try to find another woman who was more “suitable”. Suitable? For a werewolf? He didn’t like to think that anyone could read him so easily. No witch would have him, in any case, so it was better not to try.

He glanced down both passages and listened, but heard only his own breathing. Something--a sound just out of conscious hearing or a predator’s intuition--made him decide to turn right. He walked rather than ran down this corridor, passing more doors on either hand. Nearing the next corner, he heard a scratching noise.

Around the corner, the big white tiger stood before a door, alternately pawing at the floor and nudging the handle with its nose. Remus approached the animal slowly, circling from behind so that he could stay as far away from its huge front paws as possible.

“Here now, what’s going on?” he whispered.

The tiger sat back on it haunches and roared. He took a step backward, prepared to flee, but the beast didn’t attack. Instead, it nudged the door with its nose.

“You want in,” he said and stepped cautiously toward the door. “A wand would be handy right now. Haven’t got one, have you?”

The tiger nosed the door again in response. Remus eyed it warily and moved closer. He grasped the doorknob, watching the tiger all the while, and felt some resistance before it turned. Score one for primates and opposable thumbs. The beast stuck its huge head under his arm and pushed on the door.

“Persistent bugger. Let’s figure out what’s going on first,” Remus said as he grabbed a handful of fur at the animal’s neck the way he’d seen Madam do earlier. He cracked open the door and voices spilled out.

“Bad man!” shrieked a house-elf from inside the room.

Madam murmured to the elf in a low voice. Then she said more distinctly: “That’s not permitted here, as you know. Be reasonable and we’ll be able to set things right.”

A gravelly and belligerent voice answered, “Keep your little vermin away from me, then.”

Remus was certain he’d heard the voice before, but he couldn’t remember where or when. He listened for more, and forgot about the tiger for a moment. The tiger hadn’t forgotten about getting in and, with a surge of white fur, the big cat shoved the door open. In the chaos that ensued, Remus slipped in, too, and closed the door behind him.

He took in the room like a series of Muggle photographs: Bed. Table. Chair. Chair overturned. Body on rug. Man next to bed. Body on bed. Arms, legs tangled in sheets. Blood.

“She is killed!” cried the house-elf and wriggled out of Madam’s grasp. The creature scampered frantically to the body of another elf that lay motionless in the center of the room.

“Don’t come any closer!” a man barked at the hysterical elf.

Remus blinked as the initial surge of adrenaline ebbed and he was able to think more clearly. The short, powerfully built man next to the bed had the arrogant stance of a bully. In another time and place, it might have been comical to see him, snarling and naked, jabbing his wand at the blubbering house-elf. However, the look of tense concentration on Madam’s face said that this was no joke. A house-elf had been killed or wounded, probably by the man with the wand, undoubtedly a customer--naked men surely did not just Apparate into Tigerseye--who had violated at least one house rule, since wands were not permitted. On the bed, Remus could see an arm and a glimpse of blond hair amidst a tangle of sheets. There was blood on the sheets, a lot of blood.

The tiger snarled. Madam threw her arms around the tiger’s neck while Remus wrapped his arms round the beast’s flanks and threw his weight back. Even with a werewolf’s strength, he strained to keep the tiger from lunging. He exchanged a quick glance with Madam; she looked puzzled but relieved.

“Shambles! No!” she commanded to the tiger. The cat growled at her, but was no longer poised to strike.

“Get that animal out of here!” the man ordered.

In a flash, Remus recognized the voice and put it together with the man’s heavyset swagger. Twenty-four hours ago, though it seemed like days, this man had been wearing the black cloak and mask of a Death Eater, and had brought down the unicorn in Keitynys Wood for his master, Lord Voldemort.

Mulciber.

“You will not come to harm, if you stop threatening my staff,” said Madam in a calm, measured voice, though tension sang beneath her words. “Otherwise I cannot be responsible for--“

“You can’t touch me, you pathetic lot of Squibs,” spat Mulciber contemptuously; he pointed his wand first at the tiger and then at the house-elf. “Call off your beast and get rid of the vermin.”

The body on the bed moved; the woman--no, it was a man--fought the tangled sheets and tried to sit up. The man’s eyes had a dazed, unfocused look. He was bleeding from several long gashes on his chest and abdomen. Knife wounds, or were there ways to make such precise cuts with a wand, Remus wondered, ways a Death Eater might know? Blood was smeared everywhere, but the man on the bed didn’t seem aware of his injuries. Remus had seen that look of placid unconcern before, when he’d watched his schoolmates one by one succumb to the Imperius curse that an Auror had demonstrated to them in seventh year. Death Eaters used Unforgivables. Remus had read about such things in the paper: dry reports, stripped of all connection with the victim or the crime. It was one thing to think about the calculated coldness of a spy and or an unwitting assassin made possible by Imperius, but quite another to consider taking someone against his will and doing… whatever Mulciber had been doing. Was it for pleasure? Could you call it that?

Remus felt as if he’d come upon an entirely different species, like a fish staring at a squirrel and trying to make sense of the absurdity of breathing air and climbing trees. The tiger shuddered, strained to break free of his grasp. At that moment, Remus felt more kinship with the tiger than he did with the human wielding the wand.

“No!” shrieked the house-elf. With a wave of its bony arms, a ceramic bowl and pitcher rose from the bedside table and flew toward Mulciber’s head.

The house-elf’s missiles didn’t reach their target; Mulciber blasted the pottery with his wand, causing shards to rain down on the bed. The bleeding man cried out weakly and tried to protect himself. Mulciber paid no attention to his former victim, but leveled his wand at the elf with a hard expression set on his face.

At the same time, Madam opened her mouth, the tiger snarled and tried to wriggle out of Remus’s grip and the injured man stumbled off the bed, shoving Mulciber from behind. A flash of green sparks shot from the wand, but missed the house-elf. The elf shrieked and launched itself at Mulciber, fastening itself onto his wand arm. The bleeding man lurched forward and Madam caught him before he fell. The tiger finally worked free of Remus’s grip and sprang. Mulciber tried to shake off the elf and dodge the tiger--and the wand slipped out of his hand.

“Stop!” Remus roared, but in the chaos around him, neither man nor beast heeded him. Time slowed to a crawl for Remus as the wand sailed upward in an arc and hung in the air. He leaped forward and caught it.

Mulciber threw the house-elf down and scrambled over the bed. He flung open another door and then slammed it. Remus beat the tiger to the door and managed to get through first. Behind him, Madam called out a sharp command in some language Remus didn’t understand.

Through the door was a larger room with a rectangular pool at its center, one of Tigerseye’s famous baths, unoccupied at the moment. Several other doors led out of the room; Remus wanted to make sure they weren’t used for escape.

“Mulciber!”

The man stopped and turned. “How do you--“

“I know who you are… and what you are,” Remus replied hoarsely, fighting to catch his breath and to appear calmer than he felt. He pointed the wand and was pleased that his hand didn’t shake.

“Go ahead and try. I’d like to bloody see that,” Mulciber shot back. He stood with his hands on his hips and his feet planted in the wide stance of an overconfident bully.

Remus said nothing, but sent a shower of red sparks dancing toward the other man’s feet. The tiger snarled in the next room. Remus heard snatches of voices, too. He hoped Madam could control the tiger. He didn’t want to deal with a Death Eater and an enraged tiger at the same time.

“No fucking Squib, are you?” Mulciber seemed surprised for a moment, but quickly regained his arrogant bluster. “What do you care about the vermin at a place like this? I have friends, powerful friends, who wouldn’t like to see this… get blown out of proportion. Give me the wand and no one’s the wiser.”

“Blown out of proportion?” Remus chuckled dryly, though his face was grim; the situation was anything but funny. “You’ve used a wand illegally, likely killed a house-elf, wounded someone--oh, and used an Unforgiveable curse on top of that. That’s enough to get you sent to Azkaban several times over.”

“Not bloody likely.” Mulciber laughed harshly. “You want to be on the winning side, don’t you? My friends reward those who are helpful.” He took a step toward Remus with one meaty hand held out in front of him, demanding. “Rewards are better than punishment, eh?”

Remus raised the wand and tried to clear his mind. Rewards had been offered by Lord Voldemort, too, with the promise that the Dark would take him in, where the wizarding world had rejected him, the Dark would value his power, where others had feared it. Oh, there was an allure and the Dark Lord’s supporters were powerful--but was this how they used their power?

The tiger’s growls surged to a roar. Remus turned around to a blur of white fur and blue eyes coming at him fast.

Impact. Pain. Voices--far away.

Then nothing.