Dragonseed I - The Serpent's Head

DRAGON SEED I - The Serpents Head

Chapter 6 - Hunting

Sunday morning was always a good time for Marcus and I to get together as most people slept in and we would never be missed. The next Sunday after the Quidditch try-outs we didn't bother to have breakfast in the Great Hall either.

Before meeting Marcus, I made my way down to the kitchens and cajoled a hamper of food and drink from Dobby. Dobby had helped look after me since I was a baby and would do almost anything for me. The biggest trouble was stopping him from giving me enough food for a week.

When I reached our room Marcus was standing at the far end in front of a battered old blackboard on which he had written several words and was busy drawing a confusing maze of connecting lines between them.

"Gonna stop for breakfast, Einstein?"

He turned, his eyes lit up, and he lunged at the hamper like a particularly hungry sea-gull. "Yes! Bacon and egg sandwiches. Dobby still loves us!" We promptly demolished the contents of the hamper in very short time. If you want to have a fair share of the food when Marcus is present you don't dare sit back and be a gentleman. Eventually, Marcus gave a satisfied sigh and sat back looking at me with a very mischievous grin on his face. That sort of grin usually meant trouble.

"So ... who's the girlfriend, Jimmy?" he said, catching me by surprise. I wasn't expecting that question.

"Girlfriend! What girlfriend?" I spluttered.

"The little brunette admiring your form on the Quidditch pitch yesterday."

I could feel myself going bright red. "Laura? She's not my girlfriend, just one of Judy's room mates."

"But she was taking great interest in your flying," he insisted, relishing my obvious discomfort.

"That's just because she's never seen Quidditch before."

"Muggle born then."

"No. Actually she's half and half, but she's been raised as a Muggle 'til now."

"So she hasn't got a clue?"

"Yeah." I suddenly thought of a counter attack. "You're a fine one to quiz me about girlfriends. Who was it came prancing in to lunch yesterday with a girl practically clinging to each arm?"

He tapped his nose knowingly, unfortunately totally unfazed. "Research, my dear Jimmy. I just grabbed an opportunity to find out more about the intriguing Bella Smith, our Muggle born Slytherin." He grinned and shook his head. "Tell you what; I don't think I want to get on her wrong side. That kid has got one heck of a nasty temper."

He stood up and went back to the blackboard. "Talking of research, I've been analysing the 'Serpent's Head' dream again and I reckon there are two main areas of attack. The Serpent's Head is presumably some sort of magical artefact."

"So we need to look in books about objects of power, amulets, that sort of thing?"

"Yes. I'll do that. We know from what I ... he said that it used to belong to Lucius Malfoy, so you need to go through the newspaper archives and other historical records for information on him, as that might mention it somewhere."

"Okay, let's get started."

The next few weeks flew by swiftly. Our time fully occupied with lessons, homework, Quidditch practice and our own research. Marcus had a few small visions, but nothing of major relevance or impact until about three weeks later ...

***

The house had been furnished by someone with enough money, but not much taste, he decided as he strode down the dim hall way, past assorted objet d'art and ghastly paintings, towards the brightly lit living room. He paused in the door way, still hidden in the shadows, surveying the scene in front of him through the eye slits in his mask.

There were four men in the room. In the middle a plump, balding man in a casual blue robe was being held by the arms by a big man in a black robe and mask. Another similarly dressed man stood next to him holding a wand to his throat.

A third man in a silver grey robe was standing in front of him, apparently unaffected by the obvious fear and tension permeating the room, his wand dangling casually from his fingers. His eyes flicked briefly to the door and then he turned his attention back to the captive, speaking in a soft, cold voice. "So you admit that you sold confiscated dark arts objects for personal gain?"

"No ... I ... I ... maybe."

"Will you give us the names of who you sold them to? We may be inclined to be lenient if you do."

"No. I can't do that."

"I think you can," his voice rose a notch in volume, "and you will." He turned towards the door inclining his head, drawing the attention of the others to the new presence in the doorway. "My Lord."

The other two men bowed low and forced their captive's head down as well. He stepped forward into the light.

"Is this the right man?"

"We believe so, my Lord."

He felt a slight twinge of annoyance. "You believe so. Don't you know?"

The grey robed man seemed to falter under his glare, but recovered quickly. "I am confident my Lord. He has admitted to selling confiscated artefacts."

"The Serpent's Head, in particular?"

"It has not been mentioned."

"Yet." He smiled behind his mask in anticipation, as he walked casually over to stand in front of the trembling man. "Good evening, Mr Olliver. You are going to tell me to whom you sold the Serpent's Head."

The man stared at him, terrified, as if he were a snake, ready to strike. "No. I can't," he said. Then realising his error, he seemed to collect his courage and straightened up as much as possible. "I don't know anything about a Serpent's Head."

"How brave, but I think otherwise." He put his hand into a concealed pocket in his robe and removed a small brown glass vial. "Since you won't volunteer the information, and save yourself some pain, I will have to use other means."

The captive's bravado faded rapidly and his face paled. "Veritaserum!" he gasped.

He shook his own head slowly, enjoying the stark expression of terror playing across his victim's face. "Veritaserum can be somewhat ineffective. If the questions aren't precise enough or the subject has been trained in evasion techniques." He held up the vial between thumb and forefinger. "This," he said, admiring the small glass bottle, "is more of a facilitator. Just a little something to aid my information retrieval."

He handed it to his lieutenant who took it in his own gloved hand. One of the handlers forced the man's mouth open and the viscous fluid was poured over his tongue and down his throat. The jaws were then held shut, as they watched and waited.

"Hold his head straight," he ordered, before moving slowly forward. He gazed into the man's eyes intently. As he watched the pupils dilated and the muscles of the face went slack. When the irises were almost invisible, replaced by twin pools of blackness, he drew his wand out, pointed it at the fore head in front of him, never breaking eye contact, and softly said, "Legilimens."

It felt like he was moving forward through a wide open door into a maze of mirrors, each one a memory, he pushed carelessly through memories of work events, of family, of tender moments with lovers, relentlessly pushing forward looking for the one memory that would tell him what he wanted to know. As he moved through images of Ministry functions, the record of triumphs and humiliations, he casually noted the background 'noise' of a tortured mind in pain, noting that it must belong to the man whose mind he was pushing through. The images became more specific; it seemed he was getting closer to the relevant information. The background agony and impending madness continued to rise in crescendo ...

***

Marcus jerked himself awake. The pain, in his head, remained. He lay there, hidden from his room mates by the thick bed hanging, bathed in cold sweat, his pulse racing and his head pounding.

He consciously focussed on being calm, his pulse slowed, but the headache was still a problem. Gingerly he sat up, massaging his temples. He made his way to the bathroom, where he knew he would find a mild pain relieving potion in the cupboard. He hoped it would be sufficient. He stood there, staring at his pale almost ghostly reflection in the mirror, his mind racing as he reviewed the ghastly vision in his head.

How could anyone inflict such mental torture on someone so casually? How could Draco Malfoy take such a relaxed view of performing such a violation of another person's life? Revulsion rose like acid in his throat. He felt nauseous and the throbbing in his head did not help. He could do no more than stand there, leaning on the sink until the potion's effect kicked in and the pain subsided.

Sleep was not an option, so quietly grabbing a book from his trunk, Marcus headed down to the common room to spend the rest of the night reading.

***

Dad says that even though the Daily Prophet is a blatantly prejudiced piece of semi-fictitious nonsense dressed up as journalism, it is still wise to read it to keep an eye on what's happening, as long as you remember to read between the lines.

So I have my own subscription and try to read at least the headlines and the sports pages of every issue. My Muggle born friend Brian, after over two years at Hogwarts, still found the moving pictures fascinating and generally read over my shoulder at breakfast. This Monday morning as I unfolded the paper the first thing we noticed was the headline.

KEY MINISTRY OFFICIAL DEAD - MURDER OR SUICIDE.

"Now that looks interesting." Remarked Brian, and started to read. "The body of senior ministry official Raymond Olliver, 66, was discovered yesterday morning in his London townhouse. The Aurors called to the scene report that while the deceased was clutching the murder weapon, there was evidence of foul play ..."

I had a funny feeling so I looked up from the page. Directly across the other side of the hall at the Slytherin table was Marcus, his copy of the Prophet dropped on the table in front of him. Now he normally has a fair complexion, but at that moment he was looking whiter than white, or in the words of one of Grandpa's favourite Muggle songs 'A Whiter Shade of Pale', although in Marcus' case it was tinged with green.

As I watched, his friend Grey turned to him looking worried, Marcus shook his head, stood up so abruptly his chair fell backwards with a bang, and bolted out the main door with Grey close behind him. As he did Aunt Fleur stood up, an anxious look on her face.

Matthew, Marcus' brother was sitting three seats down from me, we exchanged a quick look of alarm and both ran out to find Marcus. We couldn't see them when we got into the entrance hall. "Where would he go?" I asked, "Back to his dorm?"

"Nope," said Matt with a quick shake of his head, "With that look on his face, we should look in the nearest boys' bathroom." And so we did and he was right.

We entered to the wonderful sound of someone being totally, disgustingly, from-the-bottom-of-your-guts sick. No prizes for guessing. Marcus was in one of the cubicles; head down over the bowl and his friend hovering outside the open door.

"Is he okay?" I asked.

Grey shook his head, and was about to say something when he was interrupted by a groan from the toilet. "I'll be fine,"

"Yeah, you sound it, mate," I said.

"Ji ...James. Is that you?"

"No. It's Lord Voldemort reincarnated. Of course it's me!"

He staggered out of the cubicle, his hair messier than mine, which is saying something, and still looking extremely pale, but without the green tinge.

"Marcus, cherie. Are you okay?" The sweet and very worried sound of my Aunt's voice drifted through the partially opened door from outside.

Marcus glanced quickly at the three of us hovering around him, and then sighed. "Matt, go out and tell Mum I'm fine. Steve, could you go and get my gear for Transfiguration and I'll meet you there." They both looked at him as if they were going to protest, but the expression on his face was the sort that did not allow for dissent, so they both left, Matthew with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

As soon as they were out the door Marcus grabbed y arms and started babbling into my chest. "Jimmy, it was horrible, horrible, he killed himself ... but it was his fault ... he drove him mad ... he raped his mind, it was horrible ..."

"Whoa, slow down." I gently pushed him back a little so I could see his face. His lip was trembling and he was nearly in tears. "You had another vision?"

"The night it happened, that man died, I saw what they did to him, what Malfoy did to him." He shuddered. "It was just horrible."

"Can you tell me what he did?" I asked.

He took a couple of deep breaths. "You remember what we learnt about Legilimency in Defence?"

"Yes, it's an offensive form of mind reading, an attack on a person's memory."

"Malfoy used Legilimency, but it was different from what we studied."

"How?"

"Normal Legilimency is like a thief grabbing your purse wallet from the front hall if you leave your door open. What he did was like kicking in the front door and tearing the place apart to find a particular memory, regardless what was destroyed in the process." He looked me straight in the eyes and I could see real pain. "It drove him mad, I could feel his sanity going, and I could feel that Malfoy knew the effect he was having and just didn't care." He slumped down on to the floor and really started to cry. "I don't know if I can cope with this."

"Maybe you need to see Madam Pomfrey for some dreamless sleep potion?"

"Don't be stupid. She will want to know why, and what can I say? Not to mention she'll tell Mum."

He had a very good point. How do you explain, 'I just happen to be hitchhiking a ride in Draco Malfoy's brain when he's being a total bastard'? Then I had a brain wave. "Why don't we brew our own? We can do it in our room, and no-one need ever know."