And You Were Worried About Rodents?

This is our punishment. We came
Here without blame, yet with blame,
Dark blame of others, but our blame also.
This stroke was bound to fall,
Though not to fall so.

(Edwin Muir, The Refugees)

Chapter 2: The Rock and the Hard Place

"Good evening, Arthur. You're late. We've been waiting for quite some time."

An invisible hand of ice seemed to close around Arthur's spine. This can't happen to us, he thought desperately. Not after all this time. Not again!

"What-" That couldn't be his voice, it sounded more the like the croaking of a very sick crow. He cleared his throat. "What do you want?" More comprehensible this time.

He felt the smile of the Death Eater as surely as if it were radiating through the white mask.

"Why, Arthur, we want you of course. We have great plans for you. You've even made it easy on us. A cheap enchanted door knob and some Apparation Wards begged off Dumbledore won't stop anything more determined than a straying Muggle."

"You have to be mental to think I'd help you with anything!"

The leading Death Eater took a step closer to the outraged red-haired wizard. His arrogant posture showed quite clearly how much he enjoyed having the upper hand.

"I don't think it will be altogether hard to convince you. Unless you're not at all attached to your consort and offspring, that is."

Fury and despair warred inside him as he stared at the Death Eaters' prisoners. Molly looked shocked and terrified, but Arthur knew her well enough to understand that she was more afraid for Charlie and him than for herself. His son had slumped back slightly on his chair, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He was still weak from his half-healed injuries, and You-Know-Who's supporters were unlikely to have handled him very gently. Then he realised what was missing and a sudden stab of fear went through him.

"Where's Percy?" he asked Molly, tuning out the Death Eaters with some effort of willpower.

"Not home yet," she replied in a shaky voice. "He said he'd work a late night at the office."

Arthur took a deep breath. Percy had been offered the chance to represent the Department of Magical Travel in a lawsuit brought by Ali Bashir's Air Carpet Company, who wanted the Ministry to lift its ban against flying carpets in Britain. True to his nature, Percy had jumped as enthusiastically at the chance as if he were an angry mother dragon defending her eggs instead of a minor official trying to keep airborne weavery out of the British Isles. He hadn't been home before ten the last two weeks, and then only because the Ministry caretakers had threatened to hex him out of the office. Despair was suddenly replaced with resolution: he had to get rid of the dark wizards before Percy came home, no matter how.

"I'd suggest you pay more attention to whom you're dealing with, Arthur," the Death Eater's voice cut through his thoughts. "Now, for a start, you will hand me your wand." He held his hand out commandingly.

Arthur's hand closed over the smooth wood protectively. Without it he would be utterly defenceless - unable to protect either himself or Molly and Charlie. Not that he'd stand much of a chance duelling three Death Eaters single-handedly, but without a wand...

"Let me help speed up your decision-making process a bit," the masked man hissed maliciously, then gestured towards his cronies. The Death Eater behind Charlie moved his wand away from his neck and pointed it at the young man's bandaged thigh.

"Incendio!" he growled, and the tip of the wand began to glow with an ugly, cherry-red light.

Arthur watched Charlie shrink back against the back of the chair helplessly. The glowing wand made contact with the still-healing burn and his second-born threw his head back in agony, letting out a strangled scream that was even more terrible because he tried so hard to suppress it and failed. Tears sprang to his eyes and he convulsed violently.

Molly cried out and started up from her chair, heedless of the danger.

"Petrificus Totalus!" The head Death Eater's spell hit her in mid-stride, and her unmoveable body collapsed back into the chair. Only her eyes were alive, filled with rage, pain and concern.

Arthur ripped his wand out of his robe pocket and practically forced it into the other's hand.

"Here! Now let him go, you monstrous bastard!" Probably not the wisest comment in his situation, but Arthur was quite beyond rational reflection. The Death Eater, however, just twirled the wand in his hand before fastidiously pocketing it.

"Heavens, Arthur, what language! But then again, you're not exactly a wizard of breeding, are you? Enough for now," he told his associate, who removed the wand from Charlie's leg. The young dragon keeper slumped back, unconscious.

"Now that I have your undivided attention, let me explain to you, in appropriately simple terms, what your options are. You will accompany us, without fuss or resistance. In return, we'll put memory charms on your wife and son and leave it at that. If you refuse, you will watch us torture them, kill them and then you'll accompany us."

Arthur blinked, trying to clear his head. There was something very wrong with this proposal. Dammit, Arthur, you can panic later, now think!

"Why should I believe you? You revel in killing, it's what you live for. What will stop you from murdering them once you have me?"

"Because, as you force me to repeat, we need you for something. And it would be preferable if the wizarding world - and sadly enough that includes your lot - were ignorant of your disappearance for the moment."

"You need me for what?"

"You'll see. Now, this is getting tiresome and I have a dinner engagement later tonight that I cannot afford to miss." His tone lost all the casualness it had had before and turned distinctively icy. "And as much as I look forward to our little plan, the idea of looking down on your broken and mutilated body is becoming increasingly appealing as well. Make up your mind, now!"

Underneath the anger in his tone, Arthur could sense a much stronger, darker undercurrent. He met the eyes behind the mask directly for the first time and knew with absolute certainty the wizard they belonged to. In fact, had he not been frozen with shock he'd have known from the moment he'd stepped into the room. Somewhere deep inside his subconscious mind, he'd always known that this had to happen. Unfortunately, his mind had opted to put a lot of emphasis on the 'sub' in subconscious before now.

Fool, fool, fool! he berated himself. You're as ignorant as Fudge! After the World Cup, after all Dumbledore and Harry told you about what happened during the Triwizard Tournament - and you still didn't see this coming!

He was very careful to keep the realisation from showing on his face. Better not even think the name - the other was a powerful wizard and there was no guarantee he wasn't using a mind-reading charm or some similar Dark Arts spell. You-Know-Who's supporters might spare Molly and Charlie if it suited their schemes, but memory charms could be detected and broken. Being able to tell the Aurors that they had been attacked by Death Eaters was one thing, actually giving names was quite another.

"Well, I don't have much of a choice, do I," he said coldly. "If you leave without harming anyone, I'm all yours."

"As it should be." The Death Eater picked up the box of new plugs Arthur had bought - with Muggle money and no little apprehension - in Ottery St.Catchpole's hardware shop, and sifted through it gingerly. He took one out and dangled it between thumb and index finger with all the appreciation he'd show a dead and halfway decomposed rat. "Appropriate for a Muggle lover," he decided, and began the familiar enchantment that would transfigure the small Muggle artefact into a Portkey.

Helplessly, Arthur watched the Death Eater who had tortured Charlie revive his son with an "Ennervate!" spell, only to put him under again with the memory charm as soon as he opened his eyes. Charlie's gaze slid out of focus, and his head fell back as he fell into a half trance, his face still screwed up in pain.

"Finite Incantatem!" Molly regained use of her limbs, but didn't grace the second Death Eater who had freed her with so much as a fleeting glance. Instead, her eyes locked on Arthur's face with single-minded determination.

"We'll find you," she said, calmly and without the tiniest hint of doubt clouding her voice.

"I know," Arthur replied, a small devil-may-care smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She might, as well. His wife was a witch with an uncanny amount of intuition, a gift that had sailed her smoothly through Divination at Hogwarts without having to bother about technique, and given her a degree of perception that had driven their children to distraction, particularly the secretive twins. And, of course, she was the most resolute person he'd ever met. He was tempted to say 'It's going to be all right', but it would have been an insult to her intelligence.

"I wouldn't bother with the optimism, woman," the head Death Eater sneered. "You'll forget it in a second, anyway." He pointed his wand at her and snarled, "Obliviate!" Molly's eyes closed like Charlie's had before, and her face went slack.

The Death Eater held up the enchanted plug between middle and index finger and nodded at Arthur.

"Catch, Weasley." He tossed the plug to him and Arthur reflexively closed his hand around it. His stomach lurched sideways and he stumbled as the Portkey took effect. Please, let them be all right, he thought before the iridescent vortex snatched him up and spirited him away.

~ ~ ~ tbc. ~ ~ ~