Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lucius Malfoy turned the piece of parchment over and over in his hands. If the words it held were true, this was glorious news, indeed. He read it again, his delicate, aristocratic mouth lilting in a handsome smirk. His long, sculptured fingers caressed the letter like the flesh an adored lover. The green ink glimmered from the page, beckoning him to take in its message once more.

Father,

I am writing to tell you most interesting news. This afternoon in Potions, Harry Potter took an Advanced Sleeping Draught he had brewed the week before. Instead of simply falling asleep, he collapsed. Of course, that cracked old swot, Dumbledore made a great fuss over him. He and the blockheaded school nurse carted him off to the infirmary. You should've seen their faces. Quite comical, really.

He's still there as far as anyone knows, and I haven't seen Professor Snape all evening. I expect he's being interrogated by Father Do-gooder. Either that, or he's taking out his frustrations on that pitiful wreck of a Mudblood that transferred in at the start of term. He seems to find great sport in that. One can hardly blame him. If you could only see her, Father.

No doubt they'll try to blame Professor Snape. McGonagall's been after him for years. If they succeed, it'll be off to Azkaban with him. Perhaps you could use your considerable influence at the Ministry to muddy the waters? If they sack Professor Snape, there's no telling what sort of rabble they'll bring in. Slytherin is appallingly under-represented on staff; as you know there are only two in Hogwart's employ.

Before I close, I must enquire about the Initiation. I thought I was to be inducted just before the start of term. Is everything well? Have I done something to displease his Lordship? I anxiously await your reply. Send my regards to Mother.

Your son,

Draco

He carefully folded the letter and slipped it inside his robes. He would send an answer tonight, along with a sack of Galleons as a reward for such diligence. Frankly, such a display of promptitude from his only son was a bit of a surprise. Draco was usually quite content to drift through life in a fugue of his own craft. He was a lazy, indolent boy, always expecting him to clean up his messes. He had no grasp of politics, of the need for subtlety. He was crass and brash, utterly bovine.

And yet, for reasons he would never fully comprehend, Narcissa loved him. It was sickening, really, the way she doted on him. Always twittering about him during their afternoon teas, boring him to tears as she droned on about what he might be up to at Hogwarts. It was because of her that he continued to intercede on Draco's behalf. If only to stop the incessant, maddening hectoring. That and the need to protect his name. He wasn't about to have it sullied because the only child Narcissa had seen fit to give him had turned out to be a waste of the body in which he was housed.

He should have insisted on sending the boy to Durmstrang. Karkaroff would have taught him the meaning of discipline, stiffened his flimsy spine. Instead of wasting valuable time having his head stuffed full of useless notions like compassion and equality, he would have learnt skills that would serve him well in the coming war. He would learn how to kill, how to crush his simpering enemies beneath his feet. He would learn the fine art of torture.

But Narcissa had pleaded, following him around the house, wringing her hands and whinging in her high, nasally voice until he retreated to the sanctuary of his study.

Lucius, it's so far away. What if something should happen to him? He needs to be where we can keep a proper eye on him.

He grimaced at the recollection. It was unseemly, the way she had begged. In the end, just before he had relented, she had burst into tears, her blue eyes growing red and swollen and her nose running in a most unappealing manner. He had been revolted, seeing her sniveling in front of him like any puling housewife. She hadn't been the strong, haughty, independent woman he'd married, the one just as clever and ruthless as he was. Her maternal instincts had contorted her into a screaming, impotent harpy. He had relented just to banish the image, and they had slept in separate beds for a month thereafter.

Thankfully, the boy was wholly inured to Dumbledore's prattle about the common rights of man, about helping those less fortunate. Thanks to Lucius' tutelage, Draco saw such gum-flapping dribble for what it truly was. Inept as he was, there were some things that Draco simply knew. The knowledge had come as part and parcel of his bloodline, and one of those things was that not all wizards were created equal.

The only wizard worthy of the life with which the Fates had endowed him was a Pureblood. The rest were so much chaff among the wheat. What happened to them was of no importance; in fact, they deserved no more than to be ground to dust beneath the heels of their betters. So his father had told him forty years ago, and his father before him, and his father before him, unto the generations lost to time and memory. As it had been passed to him, so he had passed it to his son, and the line of this noble legacy would remain unbroken until the end of the world.

There was a reason for the hatred once, but it had long been forgotten, and now it was enough that it existed. It needed no justification, no rationale. It was truth. Not a truth everyone acknowledged or accepted, but undeniable all the same. It was an ideology that, if heeded, would cure most of the world's ills. To grow strong, that which was weak and useless, inferior, must be excised.

But blind sentimentality persisted. The weak were allowed to live, and unchecked crossbreeding between wizards and Muggles was eroding the quality of magical stock every day. Each time initiatives were brought before the Wizengamot to ban such deleterious practices, they were summarily overturned by liberal, expansionist twits who insisted on quantity over quality. And while they engaged in congratulatory mutual masturbation over pints in shoddy, grubby pubs and sang beatitudes to their visionary ways, their society continued to crumble.

He strode over to the wet bar in the southeast corner of his study, picked up a crystal tumbler, and poured himself a shot of barrel-aged brandy from the year 1798. He sniffed the stopper of the decanter, careful to keep his pinky finger extended. His nose tingled appreciatively at the spicy honey scent. A fine year, if his nose spoke the truth. He dipped his pinky into the thin, golden liquid and brought it to his lips. Smooth, bold without being unctuous. He had chosen well.

In his younger days, before marriage and his obligations as a Death Eater had usurped most of his time, he had spent time in the various upscale wine houses as a lauded sommelier. He had offered his services free of charge, not because of any altruistic desire to lend enjoyment to others, but because the thought of accepting money from ill-bred, dirty-eared inferiors was incredibly gauche. Malfoys had wealth beyond the imagining. They need never work at all if they so chose. He had done it because it was power. Subtle, unnoticed by all but the most erudite, but incredibly potent. With his urbane polish and gilded tongue, he convinced the richest, most influential wizards in the world to imbibe nearly impotable filth. And like it. He hadn't even needed the Imperius Curse. Just his soft, mellifluous voice, cold grey eyes, and absolute conviction.

It had amused him a great deal to see posh Mudblood business wizards stuffing their florid, porcine faces with three hundred Galleon beefsteaks and quaffing glass after glass of wretched swill while they boasted to their companions of their sophistication. He had watched them and smiled, knowing that soon enough, all pretensions would fall away before the unavoidable light of truth.

On his last night as a sommelier in Le Chateau Nocturne, an exclusive restaurant patroned by the nouveau riche of wizarding society, he had systematically poisoned the entire wine cellar. A thousand bottles of wine over the next six hours. It was a slow-acting toxin, a concoction procured from Severus, and that night, the wine flowed like a sweet red river, pressed into eager hands by the gracious sommelier. It was such a successful evening that the management served complimentary glasses to everyone. The happy customers lurched out the doors, filled with wine and merriment. It was the last door through which any of them ever passed. They were all dead by dawn.

The Ministry was understandably upset. One hundred and twenty-seven of its most prominent citizens were dead, and there was no explanation. They were found in their beds by husbands, wives, children, or house elves, or they keeled over before the astonished, dismayed faces of Mediwizards. Medical scans showed no sign of foul play, though several demonstrated cataclysmic hardening of the arteries that would have killed them within months anyway. Severus' work had been flawless. Ministry health officials closed the restaurant, and the owner committed suicide. The case had left many scratching their heads in disbelief.

If only someone had bothered to check the Ministry business permits. My, my.

He took a sip of brandy, tapping his finger lightly against the tumbler. Oh, yes, how quickly the mystery would unravel then. Businesses filing petitions to allow Muggles into their premises just couldn't be allowed to continue. Pureblood citizens had to be protected from such filth. Yes, ten Purebloods had died in the mass poisoning, and it was lamentable, but collateral damage was to be expected.

Now, Harry Potter had fallen ill, much like the victims of the mass poisoning eighteen years before. Severus' doing, without a doubt. The man, grubby and unkempt as he was, was a brilliant Potions Master. Even at nineteen, he had been more skilled in the simmering alchemy of the cauldron than anyone Lucius had ever known. So single-minded. When he was brewing, nothing else mattered. The world was no larger than the bubbling mouth of his kettle. He had never made a mistake.

The question was, why had he done it now? Did he sense the Dark Lord's growing dissatisfaction with him? At one time, his Lordship had considered him an indispensable member of the inner circle, but of late, had had grown weary of his favorite pet. Severus' returns had steadily diminished over the last year. Where once had had provided them with invaluable information about Dumbledore's movements, his reports now consisted of inane pitter concerning the everyday operation of the school and vague mutterings about possible Order activity. Nothing concrete for the past six months. His welcome with the Death Eaters was nearing its end.

If he was responsible for killing Harry, it would buy him time. A year at most. But it wouldn't spare his life. Nothing would. Lord Voldemort prized loyalty above all, and it was evident that Severus' allegiance was divided. What had started as infiltration of Hogwarts and the Order by a Death Eater spy had become a game of one upmanship between two ancient rivals, and Severus' fealty had clearly shifted to Dumbledore over the past five years.

The first hairline cracks in his heretofore solid foundation had appeared in Draco's first year. He had dogged the pawn Quirrell's every step, thwarting his attempts to do away with the beloved wunderkind. He had even possessed the bald audacity to counter a direct attempt by his Lordship to topple the brat from his broom. His formerly eloquent reports had become terse, evasive, and wholly uninformative. Lucius had seen the seeds of doubt taking root behind Lord Voldemort's eyes when he spoke of his former protégé, and the long road to Severus' ruin had unfurled.

His fate had been sealed when he had not joined others after the Tri-wizard Tournament. Lord Voldemort had summoned him, but he had not come, and his disobedience had cut his Lordship to the quick. He could not love, could feel nothing but hatred and cold greed, but he considered Severus a valuable asset, and his loss before they were finished with him had made His Lordship look weak, unable to control his agents. That was unacceptable.

So Severus would die. When or how had not yet been decided, but who had never been in any doubt. When the order was given, he, Lucius, would be the one to carry it out. Bellatrix, though she was just as loyal as himself, was too emotional. She would never do it cleanly. Her emotions would overrule her caution, and in her zeal to make the traitor suffer, to exact the requisite pound of flesh, she might offer him the opportunity for escape, and someone who knew so much about their intricate hierarchy in enemy hands and willing to divulge everything would be an unmitigated disaster.

So the deed would fall to him, and he would do it well. It would not be quick, but it would be clean, and when he left, there would be no doubt that Severus Snape was dead. Or that he had suffered mightily. He could impart untold agony to any limb he wished, separate tendon from bone with a flick of the wrist. He could inflict a thousand wounds and still keep his victim alive. For days, if he wished. Before Severus' eyes looked upon the world for the last time, his every nerve ending would know the terrible, delirious ecstasy of unending pain.

Draco would be disappointed. He idolized Severus. Every holiday was filled with praise for his dour Head of House, an endless litany of platitudes that made Lucius' head throb like an impacted tooth. Sandwiched between his twittering wife and his crowing son, he had often wondered if he were trapped in his personal hell, if he hadn't been killed in a skirmish and sent to his eternal reward. The realization that his favorite teacher was a craven, slinking turncoat would rattle the boy, but it would also be a dose of badly needed reality. For all his airs and carefully affected worldliness, he was ridiculously naïve. The sooner he learned the unpleasant truths of the world, the better.

He finished his tumbler of brandy, draining it in a single, long swallow. He would worry about the boy later. Lord Voldemort would want to be apprised of this immediately, and he wanted to be the one bearing the glad tidings. The children of his associates had certainly written their fathers as well-that was, if those unfortunate cretins, Crabbe and Goyle, could write-and the messenger of such glad news would be well rewarded. He set the empty glass on the counter, grabbed his mink-lined velvet cloak, and Disapparated.

Far away from Malfoy Manor, but still precariously close to the looming abyss where Lord Voldemort bided his time, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic polished his gold nameplate. He drew his wand in slow, lazy circles, guiding the soft cotton cloth. He did this every morning and evening. He liked order and cleanliness. It was important to keep up appearances. It wouldn't do for the Minister to have a shoddy office. He was, after all, the representative of wizardry in Great Britain. A strong front was imperative, even if reality was far different.

"Finite incantatem." The cloth fluttered to the desk and lay there, polish smeared like holy golden ichor across its wilted fabric. He slipped his wand into his robes, straightened them, and sighed.

Things were getting bad. As much as he denied it, sequestered himself here in his opulent office, the creeping, pervasive rot of a decaying society had finally slithered beneath his closed mahogany door. There were no wards or charms to keep it out. The Information and Public Affairs Departments were working overtime to keep the worst quiet, but it was only a matter of time. The more astute already sensed the disease festering beneath rosy cheeks, recognized the brightness in the eyes for what it was-the coming of an epidemic fever.

His eyes flickered to the overflowing memo tray on the edge of his immense cherry wood desk. The In tray was buried beneath an avalanche of papers, manila folders, and weighty dossiers, each one detailing some new horror or catastrophe. He reached out and plucked the topmost folder from the teetering pile. He flipped it open reluctantly, mouth puckering in an unconscious moue of distaste. He was sure he didn't want to read this. He never did these days.

Incident Report

Magical Law Enforcement Squadron

Missing Persons Division

COMPLAINANT NAME: Rosemary Tuffington

ADDRESS: Flat 23D, Crowther Lane, Canterbury, Kent

TIME: 9:30p.m.

NATURE OF COMPLAINT: At half past seven on 21 October, Rosemary Tuffington arrived at her flat to find the door ajar and pools of blood on the threshold. She proceeded immediately to the neighboring flat and summoned MLES inspectors to the scene.

Upon arriving, Aurors noted the blood. Inside the flat, overturned chairs were discovered, as well as more blood. A bloody handprint was found on the washbasin. Broken crockery littered the floor. Mrs. Tuffington informed inspectors that the flat had not been in this condition when she left it at approximately half past five to go to Haversham's Grocery(alibi currently being verified).

Further investigation yielded more blood in the corridor leading to the master bedroom, as well as substantial blood in the secondary bedroom, which Mrs. Tuffington informed us, belonged to her son, Darius Tuffington, 9. Torn bedsheets and ragged holes in the plaster indicated signs of struggle.

When questioned, Mrs. Tuffington informed inspectors that both her son and her husband, Quintus, 41, had been home when she left, and neither expressed any intention of leaving the premises. The family dog, Busky, is also unaccounted for.

After a thorough search of the premises and surrounding environs, no trace of the family was found. Inspectors questioned other residents in adjoining flats, but none remembered seeing or hearing anything suspicious. Inspectors noted that some of the residents appeared dazed and confused, as though they had been subjected to memory modification Charms and were taken to St. Mungo's for a thorough examination.

An examination of the location determined that nothing of monetary value was taken.

DATE REPORTED FILED: 21/10/96

INSPECTOR IN CHARGE: Creswell, Ian

CASE STATUS: Unsolved

He thumbed through the rest of the file, which consisted of addendums, recommendations, notice of filings, warrant issuances, and the like. None of it was promising. No new leads, sightings, or suspects. No suspects at all, for that matter. The only happening of significance was the discovery of a badly decomposed dog a week later. Even that was uncertain; the dog might well have been a stray and not Busky at all.

He closed the folder and tossed it atop the stack once more. There were a dozen more just like it awaiting his attention, but right now, he hadn't the energy. It was easy enough to read between the lines if he cared to. Two missing people, a pool of blood, signs of struggle, and yet not a single neighbors hears a blasted thing. And some of them seem a trifle...odd. Like they've only just awakened from a very deep sleep. Oh, yes, it was all so familiar. So neat.

He propped his elbows on the desk and scrubbed his face with his palms. The Aurors read between the lines, too, and that was why the report was on his desk instead of crammed into an already overstuffed filing cabinet in the Missing Persons division. It bore all the earmarks of a Death Eater attack. The mere thought sent a cold ball of apprehension into the pit of his stomach. That particular phrase hadn't been uttered within these walls in nearly fourteen years. He had hoped never to hear it or consider it again, but there it was, floating in the roiling viscera of his mind like the bloated corpse of a black fly.

It can't be. Potter stopped all of that. By hook or by crook or by some blessed magic we'll never understand, he banished the creeping darkness, vanquished it. At long last, the nightmare, the siege, was over. We could all breathe again. It can't be back. He can't be back. It wasn't just.

During He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's reign, attacks and disappearances like that of Mr. Tuffington and his lad were commonplace. The newspaper was rife with accounts of mysterious goings-on, heinous murders, and violent skirmishes between Aurors and supporters of the darkness. People went home and never saw the sun again this side of heaven. The streets had run red with blood, and the pungent odor of fear rose from the pavement in an intoxicating, simmering steam.

Then Potter and his miracle, and with him, quiet. Not the terrified, prayerful silence of those cowering in the dangerous darkness and hoping the deadly blight would pass them by, or the knowing quiet of those already doomed, but plain, simple silence. The silence of relief. The fortunate survivors had slowly emerged from the rubble, blinking warily into the sunlight with which they had been so recently reacquainted, moles crawling out of shattered burrows. The business of rebuilding had begun.

For a while, there had been random outbursts of resistance from diehard Death Eaters unable to accept the inevitable, but for the most part, the peace they had so fervently hoped for was at hand. The fear of seeing the Dark Mark hovering over cottages and flats had lifted. Gradually, as weeks passed and no one was found mangled in the streets, children resumed their play, their joyous cries piercing the air like phoenix song. Muggle-born businesses that had been burned to smoldering ash arose anew, brighter and busier than before. They had been pulled back from the yawning abyss just as gravity released its grudging hold, and they had been glad of it.

Now, it was coming undone again, one thread at a time.

It can't be. Maybe it isn't as it seems. Surely there is another explanation. Mustn't let myself get caught up in the needless hysteria that fool Dumbledore has been trying to stir up since the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The death of the Diggory boy was most unfortunate, but it certainly wasn't the work of... Everyone knew the Tournament carried a risk. Diggory was a regrettable loss. The Potter boy was understandably hysterical. It's a wonder he didn't see dancing penguins in lace tutus. It's entirely possible that he accidentally killed young Cedric and concocted the story about the return of You-Know-Who to cover his tracks.

Stranger things had happened, especially when lives and futures were at stake. He wouldn't be at all surprised if Dumbledore had coached Potter to spread those pernicious lies. There had been rumblings for years that he might be interested in the Minister's position. He denied it, of course, but that was poppycock. Fudge himself had made the same denial less than a week before declaring his candidacy. It was indecorous to appear overly covetous.

Ex-Gryffindor or not, Albus Dumbledore could be cunning as Slytherin when it suited him. Just look at the cracking job he had done in keeping the more unsavory doings at Hogwarts under wraps. Honestly, he was convinced he would never know half the things the old charlatan had done within those venerable walls. Undermining his, Fudge's, position and good standing with the public by insisting that You-Know-Who had returned was just the sort of devious ploy in which he would engage. Dumbledore liked to muddy the waters, but he loathed getting grit on his hands.

For fifteen years, he, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, had governed the wizarding world, shepherding them through the hard-earned peace, leading them to unprecedented prosperity. He had maintained the status quo. For fifteen years, there had been no panic, no fear, no hysteria, only a logy, bucolic peace. A peace for which he was responsible, and now Dumbledore was working hard to turn those achievements to his advantage.

He had been waging his little smear campaign for years, though now he was becoming more emboldened. Five years ago, his surreptitious attacks had come in the guise of well-planted rumors that the Ministry used him as a crutch, a sounding board past which they ran most of their most pressing proposals before making a decision. Codswallop. While it was true that the old man had been consulted in the early days of the Fudge administration, those meetings had been little more than courtesy calls, good-form honors bestowed on him for his faithful service to their world. He had never unduly influenced the governance of the country. All weighty decisions were his alone.

But Dumbledore had such a groundswell of popular support that most chose to believe the rumors rather than the evidence before their own eyes and his impeccable record as Minister. Much of that had to do with Dumbledore's public persona. What was not to love about an affable loon with a penchant for sweets and a hideously unabashed sense of fashion. It didn't hurt that the eccentric fellow was a beloved war hero largely credited with defeating Grindewald.

By contrast, he didn't have much to offer. He was merely Cornelius Augustine Fudge, portly, congenitally underachieving son of landed gentry. He'd had no Dark Lord to cast him headlong into prominence. He'd fought for every scrap of recognition and acclaim, suffering through the inane and grossly expensive dinner parties thrown by wealthy socialites, glad-handing and fraternizing with the best of them. Cheeks on both sides of the line of demarcation had been kissed with feigned fervor, and all of that had brought him all of this. His diligence and skill at crafting connections and contacts in the relevant sectors had paid dividends, ones he wouldn't surrender on behalf of unfounded hysteria.

You hold this seat because Albus Dumbledore refused to run for election.

He stiffened in his chair, his hand curling into a tight fist. Blood rushed to his cheeks, staining them with indignation. That was patently untrue, and he had proven it time and again. Had Dumbledore chosen to run, he would have defeated him. It would have been a ferocious contest-of that there was no doubt-but in the end, the people would have chosen him all the same. He projected stability and intellect and respectability. Dumbledore was an eccentric loon who traipsed about in blinding robes and fuzzy bunny slippers and spouted esoteric nonsense.

He told himself this day after day, but he could never make himself believe it. Not entirely. Each time he thought he had banished the doubt, it returned, whispering in his ear, its sickly-sweet breath crawling over his flesh. He could not rid himself of it, any more than he could banish the folders that foretold the fall of his well-ordered world from his desk.

Oh, yes. That I can do.

He grabbed the folder he had just placed atop the mountain in his inbox, jerked open the bottom drawer of his desk, and shoved it inside. He started to close the drawer, paused, then picked up another handful of folders and shoved them in, too. He slammed the door shut, his heart hammering in his chest. His hands were slick and clammy, and he fought the urge to go to the wet bar and pour himself a drink. It was too early in the day, and he needed a clear mind.

Out of sight, but not out of mind. The sight of the folders still lingered in his thoughts, their ominous message drifting through the pores of the wood in a noxious cloud. He tried to push them away, but they resisted, growing brighter. He scowled.

Damn them.

He pulled a folder from the pile and flipped it open. Work would distract him. He could lose himself in the numbing banality of bureaucracy, drown in the indecipherable legalese. He looked down and spluttered at what he saw.

Moody was submitting a request to St. Mungo's for a bezoar. He snorted. That was one bit of normality this morning. The man had suspected poison in his porridge for sixty years. Not a day went by when he wasn't Flooing overworked Aurors about some suspicious noises or skulking figure outside his privet hedge. Nowadays, the reports were largely ignored, and in the event they couldn't be, a green trainee was dispatched to look into it and told to throw away the report.

He closed the report and stuffed it in the outbox. That would go to the furnace. There was precious little money in the Ministry coffers, and he wasn't going to waste a single Knut soothing Moody's delusions. That decided, his mind returned to the files in his bottom drawer. The files he wished would disappear.

It won't help. There are three hundred more in the basement. Swallowed by dust and shadows, but there all the same. You couldn't make them go away.

He grunted, wishing for that drink again. The ten years' worth of unexplained disappearances and murders crumbling in the Ministry sub-basement was the last thing he needed to ponder. They made him profoundly uneasy, hinted that perhaps the wizarding world was not on solid ground.

Coincidences, surely. Unfortunate tragedies. No more than that.

Some, maybe, but not all. Not by a long chalk. There are too many, and about some, there could be no doubt. You know the ones.

He could see them in his mind's eye, the folders marked Urgent and Classified in glowing red letters. Two hundred and twelve of them, each containing photos so graphic that veterans of thirty years could not stomach them. Ritual murders involving barbarities not seen since Voldemort's reign. The reality of the crimes existed only in the basements. Outside these walls, the families were told their loved ones had been victims of random violence. The more stubborn had their memories modified. In the name of national security, of course. It wouldn't do to have them raising a hue and cry in the streets or the press about marauding Death Eaters.

He ignored the tapping at first. It was probably the Weasley boy delivering more private and urgent correspondence or chafing to bring him "important news." News which usually turned out to be inconsequential tidbits first reported a week earlier. The boy's ambition was laudable, but his ties to Arthur Weasley were a detriment. The man was far too ingratiated to Dumbledore for the younger Weasley to be of any real value. Despite his vehement protestations that he had severed ties with his boorish clan, there always remained the possibility of reconciliation. And he'd be damned if he would hand Dumbledore another tool.

When it persisted, he swiveled his chair and was astonished to see an owl fluttering madly in the drop slot that led from the surface to his office. The tiny grey creature twittered and hooted mournfully, beating its wings against the sides of the tube. Around its leg was fastened a letter.

Stupid bird. Why didn't it just drop the bloody thing down the chute?

He arose and went to the window that opened to his mail chute. The word "window" was a misnomer; it actually looked on nothing more then the shale and clay seventy feet below ground. The illusion of sunlight was added to increase productivity. He lifted the latch and grabbed the owl, wincing as it nipped him.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he snapped, depositing it onto the desk and bringing his wounded finger to his lips.

The owl hopped impatiently, jabbing its taloned foot at him and chittering indignantly, large, golden eyes fixing him with a put-upon glower.

"All right, you impertinent little beast," he hissed. He tore the letter from its proffered leg, ignoring its startled hoot.

The first time he read the letter, he couldn't believe it. The second time, he was smiling when he finished. By the third, he was whistling. Glee suffused him, slow, sweet poison. All his problems had just been solved. He stowed the letter in his robes and left the office at a brisk stride. He couldn't believe his luck.

Albus Dumbledore's machinations had caught up with him at last.