Nine Lives

Climbing down the ivy up the front of a stone house, the small, agile woman is horrified as the plant gives way. She doesn't have time to draw her wand, and she and her bag of stolen rare books land in the shrubbery. Lucy laughs with relief at her lucky escape: none of her bones are broken, and no alerts were sounded.

*****

Two people from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad are hot on her tail as she makes a break out of the Leaky Cauldron and darts across the road to the pedestrian island in the middle, the centrepiece of the display from a goblin goldsmith's shop clinking in her pockets. She's about to keep running, but an old Muggle grabs her arm and pulls her back. The bus roars past her harmlessly. "You wanter look where yer going," wheezes the Muggle. "Them bus drivers, they don't care if they hits yer." Surreptitiously slipping a Muggle five-pound note into his pocket as a thank you, Lucy completes her journey across the road. On the other side she stops to grin at the two lawmen, who are afraid of motor vehicles and so are stuck on the pavement opposite. Muggle London, and freedom, beckons to her.

*****

The manor is old and its defences are strong. That makes burgling it all the more fun for The Cat, the notorious burglar who relishes a challenge. Dark spells and traps are hidden through the grounds. She vaults and dispels them, panting with exertion. This is fun! Cloaking and silencing charms her family have developed over generations mean she's little more than a shadow against the more shadowy garden.

Lucy breaks in though a ground-floor window into a study. The mediaeval grimoire she already has a buyer for is in a locked, bespelled cabinet. Carefully she uses her wand to cast spells without speaking, wary of making even the slightest sound. She places the grimoire in her backpack and turns to leave, but one trailing corner of her robe catches a quill on the desk. The faintest sound as it hits the floor is enough to alert the residents, she knows, and resignedly Disapparates with a loud crack as various automatic hexes and curses hurl themselves at her. Quick reflexes save her skin, but she realises that the manor's owner might have magically gathered enough information to identify her.

*****

Trying to avoid a patrolling Magical Law Enforcement Squad member, Lucy is delayed in her visit to her parents' house. Her dad's been straight since his last spell in Azkaban three years ago, but he's proud as can be of his only daughter, known to the public as 'The Cat'. He clips out news items on her robberies from the Daily Prophet and sticks them in his Rogue's Gallery, the scrapbook of Whitby family exploits over the past four decades.

Finally the patrolling nuisance is leaving, heading in the same direction as she's planning on going. She knows he's unlikely to look behind himself, so Lucy sticks her hands in her pockets and saunters down Diagon Alley towards the junction with Nocturn Alley, walking in his very footsteps. Suddenly, the squad member breaks into a run, firing off alert signals. He's breaking away from her, and she runs after him, fearing the worst.

A newly cast Dark Mark hangs over the Whitbies' pawnshop, and the squad member is doing battle with a trio of Death Eaters. Lucy steps in to help him, unable to believe what she's seeing. As more members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad arrive to help their comrade, Lucy runs into the house, through the tatty treasure trove of pawned goods, into the warm kitchen beyond. Her parents are dead.

An Auror has followed her. She looks up at him. "I was supposed to be here an hour ago," she cries, "but I couldn't get past the Plod. I should be dead too."

"Go now," he orders, "Or I'll have to take you in." He slips a card into her hand, and then she casts one of her superlative cloaking spells and seems to vanish.

*****

Distraught, she goes on an orgy of theft. Ancient Egyptian papyri and Assyrian clay tablets of spells from the British Museum, paintings of famous witches by Dante Gabriel Rosetti from the gallery in Birmingham, rare Welsh manuscripts from the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth: she steals them all, and they bring her no joy, lying unwanted around her rented room in a Muggle slum. Her father is no longer there to applaud her audacity and fence her acquisitions. Lying on her bed, she raises a razor to her wrists, and closes her eyes. The last thing she sees is the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

*****

Lucy opens her eyes again to see a kind, chubby red-haired woman looking at her. Two small ginger children are hanging onto the woman's apron, and she's carrying a clock under one arm. "You're safe," the woman tells her. "My brothers brought you here."

Lucy sits up. Her wrists have been healed, only faint scars betraying the damage she'd done to them. "Where's here?"

The woman continues, "I'm afraid all your... the things were found by the Muggle police in a locker at St Pancras Station following an anonymous tip-off. They've been returned to the museums." She looks at the clock. "Fabian should be round soon, and he can explain things to you. Here's a towel, and some robes - I can charm them to fit. The bathroom's down the hall."

Bemused, Lucy watches the woman and boys retreat, leaving her in peace. The sun is shining through the window and birds are singing outside. This is not heaven, but it's the next best thing.

After washing and changing, she goes down several flights of stairs to the kitchen. One small boy toddles up to her and presents her with a messy finger painting. The amount of scarlet paint makes Lucy feel queasy. The smiling woman pounces on an equally redheaded man as he walks though the door, plastering him with kisses. Then, blushing, they both turn to Lucy. "I'm Arthur Weasley," the man announces. He leads her to the dining room, with no children around, and they sit.

The Blood Traitor? "Why am I here?"

"My brother-in-law will tell you... Ah, Fabian!" A brown-haired man with sparkling blue eyes enters the dining room, hanging his overcoat carelessly over the back of a dining chair.

Fabian takes over. "I'll explain. Arthur, you'd better go - the less you know, the better."

Arthur leaves, and Fabian smiles. "I can't risk involving him or Molly in what our group are doing; their babies need them. I'm one of a number of people who refuse to be beaten down by the Death Eaters. A friend with a good eye for potential thought you might help us, and after you ignored our initial contact, we tried again - in the nick of time, it turned out. You were given a business card..."

The one the Auror gave her at her parents' house? "I didn't look at it. Who's 'us'? Who's your friend?"

"I can't explain that to you until we know you're trustworthy. I wouldn't be talking to you at all if any of us had skills like yours. We need you to get something for us. You're our best chance, and we've only got one shot. It's in an old house - and we know you've been there before," Fabian tells Lucy. "It'll help in the fight against You-Know-Who."

"I'll do it," Lucy says immediately, her parents' bodies clear in her mind. "Just tell me what you need."

The mission takes place a few nights later. The house that had been home to the grimoire has, in its cellar, a small box. Quite how the people she's working for, or with, know about its existence is a mystery to Lucy. At the moment they're only telling her as much as she needs to know. Since she wanted to die anyway, Lucy doesn't really care about that. Several members of the mysterious group are causing a kerfuffle in the main driveway, drawing the attention of the occupants, but the defensive spells have been strengthened since Lucy's last visit, and she nearly gets caught by a roaming Petrificus charm. She's impressed. It's very difficult to create free-floating spells that last for any length of time.

In the cellar, just as she picks up the box, a wizard catches her. They were all supposed to be outside!

This is it, thinks Lucy. I've failed. He raises his wand, and from behind his mask come the dread syllables "Avada Ke..."

His voice ceases abruptly as a house elf flings open the cellar door, knocking the wizard straight down the stairs. As Lucy Disapparates with the box, relieved at another lucky escape, she sees the elf repeatedly headbutting the wall. He appears to be smiling...

*****

Lucy has another mission for the people she now knows as the Order of the Phoenix. The apartment belongs to a suspected Death Eater. Her job is to break in and disarm as many traps, alerts and defences as possible. She has an hour to get in, do it, leave a bewitched teapot on a side table and get out. Officially, a pair of operatives from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office is due to raid the apartment after that, and they're not skilled enough to avoid all the Dark spells that might have been cast on the place. Unable to get any evidence on the resident's Death Eater activities, the Order of the Phoenix are going to get him sent to Azkaban for a more minor crime. Fabian and Gideon are against planting false evidence, but a couple of members Lucy remembers from Slytherin are determined to get the Death Eaters by any means possible. Lucy agrees with them.

Her job goes exactly as planned, until she tries to leave. The one thing she isn't expecting is for the door to be booby-trapped to injure anyone who opens it from the inside. With only minutes to go, she stumbles down the stairs, using her remaining magical strength to clear up her blood. She can't leave suspicious evidence!

The resident of the lower flat has just returned from doing her shopping. Not in the least startled, she puts down her groceries inside the open door, shoves Lucy through it and slams the door behind them both as the Officers run up the stairs. Dousing Lucy with potions and healing spells, Viola Beanacre laughs. "I haven't seen you since school! How are things?"

Watching her own insides being covered by a film of new flesh, Lucy can do nothing but lie back and giggle with relief. Sometimes the people you do good turns for come back into your life just when you need them.

*****

You can't break the habit of a lifetime, and the display of emeralds in the posh Muggle jeweller's window is too good to miss. Once she's got them, though, Lucy thinks back to a former friend, one who looked better in green than any girl alive. The memory spoils the gems for her, and she hands them to the first beggar she passes, then mooches along without paying attention to anyone, enjoying a break from the wizarding world.

Muggle London is not safe, even though the Death Eaters aren't known here. Muggles produce evil of their own. She is attacked. Lucy is half choked by the arm that goes round her neck, can't abide the sour smell of the filthy rough coat, and her feet scrabble as her assailant has no trouble lifting her tiny frame. He seems determined to strangle her. Wordless, wandless magic comes to her rescue and she sets fire to him without meaning to. She stands and watches him burn. Had she been a Muggle, she'd be dead. Unknown to Lucy, four Muggle girls already are, thanks to him.

*****

It is 1980, and Lucy has been set a special target: James and Lily Potter. If she can't get into their house, it's probable that the Death Eaters won't be able to. She can't even find their house. Fabian is pleased. He and Lucy have grown close. Molly is pregnant again, and asks Lucy to be the child's godmother when it - probably he - is born.

Having failed to find the Potters, Lucy's next task is to keep watch on a Ministry official who's been behaving very oddly. Auror Moody, a member of their secret group, is sure the woman is under a very subtle Imperius curse, being controlled in such a way that it's virtually imperceptible. Following her target home, Lucy feels a sense of foreboding. Along the way, she stops at a Muggle post box and drops a letter in it, addressed to a house Muggles know. The letter can only be read by the intended recipient. Lucy wants Fabian to know how far she got and what she saw in case she doesn't return. He's received a few such letters in the past, and he and Lucy always laugh a little about her wariness after her adventures. She tracks the witch to her door.

Assuming one of her magical disguises, Lucy approaches the house, pretending to be an itinerant potion seller with a stock of dirt removers and auto-dusters. The witch invites her in, and gives her a cup of tea, inviting her to show off her products. Lucy begins to feel sick, and the world goes black...

"The poison didn't work!" She hears an angry voice. A familiar voice, although not one Lucy has heard for years. She opens her eyes to see Bellatrix Black - no, Lestrange now - arguing with the Ministry witch.

"You're not under a curse," she states faintly. She can't move properly.

The Ministry witch laughs. "No, but I can pretend to be very convincingly. And you walked right into the trap."

Bellatrix sits down beside Lucy and kisses her on top of the head. "Hello Lucy. Long time, no see. You've been avoiding me."

"Ah... your gang were too rough for me."

"You joined another gang." Bellatrix pinches Lucy's arm, and she can't flinch away. "Bad Lucy."

"My parents were killed."

Bellatrix puts her head on one side like a carrion crow, thinking. "That's right, but I was after you. You were supposed to be there! I had been talking to your mum in the shop that day, and she mentioned you would be visiting. She invited me round for tea."

"You killed them? But they liked you." Lucy realises she's on her last life. Even cats have to die some time.

"That's why I killed them quickly," Bellatrix says kindly, patting the spot she'd previously pinched. "Would you like to die quickly, Lucy?"

Her thoughts are conflicting: she could stay alive and hope for rescue or escape, but realistically that's not likely. All she'll get is a long and lingering demise. "I don't know, Bella. I don't really want to die at all."

"You made that choice years ago. Avada kedavra!"