The Long Road to Damascus

THE LONG ROAD TO DAMASCUS
by Morrighan



PART 7: A House divided

'A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.' The Bible, James ch.1 v.8



The only startling thing about the house was its ordinariness.

Had he seen it in daylight, it would have looked Mugglish in its dullness. It was a square, solid structure, built of pale brown stone - unmistakably Victorian in its architecture - and surrounded by a large garden, with ornate flower beds and wide gravel paths, the garden itself framed by six-foot tall beech hedges.

It was not daylight, however; it was almost midnight, on one of those blustery, changeable nights where the heavens themselves seemed to be engaged in civil war. The wind was fierce and sharp, driving the clouds before it across the sky, so that the moon blazed and faded as the they were hustled past its face. It rushed through the beech hedge at his back, setting the papery brown leaves rusting and whispering behind him, and filling his peripheral vision with ghostly, unsettled shadows. The house ahead seemed spectral under the fluctuating blue-white light, somehow transient and unreal - a ghost house.

All things considered, it was the worst possible weather for a raid.

Snape edged silently along the line of the hedge, never taking his eyes off the house before him. He knew now that it was the home of Quercus Trimble, Deputy Head of the Department for International Magical Cooperation, that it was located on the outskirts of Windsor, far enough away from London for his warnings to be useless.

Trimble would be dead by sunrise, unless Snape could find some way to intervene. So too would his wife Myra, and two teenage sons, Aidan and Conan - and who knew what Ministry secrets would have been compromised?

"No problems?" Electra's voice breathed behind him.

Snape shook his head slightly, and cast another detection spell in the direction of the house ahead of him. "Fine so far," he said in a low voice, watching a thin web of red sparks appear around the house's walls and roof.

Fine so far. Fine. Just fine

He stared at the red web blankly, trying to realise its significance. Nothing felt real. Even the warmth of the wand under his fingers felt illusory.

"Careful, isn't he?" Electra commented, offhand. "Three layers."

A short way ahead of them, Travers closed in on the house, holding what appeared to be a long brown box under one arm. A length of flexible tubing was coiled around one of his shoulders, and Snape could just make out the tube's end, a short length of metal pipe, in Travers' right hand, and he identified the gadget as a Sortiphage. It was a new invention, based loosely on a Muggle artifact used for cleaning, which ate wards and other protective charms, storing them safely in the long brown box wedged under Travers' arm.

Travers edged closer, the metal nozzle extended, and, when he was little more than a foot away, the line of red sparks began to buckle outwards, to stretch and strive towards the empty nozzle as though longing to touch it - and then, with the faintest of pings, the web gave way, and flowed smoothly down the nozzle into the innards of the box.

"Been thorough, hasn't he?" Electra murmured, indicating the still-silent house. Yes ... but not thorough enough, Snape thought, and the thought sparked a pang of irritation. Grimacing slightly beneath the mask, he nodded slightly, casting another detection charm towards it. This time no more traceries of sparks answered, just the house before them, silent and still.

They waited, unmoving, the three of them, watching the building before them intently. No more traceries of sparks appeared; no sound or motion came from the darkness within. Travers stood poised by the doorway, the ridiculous gadget wedged under his left arm. Finally, in unison, Electra and Snape approached the house.

Travers nodded at them. "Antapparition Ward, that last one," he muttered. "Just as well it was weak anyway." He set the machine down gently on the grass, and shrank it until it could sit, mouse-sized, in the palm of his hand. Then he drew out a glasses-case from his pocket and placed the equipment carefully inside before pocketing it. "You folks ready?"

No ...

He forced himself to nod, the action jerky and unnatural, and Electra muttered "Right."

"On my count, then. One ... Two ... Three..."

* * * * *

"W-what are you doing in my home?"

The man was square and solid, like the house, with a double chin and slightly bulging cheeks. He looked what he was - a prosperous, successful man, not wealthy, but comfortable. Definitely comfortable. Snape felt contempt well up in him like bile, the near-instinctive desire to see this pathetic specimen grovel at his feet. Then a wave of nausea followed it, and he shut his eyes briefly against it. The situation felt all too real now, and he found himself half-wishing for the anaesthetising vagueness he had felt before.

"Silence!" Electra said sharply. "Where are your family?"

"A-away." The man's eyes darted from one black-masked face to the next, taking in the three of them in turn. He was standing in the middle of the landing, wearing only a pair of ill-fitting blue and white striped pyjama bottoms, his flabby chest scattered with sparse grey-brown hairs. "Myra's taken the kids to visit her mother," he volunteered uselessly.

Travers headed off without a word to search the house, and Snape shifted his position slightly to cover the space he had left. There would be nobody there, (he knew it, just as surely as Electra and Travers did) but they checked anyway. They always checked.

"Really?" Electra said. It was not really a question.

The man took a step backwards, away from them, stumbling over his own feet in his haste. He lost his balance and fell backwards a few inches, his back striking the wall of the landing with its busy William Morris wallpaper.

The jolt seemed to shake him into speech.

"Don't hurt me! P-please don't hurt me. I've done nothing-"

"Shut up." It was a moment before Snape realised that the words were his - two tense, short syllables, in a voice he scarcely recognised as his own - harsh and vicious, filled with loathing, which grated on his ears like a scream.

They were still there, all the old feelings. It was too easy to despise the flinching coward before him, to want to see him squirm and plead. It was as if he had learnt nothing. Of course, he reminded himself bitterly, if you teach yourself to regard pity as a weakness, what else can you expect?

"I think you know what we're here for, Mr Trimble," Electra said coolly, as Travers appeared back in the doorway, shrugging his shoulders to indicate the absence of other prey.

Snape saw the awareness flickering in the man's eyes even as he opened his mouth to deny it. He laughed softly, and the man gave him a terrified glance, almost shrinking before him.

"But I don't know what you're talking about! I'm just in the Foreign Office - I'm not important."

"Is that so?" Travers asked, with a derisory laugh. "I s'pose you think we believe in the Tooth Fairy as well."

"But I don't!" Trimble's voice rose an octave, and Snape could see the drops of sweat that beaded his forehead. His eyes flickered momentarily past Snape down the stairs.

"The treaty, Mr Trimble," Electra said dispassionately, her voice clipped and formal. "The United Mages Co-ordinated Defence Treaty. You negotiated it. You helped draft it."

"Or had you forgotten, perhaps?" Snape asked softly. "Maybe it slipped your mind for a moment."

"Can't have that, can we now?" Travers's voice was bluff and hearty. "A little reminder's in order, I do believe." He timed it to perfection: a moment's pause to allow his victim the thrill of anticipation - and then the strike. "Crucio."

There was a blinding explosion of red light as the curse hit its target. Trimble reeled back under the curse's strike, his face contorting as he screamed. Snape felt suddenly sick, and had to put out a hand to steady himself. It took a moment to realise that he, too, had flinched as the curse had struck its target. He glanced covertly at Electra and Travers but they were both staring down at Trimble's convulsing body, and appeared to have noticed nothing amiss. He felt a moment of glorious relief, quickly overwhelmed by humiliation. It was only the Cruciatus Curse, after all. He'd seen it done too many times to be moved by it. And does that make it right? The internal voice sounded uncannily like Dumbledore's, the tone gentle and sad. Does that mean Trimble deserves it?

Snape looked down at Trimble, trying to feel some pity for him, but it wouldn't come. He could think his pity, certainly, but underlying it remained that savage joy, that longing to see this complacent, blind idiot hurt.

He closed his eyes briefly and turned abruptly away, heading down the stairs to the hallway below. Whatever it was that had caught Trimble's attention -

Yes.

The briefcase stood only yards away from the front door, beside an ebony umbrella stand. It was a small, square object made of exquisitely tanned pigskin. He scanned it momentarily for protective charms and then flipped it open, deliberately oblivious to the tableau of agony on the landing above.

There was only one object inside: a thin folder of grey parchment, with the Ministry of Magic's seal affixed to the front. It contained three sheets of parchment, all closely-written in small, neat handwriting. Snape pulled it out, staring down at it expressionlessly. The Ministry had rules against this sort of thing, surely.

Electra let the spell lapse as Snape climbed the stairs again, glancing momentarily at the slim file in his hand. Trimble stared up at him, his eyes darting from the file to Snape's masked face, to the two other masks above him. He ran his tongue quickly over his dry lips, and Snape had a sudden, clear glimpse of the wild panic in his eyes.

It was then, that, with a sudden pang, Snape remembered that this was the man whose life he had undertaken to save. This man - no heroic fighter against the dark, but a desk-bound bureaucratic jobsworth - still had more right to life and freedom than he did. He shoved the thought aside. This was hardly the time to start waxing philosophical.

"Careless, isn't it?" he said softly, "bringing things like this home with you." He held up the grey file casually, so that the light caught the security hologram on its cover. "Restricted Access, 196.2-alpha. Most unwise ... and I don't suppose you ever filled out a docket for it, either."

"I did!" The word came out as an undignified squeal.

Snape dropped the file so that it fell with a loud slap on the parquet floor. "You know," he said lazily, "it's really rather tempting to leave you alive. It would be rather amusing to let you face the music. I understand Ida Pince has quite a knack of dealing with those who lose confidential information."

Travers sniggered on cue. "She'll be having your tonker on toast, won't she now? And your balls for earrings."

"You're wasting time, gentlemen," Electra said briskly. "You can disembowel him later yourselves if you insist, but right now we have work to do."

What am I doing? Snape thought dully. It had been clumsy and inept, and it was a miracle that his words had aroused no suspicion.

He turned his attention back to Quercus Trimble, and Travers, who was asking him something - about some Africa Liaison Office with a defence remit. Trimble was blustering and squirming and denying everything.

He was supposed to save the life of this spineless-? To risk his own life for this-?

He shook himself mentally, and watched Trimble threshing about on the floor, trying futilely to extinguish a stinging hex. "Alonzo Perkins - is he involved?" Travers was asking.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" An undignified squeal. Under the privacy of his mask, Snape's lip curled.

Travers gave him a glance and he responded almost without conscious thought.

"Don't you? Then perhaps a reminder is in order? Cr-"

And the world stopped.

He stood, wand poised, in helpless, frozen immobility, and it felt as if An Cruachan - and all the other mountains of the Highlands - had been transplanted into his throat. He could not have completed that word had his life depended on it. Time seemed to have slowed to a trickle, and he saw, with terrible clarity, the brief glance that Electra and Travers exchanged, Trimble's nervous, flickering glance towards him, Travers' raised wand and his unnaturally loud shout of "Crucio!"

As he watched the man screaming and squirming to the floor Electra walked swiftly over to him and, holding his arm in a vicelike grip, led him over to a bedroom door and took him out, shutting it behind him.

She did not waste time asking questions or telling him off, merely said to him in a low voice, "Go back to the London headquarters. Take this file and give it straight to the Dark Lord. We'll talk to you later." Then she turned her back on him and went to rejoin Travers.

We'll talk to you later. That sounded ominous, to say the least. He realised he was still standing there looking stupid, and disapparated hurriedly, back to the Dark Lord's London base from which they had set out earlier that evening.

It was deserted, and in darkness, when he arrived, a maze of Muggle-made underground tunnels with tiled walls, many of them almost circular in shape, which echoed with the deep and vibrant rumbles of the peculiar Muggle underground trains. He lit his wand, but the feeble light barely made an impact on the walls around him. He made his way to the large central cavern, nearly at ground level, where the walls had been draped with hangings of dark velvet. The light of his wand was reflected back to him by the silver throne at the room's far end, its sides and back wrought in the likeness of a snake's coils. This room, too, was dark and deserted.

He checked the various chambers and rooms, lighting lamps as he went along, but they were all deserted, and then sat down on some steps of an old staircase to wait, feeling like a child again, waiting to be punished.

He felt so foolish now, now that he was out of the intense atmosphere of Trimble's house, and no longer under pressure. Stupid to crack up like that. He'd never lost his head like that before, not even as a neophyte. If this ever got out ... If Lestrange ever heard ... well, he'd never be allowed to forget it.

More to the point, he reminded himself forcibly, he'd been useless. Had he really thought he was able to make a difference? What had he achieved? Nothing. And yet here he was, obsessing over his own incompetence, when he should have been worrying about what he could possibly do to bring the Dark Lord down.

"Stupid," he muttered again. "Just stupid."

Not to mention the fact that he had just placed himself in a very perilous situation. His errand may have been the mere delivery of a file, but to face the Dark Lord now would be dangerous in the extreme. To stand before the Master, with the knowledge of his failure - and his treachery - so new and vivid in his mind! The Dark Lord would see his guilt immediately, would read it in his face and his heart, would see it and know what it meant.

Then stop thinking about it, idiot.

Brilliant idea! How, exactly?

He glanced about him once more, and his attention fell on the file in his hand. Electra had not sealed it before she had given it to him, and he opened it once more, flicking through the three letters, with their close-spaced tiny writing. To be given to the Dark Lord urgently.

Snape read them through slowly, trying to unlock their significance, but the words meant nothing to him. The second letter merely contained graphs and tables, full of lists of dates and times, its only explanation a few lines of writing at the top:

Q,

Here's that data you wanted,

P

He contemplated altering them for a moment, and wondered whether it would make any difference, before dismissing the idea scornfully. As if the Dark Lord wouldn't spot tampering at thirty paces! Not that he knew what changes it would be safe to make anyway. He could quite easily cause more trouble than he prevented.

He sighed and looked away from the letters. Useless - and what on earth was the point? Might as well slit his own throat now. It would make no difference in the long run.

He looked up suddenly, hearing voices from the direction of the Throne Room. He closed the file hurriedly, stowing it under his arm as he stood up, and headed quickly towards the room. As he approached it (somewhat nervously) he saw the Dark Lord sweep inside, followed by a group of three Death Eaters he didn't know.

He paused at the doorway, and one of the man (masked and hooded, as were they all) swept over to him.

"What do you want?"

A cold, superior voice, the diphthongs polished and precise. Snape filed it away for future reference. "I have something to deliver to the master," he said without deference.

The man glanced down at the file under his arm. "It can hardly be important," he said. "You may wait until we have finished." He swept away and closed the door behind him.

Snape walked away slowly, back to his seat on the staircase. Something rustled as he sat down again, and on investigating he found two beech leaves caught in his sleeve, doubtless a remnant of their vigil in the garden. Another was caught in the hem of his robe and he plucked it from the folds, laying the three beech leaves on top of the Ministry file with the three letters inside it.

Leaves. Letters.

Three of each. If he could not change or memorise them he could at least copy them.

He picked up the leaves again, and then opened the file once more, taking out the first of the three letters, which he scrutinised closely. Then he touched his wand to the first of the leaves and concentrated all his energy on the parchment letter before him, watching as the brown oval-shaped leave with its diagonal veins mutated and twisted into the facsimile of the letter he held in his hand. He checked it carefully against the original and then shrunk it again to leaf-size, placing it in the sleeve pocket of his robe. Then he turned his attention to the second letter, and finally the third.

He was only part-way through the third transfiguration when he heard the door of the Council Chamber open and somebody step outside. "You. Bring your message." It was the same man as before, and Snape realised that his voice sounded faintly familiar to him.

Without conscious thought he had closed the file the instant he had heard the iron door open. He picked up the file and stood up, sliding the partially-transfigured leaf up his sleeve as he did so, so that it was secured under the strap of his watch, his body language expressing (he hoped) nothing more than eagerness to fulfil his task.

The man took the letters from him in the doorway, asking him coldly if that was all, and he replied in the affirmative, grateful that he did not have to face the Dark Lord at that moment. The door was shut almost in his face, and he retreated to the steps to wait once more.

It was quiet still. He retreated to an alcove too dark to permit spying eyes and withdrew the third copy from under the watch strap and inspected it, turning it over delicately in his thin fingers. It was still a beech leaf, its delicate oval shape partitioned by straight diagonal veins, though now both surfaces were covered with spidery italic script. Was it legible? He squinted at it for a few seconds, trying to make out the words on it, and then shook his head. That wasn't his problem. He placed the leaf with the two other letters. He'd send them as soon as he got out of here. If he got out.

The fear that had tinted his life for the last fortnight bloomed and welled up again, bringing in its wake the beginnings of guilt. He was a traitor now - truly a traitor, actively working against the master to whom he had pledged his life and his soul. Almost without noticing, he had passed the point of no return.

* * * * *

"What the hell did you think you were playing at?"

It was almost three in the morning, and Electra and Travers had finally returned. They had come to find him straight away, penning him in in his quiet corner, staring at him with watchful, accusatory eyes.

Electra, as always, had taken the lead, standing directly over him, and her voice sounded as though she had her teeth clenched. Travers stood at her elbow, and he had taken on that curious stillness that Snape knew was far more dangerous than his habitual bluff brutality. He had the distinct impression that Travers was listening intently to every word he was not saying.

"Well?"

Electra's voice grated and jangled across his senses, and he blinked slowly, but said nothing. She'd ranted and raved at him for several minutes over his incompetence and folly, and his ears were still ringing with the shrill echoes of her voice.

"Well?"

I don't know.

They continued to stare at him in silence, two narrowed pairs of eyes, glinting in the torchlight out of the matt-black masks, holding his gaze as he searched his mind desperately for some way out. Finally, Travers broke the silence, let out a long, heavy sigh. "Take your mask off, lad," he said solemnly.

Snape complied wordlessly. His brain did not appear to be functioning at all.

"I think you'd better tell us what happened."

Snape stared up at him in helpless silence, vaguely aware that every second for which he was unable to reply, every answer he could not give, was another nail in his coffin.

"Listen, Severus, if you're going to start flaking out on us-" Electra said, still sounding as though her teeth were clenched. Travers laid a hand on her arm and she fell silent.

"Tell us what happened, lad. Did something go wrong?"

Snape shook his head, in a vain attempt to clear it. Impossible to lie to Travers when he was like this.

"I don't know," he said, finally finding his voice. His brain still seemed to be missing. "I just made a mistake." 'I just made a mistake.' Well, that'll really get you out of trouble.

Electra drew in a hissing breath, as if she was about to speak, but Travers glanced across at her and she said nothing. For the first time, Snape noticed the silver-grey wall of sparks sealing off the corridor behind them. So his disgrace was not being made common knowledge - yet. The information gave him a morsel of confidence, and his pathetic brain started to think again, at about the speed of treacle. What was there? What legitimate reason could he possibly give for such a sudden abject failure?

Something personal - nothing else would cover it; and it did not take much for him to deduce that it would have to be something very personal to be plausible. Unlikely. They knew perfectly well that he was not in contact with his family; that he had no close friends or -

The solution came almost immediately. I should have known, he thought in disgust. It would have to boil down to that. But even as the thought came to him, he realised that he'd accepted the proffered path. There'd been enough talk about it, after all - him and his mythical red-haired lover, the woman he'd suddenly fallen head over ears for.

He forced himself to speak again, the effort hardening his voice. "It was a lapse in concentration, and it was unforgivable. It will not happen again. I have had some ... personal business to deal with recently. I should not have allowed it to impinge on my work"

"Personal business ... Explain yourself." There was an icy clarity in Electra's voice.

He could almost see it in his mind: a tight-rope stretched out before him, dividing lies and half-truths, things to be uttered and things to be delicately implied. "I had rather not. It can have no possible relevance to the Dark Lord's affairs."

"Can't it? You panicked, Severus. You never do that. We need to know why."

He opened his mouth to add another layer to his deception, but found he could not speak, as if even his body rebelled at the course of action he had chosen. All very well, to play on these uproarious rumours about his red-headed lover (her identity, he thanked the stars, was still unknown) - but calculated reason did nothing to soothe the disquiet he felt every time he contemplated what he was doing, not to mention the awareness that it was not just himself he might be placing in danger.

He took refuge in attack. "I hardly think you have the right to know my private affairs. I have given you my word that it will not interfere again."

It was Travers who took the bait. But then, Travers could find a double entendre in far more innocent statements... "Private affairs, you say? What's wrong with communal games?" He let out a great snort of laughter. "I should have guessed! Rolling in the hay with your little red-headed girl, I suppose. Never thought I'd see you lose your head over a floozie. She must be quite something, to melt your heart."

Snape winced involuntarily, trying to forestall the degrading imaginings that Travers' words were conjuring up. Again, attack. The anger was so easy to generate ... It almost felt real.

"You want to know what happened?" he asked savagely. "Great. I'll tell you. She's left me." The words came out harsh and forceful, and he did not have to feign the bitterness in his voice. "Gone back to her ex, if you really want to know. End of story."

He could see Lily again before him, standing in the street, her eyes brimming with tears. But no hatred, no antagonism. It sometimes seemed that Lily simply didn't deal in that currency. He closed his eyes, and he was fourteen years old again, and Lily was, very gently and sensitively, ending their fleeting liaison. There had been something like pity in her face, and it had left him confused and susceptible, wishing he could feel angry instead.

"And that is why you lost your head? Is that the reason, Severus?" Electra asked briskly. There was a harsh, metallic edge to her voice, which jolted Snape unpleasantly back to reality. He hesitated, and then nodded, not daring to look up lest they read the truth in his face. Electra sighed impatiently. "You can deal with this one, John - I have to report back to the master. The last thing I need is one of my team moping around like a love-struck teenager." She shot Snape an irritated glance and said to him, "I'm taking you off active service for a month ... at least." She cut off his exclamation with an imperious gesture. "If you are going to cock up like that over this, I don't want you doing it anywhere critical."

She walked out through the silver barrier, which closed again behind her with a faint ping, leaving Snape alone with Travers, who looked at him for an instant, and then lowered himself heavily down onto the bench beside him.

"I suppose I should have expected this sooner or later. You always were too good to be true."

What's that supposed to mean? "What? Why?" A combination of fear and guilt made his voice unnecessarily sharp.

"Well ... you was always so dependable, right from the start. You never let other stuff intrude, like a lot of the neophytes do." He gave a low chuckle. "Lucius was always quite envious of Electra. Reckoned she'd got her hands on the perfect recruit."

The perfect recruit. Yes. That was exactly what he had been - accomplished, intelligent, single-minded, vicious, untrammelled by personal commitments or responsibilities. And obedient, particularly obedient. Lestrange always joked about him being the perfect Death Eater, when all along what he had been was the perfect tool.

It had never occurred to him before, to wonder why Electra and Travers always treated him so well. Young Death Eaters who rose too quickly tended to be beaten down by their superiors, forcibly reminded of their lowly status. They had their work sabotaged or denigrated, credit taken for their achievements. Electra and Travers had never done that to him, because he'd never been a threat to them. He'd been their tool - the Perfect Death Eater.

"I hate that phrase," he said softly, darkly.

"Oh, you know what I mean, lad. You never fell into any of the usual traps - sometimes I wondered if you were human at all."

"What traps?" Sometimes Travers seemed to talk another language.

"Woman trouble - hormones - you know the stuff. Most of the lads went through that stage while they were still neophytes. You never did. Always too focussed to go for that kind of distraction. S'pose we thought you were immune."

That, at least, was true. He'd always been far too driven for that. It'd just taken him far too long to find out he was driving in the wrong direction. "It has never interested me," he said, in what should have been a cold and forbidding voice, but merely sounded irritatingly prim.

"No. Exactly." Travers sighed deeply. "Why do you think we encourage the neophytes to sleep around as much as possible?" He didn't wait for an answer, but carried on immediately. "It's a desensitisation process, like the one we use for the Unforgivables. You place too much importance on your emotions, sooner or later, they're really going to mess you up, like that poor idiot Rosier -"

"Evan was okay," Snape said, more sharply than he'd intended.

"Whatever ... But that's not the point." He sighed. "Let me give you some advice for once, lad. Man to man."

Man to man? Snape cringed inwardly.

"Go out on the town, get some drinks inside you, and get yourself laid. Doesn't matter who, doesn't have to be anything serious, better if it's not in fact. Just do it - and the more often you do it, the better. It's for your own good."

Snape did not deign to reply, unless the beautifully expressive curl of his lip could be called a reply. "And don't look at me like that. It didn't impress me when you were a neophyte, and it certainly doesn't impress me now. If you take these little affairs too seriously, it screws you up, and then you screw us up. And that we can't afford."

"I don't get drunk." He sounded sulky.

Travers sighed. "Think about it, you young idiot. You don't have to get drunk. What the hell do you think the Imperius Curse is for?"

"For carrying out the Master's will! For furthering the Cause, not for -" The anger was too genuine. He could feel it starting to slip out of his control, and a small part of him was left wondering why that suggestion made him so livid. "So you are telling me," he began in the coldest, harshest voice he could muster, "that I am supposed to waste time that should be devoted to the Master's service chasing after any witch who happens to cross my path. A fine way of serving the Dark Lord! That's truly going to bring glory to our cause! I'm surprised you don't dole out subsidised brothel outings." They probably do, he though, with a sudden flash of insight.

Travers confirmed it with a nasty chuckle. "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, lad. The Master's got deals with some very classy establishments."

Such as the Blue Diamond, I suppose - Nero's 'Massage Parlour' at the so-called respectable end of Carne Alley. Snape's sneer deepened. Whatever Nero did not have - taste, discression and manners, for example - he did have some sense of what a certain kind of customer would consider 'classy'. "It must be a godsend," he said snidely, "to anyone desperate enough to need it."

"I don't think you can really afford to make comments like that, lad." Travers sounded angry. "With a face like yours, you can't afford to rule it out, lad."

"No."

Travers sighed again. "So you're not prepared to go out and have a good time, you're too proud to use the Imperius Curse - of all things - and you wouldn't be seen dead in a house of pleasure! There's no helping some people." He stood up, and passed Snape's mask back to him. "You'd better get yourself straightened out before they put you back into action. You've got talent, lad. If you're going to throw it away over a little thing like this, then we're going to have to consider replacing you." He sighed, doubtless at the contrariness of his colleague. "Now, shove that mask on quick, lad. By my reckoning, the Master will be summoning us any minute now.

He was right. He'd barely finished speaking when Snape felt it: the Dark Mark burning on his arm. He reached for his mask and hood hurriedly, and Travers stood back and waited for him, waited until he, too was respectably covered, and had the wand drawn in his hand, and then the two of them disapparated together.

* * * * *

It was well after midnight, but the street was not yet deserted.

It was one of the grimmer parts of Toronto, though to one accustomed to the darker streets of the British wizarding community it looked very ordinary indeed. The street lights shone a dirty yellow down on the cracked pavements, adding a grimy sheen to the tarmac, and deepening the shadows it could not illumine.

The man calling himself Dicky Gudgeon surveyed the terraced houses and shuttered shops carefully as he made his way along. This could be a rough part of town, which was why Tom and Jerry had chosen it, and he doubted that he was up to another fight right now.

The sky was empty and quiet, but he knew better than to feel safe. The B-Mounties were up there in the rooftops somewhere, still searching for him in the streets and alleys of the city - the most feared fighting force in the entire wizarding world, and the key to Canada's defences against the dark. Like drones from a disturbed hive, they had all swarmed out tonight, combing the dark skies of the city in their attempts to track him down.

After all, he had just killed their queen.

Madeleine Minamoto had been the head of the B-Mounties for seven years, and it had taken her only two to turn it from a perfectly ordinary Hit Wizarding squad to an organisation second to none, feared throughout the American continent. Inexplicably, for the last eleven months, it had been riven by a series of unconnected accidents and a number of high-profile scandals that had seen Minamoto's deputy and his assistant dismissed from office, and one well-respected district commander demoted back to the rank and file. What Minamoto knew or suspected about these incidents she had kept to herself - it would be a miracle if she had suspected nothing - but that did not matter. Public confidence had been shaken. The B-Mounties had once more become fallible mortals - and now they had lost their Head.

He was safe now, probably. He was dressed as a Muggle, walking down a Muggle street, in a part of town where people were often active in the small hours.

Probably.

It still disturbed him, how rapidly they'd got on his trail. They had been after him within a minute - too late to save their queen, but quite fast enough to spot the killer. The mere fact that he was alive showed that he had been lucky - and he didn't like having to be lucky.

Still, he'd done the job, whatever had happened since. He'd succeeded. Getting out alive would help, though, squeaked a tiny inner voice, and he almost laughed at the thought, carefully not glancing up at the deceptively innocent skyline.

He turned down a side street, past a tight-knit cluster of young men, who eyed him suspiciously as he passed. He knew he was limping badly, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't hide the fact. They watched him as he passed, and he could feel their eyes on his back until he was safely gone.

Safely gone. Almost subconsciously, his eyes flickered up to the rooftops. Nothing, of course. But then, there wouldn't be, not even if there was a whole platoon up there. He dragged his gaze back to the street before him. Looking up was a sure-fire revelation of guilt, not to mention potentially hazardous on the streets he was now walking.

It only took a few more minutes to reach his destination. The house looked much like the others on the terrace, neither newer nor older, the windows maybe slightly dirtier than those around it; the paintwork perhaps a little more peeling.

He knocked on the front door, but got no answer, even though he could hear a wireless inside, so he drew his wand from the sleeve of his jacket, and held it to the door, muttering the charm just as he turned the handle. The door opened easily, and he went inside, shutting it behind him.


"...is armed and highly dangerous and should not, we repeat, should not be approached under any circumstances. Any sightings of Gudgeon should be reported to your local Broomstick Mounties patrol via owl or Floo, or to the Central Headquarters by ..."

The wireless greeted him effusively to the sparsely furnished living room. It was a small room, dominated by a large table in one corner, with three orange plastic chairs arranged around it. The table was empty, save for the wireless, belting out its emergency new bulletins, and a neat stack of papers on the corner nearest the door.

The two occupants of the room looked round sharply when the door clicked open. Tom had been sitting at the table, and when he saw Gudgeon, he reached over to turn the wireless off. Jerry was over by the window, looking out into the back yard, and he, too, wheeled round to see who the intruder was.

"No problems, I hope." Jerry asked. Gudgeon shook his head, and said nothing.

Tom left the wireless and walked over to shut the sitting room door behind Gudgeon, who heard the muttered "Obsigno" as Tom locked the door behind him.

"Glad you could make it," he said, not at all as if he meant it. "Nice work, Rosier."