Anomie

Chapter Four: Caesar

Lunch break was what dreams were made of - now it was time to return to the doldrums of the day. Ron stretched his back as far as it could go, not satisfied until he heard a gentle crackle run along his spine, and then sat down. He twiddled his quill between his fingers; his mind had not returned to work just yet. He stared at the words on the report in front of him without reading them, trying to look engrossed as his mind wandered.

What to do after work? Ron smiled and thought of walking in the door to Bill's house and feeling the weight of his children slam into his legs. Susan went for the right leg, always, and she was getting so big now that she'd almost knocked him over once when she ran too fast to greet him. And Edward, who would have been named Fred if Charlie's boy hadn't taken the name first, a week before Edward's birth, even though it had been agreed that Ron would ... who was ever so much like Fred in temperament, would hold out his small hand with the devil's smile on his face. Then Fleur would stomp over to complain about Edward's antics that day. And Ron would make a show of scolding him - but the boy was four, and what did Fleur expect, exactly?

Hermione always said he was too easy on Edward.

Ron sighed and got back to the task at hand. He heard the squeaking of the archivist's cart, the slow movement of its wheels rumbling against the floor, and hurried to finish. Ron had no bloody intention of taking a copy of the report on Mundungus down to the Ministry Hall of Records himself. It was a long, dull, crowded journey, and he'd have to pass that ugly witch of an archivist's secretary who made eyes at him and tried to engage him in conversation that he couldn't escape unless he was completely rude.

Ron cursed softly as the ink on his quill fell in a glob over the page, creating an illegible mess of an entire paragraph of work. He took out his wand and tapped it several times on the page while muttering a spell he'd heard Hermione use to clean up ink spills, but to his frustration, he ended up clearing off half the writing on the page. The cart was getting closer, and Ron cringed at the thought of listening to that awful witch gab about the eighteen uses of turkey giblets in beauty potions.

'Do you have anything for me to drop off, Mr Weasley?'

Ron groaned inwardly until his mind caught up to him and identified the calm, gentle tone of a familiar voice. He breathed a sigh of relief and almost smiled. 'Hey Phi,' Ron greeted him, turning around in his seat, 'do you, er, think you could wait a few minutes? I accidentally erased part of my report.' It was Ron's lucky day, it seemed, for Phi was never in any great hurry, unlike other junior archivists who were always keen to finish pick-up duty as quickly as possible so they could go back to more important work.

Phi, with a peaceful smile, said, 'Of course, Mr Weasley.' He then started to move the cart out of the way so others could pass by; a Department of Magical Law Enforcement officer who had been parading slowly behind Phi's cart gave him a rude look behind his back. Ron shot the official a rude look right back in Phi's defence.

After all, Phi had an excuse for being slow. He was only in his thirties, but anyone who spent a few minutes with the slow and deliberate Phi could tell that there was something wrong with him. His legs moved stiffly and unnaturally, and he was always skull-pale. Not to mention that his hair - white, nearly translucent wisps - made him look nearly eighty. Ron had never asked about it, because he didn't like to be rude, but there was certainly a story there.

Phi finished parking the cart, and the smell of hospital room antiseptic that always clung to Phi crept slowly into Ron's nostrils; he turned around and got to rewriting the missing paragraph. With all his focus on it, he finished quickly, but, unbidden, the thought struck Ron that if he wanted to know something about what was going on with Tonks on Fridays, then Phi, the only person in the office always keen to share gossip with him, would be the person to ask.

He turned around slightly until he could see Phi out of the corner of his eye and asked, 'Phi, would you happen to know where Tonks goes on Fridays?'

Phi's smile turned eager. 'I don't know exactly where, Mr Weasley, but not here. She has a top-secret assignment on Fridays between eight in the morning and eight in the evening - it's blacked out on her schedule, sir, which is why I know the times.'

'Right, standard blackout - that's standard,' said Ron. He flushed as he realized his redundancy, but Phi didn't even twitch. 'But you have no idea where she goes?'

'No sir. I'm sorry I can't help more.'

Phi looked truly distressed that he didn't know, as though he had failed in his duty to provide improper information. Ron smiled encouragingly. 'That's all right. It's none of my business anyway.' He grabbed the report off his desk and handed it to Phi, who took it reluctantly.

Then Phi's face lit up with the pride of discovery. 'Oh! I do know something you might be interested in!' he said quietly. 'There's been a murder! The Head Auror is looking over the information now, and he'll be assigning it to someone soon!'

Excitement coursed through Ron's veins, quickly stamped out by guilt at being excited over someone's murder. He turned slightly away from Phi and pretended to be interested in something on his desk as he asked, 'Who was it? Another Death Eater?'

Those were the best kind of murders, and Ron wouldn't feel nearly so guilty if it were true. There was a mystery killer, or killers, who had been slowly killing off the remaining Death Eaters still at large for the past decade. Alecto, the Carrows, Dolohov, Mulciber - and, most famously of all, Fenrir Greyback - had been allegedly murdered by a mysterious someone commonly referred to in the Prophet as The Muggle Avenger.

That was the odd tie linking all the deaths; despite differing methods of murder, they were all killed without the slightest trace of magic. Dolohov had been pushed off a steep hill and had broken his neck; Alecto had bled to death after stepping into a bear trap set on the doorstep of her own secluded cottage, days before Aurors had tracked her down; Mulciber had been killed by hanging while hiding in his cousin's basement at a time when his cousin was incontestably at Diagon Alley.

And Greyback's death ... well, that was best not spoken of or even thought about. The Aurors who had found the body had vomited at the scene. But regardless of how gruesome the murder had been, there hadn't been a trace of magic anywhere on or near the remains. Personally, Ron figured it was some wizard who was just being careful so he couldn't have his crimes traced back to his wand; the media only insisted it was a Muggle because it made the stories that much more intriguing.

'It's not The Muggle Avenger this time, sir,' replied Phi, unabashedly eager. 'It's -'

The door to the Head's office slammed open, jarring everyone in the Auror Office from their work and conversations. They all looked up to see a furious Cormac McLaggen storming out. He made it several feet before he stopped abruptly and turned his head in the general direction of Ron's cubicle. 'Weasley! In my office, now!' McLaggen yelled. He then stomped back into his office and slammed the door shut.

The office slowly returned to its previous state, aside from those stationed around Ron's cubicle, who stared at him in sympathy. 'Bloody political appointees,' muttered Ron, standing up and glaring at the Head's office. As if McLaggen could tell a Dark wizard from a flobberworm ... Head of the Auror Office had been a serious position at one time ...

'Mr Weasley, I bet he'll give you the case!' said Phi, grinning from ear to ear at what he perceived as Ron's good luck, oblivious to the tension in the office.

'Yeah, Phi, maybe,' Ron replied. Shoulders slumped, he trudged off to his doubtlessly unpleasant meeting with the greatest idiot he'd ever met.

***

Lunch was delicious, as always - Ajit was an excellent chef, which was one of the few but compelling reasons why Voldemort allowed him to stay. None of them knew - except for a few, the ones that were his, and thus intractably boring now for their lack of challenge - exactly how much he was able to influence the hiring and firing decisions. It hadn't always been that way, but his influence had crept up slowly since the resounding crash ten years before.

The loss of his magic had been shattering, and he'd been in a wind tunnel since, being blown violently in the direction others chose for him, powerless to affect the most basic decisions like where he would go, what he would eat, who he would kill.

But he had fought consciously with all his might against it, and that decision itself had easily forced the cyclone gusts to dwindle to a spring breeze that he could easily resist - for those who wished to control him did not have his strength of will. Indeed, with his own breath - his words, his looks - he could now alter the course of the winds that pressed against him.

Yet that power had only come to him at a time when he realized it was meaningless. For none of it mattered on the most basic of levels; no matter what efforts he exerted on the guards, on the Ministry itself, they were not the ones imprisoning him. Thus the force of his determination had dwindled, and he had stayed here, without direction, for years, waiting for something out of his control to happen.

In ten years' time, could he not have found a way to escape? Yes, yes, of course. But where would he go? His followers - oh, the shame, the abject shame. And surely, were he out and about in the Muggle world, he would need to hide from the Aurors looking to retrieve him and would certainly not have such a comfortable chair as this to sit in or such good food as Ajit's to eat while on the run.

So it was pointless to 'escape'. Potter had made sure of it. Surely he had been thinking 'He must know this is as good as he can have, this gilded cage!' when he had placed Voldemort there? Or perhaps he had thought, 'This is the greatest torment I can visit upon him - forcing him to live as a common Muggle, watching wizards and witches practice magic around him!'

He spent a lot of time wondering about Potter's intentions in placing him here.

But he hated thinking of that. It never went anywhere. He hadn't even seen Potter in ten years. Voldemort had thought that he'd at least stop by after the Oven Incident, but no, not a peep about it from Potter.

He wondered if Potter had even been informed about it. Did he bother checking up at all? Was his old nemesis even worthy of notice to Potter anymore? A surge of indignation, the likes of which he'd killed scores for before his magical castration, rose in his chest. Voldemort straightened in his chair, and he bit down on his tongue to distract himself from such unbearable thoughts. He could break out, cause some murder and mayhem among Muggles - that would get Lord Potter's bloody attention!

He slumped in his chair. Oh, what was the point? He'd just end up back here, ignored, and for good reason, for he couldn't even cast a first-year spell anymore.

That was another thing he spent too much time thinking about. He would focus on the lightest thing he could find - a scrap of cloth ripped from his own robes, perhaps - and stare at it for an hour. Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa ...

That's quite enough, he scolded himself. Such thoughts were unproductive. Besides, his present situation was a good deal better than the decade he'd spent as an incorporeal cloud ... though it felt more hopeless.

At least now he had toys. Speaking of which ...

'Did you get exercised today?' asked Ramsden. Voldemort turned, unconcernedly, in his direction, his face blank.

They stared at each other for a few moments. 'You're going to make me ask Ajit, aren't you?' Ramsden said. He was far too easy to exasperate. It was fun, to a point, but fun wasn't why Voldemort kept Fairfax Ramsden around. The man was disrespectful and treated him as though he were a dog to be fed and walked and caged - and to top it all off, he was a Mudblood who acted like he was Merlin's gift to wizardkind. If Voldemort could pick any one of his guards to murder painfully, Fairfax would be the unlucky winner.

So why was Fairfax still around? Well -

'Did someone call me?' Ah, Ajit's dulcet tones. If only all the ones immune to Voldemort's myriad charms could be like Ajit. Quiet, respectful, good cook, thinks he's a better Legilimens than he actually is ...

Well, but doesn't that thought bring back painful memories? Damn you, Snape - you're the first one I'll kill if I ever get my powers back - no, when. When, not if.

'Yes, he's taken his morning constitutional,' Ajit replied. 'And he was very good about it, too, so don't antagonize him.'

'I wasn't antagonizing him,' muttered Fairfax, shooting Voldemort a dirty look. Oh, how he would enjoy stabbing those eyes out. When he got his powers back, if Fairfax was in closer proximity than Snape ...

The door opened again, and Aeron shuffled into the room, his head down. Voldemort could taste the usual aggression filtering into the air around him. Vale might study another ten years for Auror training, but he'd never pass the psych test. How Voldemort wished to thank whoever wrote that psych test; in the old days he had always made sure that the ones who failed knew where to find him, and they always - well, almost always - came.

Vale was a standard borderline psychotic with extreme aggression against females and men like Fairfax who thought themselves above him. He was abused as a child by both his mother and his father, most likely - and then Vale would likely abuse his children from whatever woman he ended up subjugating, and Voldemort would have ready-made followers who would trade their lives in for the chance to rip their parents' tongues out and make them eat them.

Ah, child abuse - the sin that keeps on giving.

'Your girl wants you to know that there's a dead, half-eaten rat on the third floor. Something's in the building.'

'You could stand to be more respectful, Vale. Her name is Rue; you can call her Miss Moreland, if you please.'

'Whatever,' growled Aeron. He glanced at Voldemort, and Voldemort gave him the expected sympathetic look. It reminded him of those boring old recruitment drives where he'd had to pretend to give a rat's carcass about the ambitions of newly-graduated Hogwarts students.

'It's probably just Caesar,' said Ajit, almost inaudible over the sound of Vale slamming the door on his way out. 'He came in earlier.'

Fairfax, perpetually grumpy about everything, replied, 'I thought we boarded up that cat's way in!'

'He must have gotten in another way.' Ajit shrugged it off with his own perpetual good humour. 'He's harmless. I don't know why you try to keep him out; he always comes back no matter what we do.' From outside the door came a yowl of protest, then insistent scratching at the door.

Voldemort eyed the door warily. He didn't like that cat. He didn't like cats in general - or any wildlife other than snakes, for that matter - but that cat was not an ordinary cat. Fairfax relented, muttering about damage to the door, and was about to open it when the door opened from the other side.

Rue stepped in, holding the giant cat in her arms. 'Isn't he adorable, Fairfax? Aren't you just the cuddliest cat in the whole wide world?' The last sentence was said in the cooing tones normally reserved for babies and kittens.

It was the ugliest cat Voldemort had ever seen. The massive ginger creature, cursed with a face that looked as though it had been in an unpleasant encounter with a wall, wrapped its paws around Rue's shoulders and purred. Its bottle-brush tail swept back and forth against her arms.

'Er, yeah, it's a great cat! Aren't you, boy?' Fairfax reached out to pet the cat, but one of its paws smacked him across the hand, leaving deep, bloody trails. It hissed at him, and Voldemort couldn't help but smirk.

'Fairfax, are you all right?' Rue put the cat down and examined Fairfax's hand.

The disgruntled cat, called Caesar by the Aurors, sidled over towards Voldemort's chair. He sneered at it; meanwhile, his heart rate spiked.

There was a difference between people wanting him dead, comprising the majority of wizarding Britain, and those few who could overcome their fear of the consequences and actually attempt to kill him.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Voldemort had no desire to destroy this mortal form and spend years upon years - forever? It had felt that way, before - waiting for one of his followers to assist him in his resurrection. Particularly since Voldemort thought, as none of them did, that if he were resurrected, it wouldn't make anything better - he would still probably be without magic. He'd gone over the arithmantic equations in his head, and it seemed the most likely outcome.

The old fear of death seized him. He thought he had defeated it, long ago, but Potter had brought it back so strongly that now an uncommon house cat could bring it out in him.

Only now he was powerless prey.

Not quite. Voldemort gave the cat a haughty look. He would show no fear. He had evaded tens of assassination attempts before; even though he lacked magic now, he refused to allow a fat feline to be the death of him.

How ignominious that would be.

***

The look in Crookshanks' eyes as he sat down a foot from Voldemort's chair was one of malice. It wasn't the keen look of a hunter, no - it was the calculating appraisal of a murderer. Crookshanks knew that Voldemort knew, but he could afford to be cheeky while there were so many witnesses about.

Voldemort had tried to have him murdered before by the mean human he had passed in the hall. But Crookshanks was clever. Oh yes, he was clever ... and he would wait. He was very, very patient. He would wait for just the right moment. He wouldn't make the mistake he had made with That Rat by moving too quickly, without a plan, and arousing suspicion from Hermione's mate.

He missed Hermione. But this was important. He was doing this for her.

He would wait. But first he would retrieve the cat treats from Ajit's pockets.