Anomie

Chapter Nine: Fate

Friday Evening:

'It's my shift,' Tonks told the phoenix on the wall.

The bricks parted to let her through. She gave one last frown to the homeless man leering at her. Something about him bothered her, but she couldn't place it. And she couldn't use magic on a Muggle without a cause to present at the inquiry that would surely follow, so each time she passed him by, she made light of her vague suspicion.

Watch it, Tonks, or you'll end up like Moody, she told herself this time, her lip quirked in amusement as she went to her locker.

She dressed quickly, pulling her robes over her head and slipping on a pair of jeans and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Then she put on her special Underground shoes - worn, dirty sneakers that were wonderfully comfortable.

Tonks opened the door to leave; on the other side, a man was waiting to get in. It was Wyndham Wolcott, one of her two partners on the Friday evening shift.

He smiled warmly when he saw her.

'Evening, Tonks.' He climbed through the wall. Cheekily, he added, 'You can stay if you want.'

'Don't mind if I do.' They usually left for work together, and she didn't want to wait outside under the homeless man's gaze. Tonks faced the wall as he changed behind her.

'Did you hear who's replacing old Isis on Shift One?' asked Wolcott.

Tonks hadn't thought about it. He had shredded Isis's sanity like a cheese grater in less than two years. The poor old woman was borderline neurotic now - like Moody - and wasn't ever expected to return to work after her leave of absence expired. 'Who?'

Mockingly, he said, 'Rue Moreland.'

Tonks chuckled. Surely not. 'No, seriously, who?'

'I'm serious.'

Tonks turned around, her eyes bulging. Wolcott was buttoning up his shirt. 'What?'

'Moreland? You must be joking.'

She then realized that Wolcott was very attractive in a traditional, broad-shouldered, square-jawed sort of way. He wasn't her type, she told herself, but his dishabille was discomfiting enough to make Tonks face the wall again.

'Cross my heart. Just look there.'

Tonks reluctantly turned around again to see what he was indicating. The name Rue Moreland was attached to the locker he pointed to.

'He'll eat her for breakfast.'

'He could eat just about anyone for breakfast.'

'But her!' Tonks was indignant. 'Management can't seriously have approved her. She's completely green, and they give her him for her first assignment?'

'You just don't like her,' said Wolcott.

Tonks scowled and crossed her arms. It was a fair point. She didn't have anything against the girl, exactly - Moreland just rubbed her the wrong way. She was too naïve to make a good Auror, yet they had her guarding a man who feasted on the foolish.

'You just like her because she's attractive.'

Wolcott wiggled his eyebrows, mischievously admitting the charge. 'That does help. But to be fair to management, it's hard to find qualified people who don't want to tear into him.'

'They should have tried harder.'

'It took three months to replace Isis.'

'What about Kingsley?'

'Then someone would need to replace him on Sunday mornings, and that shift is impossible to fill. Face it, we need new blood.'

Tonks sat in silence as Wolcott laced up his boots. He was right, but she couldn't help thinking that they were sacrificing quality for quotas.

***

Nathan O'Hare, the third person on their shift, was terminally early as always. He was already inside when Tonks and Wolcott arrived at the apartment building. They dressed in wizard's robes again and, cursing the elevator, took the stairs to the seventh floor. Two members of the last shift, Dennison and Night, were waiting for them at the stairwell door.

Their anxious faces told Tonks that this hadn't been one of his good days.

'He's been unbearable,' Dennison complained without prompting.

'We gave up on exercising him,' said Night, his voice high with stress. 'He wouldn't have anything to do with it.'

Dennison shuddered. 'And then lunch! It took an hour to clean up!'

'Just to warn you,' stated Night, deadly serious, 'he's in no mood for anything.'

Tonks wasn't feeling encouraged. Wolcott, silent as usual, didn't look concerned, and she noticed him patting the pocket of his long coat. Knowing what that meant, Tonks breathed a sigh of relief. 'Oh, I'm sure we'll manage. You're relieved.'

'Pierce is still in there with O'Hare. Ogden left,' was Dennison's final, brusque comment as he left.

The door squealed and shut. 'Are you sure this is a good idea?' Tonks asked immediately.

'Do you have a better one?'

Tonks didn't ask any more questions after that. She didn't have any other ideas, and her reluctance had become no more than a formality over the past few months.

They had made a deal with the devil that the other shifts would die for.

Tonks opened the door.

'Oi, Pierce!' she called loudly as she strode in. 'You can go now!'

'Thank Merlin,' he muttered, shooting Voldemort's armchair a dirty look, though he wasn't in it. 'He's in the bathroom. We're not supposed to leave him alone in there anymore. He flooded the toilets earlier this week.'

They heard shouting coming from inside the bathroom. Wolcott was moving toward the bathroom door just as it burst open.

'March!' shouted Ogden furiously. He swished his wand, and Voldemort came flailing out the door against his will.

'Ah ah, that's bad form,' he protested, wagging his finger at the man behind him as he walked on his own power down the hall. 'You're abusing your power.'

'YOU'RE ONE TO TALK ABOUT -'

'Ogden!' shouted Tonks, using her in-charge voice. Ogden stopped, and Voldemort smirked in satisfaction as he strode across the room and sat down casually in his chair.

'That's enough. Guard the outside entrance. Wolcott and I will look after him for a few hours until he goes to bed.'

Ogden, a plump man with angry eyes, grit his teeth and obeyed. Soon she and Wolcott were alone with Voldemort, who stared out the window.

Without turning, Voldemort asked, 'I assume our arrangement is still valid?' His expression was frigid, and Tonks could tell he was in a sincerely ill mood, not just being difficult for the sake of it as usual.

'Yes, yes,' said Tonks, feeling depressed about it. They were cheating the system, but it was so much easier this way, and it was harmless. She waved her wand at the wall.

The wall disappeared and was replaced by a porch with a sliding glass door separating it from the main house. Tonks and Wolcott had gone to a lot of trouble creating it the first time; now they made it invisible when they weren't there.

Voldemort didn't move except to tap his fingers on the arms of his chair. 'And?'

'I've got it,' spoke Wolcott. He pulled a bottle of Firewhiskey out of his pocket. This time Voldemort did look up, and he stared fixedly at the bottle, his emotions inscrutable.

'Very well,' he assented, rising from his chair. Glaring at Tonks, he said, 'You will play white.'

***

'Check.'

Tonks moved her king out of the way.

'Check.'

She moved again.

'Check.'

She scowled. 'You're just moving your piece back and forth.'

'So are you.'

'I don't have anywhere else to move!'

'I don't care.'

He watched her try to control her temper. He was amused by it, which meant the alcohol was kicking in to relieve him of his perpetual boredom.

Their arrangement was simple: he got fresh air and whiskey, both of which he was not normally fond of in large quantities. In return, he didn't make trouble.

He did not like losing control over his full faculties as a general rule, but there were times of weakness - times he hated himself for. Friday nights. Oh, the Aurors felt so terribly guilty about giving him something he wanted, but little did they know that he did not want it so much as he needed it, and he despised needing anything.

There had been a time when he had eschewed food, drink, sleep, and all other human requirements. Once he had not felt cold; now unseasonably chilly night air seeped through his skin.

Now he took alcohol from Aurors because he was incapable of killing anything of more substance than interminable seconds.

'Have another shot,' she told him, staring grumpily at the board.

'Don't mind if I do.' He snapped his fingers, and Wolcott, standing with the whiskey in hand, poured more into the shot glass.

Voldemort downed it at once, savouring the burning tingle as the whiskey coated his throat. In exchange, he moved a different piece than before. It didn't matter; he'd have her checkmated in six moves.

As he moved his rook, she watched him without focus and with a small frown, deep in thought. He knew what she was thinking: that she must be in a persistent, discordant dream to be placed across from an old, near-mythical opponent, playing chess and speaking civilly without all the right feelings of hatred and rebellion. Reality was uprooted and wrong in her eyes, and he felt an extremely rare sensation of empathy. It was freakishly comforting - and even sanity-confirming - to find that he wasn't the only one living with occasional bursts of shock at his Muggle existence.

For the first time all week, Voldemort relaxed, and he let the alcohol run its course. His shoulders lost some of their tenseness.

'Did you hear that they're thinking of putting you on a Famous Wizards card?' she asked him, perhaps sensing that he would tolerate some conversation at this point.

'No,' he replied as she moved. He decided that being relaxed was boring him to death already, and it had only been three seconds.

'It won't really happen. Even the suggestion has started a minor boycott. Someone brought it up because Grindelwald got one this year.'

Unexpectedly, Wolcott stated, 'Grindelwald was an idiot. If he'd had the faintest idea of tactics, he could have won the war.'

It may have been the alcohol, but Voldemort found the point worthy of reply. 'No, he was a fool, and his tactics were poor, but it was Dumbledore that got him in the end, and it was Dumbledore who would have gotten him in the end even if he had been a brilliant strategist.'

'He didn't get you,' Wolcott pointed out.

'Certainly not.'

'So what's the difference?'

Voldemort's newfound good mood was already being tested. 'I could write a book on the differences between myself and Grindelwald, but a simpleton like you wouldn't read it.'

'Name one.'

'Wolcott, don't antagonize him,' Tonks demanded firmly.

'I'm more attractive.'

'Name another.'

'I'm not German.'

'Name a meaningful one!'

'Wolcott!' Tonks hissed.

'Destiny.' He stared Wolcott down until the man shifted his eyes away. 'Dumbledore was destined to kill Grindelwald. There was a prophecy about it. Dumbledore liked to brag that prophecies don't mean anything, but that's because he didn't understand them - oh, don't get me wrong, Dumbledore was brilliant, I'd be lying to say he wasn't, and a powerful wizard - but all great wizards have blind spots. His blind spot was that he didn't understand the power of fate.'

'What's yours?' Tonks asked, leaning intently over the chess board.

He could poke her eyes out from here if her face wasn't so hazy, he realized. 'Hmm?'

'What's your blind spot?'

Voldemort looked away dismissively. Did she expect him to answer such a question? He would never be that drunk.

'Right, of course,' Tonks went on, apparently realizing her idiocy.

'Black should have the first move in chess,' Voldemort stated, surprising his jailers. 'The Dark always makes the first move. The Light is caught perpetually responding to it. Checkmate.'

'No,' said Wolcott quietly. 'They both dance around each other. You're not checkmated yet, Tonks; sacrifice your pawn.'

Voldemort sneered. He'd had too much to drink. But then Tonks moved for the last time, and Wolcott cringed as Voldemort checkmated her solidly.

The Aurors set up the board again, and Voldemort stared down at the Muggles in the street. Whenever his mind was unoccupied, his sour mood returned, and he churned Oblivion's words over in his mind:

The twentieth of May is the day the world will break...magic will shake and snap...It will spiral through the gap between their souls...and it will be gone.

Will, will, will, will. He'd thought of little else that day but his lack of power to change those words. Fate had allowed him some room for manoeuvre before - she had allowed uncertainty and action and choice - but this time she brooked no opposition. There was nothing he could do about it, about anything, and it was infuriating.

He flung his arm angrily across the chess board, scattering the pieces.

***

Saturday Morning:

'I can't take him anymore!' Ginny declared loudly before she'd even reached the table. Hermione stared concernedly as Ginny, who, after her initial outburst, sat down and cradled her head in her hands, pouting at the breakfast Hermione had already served for her.

'It was a disaster,' she stated morosely.

'I know.'

'I don't understand why he doesn't want children. He's not happy with the way things are. He's miserable. I'm miserable. We're both miserable.'

Hermione said what she'd said a dozen times before: 'Children may not solve the problem.'

That was what they called it: "the problem". Hermione could think of several more accurate words: apathy, discontent, ennui. They called it "the problem" because it was easier to think of it that way, and it implied a possible fix.

Hermione knew that hope for a solution was all that kept Ginny from leaving him.

'They would!' Ginny was adamant. 'He may not be the man he was, but he would love his children. They would give him a purpose.'

Hermione was sympathetic, but had no idea what to try next, and she wasn't fully in agreement with Ginny's idea anyway. 'Maybe disaster is too strong a word,' she began carefully. 'He was...unengaged...with the children -'

'He barely acknowledged that they were there. He fed them, sat them in front of the telly, and stared off into space until they went to bed. Then he drank.'

'Have you asked him lately about the possibility?'

'Not since last time.' Ginny's slender hand picked up her fork, and she stabbed her unfortunate egg a few times until the yolk bled into the egg white. 'There's no point. I know he hasn't changed his mind, and I don't want to badger him about it.'

'You're killing your egg.'

'I'm not hungry. I want Harry to want to have children, not do it just because I prod him constantly.'

She frowned and bit her lip, staring at the egg. 'Why don't we ever ask him the reason he's like this anymore? At least we used to try.'

Hermione couldn't look her in the eye. 'He'll talk when he's ready.'

'We said that ten years ago. And where's Ron? He ought to be here.'

'Working. He has a case, and he wants to present it neatly to McLaggen on Monday.' So he didn't have time today for their hopeless conspiracy to force Harry to be Harry again, he had said, but she didn't mention that part to Ginny.

'Sometimes I think Ron's given up on Harry entirely,' Ginny complained.

He has, thought Hermione. He still loves him like a brother, but he doesn't think we can help him get better by trying to make him be normal again.

'He hasn't given up. He's very busy.'

***

Monday Morning:

'The Organization, as they call themselves, has around a dozen members. One was the victim, Mr Charles Creevey, the head of a group called RASP that investigates wizarding-related events and tries to prove them to the Muggle world.

'Each member of the Organization is referred to by number. Creevey was called Three. His job for the Organization was to calculate a specific date - and he did. The twentieth of May.'

McLaggen's glare was enough to turn a man to stone. 'And what does that date mean, Weasley?'

'I don't know, sir.'

McLaggen stood up and angrily asked, 'So what are you wasting my time for with this conspiracy nonsense? Muggles and wizards working together - feh!'

Ron had expected some resistance from his superior, but not outright hostility. He held his head high. 'This Organization had motive to kill him. His work for them was done, and they probably thought he'd try to talk about what he'd found - given that talking about wizards is his profession.'

McLaggen's face was blotchy red, and he gripped the back of his chair with stiff hands that looked as though they wanted to be around Ron's neck.

'I have evidence,' Ron continued undeterred. He placed six tapes on McLaggen's desk. 'All of these are from a vault in the victim's office. The man or woman on the tapes is called Oblivion.'

McLaggen's jaw dropped. 'Oblivion?! You - hah! You don't even know if it's a man or a woman's voice?!'

'No sir. His or her voice is disguised. The victim received instructions from this Oblivion. Most of it is gibberish, but there's enough to convince anyone that they had a working relationship.

'And there's more.'

'Is there?' McLaggen grit his teeth.

'I was able to determine through the tapes that someone in the group with the codename Two was paying Creevey for his services to the Organization. The victim delivered his results to One, who delivered them in turn to Oblivion.'

Ron added another three reports to the four already on McLaggen's desk. 'It's all in here, sir. I recommend a formal investigation team be assembled to look into the Organization and Oblivion in particular. It looks to me like he might be a Dark wizard on the rise.'

'I don't give a damn what it looks like to you, Weasley! I'll decide whether a formal investigation is needed!'

McLaggen smiled coldly. 'I see nothing in here -' he rudely indicated the papers '- that convinces me these people are a threat, if this group even exists at all. You have circumstantial evidence at best.'

Ron's eyes bulged and his fists tightened. 'Maybe if you look -'

McLaggen snapped, 'Hold. Your. Tongue. Weasley.'

Ron complied. His entire body was tense with indignation.

Sitting back in his chair, eyes gleaming with mischief, McLaggen said, 'For now, I'm classifying this case as cold.'

This Ron couldn't stand for. 'It's only been a week! We can't quit now! I have real leads in there!'

McLaggen sneered. 'You're off the case,' he declared, cutting off Ron's objection by raising his voice. He added, 'And if you talk to the media about any of what you've just told me, you'll be out of a job, and I'll see to it that you don't get another one.

'You're dismissed, Weasley.'

Apoplectic, Ron stormed from the room without another word.

***

McLaggen stared at the pile on his desk, looked from side to side in the room, and then tapped his wand on the tapes. They burst into flames.

'Damn it,' he grumbled. He took out a sheet of paper - not just any sheet, but an old, yellowed, torn one. On it, he scribbled:

Zero,

Your cleanup failed. Weasley knows.

One

The ink disappeared into the paper. McLaggen waited. His patience was running thin by the time he finally received a reply in deep red ink:

One,

I'll take care of him. Don't bother Oblivion with it.

Zero

McLaggen smirked. He knew why Zero didn't want Oblivion bothered: he'd mucked things up and didn't want it to be widely known.

Zero,

Fine. But you owe me.

One

To this, McLaggen received an immediate reply.

Cormac McLaggen,

I owe you nothing. If Oblivion hears of this, your death will be painful.

Zero