Anomie

Chapter Eleven: Strings

The clunk of the lift as it landed on the ground floor sounded as the assailant opened his mouth to utter the first syllable of a spell.

The assailant stopped and turned; the wand in his hand made a reluctant detour. He moved swiftly and noiselessly away - to where, Ron couldn't hear or see. The elevator doors slid open, and Ron knew it could only be Phi.

Dread replaced relief in his brain. Any assailant who could take an Auror by surprise would be more than a match for Phi. Ron struggled with all his might to make his mouth shout a warning, but neither his lips nor his vocal cords would cooperate. The best he could do was voice a low, persistent noise from deep in his throat.

In the still and echoing room, it was enough. The squeaking, stumbling noise of Phi walking across the tiled floor with his leg braces halted, and a bright light from his wand stung Ron's eyes.

'Mr Weasley?'

'Avada Kedavra!'

Phi's body fell uncontrolled with a metal clang as his leg braces collided with the floor. Before Ron could feel anything like sadness or guilt, he heard Phi's voice say, 'Finite.'

Ron's body jolted into wakefulness. He twisted onto his side, aimed his wand as quickly as he could, and thought, Expelliarmus!

The spell came so close to disarming the assailant that Ron could taste his arrest on the tip of his tongue - but at the last moment a Shield Spell deflected the curse. He was about to cast another, but the assailant's hand flew into a pocket of his cloak and threw a pellet to the ground.

A thick hash of black smoke unfurled and flooded the large entryway within moments. Ron's eyes screwed shut, and he coughed as the smoke tried to pour into his lungs...he raised his wand to force it away...

The spell he cast caused the smoke to halt in its place, and moments later it rewound and shrunk back to nothing. The empty pellet rolled aimlessly across the tiles.

The assailant had vanished.

Ron first stumbled over to Phi, who was prostrate on the floor, struggling to find a surface to pull himself up with. Ron put an arm around his waist and hoisted him to his feet; he didn't let go until he was sure that Phi was steady.

'Thanks, sir.' Phi appeared shaken. 'Who was that?'

'I don't know. Did you get a good look at him?'

Phi shook his head erratically, and his voice rose to panicked levels. 'Not at all! He tried to kill me!'

'How did you survive?' Ron asked him, puzzled. 'I couldn't see.'

'I fell over,' Phi explained shakily. They walked over to the reception desk, and Phi leaned against it heavily. 'That man came out of nowhere - I was so surprised that my knees wobbled and I lost my footing, so the curse missed.'

It was amazingly lucky - but Ron was used to that.

No, it was impossible to get used to. He was ruefully pleased. 'And then you thought to free me?' Phi could have tried to disarm the assailant or Apparate away - both of which would have failed, but they would have been natural reactions. Most people wouldn't think to free the Auror nearby with what was probably their last spell before they were killed.

It reminded him again of Harry, only this time he felt happy at the remembrance.

'It made sense, sir,' answered Phi. 'He was about to kill me. It made sense to give you a fighting chance. I didn't have time to think about it - I just did it.'

Proudly, Ron replied, 'Those are Auror instincts you've got, Phi,' and he slapped him on the back lightly. Phi's childish pleasure at the compliment made Ron think that he understood why Dumbledore had loved his job.

Funny, he hadn't thought about Dumbledore in ages.

There was a lot to do. The attack needed to be reported and a (useless) description given. He was the first Auror on the scene (no kidding). But for that moment Ron just leaned against the wall facing Phi and chuckled softly at whatever fate or fortune or force that had allowed both of them to live through the night.

Phi stared at him in confusion. 'Sir?'

'We're lucky - lucky to be alive. I haven't felt like that in a long time.'

***

The Final Night of August, Almost One Hour to Midnight:

The building was square, old, and imposing, and the brick was black in places from caked-on soot. A light whiff of cigarette smoke drifted lazily through the midnight air.

The Muggle addicts in the alley barely acknowledged McLaggen - here he was One - when he Apparated in. To them, he was a fictional character in a drug-induced hallucination. One of them said, 'Oi mate, got a light fer a fellow?'

He ignored the worthless man and walked inside. The warehouse was stuffy and lightless, but McLaggen found his way with practiced ease up the metal stairs to the third floor. In the third floor meeting room there was a gentle scent of incense and a heavy circular table set from wall to wall.

Zero, annoyingly always the first to arrive, stood in his usual spot behind Oblivion. His head turned when McLaggen walked in the room, and then he - purposefully, McLaggen was sure - looked away as if McLaggen wasn't worth his attention.

Oblivion sat furthest from the door, his face completely obscured by magic behind his stiff hood - a calm, dark shadow, his head bowed over white strings woven around his fingers.

'You screwed up again,' McLaggen accused before he took his seat. He stared up at Zero, determined to look unafraid of any threats. Zero couldn't act without Oblivion's approval. He wouldn't dare.

He knew Zero was glaring at him, though his face was, like Oblivion's - like McLaggen's own - impossible to see. 'There were complicating factors,' he rumbled.

Not inclined to withhold the smugness from his tone, McLaggen commented, 'So all it takes to throw you off your game is a crippled man stumbling? I've read the report. Your attempt was laughable.'

Oblivion sighed, completely ignoring them. 'This one's lonely tonight.' He tugged on the string on his right ring finger. McLaggen didn't know what he meant by it; he only ever understood half of what Oblivion said.

'Still playing with your little strings, Oblivion?'

McLaggen snarled behind his hood at Zero's dig. The gall of the man!

Oblivion looked up reluctantly from his strings and, in his hidden, androgynous voice, morosely replied, 'Not my strings, no. The invisible lines connecting the planets and stars and earth to my insides were snapped, and no one could put them together again.'

Gently, he added, 'They tried. It was kind of them. But the ends were too frayed.'

That was the sort of thing Oblivion said that caused all in the room - even the disrespectful Zero - to be silent. Oblivion turned his attention back to his strings, which somehow told him more secrets than all of the intelligence McLaggen gave him could ever amount to.

The Organization was riding on Oblivion's talent, his gift. ('A broken toy,' Oblivion would call himself.) It irritated McLaggen to no end that he was one of the few in the Organization who respected that. The others were all in it for money or power or some other frivolous thing - McLaggen was in it to be part of something special.

He'd missed the train last time. Heroes had been made, born - died - and he'd been stuck in Auror training while students a year below him became household names.

Not this time. Change was coming, and McLaggen intended to be in the thick of it.

The others would arrive at the meeting soon, McLaggen knew - all but Three. Three, Charles Creevey, was dead, and McLaggen didn't care because he was a Muggle who'd outlived his usefulness. Oblivion had the date he had so desired; what would happen on that date, McLaggen didn't comprehend, but he was sure that he would be told in good time.

Oblivion, still staring at his strings, said, 'Ronald Weasley. He does not want to die. Let him be for now.'

McLaggen swallowed. That was an unexpected command. 'Sir, he knows too much.'

Oblivion twisted the strings and brought them right up to his eyes. 'I am not bothered by him knowing, so you should not be.'

'As you say,' McLaggen reluctantly assented. He wasn't happy with the ruling, but it held all the force of law for him. He glared at Zero, wondering if he would dare argue the point.

Zero shrugged. 'Whatever.'

McLaggen rolled his eyes unseen. He wasn't sure what Zero was doing in the Organization. His usefulness was obvious - he was, plainly, the muscle - but why had he agreed to follow Oblivion when he had so little respect for him?

'You cannot hide your actions from me,' said Oblivion mildly, addressing Zero. It was the closest he had ever come to rebuking any of their number. 'All you have done and all that was done to you was Fated. There is no shame in it.'

Zero stiffened and was silent for the remainder of the meeting. McLaggen couldn't help but send a smirk his way - and he was sure Zero could feel it, even if they couldn't see each other's faces, just as McLaggen could sense the cold grimace he received in return.

***

After the Meeting, Almost Midnight:

Oblivion's words roiled Zero's mind as he waited by the side of the building for Aeron Vale. He had little to share with the Dark Lord, but the Dark Lord wanted to know everything, so there he stood, pointlessly.

All you have done and all that was done to you was Fated.

Those words made him want to tear Oblivion and his demented mind apart fibre by fibre. His ridiculous determinism galled Zero to the bone. He couldn't explain how Oblivion knew what he knew, but it wasn't through those stupid strings of his.

And if the Dark Lord believed in it all, more fool him. Zero would not have agreed to enter the Organization - amateurs all - when he was approached if the Dark Lord had not insisted on getting his precious fix of gossip.

'There you are,' said Vale, as though he'd been the one waiting all this time.

'Nothing much to report,' said Zero with a shrug. 'McLaggen continues to spill Ministry secrets, though Oblivion takes little heed of them. He's more concerned with what Chambers tells him.'

'She's the one from the Department of Mysteries?' Vale asked with a frown. He often had trouble keeping names straight, and Zero didn't suffer fools well.

'Yes,' Zero answered in a mocking tone. This was worse than teaching. 'Oblivion is obsessed with the place, especially with what Chambers calls the "Time Room" - and there's a locked door down there that piques his interest as well.'

'Why? What's in there?'

Zero snarled. 'I don't know! I was never an Unspeakable! Brookes gave his usual unenlightening report on Potter, and Ramsden said only that the Dark Lord's condition is unchanged.'

Vale's lip curled with malice at the mention of Fairfax Ramsden.

'Then that mediwizard - Hawkins - reported on someone called the Doctor, who's making progress at whatever it is he does. Oblivion's interest in him is unclear to me. And the Muggle financier worked out payment details with some others for them to continue making trouble -'

'What sort of trouble?' interrupted Vale.

'I'm not privy to the details.'

'You stand behind him the whole bloody time,' Vale protested. Zero wondered for a moment if the idiot child would draw his wand. 'You're "privy" to everything!'

'I'm not. I've told you all this before. He commands them via those damn audio tapes. I don't know what's on them all. The general meetings are...general. We don't all know what everyone else is up to. He only tells each of us what we need to know.'

'The Dark Lord wants to know more about the twentieth of May.'

These conversations with Vale were like talking to the Dark Lord through a tin can. 'There's nothing more to know about it. Oblivion is vague.'

Vale stepped forward aggressively, and like the neophyte at subterfuge that he was, nearly shouted, 'The Dark Lord says you should press for details. He wants you to stop passively collecting information and start getting specifics!'

Zero snarled. The Dark Lord was blessed to have any sort of information considering his weakness. Zero wouldn't be working for him if he had any other sort of choice. Nothing less could convince him to come anywhere near this building, stacked brick by brick with painful memories as it was.

'And I want his Lordship to get off his arse and kill Potter. Tell him that for me.'

Vale seemed stymied by his nerve. He and McLaggen were such tools of their respective masters. 'Anything else?' he asked after an awkward silence.

'Eight.'

'Eight?'

'I still don't know who he is or what he does.'

And Zero was genuinely bothered by it. Eight was persistently familiar, and Zero was certain he'd felt him before - the way he moved, the way he held his wand. He'd been an ally or a fearsome enemy before. That meant he was either an Auror - one of the hardened old crowd like Zero himself, not an untried newer one like Fairfax Ramsden - or an ex-Death Eater. Either option made him potentially dangerous.

Vale huffed. 'How useful of you.'

'You spend your days changing the Dark Lord's nappies. Don't lecture me on usefulness. Remind the Dark Lord that I won't wait forever.'

Zero turned and swept away down the alley. 'I did that last time!' Vale yelled back to him. 'He says you will! He says you'll wait ten years more for revenge if you have to!'

Zero paused briefly in his steps, an acknowledgment of truth, and then kept going.

***

Midnight:

In the five minutes following the meeting between Zero and Aeron Vale, Fairfax continued to stand nearby under his Invisibility Cloak. He'd felt nothing as he watched them, too intent on his mission - but now that it was over, he was sick to his stomach.

He tried hard to push away the fear. He could do this. He just had to think.

It was suddenly too warm under the Invisibility Cloak. He took it off and threw it over his shoulder, but that didn't help him to escape from the still night air and his own thoughts.

Follow Zero when he leaves the meeting, Oblivion had instructed on the tape. It was the most direct order Fairfax had ever got from him.

But that was all. There had been no instructions about what to do with what he found. He had to do something, but what?

He wished Oblivion hadn't asked it of him. Couldn't it have been someone else? McLaggen would have been only too happy to find out about Zero's betrayal - the two couldn't stand each other. Fairfax, personally, liked to stay out of Zero's way, and being thrown into it like this was very unpleasant and potentially deadly.

If given a choice, Fairfax wouldn't touch this situation with a ninety-foot pole.

One option was to tell McLaggen and let him deal with it. Then McLaggen would try to have Zero killed...but Zero would make mincemeat of McLaggen. He wasn't Head of the Auror Office for his talent. Fairfax was sure that Zero had to be an ex-Death Eater, and he'd have to be a nastily clever one to have avoided Azkaban for all this time.

Aeron. He could take care of Aeron. The ill feeling in Fairfax's stomach intensified, and he leaned against the building.

He'd never - no, he wouldn't have to go that far. He could Obliviate Aeron so severely that he'd spend his days wandering the streets wondering who he was. Fairfax could at least dump him off at a Muggle asylum.

But that wouldn't change what Voldemort knew - and Zero could always find some other way to contact him.

He took a deep breath and thought about it again. There were three problems: one was Zero, who needed to be stopped from contacting Voldemort again. Another was Aeron, who was apparently even more deranged than Fairfax had thought for taking orders from him.

And the third was Voldemort himself, who knew too much. Even if he couldn't do anything about it personally...well, Fairfax knew from experience that Voldemort could find new and inventive ways of causing disasters. With magic or without it, he couldn't be allowed to...

Fairfax could Obliviate him.

No, he realized instantly. Only a violent Obliviation would do the trick, and it would leave his mind mush. Potter had been insistent that they not do that, though Lord knew it would make Fairfax's job easier.

There were too few people with access. It would be traced back to his wand. Priori Incantatem. As an Auror, his wand was registered - it would look outrageously suspicious if he happened to break it or lose it afterwards. Then he'd be back to the problem of Zero killing him.

Fairfax paused. His legs nearly gave way underneath him as the answer came with clarity.

Did I really just think that? he asked himself. He thought it again. It was monumental. It was insane.

It was the only thing to do that would solve all of his problems.

Fairfax hadn't killed before - but there was no one on the planet who deserved it more.

He had to kill Voldemort. Quietly. He had to make it look like an accident - no, like it was natural. Zero would have no one to report his information to and Aeron would have no one to manipulate him.

Maybe Fairfax could try being nicer to Aeron after that. Take him under his wing. Without Voldemort's influence, maybe he could be a decent person if someone showed him how.

I have to kill Voldemort, he thought again, trying to get used to the idea. I have to kill Voldemort, I have to kill Voldemort...

With time, the thought became easier.