The Perfect Azkaban Breakout

14 September 1999

Alastor Moody walked behind the coterie of Inner Order members towards St Edmund's graveyard. He was still skeptical of Snape's information about it being the location of the last Horcrux, but it had to be verified. He was behind an Invisibility Cloak, as was Remus Lupin. In front of them, visible and wearing dark Muggle clothing, were Bill Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Arthur Weasley had wanted to come, but his wife was still recovering and needed him. It was surprising that Molly had allowed her eldest son on this mission, considering how protective she was of her remaining children, but perhaps Bill had not told her.

They had Apparated a kilometre from the site of the graveyard, and now walked towards it slowly. There were no wards on it that they could see yet, causing Alastor to be extremely suspicious. The last two Horcrux sites had been in areas far from Muggle inhabitation and were surrounded by the presence of heavy Dark Magic. He wondered which was Cause and which was Effect.

Weasley was worried as well, judging by the number of times he stopped and performed a medley of ward detection spells. Shacklebolt was whipping his head around like a newborn owlet, waiting for Death Eaters to Apparate in. Each carried three portkeys, one obvious, one semi-obvious, and the third was their wedding ring.

They entered the graveyard. Lupin, as per the plan, stayed at the gate.

Dean Thomas had obtained a map from the Muggle church authorities showing who was buried where. As expected - Moody knew Snape would make his traps realistic - there was an unmarked grave next to Kewnsthorpe's one.

Moody knew, of course, that there was a possibility that Snape was telling the truth. After all, Alastor had been in Slytherin as well, and everything Snape had done was understandable in that context. He even agreed with the Potions Master that Albus was too soft on the Potter kid. If Moody had had his way, Potter would have spent his summers being physically tortured by him in training. Come to think of it, the lad himself would probably have preferred that to the emotional torture he received from his relatives.

Now they were at the unmarked grave. It had, surprisingly, a tombstone. He wondered who would have paid for a tombstone for a poverty-stricken mother who left her son in an orphanage. Eventually, he concluded that an adult Tom Riddle added it long after her death.

Weasley began muttering words in a guttural language that was probably Arabic, but could have been Aramaic or Assyrian. Merope's tombstone began rising. Shacklebolt kept it levitated, and then slowly moved it elsewhere. Weasley muttered something else, and the sand below the gravestone started shifting outwards.

And then Moody noticed what was happening to the younger Auror. Shacklebolt was wrapped, along with the tombstone he was levitating, in a thin black fog. There was a barely visible link from the tombstone to the man, and dark tendrils moved across it in ominous waves.

"Bugger," said Moody, realizing the Horcrux was in the tombstone and not below it. He threw off his Invisibility Cloak and ran to Kingsley. He could hear Weasley's panicked footsteps and cursing behind him. Remus would remain invisible and activate the rest of the Inner Order with a low-level alert that would cause them to start getting ready to provide backup at a moment's notice.

"What's happening, boy?" he barked, wand up and ready to blast at the connection between the Shacklebolt and the tombstone. He did nothing though, as the Gringotts Curse Breaker was the expert in this situation. Besides, this looked remarkably like what happened with the Horcrux retrieval that had claimed the lives of Hestia Jones and Jane Callaghan.

"Horcrux," Weasley gasped, "taking over Kingsley."

"I know that," muttered Moody. "Is Shacklebolt still in there? How much time have we got?" How much time before we need to kill him?

Moody really, really hated Horcruxes. The blasted things never behaved in quite the same way. He had seen the destruction of all the others, including Tom Riddle's diary in Potter's Pensieve, other than the ring destroyed by Albus. The late Headmaster had only left written notes on that. None of the other Horcruxes had been activated by simple spells.

"Yes," Weasley replied. "Five minutes, I think."

"Can we destroy the tombstone, and the Horcrux vessel inside it?" asked Moody.

"Hopefully, though obviously not with spells," replied Weasley, who was not casting any spells but instead consulting a number of strange devices and amulets he carried on him. Moody was reluctantly impressed with the number of pockets in his robes and the fact that the young man knew the contents of each one. He supposed it was standard practice for Curse Breakers. "But we could try destroying it physically."

"Can we touch it with a conjured object?"

"We should be," replied the Curse Breaker. The other Horcruxes had proved more resistant to Magical methods of destruction than Muggle methods, but only when in the process of taking over a body. This information had come at a price.

Moody conjured a sledgehammer, and looked at the redhead. "Bill Weasley, you will probably have to kill me if it doesn't work. And Shacklebolt too. Can you?" The redhead stared and, after a few moments, nodded reluctantly. Moody did not know if he could believe him, but gave him the benefit of the doubt as he was almost certain that the tombstone could be touched with a conjured object. Besides, Lupin could kill if he had to.

He hit the tombstone with the sledgehammer as hard as he could.

Nothing happened. He remained free of black fog.

He could hear Weasley's sigh of relief as they both gazed at the small dent Moody had made in the stone.

"Alright, Weasley, it's safe. Your turn. I'm too old for this." In other words, kiddo, don't make me show off my lack of upper body strength any further. Besides, I really am too old for this.

Lupin had already rushed to them, his Invisibility Cloak tucked in his robes. His lycanthropy ensured that he had heard every word, and also meant that he would be the best person there to crack the tombstone. Moody created another sledgehammer for him, a heavier one. The full werewolf nodded, and got to work.

Moody got out his Invisibility Cloak and put it on. He kept his wand pointed at Shacklebolt, ready to kill him at a moment's notice. If he did so too quickly, then Riddle's soul could still retreat from Shacklebolt's body to the Horcrux. If he left it too late, then all four of them would be dead and there would be two Voldemorts for Potter to deal with.

Meanwhile, Moody decided against calling backup - there was nothing that reinforcements could do. But he could imagine the state the wives of Weasley and Lupin would be in at Grimmauld Place, and would be surprised if they did not turn up regardless.

He glanced at his watch. Two minutes had passed. The werewolf and young wizard had smashed the tombstone, quicker than he had expected. The staff inside it was, remarkably, still intact.

Lupin glanced at Weasley, and motioned him back. The staff was hanging in the air, and the connection between it and Shacklebolt was more visible than ever.

"Anvil," yelled Lupin. Weasley understood after a short moment, and conjured an anvil just beneath the horizontal staff.

Lupin's sledgehammer came down.

The staff cracked, and fell off the anvil onto the ground.

Lupin's sledgehammer came down again.

The staff split.

Shacklebolt screamed.

The link of Dark Magic vanished.

Moody could see a figure running towards the graveyard. It had inhumanly long legs, which meant it was Tonks in full sprint with lengthened legs. There was no-one running with her, so he assumed that she was accompanied by Fleur Weasley. Delacour women wore Invisibility amulets that his Magical Eye could not penetrate.

"We're alright!" shouted Bill, noticing the newcomer. "Though we don't know about Kingsley."

"Fuck!" Tonks swore as she bent down over her colleague. Remus grabbed her hand to stop her touching him, and cast an eye-opening spell instead. Shacklebolt's eyes were black, not red. They breathed sighs of relief. Tonks had her standard Auror Potions kit out, unshrunken. She opened his mouth and poured a blue Potion into it, rubbing his throat to make him swallow it. Shacklebolt's pallor started turning healthier, and he opened an eye after a minute.

"The Horcrux is broken," said Weasley, wearing a wide grin as he crouched down in front of Shacklebolt. He conjured a glass of water, which the Auror accepted gratefully. "You're the only one hurt. We almost had to kill you though."

Shacklebolt turned to look at Moody inquiringly. His mentor nodded back, with his usual grimace of a grin.

"Thanks, Alastor," he said simply. He meant it. There were friends you could trust to die for you, and there were friends you could trust to kill you. The latter were a rarer subset of the former, and more precious. Moody was one such rare friend.

"And here's the really really good news," replied Tonks in a conscious effort to break the solemn mood. Not that she needed much effort, if the width of her grin were to be believed. "Since you're in no condition to walk, Moony's going to be carrying you out of here."

"Hey!" replied Shacklebolt, getting to his feet. He promptly collapsed and let out an impressive stream of Welsh swear words. Lupin picked him up and cradled him with ease, while Tonks got in several months' worth of teasing by making loud cooing noises.

"Good work," rasped Moody, still cloaked. "Everyone except Tonks and I are staying here. The rest of you go back to Grimmauld. Bill, your mate is covering you."

"I know," replied Bill, "I can smell her sweat besides me. Very nice sweat too, all mixed with that delightful perfume."

They heard muttered imprecations in French, and snorts from Moody and Tonks.

"Oui, ma chere belle fleur," replied Bill, unfazed. "That's exactly what I plan to do to you tonight."

"Shut up," moaned Kingsley. "Just get me out of here and heal me so I can go home and have Pat kill me."

There were laughs and cracks as the four returned to Order Headquarters.

Tonks and Moody started clearing up. While the Metamorphagus said spells to fill Merope's grave with sand, Moody transfigured a staff to look like Slytherin's. He then cast Reparo at the tombstone's pieces. The spell worked, to his relief, and he could see where the tombstone had a staff-shaped hollow inside it. He cast a switching spell to place the fake staff there. Seeing that Tonks had finished her task, he levitated the tombstone to its original position.

The two Aurors, one young and one retired, one Slytherin and one Ravenclaw, stood over the grave for a couple of minutes in silence. This was, after all, the mother of Britain's most powerful Dark Lord for three centuries.

"I really feel like marking this grave," said Tonks. She was solemn. The obvious retort that Sirius Black would have come up with, had he been there, never entered her mind.

"I know what you mean," said Moody. Tonks looked sharply at him, surprised. Then she remembered that Merope Gaunt was a descendant of the legendary Founder of the old Auror's Hogwarts House. "I've been wondering about it as well. I thought Riddle placed this tombstone here, but he would have left an inscription on it, or an image of the Gaunt coat of arms. He would have left a mark."

Tonks pondered this. "Maybe he felt that having a tombstone containing her ancestor's staff and part of her son's soul would be an adequate mark."

Moody seemed impressed by the suggestion, and nodded. "And he would have been correct."

"It's almost sad," said Tonks, touching her face as if to remove a tear. "Did you know her?"

"No," replied Moody. "She couldn't have afforded Hogwarts." He thought for a moment. "I believe she would have been three years behind me if she could have."

"What do you think would have happened had she lived?" pondered Tonks.

"Perhaps there would have been no Lord Voldemort," answered Moody thoughtfully. He cast a few final obscure spells to make the area around the grave look undisturbed. It was not a perfect job, but would do. "Yes, he would have grown up with a mother's love instead of in an orphanage, and all that. But he would still have been poor and half-blood and a bastard. He would have been bitter, but known where he came from. I think he would have followed the same path, but with even more confidence."

"Scary," muttered Tonks. He nodded.

Another pair of cracks, and the graveyard of St Edmund's was empty once more.