Darkness and Light 03: If We Survive

Chapter Four: Virtuous Men

The sky over London was the colour of slate, and a chill breeze tugged at Maud's overcoat as she made her way along the familiar route from the Apparation point to St. Mungo's Hospital. It was only seven o'clock in the morning, but already the traffic had begun to thicken, and the sidewalks would soon be full of Muggles hurrying to and from their places of business. It looked like another ordinary day.

A swift, flickering shadow passed over her, and she looked up to see Demeter, Tony Gamble's barn owl, beating her way ahead with the latest Daily Prophet in her talons. Not for the first time, Maud thought wistfully that it might be nice to have an owl of her own again; but as always, she held the thought only a second or two before pushing it aside. It still felt like treachery to even think of replacing Athena.

By the time Maud had passed through the main entrance to St. Mungo's and climbed the requisite three flights of stairs, Demeter had completed her delivery and flapped out again. Maud pushed open the door to the laboratory and walked in, to see Tony sitting at his workbench with the newspaper in his hands, and Sarah looking at the headlines over his shoulder.

Immediately Maud could tell that something was wrong. They were both too still, too quiet. Tony's characteristic dynamism seemed to have deserted him, leaving him hollow; and although there was nothing unusual about Sarah looking haunted, her eyes seemed somehow sadder and darker than Maud had ever seen them before.

"What is it?" Maud asked, and winced as her voice echoed through the room, the question ringing out brazenly in the silence. Too loud, she thought: but then, even a whisper would have seemed intrusive.

Tony laid the paper down slowly and pushed it across the table toward her. His face was grey, and his mouth twitched as though he were struggling to contain some powerful emotion. Fearing what she might see, yet knowing she had no choice, Maud forced herself to read the boldly printed headline:

She looked up sharply. "Not Thistledown Lane," she said.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. "Callum," he choked out. With abrupt violence he crumpled up the paper and hurled it into the wastebasket. Then he leaped to his feet, snatched his cloak from the stand and Disapparated.

For a moment Maud and Sarah both stood staring at the place where he had been. Then Maud said slowly, "He didn't even know until he got the paper? Why didn't anyone tell him?"

"They probably tried," said Sarah in her small, colourless voice. "But he didn't go home last night..." She flushed, and her hands twisted in the dark grey fabric of her robes.

Maud was tempted to ask why he hadn't, or how Sarah knew; but at the sight of the other woman's stricken expression, she decided against it. Instead, she walked around the desk and retrieved the Prophet from the wastebasket. Carefully she laid the paper back down on the workbench and smoothed it out to read more of the front-page article:

Maud closed her eyes. She could imagine what Tony must be feeling right now: the grief, and the misery, and the rage...

"Do you think it was--" began Sarah timidly, and stopped. There was no need for her to continue; they both knew what she meant.

"Yes," said Maud with bleak conviction. "I do."

This was not the first troubling incident to make the headlines of the Daily Prophet. Over the past two months, several people had vanished or been found dead in similar circumstances, and although the Muggle papers inevitably offered some mundane theory as to how and why it had happened, the wizarding world knew better. Though Voldemort himself had yet to make a public appearance, he and his Death Eaters -- including Lucius Malfoy and several others newly freed from Azkaban -- had not been idle; and over every disappearance, every scene of devastation, hovered the ghastly spectre of the Dark Mark.

"But why them?" asked Sarah softly. "Callum never did anything against You-Know-Who; he was only seventeen when the first war ended. And Bridget -- she was a Muggle. The children were probably all Muggles, too--"

"Of course they were," said Maud bitterly. "If Callum had married a witch, if the orphans they looked after were pureblood -- there'd be no reason for the Enemy to make an example of them."

Sarah bowed her head, tangled curls shadowing her face. "I only hope," she murmured, "the children are all right."

"So do I," said Maud softly, looking down at the picture on the Prophet's front page, where a cheerful-looking couple stood surrounded by a struggling, laughing, bouncing knot of orphans. "Believe me, so do I."

* * *

Maud paused, her quill suspended over the parchment, and read over the letter she'd written. It might have been to anyone, she thought a little ruefully: even the salutation was a mere Dear Severus, and gave away nothing. Even though she knew their system of communication was secure -- letters encoded with an Anagrammatica Charm that made them look like dull business correspondence, filed in the top drawer of Glossop's leftmost cabinet in a folder marked "Accounts Overdue" -- she still found it difficult to put down on paper the deepest thoughts and feelings of her heart. Too many years of writing nothing but school assignments and progress reports to Uncle Alastor seemed to have left her quill-tied.

Which was ironic, really, because Snape's letters were positively eloquent. Perhaps because it was his first opportunity to speak his mind freely, without distraction or interruption; and as he himself had said in his first letter, the act of putting words on paper had a permanence that compelled him to be honest:

Maud smiled at the memory, and looked back down at her half-written page. If Severus had been disappointed by her previous letters, he had not said so. Still, she felt that she owed it to him to at least try to overcome her reticence, to give him some small repayment for the candour with which he had written to her. She nibbled the end of her quill for a moment (a bad habit from her childhood, often fought but never broken), then began to write once more:

It wasn't exactly poetry, but it was a start.

* * *

"Maud? Are you there? Hey, woman, answer your fire!"

The familiar voice echoed through the flat, startling her. With a hasty flick of her wand she banished the last of the breakfast dishes to the sink, then wiped her hands on a tea-towel and walked out into the living room, to see George's head grinning at her from the hearth.

"Got some news for you," he said, raising his voice above the crackling of the flames. "Sorry to interrupt your morning routine, but this can't wait. Puddlemere vs. Montrose, League Cup semi-final. Starts in two hours... and I've got the tickets right here."

"I'm... happy for you?" said Maud, with a faint frown between her brows. Why would he call her up just to tell her that?

"Not me, you dunce. You. We're both going."

"Me?" She was taken aback. "What about Fred?"

"He's coming too, with Angelina -- seems they've got something on again. But we couldn't get four seats all together, and I won the toss for the two best ones. Point is, you may have dodged sport for years on account of being blind, but now you can see again you've no excuse, and I'm going to make a raving Quidditch nutter out of you if it kills me."

She gave a little, disbelieving laugh. "Isn't it too cold for Quidditch?"

"Are you mad? It's never too anything for Quidditch. Stop arguing and start packing. Meet me at The Burrow, and we'll go on together from there..."

"I've never been to your house."

"For pity's sake," said George. "Anybody would think you didn't want to go. So what if you can't Apparate -- use Floo powder. Twenty minutes enough?"

Reluctantly, Maud nodded.

"Right. See you." With a faint pop, he disappeared.

It was not exactly what Maud had planned for her Saturday afternoon, especially since she had little interest in sport; but George would enjoy trying to convert her, and she supposed there were worse ways to spend the day. Still, she ought to call Imogen before she went. She took a jar from the mantelpiece, tossed a handful of dust into the fire, and as the flames flared green she called out, "Imogen! Are you there?"

It was customary to put her head into the fire, she knew; but her voice would work just as well, and save her kneeling amid the ashes. Of course, she wouldn't be able to see Imogen this way, but then she didn't really need to. "Imogen?"

"I'm here," came a voice faintly, and then louder, "Maud?"

"Yes, it's me. I just wanted to tell you I'm going out today, so I hope you didn't have anything planned--"

"Going out, and not with me?" Imogen affected a wounded tone. "What could possibly compare to the joys of my company?"

"The joys of Quidditch, apparently. George Weasley just called up to invite me to a match."

"Ooh, the semi-final! I'd thought of going to that." She paused. "I wonder if I can still get a ticket. If worst comes to worst, I could go early and hang about the stadium a bit; there's usually a goblin or two lurking about, hoping to turn a profit..."

"You want to come?" Maud was surprised. "I didn't know you liked Quidditch."

"Well, I'm not quite as deranged about it as some people I know, but I take in a match now and then. Besides--" and now Maud could hear the smile in her voice-- "I've been dying to meet this George of yours."

"He's too young for you," Maud warned her.

"Oh, pish-tosh. I'm not choosy. And by the way, my dear, you do know what they say about people who live in glass houses?"

Maud wasn't entirely sure George Weasley would appreciate being sized up by a strange witch more than six years his senior, but she had to admit Imogen had a point.

* * *

Maud had been born and raised in the wizarding world, but even so, the sight of a Quidditch stadium rising out of the mists of Dartmoor gave her an unpleasant shock. Planted smug and foursquare in the midst of that vast, rugged wilderness, its gleaming walls in stark contrast to the ancient and lichen-encrusted stone on which it stood, its very existence seemed presumptuous. The cold stillness of the atmosphere, the low and leaden sky, was like a rebuke to which no one was listening.

"Great place, isn't it?" said George enthusiastically. Eyes fixed on the stadium, he bounced up to the gate, where a tired-looking witch was checking tickets. Maud sighed, apologised silently to the moor on behalf of wizards everywhere, and followed him.

"Where are Fred and Angelina?" she asked.

"Dunno. They went out for lunch first -- might not even be here yet."

"Red Section," said the witch wearily, handing George back the tickets. "Third aisle to your left, and straight up."

Outside the stadium, a thick layer of fog and spells had swallowed all sound; but as they entered, the hubbub of excited chatter, of calls and whistles and the hoarse shouts of vendors clambering up and down the aisles, was nearly deafening. "Is it always this loud?" Maud shouted in George's ear.

"Nah," he yelled back, "it'll be better once the match starts. Come on."

Maud had been bracing herself for a chilly afternoon, and had brought gloves and an extra cloak just in case; but in a stadium packed with people, most of whom seemed to be well supplied with bottled fires or Warming Charms or both, the temperature was actually quite comfortable. They had just found their seats, and were settling in between a burly middle-aged wizard wearing what looked like an enormous stuffed magpie on his head and a tiny witch with a navy scarf patterned with gold bulrushes, when an unexpected voice rang out from the aisle:

"Maud Moody, as I live and breathe! What are you doing here--" a gasp, as Maud and George turned their heads at the same time-- "with a Weasley?"

"Hello, Annie," said Maud resignedly.

Her former dorm-mate had not changed a whit since Hogwarts, it seemed: still pretty, still curly-haired, and still dangerously loose in the tongue. "Wait until I tell Muriel," she giggled. "She'll spit nails... oops, I shouldn't have said that, should I? Now, are you Fred or George?"

"Does it matter?" said George dryly.

Annie flashed her dimples at him. "Probably not."

"You said tell Muriel." Maud frowned. "Do you mean she's here?"

"Of course. Her cousin's a Beater for the Magpies, didn't you know? He gets her tickets whenever she wants them. I had to grovel like mad to get her to let me come along, it was really degrading, but I talked her around in the end, so here I am."

"Just like a Slytherin," muttered George.

Maud cleared her throat.

"What? Oh." He gave her a faintly sheepish grin. "So I forgot. It's not my fault you're abnormal."

"Thank you," said Maud. She turned back to Annie. "Is Lucinda here too?"

Annie's smile faded. "No. She's... not doing so well. After what happened, you know..."

Maud didn't, and was just opening her mouth to ask, when a horn blared and the crowd erupted into a roar. Annie's head came up suddenly, like a startled deer's. "They're starting!" she exclaimed, and scampered off up the stairs.

"And now, Quidditch fans," boomed the announcer's disembodied voice over the din, "it's time to welcome... the Montrose Magpies!"

"Here," George yelled at her, shoving a battered pair of omnioculars into her hands. "I nicked Ron's, he doesn't need them at Hogwarts anyway."

As the music swelled and the black-and-white robed Magpies came swooping onto the field to the sound of wild applause, Maud put the omnioculars to her eyes and scanned the crowd. There were Fred and Angelina, a few rows down and to the left; Fred was wearing a Magpies hat, while Angelina sported a rosette in the Puddlemere colours. That, Maud thought wryly, should make for an interesting afternoon...

Shifting her line of vision upward, in the direction Annie had run off, she found Muriel in the Gold Section. She was scowling at Annie, who was wringing her hands and seemed to be apologising for something. Apparently, even the prospect of dire vengeance on Snape and Maud had not succeeded in making Muriel happy.

Not for the first time, Maud found herself wondering why the Slasher had come to Severus, and not to her. Muriel might not have been able to find out yet where Maud was living, or where she worked; but she could have sent some malicious packet by owl-post, and at least had the satisfaction of imagining what it would do to Maud when she opened it. Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but surely there were limits to even Muriel's patience?

George nudged her with his shoulder. "Oi! Pay attention, will you? The game's about to start."

Obediently Maud turned back toward the field, but under the guise of watching the players move into starting formation, she scanned the crowd on the opposite side of the pitch for some sign of Imogen. If she were here at all, it shouldn't be hard to find her; few witches or wizards dressed as brightly as she did...

"Excuse me," said a familiar voice to her right, "would you mind switching seats with me? Mine's a lot better -- look."

Maud turned her head sharply, to see Imogen, resplendent in citron and turquoise, showing a gold-edged ticket to the little witch with the Puddlemere scarf. "D'you mean it?" squeaked the witch, her eyes widening. "You want to swap with me?"

"Well, since you're sitting beside my best friend, yes." Imogen gave Maud a swift, acknowledging grin. "Anyway, I'm sure you'll appreciate the view more than I would."

"Oh, my -- oh, well -- thank you very much indeed!" Her thin face transfigured with delight, the witch scurried off up the stairs, clutching the Gold Section ticket against her heart. Imogen watched her go, then plopped into the seat she had vacated and stretched herself out with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Took me long enough to find you two," she said. "Did I miss anything?"

Maud glanced over at George, but he did not seem to have heard Imogen's question, or indeed to notice that she was there. His omnioculars were glued to his eyes, and his lips were parted eagerly as he followed the action of the players. "Oh, well done," he breathed. "Nice pass to Templar -- ooh, close one -- come on, come on --"

"How did you manage to get such a good ticket?" asked Maud curiously.

Imogen shrugged. "I pulled a few strings. Figured I'd need a half-decent seat if I was going to swap." She tipped her head to the side and regarded George with lively interest. "Not bad," she said, "if you like red hair and freckles." Reaching past Maud, she tapped George on the shoulder. "Put down those 'ocs for a second, will you?"

George gave a start and nearly dropped the omnioculars. "What--" he began to say to Maud, and then his eyes slid past her to Imogen, who was waving cheerily at him from the next seat. "Where'd she come from?"

"Imogen Crump," said Imogen, sticking out her hand. "George Weasley, I presume. Lovely eyes, by the way. Your mother's?"

"SCORE!" boomed the announcer, and the crowd erupted into cheers. George let out his breath in exasperation. "Now look what you've done," he complained. "I missed it."

"Never mind," said Imogen consolingly. "There'll be plenty more. By the way, are you always this rude, or did I just catch you on a good day?"

George reddened. "Sorry. But -- do you mind if we do the introductions later? There's a match on."

"Oh, well, if you say so," said Imogen with a shrug, and settled back into her seat. "Men."

For the next few minutes they were silent, watching the game. It wasn't dull, Maud had to admit: the players clearly knew what they were doing, and their aerial manoeuvres were often quite impressive. Still, she couldn't help but be struck by the triviality of the exercise. When eight witches and wizards had been abducted or killed outright in the past two months, and thirteen orphaned children were still missing, what difference did it make whether this witch in black and white or that wizard in navy blue lobbed a red leather ball through a hoop? Yet here in the stadium at least, people seemed infinitely more concerned with the latter than the former...

Her thoughts were interrupted by a shrill cry from the stands below, and she instinctively swerved her omnioculars toward it. A little girl was standing on her seat and pointing down the aisle, her small face white with terror. Her father swept her up in his arms in an effort to calm her, but she continued to shriek and wriggle and would not be consoled.

Imogen half-started out of her seat. "What's up with--" she began, and then the screaming started.

A tall, black, hooded figure was emerging from the shadows at ground level. Its face was shadowed, but its hands gleamed bloodless white. As it glided swiftly up the aisle, a wave of terror swept over the crowd: witches and wizards alike cried out and began scrambling over each other in an effort to get away from it.

"What kind of idiot would let a Dementor--?" Imogen sputtered, then drew a sharp breath and rounded on George. "Can you conjure a Patronus?" There was no need to ask Maud, of course: even if she hadn't mastered it at Durmstrang, a working knowledge of the Patronus Charm was standard Department of Secrets training.

"Done it a couple of times, yeah," said George.

"Right, then. You stay here, try to keep people calm, hold off the Dementor if somehow it gets past us. Maud, you're with me--"

"Imogen," said Maud in a strangled voice. "There's more of them."

Black-robed figures were pouring into the stadium from every entrance, sweeping around the aisles, surrounding the pitch. Up to that moment the Quidditch players had continued their game, absorbed in the heat of competition; now they, too, panicked and went veering off in every direction, some of them even soaring right up over the stands in a desperate effort to escape.

"Witches and gentlewizards," echoed the announcer, sounding shaken, "please remain calm--"

"No hope of that," said Imogen grimly, her voice raised above the shrieks and bellows of the crowd. Already the aisles were jammed with people trying to get away from the Dementors, and wizards and witches were fainting everywhere.

"Why don't they just Disapparate?" asked George with a frown.

Imogen shook her head. "Too panicked to think straight, possibly. Afraid they'll splinch themselves. Or --" She looked over at him. "Why don't you give it a try?"

He stared at her. "And leave you two alone? What kind of coward do you think I am?"

"Not away," explained Imogen patiently. "Just to the top of the stands and back again. Go on."

George drew a deep breath, and for an instant his body seemed to flicker; then he staggered, clapped a hand to his head, and swore mightily.

"I was afraid of that," said Imogen. "We're not just dealing with Dementors -- haven't you noticed how short some of them are? The Death Eaters are here in force... and they're not going to let anybody just Disapparate away."

A blast of chill air billowed up from below, and Maud squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately not to give in to the rising tide of hysteria--

"Fight, you fools!" cried Imogen, leaping up on her seat. "Stand and fight! We outnumber them fifty to one!" When no one appeared to be listening, she levelled her wand at the nearest Dementor and shouted, "Expecto Patronum!"

An enormous, dazzlingly silver form erupted from her wand. It was a winged horse, massive and thickly muscled, rearing on its hind legs to lash out with hooves and teeth. The Dementor staggered and fell back, sending three other hooded figures behind it tumbling, and Imogen lowered her wand with a bleak smile of satisfaction.

"Didn't you say she was a Hufflepuff?" asked George, sounding amazed.

"That's right," said Imogen before Maud could reply, clambering down from the seat again. "Let it never be said that hard work doesn't pay off. Come on, Maud, let's see what else we can do here--"

It was a chill, hissing voice, high-pitched and bloodless. Like the announcer's, it seemed to come from all around them, echoing throughout the stadium. The sound of it froze everyone in their places; within seconds the screaming dwindled to sobs and whimpers, and Maud could hear George's breathing.

"Take your seats and be still," commanded the cold voice. "My servants will not harm you. That is, not unless you are foolish enough to provoke them -- or to defy me."

There was a sudden rattle of seats as three-quarters of the crowd sat down. The others remained standing, but did not move. The initial terror that had gripped the spectators seemed to have given way to despair, and as the Dementors and Death Eaters -- identical at a glance, with their black hooded robes and their features obscured by shadow -- spread out across the stadium, many bowed their heads, or put their hands over their faces.

"I am pleased to see," said the disembodied voice sibilantly, "that you all recognise the futility of opposing me. Keep that thought in mind: it will serve you well."

"Oh, stop posturing and get to the point," muttered Imogen. For an instant George looked startled; then he grinned and gave her the thumbs-up sign as the voice went on:

"I have come to you this afternoon to offer you a chance. A last chance. Soon, a new day will dawn. The filth and rubbish will be swept away, and only the true, pure-blooded wizarding race will remain."

Wisps of grey fog threaded in from above, swirling together in the centre of the Quidditch pitch. "Already," the voice continued, "you have tasted my power and learned to fear it--"

The mists coalesced suddenly, forming a vast floating shape -- the head and shoulders of a man, or something more than a man: a skull-like visage with glowing red eyes, slitted nostrils and a lipless slash of a mouth. There was a collective, shuddering intake of breath, and at the same moment the voice rang out high and triumphant:

Cries of desperate terror echoed through the stands. In the next aisle, a wizard turned grey, clutched at his heart and collapsed.

"Yes," continued the voice with gloating satisfaction. "At last I have returned, reborn and stronger than ever before -- and be assured that you have not even begun to guess at what I and my faithful servants can do.

"If you join me now, and bow before me, your lives will be spared. If you refuse--" the voice hardened-- "you will be destroyed."

There was an awful pause, and even Imogen went still. Maud looked back at George, saw his face white and set in defiance, his mouth struggling as though he wanted to shout back at Voldemort but was still too appalled to frame a coherent sentence. Then, unexpectedly:

"Never!" snapped out another voice, cracked and wavering, but fierce with determination. Apparently, some old veteran had finally recovered enough presence of mind to use Sonorus. "We're ready, and we'll fight! We beat you and your Death Eaters once, and we'll beat you again!"

"You beat me?" Voldemort's voice dripped contempt. "Presumptuous fool. No man has beaten me. Escaped me, for a time, yes -- but I will always win, in the end."

The old wizard cackled. "What about the Potter boy, eh? He fixed you, didn't he?"

"Good one!" breathed George appreciatively.

But Voldemort's image only looked amused. "You think that squalling infant was responsible for my defeat? He was -- is -- nothing. It was my own carelessness that ruined me -- oh, yes, I admit it. I, Lord Voldemort, defeated myself. But rest assured, I will not make the same mistake again. In fact, I have already prepared myself against the Potter brat. Now the boy's own blood runs in my veins, and when I choose to eliminate him--" his voice lowered to a purr-- "nothing -- and no one -- can protect him from me."

Gasps of dismay rose from the crowd, but the old wizard piped up undaunted: "Albus Dumbledore can! You might not be afraid of Harry Potter, but you're afraid of him! If he beat old Grindlewald, he can fix you! And with him on our side we're sure to win -- you just wait and see!"

"Yes!" cried a young witch, ripping off her Puddlemere scarf and waving it in the air. "Dumbledore!"

"Hooray for Dumbledore!" shouted Fred from below, leaping onto his seat.

"Dumbledore!" cried George almost simultaneously, doing the same. "Three cheers for Harry, Hogwarts, and Dumbledore!"

It was the spark that rekindled the flame: all over the stadium, lowered heads came up, and dull eyes shone with revitalised hope. "Dum-ble-dore!" came the chant, swelling in volume as it rose through the ranks of spectators. "DUM-BLE-DORE! DUM-BLE--"

The image of Voldemort threw back its ghastly head and laughed, a high chilling laugh that reverberated through the stadium. The chant faltered, losing its rhythm, and although a few brave souls tried valiantly to keep it up, in the end the sound of that terrible laughter defeated even them. Because it was knowing laughter, the laughter of a man who holds all the cards and is just about to lay them down.

A cold fist clenched around Maud's heart. Blindly, she reached for the back of the seat in front of her and gripped it hard.

"You fools," said Voldemort's misty image, with a terrible smile. "Because you see and speak with my avatar, do you imagine that I am here? And do you really believe that the few servants of mine you see around you, these Dementors I have gathered to the feast, are the full strength of my army?

"Outside the walls of this stadium, at this very moment, are gathered the forces of your pathetic Ministry, trying to break through the web of spells my Death Eaters have cast and free you. And in the end, no doubt, they will succeed. But while they spend their energies here, Albus Dumbledore waits in vain for their support at Hogwarts... and it is there that I, my true self, have gone to destroy him..."

Maud closed her eyes. No, she grieved silently. No...

"YES!" thundered the shadow of Voldemort, in an ecstasy of triumph. "In this very moment, the bait is taken! The trap is sprung! And Albus Dumbledore, your hero, your friend, your would-be saviour...

"...is dead!"