Russian Roulette

der'mo- shit

gov'nk(y)- bastard(s)

shavala- slut/whore

zdravstvuite- hello

gulag- the Siberian forced-labor camps where Russia sent a lot of her political prisoners (they were especially popular under Stalin)

fag- British slang for a cigarette

Dmitri- is the Russian equivalent of James

Dedicated to: Connie, for her hands-down invaluable beta and interest in this fic which, to be completely frank, kept me going when I had almost given up on this problem child. Thanks :O).

 

...She's not the kinda girl you give flowers to. She understands the velvet touch of an unwanted hand, slick with sin and tender as the night, racing up her back like bite of a silken whip...

 

Russian Roulette II-- The Requiem for a Trophy Wife

If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts. You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast.

-Mrs. Potter's Lullaby, Counting Crows

 

December 31, 1995

Moscow, Russia

Silence. Hard. Ringing. And bitterly empty silence. No, that wasn't completely true. There was an insufferable ringing in his ears, which intensified and spiraled out of control every time he turned his eyes away from his menu.

Turned his eyes to her. It happened when he looked at her perfect porcelain features, features he wanted to take within his fingers and shatter, as if she had been but a china doll, inanimate and lifeless. He wanted to shatter her like she has shattered all of his youthful dreams, shattered the safety net that had held him inside of his childish fantasies. The net which had broken, leaving him to blindly fall, forever and away into the downward spiral that led to Azkaban.

He forced his eyes back to the menu. Painstakingly printed in a flowing red script, the menu's paper alone was worth more than the clothes on Sirius's back, which did nothing for his self-esteem. But, despite all of the rubles pumped into its creation, he could only stare blindly at the text, his eyes skimming over the words like rocks skip across a pond, lightly touching, but not having any real contact at all.

The truth was he couldn't take his eyes off of her face. Porcelain. Perfect.

Poisonous.

Her eyes, which had been gazing at the menu, moved upwards to meet his own. Not a single emotion passed over her face; it remained as apathetic and empty as the countenance of a porcelain doll. He knew that his own face must be the polar opposite, seething will ill-disguised fury, and even more blatant hate.

But her eyes... oh God those eyes. It killed him all over again to see the emptiness in her gaze, the icy hollow where there had once been spark, life... love.

Sixteen years with Lucius Malfoy had changed her eyes.

Sixteen years with Lucius Malfoy had changed everything.

Harry had told him that the Malfoys have a son. He didn't even want to think about that, think about his hands on hers, his lips running across her skin, his heart beating alongside hers...

Her lips forming the words she had whispered in his own ear so many years before:

I love you.

He could hear her saying it.

I love you, Luicus.

I love you.

I love--

It was so ironic, how everything had resolved. Because in the beginning, he had wanted only Narcissa, she had wanted only Lucius and Lucius...

Lucius had wanted him.

Harry didn't know about her, even after all these years. No living soul did, except for the man she called husband, the werewolf who was his only friend in the world, and the man... the man who had betrayed them all.

Peter.

Not that there was anything to know, not anymore. Narcissa and him, they were over. Done. A casualty of war. They were all casualties of war, victims of the never-ending struggle against Voldemort. After all of those years of pain, suffering, being locked in a cage 7 by 5 paces with 962 stones in the wall and a single window that let in a patch of light that was as big as his hand at high noon and blood red when the sun dipped itself behind the western horizon, all he could think was: Was it worth it? The war had robbed him of his freedom, but beyond that it had stolen happiness, homes, and family from an entire generation.

The war had taken their loves, and maybe even their capacity to feel that emotion once more.

His capacity to feel that emotion once more.

Love had never meant much of anything to her.

I love you, Lucius.

"Mr. Black!"

Sirius jumped straight out of his reverie to be confronted head on with a rather disgruntled Cornelius Fudge. "Sorry, sorry..." he muttered, bending down to pick up his menu, which had fallen to the floor in his alarm.

"Your cocktail, sir?" a weed of a waiter chirped from behind him. His voice was so oily and hair so slick that Sirius wouldn't be surprised if that man had bathed himself in an entire can of axle grease.

"Cocktail?" Sirius echoed dumbly, still lost in his own little world. "Oh! A cocktail..." It had been so long since he had been in any kind of social setting other than a private shindig at Remus's, and he had all but forgotten the rules of etiquette, though many would testify that it was dubious if Sirius even knew them in the first place.

Fudge looked rather nonplussed, and he bent over to mutter apologetically to the waiter. Sirius picked up the words Azkaban and regrettablyunhinged. He rolled his eyes.

"Get me a screwdriver, sans orange juice," Narcissa volunteered from across the table. Even her voice had changed. She had lost most of her accent, and her tone seemed colder... almost harder. As for her order, Sirius didn't even try to suppress the bittersweet grin. Screwdriver sans orange juice had been the "drink" of choice for a certain Vladimir Ulyanov, though Vladimir Ulyanov had never existed except in the secret world of the Russian Roulette. Like everything else Sirius had encountered in his brief stint behind the Iron Curtain, Vladimir Ulyanov had been a red herring, a mere shadow of reality.

"And you, sir?" the waiter said, turning to Sirius once more. He didn't turn his gaze from its lock on Narcissa, who was pretending she didn't notice his stare by delving into her menu. "Sir?" the waiter repeated, when Sirius didn't make a reply.

"Get me a Mata Hari," Sirius said quietly. Narcissa dropped her menu.

"A what, sir?"

"A Mata Hari," Sirius repeated. "It doesn't really matter what you put in it, as long as you're heavy on the bullshit."

"Sir?" the waiter sounded as if he was about to piss in his pants.

"Mr. Black!" Fudge exploded from beside him. "I daresay don't know what you mean by this... this... disgraceful behavior!"

Sirius cut him off, eyes blazing. "You may not, but Mrs. Malfoy does. Don't you, Narcissa?" He spat angrily.

All over the Roulette, people were beginning to stare. Narcissa pushed her chair out from the table so hard it almost fell over. Coldly, she got to her feet. Sirius could see the heat rising in her face. "If you'd excuse me--" she began.

Throwing all residual caution to the dogs, Sirius leapt to his feet. "That's it." He spat coldly as Fudge and half the restaurant stared on in rapt amazement. "Walk away. Pretend nothing ever happened. You're damn good at that you know? Forgetting!" He knew he was making a spectacle of himself but at this point, he had ceased to even care.

Narcissa stood stock still for a second, opening and closing her mouth like a fish. "I don't have to stand for this," she said viciously, spinning on her heel and striding away from the table. The waiter tried to restrain her, but she pushed him out of the way. Sirius watched her go, a bitter smile on his face. And then, without thinking, he began to follow

Now for ten years we've been on our own/And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone/But that's not how it used to be

 

----

 

January 1, 1980

Moscow, U.S.S.R

 

Moonlight spilled into the room like liquid silver. It lay in tiny puddles on the floor, waiting to be splattered by dancing feet across the expectant room: blank, like a painter's empty canvas.

It was a soul ripped raw or a page unwritten, desperately longing for a hand.

He rolled over, open eyes reflecting the moonlit mystery. His hand was tangled lazily amidst her silken hair, heart beating in time with the rise and fall of her sleeping form.

She lingered in him still. The discordant tones of her smoky voice, ravaged by hash and tears still echoed in the confines of his ears whilst the metallic taste of her cheap lipstick hung about his lips, tasting like the calm before a storm.

A feeling struck him, intuition that nothing had ever grown in her heart, and its barrenness, its emptiness was a field without its furrow, a tempest without its teapot, a heart without its love.

It was all so wrong--

this city, this night--

this girl.

He shouldn't be here, lying on a dirty mattress, cradling a filthy girl within his arms. He felt as if he was invading someone else's life, stealing one of their precious and most private moments.

It was all a dream to him, a dream from which he desperately hoped he would wake... until he remembered the taste of her lipstick, and the mystery of her cheap perfume.

Daylight. Soon it would be dawn. When the light came, this night would be but a fleeting memory, joining the incalculably long list of woulda coulda shouldas-- the has-beens of his life.

It would be a sugar-spun fantasy dissolving into stark reality.

Into the hard bed.

The filthy room.

And the emptiness in her dead eyes.

Oh, God... what had he done?

 

----

 

He was still awake when she opened her eyes. For a moment, she didn't move, locked in his arms like a beloved trophy, her curls tangled in a ring round his rosy smile holding it tight, as if she were a little girl grasping her pocket full of posies.

Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

She swallowed hard, her tiny nub of an Adam's apple bobbing up and down the soft flesh of her throat. She didn't remember this one. His arm tightened protectively around her narrow shoulders, cradling her even closer... closer... trapped!

Abruptly, she sat bolt upright, the ragged sheet covering her sleeping form falling from her naked shoulders to lay pooled around her thighs like a discarded burial shroud. "Go," she whispered.

His reply was a long time in coming. "Why?" Ever so gently, he reached forward, his errant fingers wandering over the plane of her back, the slope of her spine, the orbit of her hips-- she drew a sharp breath.

"Go away," she repeated, heart beating like a caged bird's wings as she leapt from the bed and away from his probing fingers, his expectant lips, his hungry gaze. "You've had what you wanted. Just... just go."

She remained wrapped in her burial shroud of a sheet as he wordlessly got to his feet, eyes focused on the ground as he reached for his jeans, crumpled and forgotten on the floor like a sex-crime victim lies discarded by the roadside, her cries inaudible to closed ears.

Inside, she was screaming.

Outside, she quietly watched as he pulled on his ragged green T-shirt, the only swath of color in the entire room. He never once looked up, never once met her gaze, which was wavering between him and the open window.

Her favorite song had been Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).

"Go out the window," she said quietly, more to herself than for his benefit. "There's a fire escape you can climb down. You can't go out the front door, the S.D.E. has this house under surveillance."

"Why?" he said, pulling a denim jacket over his shoulders that would do nothing against the Moscow winter.

Smiling was almost painful. But she needed to act for him, she couldn't let him see the truth. "The Roulette is in here. You think it's legal?"

His grin outshone her feeble attempt. "Of course not." When she didn't reply, he made for the open window, hands pulling open the sash, and then resting upon the icy sill, the tips of his fingers melting ten holes in the light dusting of frost. Abruptly, he turned around, his breath freezing into tiny puffs of ice. "What's your name?"

She drew the sheet closer, shaking her head almost wistfully. "It doesn't matter."

He stepped away from the window, oblivious to the torrent of snow pouring in through the open sash. "Don't ever say that." There was a fierce note in his voice, daring her to disagree with him and then see how far she got.

She wished she could be that sure of herself, of what she believed, of who she even was. "Why not?" she whispered, drawing the sheet closer to her, as if she were a small child and it was her security blanket, protecting her from the bogeymen and monsters that inhabited the fantasies of children and the all-too-real world of adulthood.

He took a step closer. She smiled, his T-shirt was on backwards.

"It does matter," he said, reaching forwards and gripping her hand so tight she felt as if he was going to wrench her fingers off. His own hand was like ice to the touch, freezing her fragile skin. "To me."

"I've never mattered to anyone," she said, her voice barely even a whisper as he reached forward to brush a flyaway lock of silvery blonde hair behind her ear.

"Let me do this right, ok?" he challenged, bending closer to her. "Let me appease my conscience."

"Please go," her breath was like a tiny puff of frost against his warm throat. "Please..."

"You're like a little flower," he mused aloud, his fingers twining inside her own. "So fragile... how do you live here?"

Gently she eased her hand out of his bigger grip. The sheet was steadily slipping down the curve of her shoulders, exposing the small of her back to the New Year's chill. "My name is Narcissa," she said.

The sides of his mouth curved into a lopsided smile. "You're named after a flower."

"You had better go," she breathed softly after a single moment. He turned away wordlessly, steps ringing hard as he strode towards the open window and swung one leg over the frozen sill--

"Wait!" she called, holding out a single porcelain hand. He paused, eyes quizzical under his shaggy crop of hair. "Who are you?"

"Sirius. Sirius Black," he replied, straddling the window as a cowboy would his trusty steed. "I'm named after a dog."

And with that, he vanished over the edge of the sill. She listened to the sound of his feet along the fire escape, until they faded away into memory: once had, too soon forgotten.

 

----

 

Sirius paused on the fire escape, heart in his throat as he watched a figure enter the front door of the home he was exiting so furtively. He would know that shock of silvery-blonde hair anywhere.

What the hell was Lucius Malfoy doing here?

 

----

 

 

"Wake up, wake up! Time to smell the roses, eh Dmitri?"

James opened one eye blearily. "Lily?"

"Roses, roses," he felt a pair of strong hands prop him up into what he thought was a sitting position, but he couldn't quite be sure. He felt as if his brain had been transfigured into scrambled eggs. "Lilies don't smell, eh? At least, I never knew one that did, but there's a first for everything-" the voice blabbered on, and though he was speaking in little more than a whisper, it seemed to James as if the man was screaming at the top of his lungs. He pressed his hands to his ears, groaning in absolute misery. James's head dropped onto his chest, as he unconsciously tuned out the stranger's god-awful voice. It became a gentle buzzing in his ears, lulling him... lulling him to sleep...

"Upsidaisy! Don't fall over now," the voice chuckled, holding James steady.

Lethargically, he peeled one eyelid open. Then shut it. Hard. How the hell did everything get so bright all of a sudden? Slowly, blinking back tears, James managed to pull open his eyes. Two facts became readily apparent:

1. He was shamefully hungover and in for the motherfucking headache of the century.

2. As an added bonus, he was sitting in the middle of the dirtiest, most decrepit room he had ever been in his entire life.

It was a long low rectangle of concrete about a fourth the size of a Quiddich pitch. The walls had been whitewashed somewhere far back in antiquity and they were now peeling profusely, the dust and paint and plaster all morphing together into one omnipresent coat of grime that clung to the floor and the ceiling of the room like a second skin, and made James want to run screaming to his shower. James shivered. Dirt and grime was all well and good to Sirius, who had grown up in Liverpool and was used to it, but nothing made him feel more uncomfortable.

"Yeah, it's a sight, ain't it, gov?" a voice remarked from James's left, noting the young Auror's disgusted glance.

James turned his head to face the speaker. His first instinct was to retch. It took all of his inbred politeness not to. The man was the dictionary definition of disgusting. James has never seen anyone so repulsive in all of his nineteen years of life. The stranger was covered head to foot in a dusty black grit that gathered in the tiny crevices under his eyes, giving him the look of a sleep-deprived raccoon. He looked about seventy, though the truth was the man could be anywhere between an infirm sixty and a sprightly ninety. Both of the stranger's front incisors were missing and the rest of his teeth were rotted almost completely away, leaving a mouth full of grayish gums and tiny black nubs of teeth. The man wore a factory-issue jumpsuit, pulled tight over his (more-than) ample middle. He seemed to be falling apart before James's eyes, seconds from death's door. In short, the man epitomized every single reason that James had in mind when he told Sirius a years before that he wanted to die young. "I can't imagine..." he had muttered, stomach turning itself in knots. "Being so helpless... so smelly..."

Sirius had a good laugh and clapped his squeamish friend on the back. "You'll be a regular old fart James, just you wait."

Back in the present James was nothing short of drop-jaw horrified. "My... my name is James," his etiquette managed to choke out on autopilot. He was at an utter loss for the proper thing to do. All of his father's meticulous teaching, which had covered everything from schmoozing up foreign royalty to escaping rabid camps of Death Eaters in the darkest Amazon, had not even touched on waking up in a concrete bomb shelter with a dirty old man for company.

"Dmitri," the old man agreed. He seemed to be able to talk reasonably well without his teeth. "Yes, you told me last night."

"Last night?" the whole previous day was coming back to James in jigsaw pieces, most of which did not fit together. He remembered it all through a fuzzy sort of haze: arriving at the floo-port, Ulyanov's questioning... and then... then taking Sirius and himself to the Russian Roulette, but after that everything faded away, lost behind an impenetrable veil of vagueness and more than a just a little vodka. For that matter, where was Sirius? And who was this old man who seemed to know him?

After a quick moment of deliberation, James decided to be frank. He didn't really have anything to loose. It wasn't as if he had had a one night stand with the old fart. At least he seriously hoped he hadn't... "I'm sorry, I can't seem to remember who-"

"I am," the old man finished. "Can't say if I blame you," he laughed, his breath stinking of cheap vodka. "If I had been smacked with what you were last night, I'd hardly remember my own name."

"What was I smacked with?" James shook his head, pulling off his glasses to wipe them clean on the sleeve of his Muggle sweater. "I don't follow you."

The man's eyes widened, like someone who has realized when they've said far too much. "Nothing at all," his eyes darted about wildly. "Vodka!" he finished, laughing nervously. "Wicked powerful, that Roulette vodka... brewed right here on the premises, it is."

James's eyebrows knitted together as he slipped his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. It never occurred to him to doubt what the old man was saying. "Wait... what do you mean, here on the premises?"

The man laughed, his stinking breath enveloping James. Prongs dissolved into a fit of coughing. "This is the Russian Roulette, Dmitri," the man said sympathetically, patting James on the back.

"The Russian Roulette?" James echoed dumbly, gazing around slack jawed. This drab concrete bomb shelter seemed the furthest thing from the lively pulsing club of the night before. Even the air in the room seemed heavy, stale, and dead. He didn't know whether to believe the old man or not.

"Yeah, I know it doesn't look like much of a club," the old man shrugged. "but that's the idea, we can't get ourselves arrested, eh?"

"Why would be get arrested?" James said, shivering as his eyes fell upon a hypodermic needle lying discarded a few paces away from where he sat.

The old man tilted his head to the side, a slightly amused expression on his face. "The Boss wasn't exaggerating, you really don't have a clue what is going on."

"I wouldn't say that--" James prickled, feeling mildly offended despite that veracity of the other man's statement.

The old man just shook his head at James's naivete. "The Russian Roulette is an underground club. We're breaking the law every night we open our doors. Luckily, the authorities have no idea we exist."

"Why would a club be illegal?"

The man wiped his nose of the sleeve of his jumpsuit. "The official reason is that nightclubs are disruptive to the stability of the state," the man spat on the floor, eloquently expressing his opinion on this fascist euphemism. "The truth is that they're just scared of us getting ideas that life is more than just factories and party rallies and mindless obedience. They're scared of us finding out how to live," he smiled his haggard toothless grin. "They underestimate us, I think."

"Good Communists don't drink," he continued. "They don't whore. Good Communists don't have money to fritter away in nightclubs. Come to think of it," he chuckled, "Good Communists don't have money at all. There's no such thing as a good Communist, Dmitri."

James said nothing, unsure of how to respond to such a statement. Luckily, the old geezer wasn't looking for a reply. "The government," the old man ranted. "They say they'll provide for us, eh? They say every man is equal, king to cripple on the same level. Ha. Ha. Ha." He spat sarcastically, accenting each Ha with a jab towards James's chest. "The government, they don't give us shit, Dmitri. Nil. Nada. We survive on the black market. Thank God for the con men. And--" the man cut himself off. "Officially there is no God. You can get sent straight to the Gulags for so much as praying. The government has created an entire nation of spiritual perverts. But the Boss plans to change all that."

"Wait," James held up a hand, cutting the old man off. "Who is this Boss?"

"The Boss told me you were clueless," the old man said smoothly. "And I plan to keep it that way, eh?"

"I'm going to find out eventually," James challenged.

"A lot of things will happen eventually," the man shrugged. "The world will end, and you and I will return to dust. But I like you," he added sympathetically. "Nothing funny..." he said quickly to ease the look of alarm on James's face. "You're just a nice boy that doesn't belong here, hm?"

"Thank you... I think," James said, rather tentatively as the stranger lowered his voice to a whisper.

"The Boss is our president, our pubah, and as much of a God to the spiritually perverted as it is possible to be," the man whispered, glancing over his shoulder, as if expecting the Boss himself to be listening into their conversation. "The Boss got me the job here, conceived of the Roulette--"

"So your Boss owns the Russian Roulette?" James said swiftly, trying to piece together the old man's scattered clues.

"No," the old man said replied. "Officially, there is no Russian Roulette, therefore it cannot be owned. This is just an old run down basement in the house of one Zvana Miriken. Her husband was a doctor before he was taken to one of the Gulags so she gets her own residence, unlike the rest of Moscow. Most of the Roulette girls room upstairs. Zvana doesn't need the whole house just for herself and its better accommodations than most of Moscow, where ten to a room is the top of the heap. A bomb shelter like this," the stranger glanced around the empty room as he stuck his tongue through the hole in his teeth, considering. "It could house eighty, ninety under Communist housing standards. If you think about it, Zvana's home is relatively private compared to the rest of Moscow. Don't think that I'm implying anything Dmitri, but if Mrs. Miriken wished... this is a nice cozy little pad to run a covert operation from."

"Or an underground club," James filled in the blank left by the toothless stranger.

"I like the way you think!" the old man grinned, delighted at the prospect of corrupting his young guest's mind.

"So this Zvana Miriken," James began. "Is she the Boss?"

"No," the old man said flatly. "Here," he continued, struggling to his feet with the help of a rough-hewn cane. "Let me help you up, eh Dmitri?"

For the umpteenth time that morning, James's jaw dropped open. The geezer's right leg was completely missing from the knee down, and his jumpsuit was neatly tied off below the stump. James tried to direct his gaze elsewhere but it was futile. His eyes kept drifting back to the leg, caught in the net of morbid fascination.

The old man noticed the direction of James's gaze. "Ah... I got me that in a Gulag, Dmitri-- frostbite took it." He shrugged. "It still pains me sometimes, especially when it's about to snow. It's been hurting like hell this winter."

"I'm sorry," James said, taking the old man's filthy hand and getting to his feet, both of which he firmly planted on the ground for reassurance.

"Don't be," the man scoffed, leaning forward on his cane. "Lots of folk came out of the Gulags much worse."

"Gulags?"

"Siberian prison camps," the man replied, his dirty face loosing its continual grin. "That's where the government send all of the philosophically perverted. You know... people who think for themselves?" He laughed bitterly at his own joke. "Most of the people in the Gulags are political prisoners, suspected spies, foreign diplomats, the kind of people that could give the common proletariat like me dangerous ideas. My story isn't quite that glamorous, though," the man sighed, running his tongue across the hole in his teeth. "My family has been Muscovites as far back as my tired old mind can remember. We were here far before the days of the Golden Horde, before Ivan the III, before the Grand Dukes of Moscow themselves I'd wager. It was about ten years ago, and the government was starting another one of their brilliant 5 year plans. This current scheme had something to do with redistributing the population, making the Motherland more agrarian, blah blah blah, your usual propagandist der'mo," the old man spat bitterly. "My son and his wife were shipped by the government to labor on a farm in Bulgaria, against their will. You have to understand, my son is a good man, but he is from the University, not the factories like me. He is used to laboring with his mind, not his hands. So, I go to the Kremlin to complain, and I get a life sentence in the Gulags for my trouble."

James's jaw dropped. "Then did they let you out early?"

"No," the man said matter-of-factly. "I escaped, being the hardened criminal that I am. There was an explosion in the mine I was working in and we managed to slip away in all of the mayhem."

"But Siberia..." James stammered. "That's what? 800 miles from here?"

"2000," the old man corrected tersely. "All across the tundra in midwinter," he said this without a trace of pride. Instead, his face seemed pained, as if the memory itself hurt him. "That's how I lost this leg," he nodded towards his stump. "The Doctor had to amputate with nothing but his knife and a bottle of vodka."

"How could the government be so heartless?" James shook his head slowly, marveling at his quick lesson in Soviet humanitarianism.

The old man tilted his head, staring at James as if he was really seeing him for the first time. "You really didn't do your background research, did you?"

"I--" James began.

"Look," the old man leaned forward onto his cane. "Go home, you and your friend. You aren't going to find any Communist-death-eater conspiracies. It's not that neat and clean in Moscow." James balked at the idea of anyone calling a Death Eater conspiracy "neat and clean". "Things aren't pretty here and sooner or later you're going to get sucked into one of the private wars. This isn't your battle, Dmitri." The man shook his head, ruing James's youthful ignorance. "You have a wife, correct? Child on the way? You have a future. Don't waste it here. I don't want to find you in a Gulag."

James's jaw dropped straight open in amazement. "How did you know about Lily?"

The man's face was dead serious. "The Boss told me. Everything I've told you, he told me to tell you." He paused, holding his breath for the briefest of moments. "But this is off the record, Dmitri, because I like you and don't want to see you get hurt. And if you stay here, eventually you will. Leave. Leave while you still can."

"I have a mission," James drew himself up to his full height.

The man shrugged, his manic desperation deflated. "It's your choice."

"Thank you, though," James said, extending his hand. "I'll keep your warning in mind."

The man shrugged off Prongs's words, staring at James's outstretched hand. "I'd take it," he said, eyes flickering towards his cane. "But I'd loose my balance."

"It's alright," James said, withdrawing his hand and tucking it into the pocket of his Muggle pants. "Thought that counts, eh?"

"I'm Sasha Krum, by the way," the old man said. "I was your bartender last night."

"I'm James--"

"I know," Sasha cut him off. "The Boss told me." There was a heavy pause, strung with unspoken tension. "You need to leave. The S.D.E. is onto Zvana and out little club, so they have the house under 24-hour surveillance. The Boss doesn't know how long we'll be able to keep paying them off and we shouldn't press out luck any more than we have to. Take my coat," he nodded towards the corner, where a ratty torn piece of wool lay crumpled up in a ball. "You'll blend in more. If the authorities find out you're foreign its as good as a death sentence."

James's mind reeled from Sasha's tirade and for the briefest of seconds, a look of utter vulnerability passed over his features. "I just want to know the truth."

"The truth?" Sasha paused and his haggard face suddenly looked very far away. "What truth?"

"Please," James said quietly... desperately.

A look of sympathy crossed over Sasha's features. "If you want to know the truth, find the Sad Clown. But you didn't hear it from me."

When the Jester sang for the King and Queen/In a coat he borrowed from James Dean/And a voice that came from you and me

 

----

 

An hour earlier...

 

"Mrs. Miriken, I hope I am not interrupting?"

Zvana suppressed a yawn as she opened the front door up in full, drawing her dressing gown closer towards her. With a the undeniable sensation that she was making a very big mistake, Zvana lifted up her goosebumped arm and let her visitor pass under it, into the relative warmth of her hallway. "Well..." Zvana began, searching for a reply to mask her shock. She was glad that Sasha had just driven out the last of the drunken stragglers from the Roulette. There were certain risks when one was running an illegal disco dance club in one's basement, and one of them was having KGB agents appear at one's door in the middle of the night. She bit her lip, hoping to whatever God that was out there that she could talk her way out this one. Zvana settled for a neutral: "It's been a while Mr. Dzhugashvilli."

"That it has, Mrs. Miriken," Josef Dzhugashvilli said, clearing his throat as he wiped the snow from his Government-issue boots onto Zvana's clean carpet. "Is there a chair?"

"Of course, I forget myself," Zvana kept a polite smile pasted on her face as she led the way down the hallway to her office. She deftly opened the door, flicking on a lamp in the process. "Please," she gestured to two ragged armchairs. "Take a seat." Zvana had made a nice little kitty off the Roulette, but it would be far too conspicuous to buy anything than the Government-issue furniture. That was the problem with so many of Moscow's black market operations. The racketeers began to exhibit signs of instant wealth by indulging in luxurious clothes and fine furniture. This excess instantly marked them as black market entrepreneurs, little better than sitting ducks to the waiting government cronies. Zvana wasn't as stupid as most of the other underground capitalists; but then again, she had learned how to break the law from a master...

Dzhugashvilli lowered himself into a chair and Zvana slid in behind her desk, masking her trembling hands behind piles of paper. She couldn't afford to get caught. If the Roulette were discovered, she was on a one way train straight to the Gulags. She had waited too long for all of her meticulous plans to be destroyed by a meddling KGB agent. However, as her mind reeled in panic, she managed a bland smile. "What can I do for you, Mr. Dzhugashvilli?" The nerve of the man, coming in here, inside her home after what he had done to her husband...

Dzhugashvilli leaned on his armchair, surveying Zvana so she almost felt as if she were under a microscope. "You already know I am a KGB operative, Mrs. Miriken, so I need not go into the preliminary speech of introduction."

"Let me cut to the chase, Dzhugashvilli, if you won't." Zvana hissed, red lips curling into a feral sneer as she leaned over her desk towards the KGB agent. The sight of the man made her sick, as she could still remember the last time he had set foot within her walls. It had been a winter night, bitterly cold, just like this one. It had been almost ten years ago, long before the Roulette, before the drinks and the whores. Those had been the days before she had become a solider in the front lines of the underground rebellion against the tyranny housed in the Kremlin, filling in the place vacated by her husband that bitter cold winter night ten years ago

She rolled over in bed, her hand trailing listlessly off the side, fingers gently brushing the cold wooden floor.

"Zvana" Groaning, she buried herself deeper underneath the heavy blankets, encasing herself inside a cocoon of warmth. "Zvana!"

Both of her eyes flew open as another resounding crash echoed from the floor below. She was lying in her bed, hand trailing on the floor as her husband crouched over her, holding a finger to his lips. "Alexi," she began quietly as another bang shook the entire house. An old tome that had been lying on her dresser fell off, scattering the bedroom floor with moldy pages. "Alexi what is that noise?"

He shook his head, finger still on his lips. "Quiet," his tone left no room for argument.

Another crash rocked the house, and Zvana heard the unmistakable sound of splintering on the floor below. Loud voices began to travel up the stairs and the sound the sound of hobnailed boots. "Alexi?" her entire frame was shaking now, voice quavering in terror.

"They're coming for me." His face held no expression.

"Go out the window," she said urgently, pushing him away. "There's still time, there's--"

"No use," he finished her sentence for her. "They'd take you instead," suddenly, the door to their bedroom was flung open, bright light flooding the darkness. Zvana gave a little cry and covered her eyes, temporarily blinded. But even the harsh light couldn't block out the hard voice echoing in her ears.

"Alexander Miriken, I place you under arrest by order of the Secretary General." Silhouetted in the doorway like a shadow play on the wall, had been Dzhugashvilli and fifteen of his cronies. But these KGB agents were not mere silhouettes. They were all to real: flesh and blood. Dzhugashvilli had spared no words on the cornered couple. "You are guilty of political insurrection, and crimes against the sanctity of the State--"

"You are the rock on which I will build my church," Alexi hissed to her urgently, ignoring the KGB agents advancing on the bed. "And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven." Before she could open her mouth to reply, or even scream, he had fitted his lips upon her own, kissing her with such painful urgency that she almost choked as he thrust something deep deep within her mouth

And then he was gone as the agents bent down a ripped him off of her, pulling him towards the open door where Dzhugashvilli waited, hat pulled down low over his beady eyes. Alexi made no protest as they fitted a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. His eyes were focused upon her, blazing with an unquenchable flame. "The keys, Zvana," he yelled. "I've given you the keys to the kingdom--"

She screamed as Dzhugashvilli brought the butt of his gun down upon her husband's captive form. Alexi crumpled like a rag doll. "Madman," the agent hissed, spitting on the floor. The agent turned his cold gaze upon Zvana, trembling like a leaf under her blankets. "We were never here, you miserable little bitch." Zvana could only nod dumbly, hand pressed over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. "There is no such person as Alexander Miriken," Dzhugashvilli hissed quietly. "There never was and never will there be again." He strode out of the room, boots echoing in the hallway, down the stairs, and out into the bitter cold night. His men followed, her husband's limp form slung over their shoulders.

Fingers trembling, Zvana raised her hand to her lips, still smarting from the urgency of Alexi's last kiss. She reached inside her mouth, and found nestled beside her tongue, what had caused her so much pain.

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

It was a key, pushed inside her mouth by Alexi in his last few moments as a free man. Hand shaking in raw fear, Zvana held the key to her lips, somehow hoping that it held some lingering taste of her husband. But flesh is flesh, and metal is metal, and a key is a new beginning.

She found out later than they had taken Alexi to the Gulags on the charge of political insurrection, and that tiny bit of information was gleaned only after extensive bribes. It seemed that no one wanted to talk about her Alexi, afraid that his fate would befall them too. The Gulags were a death sentence within themselves. She had never expected to see her husband again.

Much, much later, the key proved to be her pass to the concrete bomb-shelter underneath her home, a secret chamber she had never known existed. Inside, Alexi had left a wealth of information about Moscow's black market, when to blackmail and who to bribe and where to get the goods. He had also included detailed instructions on how to put together his last great brainchild, an underground scam the likes of which had never been attempted. Alexander Miriken wanted to create an illegal nightclub, a dance hall which was to become the Russian Roulette. And Zvana was not about to let Dzhugashvilli find the Roulette, and in a sense, kill her husband all over again. The Roulette had been Alexi's dying wish.

You are the rock on which I will build my church, and I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Dr. Alexander Miriken never did anything without a purpose.

And that had been the last time she had seen Dzhugashvilli. That terrible winter night, Zvana had been to shocked to cry out, to protest, to bring her Alexi back. She had been helpless, trapped. And she'd be damned if she let that happen again.

"Let me cut to the chase Dzhugashvilli," Zvana hissed, red lips curving into a feral sneer as she leaned over her desk towards the K.G.B. agent. "What the der'mo are you doing in my home?"

Dzhugashvilli's reply came in the blink of an eyelash. "Still smarting over your husband, Miriken? It's been ten years."

Zvana had to fight to keep her voice below a yell. "You came and took him to the Gulags in the middle of the night, without giving us so much as a warning."

"Your husband was guilty of political insurrection, Mrs. Miriken. He did not deserve a warning." Dzhugashvilli said coldly.

"My husband died in the Gulags," Zvana said icily. "He's dead because of you, Mr. Dzhugashvilli. Dead."

"Alexander Miriken was a threat to the stability of the state," Dzhugashvilli replied, his icy face not showing the slightest trace of sympathy. "He was liquidated, as you will be if you continue this charade."

"Charade?" Zvana's heart gave a lurch, but her face betrayed none of her inner fear. Dzhugashvilli couldn't possibly know about the Russian Roulette...

"I'll be frank with you, Mrs. Miriken, because I know that you're too intelligent to fall for any false premises." Dzhugashvilli leaned back in his chair, his face loosing none of its intensity. "Have you heard of the Sad Clown?"

"Of course," Zvana said, a little too hastily.

"Then you are undoubtedly familiar with his anti-Communist activities?" Zvana nodded curtly. "In addition to his now weekly bombings, we at the KGB has received several letters from this Sad Clown, all demanding political freedoms, your run of the mill rabble-rousing nonsense. Most of my colleagues have dismissed these letters as simply the ranting of a displeased madman, but I," he paused dramatically. "I see a connection, Mrs. Miriken."

"Really?" Zvana said, her throat suddenly going very, very dry.

"The letters from the Sad Clown remind me intensely of the writings of your late husband, Mrs. Miriken," Dzhugashvilli said, watching Zvana's face intently for any kind of reaction. "I do not believe in coincidences."

When she next spoke, her voice was strained as tight as a bowstring. "My husband is dead, Mr. Dzhugashvilli."

"Oh I am very well aware of that," Dzhugashvilli said. "I signed the mortality form myself. But I'm not implicating Alexander Miriken. In my experience, the dead do not come back to life and bomb Communist outposts. But I see undeniable similarities between the two criminals. Your husband was also very fond of homemade bombs, no? He made a point to kill Communist party operatives, as does the Sad Clown. But most of all, the Sad Clown's prose is eerily reminiscent of the writings of your husband. But like you said, Alexander Miriken is undeniably dead. So I think to myself, who? Who possibly could be carrying on his legacy. And then it hits me," Dzhugashvilli smiled a very nasty smile. "You."

Zvana's jaw dropped, her voice filled with outrage. "Mr. Dzhugashvilli!"

"Who is paying you to do this?" Dzhugashvilli spat. "How much are you receiving? Or are you doing this to make a political statement? No matter how many buildings you bomb, it won't bring your husband back! This is nonsense, Miriken, you can never hope to win against all of the Kremlin--"

"I am not the Sad Clown," Zvana spat, furious that Dzhugashvilli had even supposed such a thing. "Regardless of my late husband's political beliefs, I am a good Communist--"

There was a slight rap on the door.

Zvana stood up abruptly. "If you'd excuse me," she said icily.

"Go right ahead, madam," Dzhugashvilli smiled politely, gesturing towards the door. "Its not every day that one receives guests at..." he glanced at his watch. "Six in the morning."

Zvana shrugged. "Early to bed, early to rise--"

"Makes one healthy, wealthy, and wise," Dzhugashvilli finished smoothly. "Or is it just the wealth you're after, Mrs. Miriken?"

Zvana turned away, her heels clicking on the polished hardwood floor. Just before she reached the door, she hesitated and then abruptly spun around, meeting Dzhugashvilli mocking gaze dead on. "You're may make empty accusations against me as much as you will, Mr. Dzhugashvilli, but there is no solid proof of any wrong doing on my part."

"Oh, I'm not surprised," Dzhugashvilli smiled. "I suspect you destroyed the evidence yourself."

There was another, more urgent tap on the door.

"Don't you have something... bet... better to do that terrorizing old widows?" Zvana said, her voice trembling.

Dzhugashvilli let the moment hang as he cleared his throat. When he finally spoke, the tiniest of smiles crept across his face. "You're a very good actress, Mrs. Miriken. So was your husband, as a matter of fact. The last thing I want to do is see you packed away to one of the Gulags, but when the stability of the state is threatened, I will not hesitate to do my job." He paused once again, trying to gauge her reaction. She didn't so much as move. "I want you to think very carefully, Mrs. Miriken, think about how much this money or political statement or whatever you're after means to you. Do not insult my intelligence by playing the innocent." He smiled slightly. "I'm not stupid, and sooner or later, I will win."

To Dzhugashvilli's great surprise, Zvana smiled back, her face lit with a bittersweet grin.

"That's the problem with gambling," she said quietly, staring Dzhugashvilli straight in the eye. "You can never be entirely sure." He could have no way of knowing that she wasn't referring to the Sad Clown at all, but of an illegal club situated mere meters below where he sat. And with that, Zvana Miriken, wife of Dr. Alexander Miriken, political revolutionary and enemy to the state, opened the door.

There, standing in the jamb and looking perfectly Muggle from the tips of his paten leather shoes to the top of his fedora was Lucius Malfoy.

Oh the shark had pretty teeth dear, and he shows them a pearly white

Malfoy took a step into the room, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip in true James Dean style.

Just a jackknife has Macky dear, and he keeps it out of sight

"Get me a light," he said by way of greeting to Zvana. "I need to light my fag."

Dzhugashvilli's jaw hung unabashedly open. He had never seen anyone quite like this strange Englishman in the herringbone suit, ordering around the woman he had been trying to get the better of for the greater part of a decade.

When the shark bites, with his teeth dear, scarlet billows start to spread

"That's no way to speak to a lady," Dzhugashvilli said, stepping forward to confront the presumptuous newcomer in the three-piece herringbone suit with the silver and green striped tie. Dzhugashvilli may not trust Miriken past the end of his over-large nose, but he wasn't about to stand and see any lady, dangerous criminal or not, treated so appallingly.

The newcomer stood stock still for a second and then a loud, grating chuckle escaped his lips. "No way to speak to a lady?" Miriken laughed. He shook his head and his eyes crinkled in scornful mirth. "Just who do you think you are little man?"

Fancy gloves though, wears Macky dear, so there's not a trace of red

At 6'1", Dzhugashvilli had never been called a little man before. The KGB agent puffed out his chest, drawing himself up to his full height, which somehow, still managed to be shorter than Malfoy. "My name is Josef Petrovitch Dzhugashvilli. I am an operative for Soviet Law Enforcement."

"Oh," Malfoy cooed mockingly. "You're a please officer. How perfectly quaint."

"And who, may I ask, are you, young man?" Dzhugashvilli bristled.

Malfoy smiled suavely, sucking on the end of his still unlit cigarette. "My name is Lucius Malfoy, and I am a very rich wizard."

Dzhugashvilli raised an eyebrow. "So you're unemployed."

"What if I told you," Malfoy said, a mocking glint in his eye. "That I'm telling you the truth?"

"Then I'd have you committed," Dzhugashvilli said without wasting a breath.

Malfoy laughed, his scornful face crinkled with mirth. "You amuse me, little man. I think that when my master wins, I shall keep you as a pet and have you amuse me with your futile attempts at establishing superiority over me. Quite impossible for a Mudblood, not," he added, with a trace of mirth in his eye, "that you don't try your hardest, I'm sure."

"Who is this?" Dzhugashvilli turned to Zvana, a sense of warning hitting him dead on.

"You should leave now," she replied, without really answering his question at all.

"I think I shall," Dzhugashvilli said slowly, his gaze never wavering from Malfoy's scornful smirk.

"I'm sure we will meet again," Malfoy said pleasantly as he nibbled on his cigarette again.

"Not if I can help it," Dzhugashvilli said icily.

"I know quite personally that there's a lot coming that you won't be able to help," Malfoy said smoothly. He tipped his fedora at the older man. "Until next time then?"

From the dregs of his rusty old memory Dzhugashvilli remembered a line from a brassy old jazz song he had heard so many years ago when he was a lowly infantryman in the war against Germany. "Fancy gloves though, wears Macky dear, so there's not a trace of red." He turned to Malfoy, letting his underhand meaning sink into the wizard's patrician scull. "Until next time, then, Mr. Malfoy."

And with that, he slipped out the door.

"What did he mean by that?" Malfoy snapped, snatching his cigarette from his lips angrily.

"Relax," Zvana purred, walking to the door, which Dzhugashvilli had left wide open and closing it behind her with a faint click. "The Muggle knows nothing. He is what you said, an amusing pet, nothing more."

"A presumptuous pet," Malfoy pouted, his lip curling in disgust.

"Here," Zvana closed the distance between them with a few quick strides. Deftly, she plucked his cigarette from between his fingers and waved a hand over it. "Incendio," the fag instantly lit up. Giving a dazzling smile, Zvana slipped it between Malfoy's lips, touching the tip of his nose lightly. "My husband put up ward spells before he was... taken, so I have the luxury of using magic whenever I please without those meddling fools from the S.D.E. knowing." She shook her head in what Malfoy presumed was impatience. "But enough idle talk. Sit down Lucius, dear. Ulyanov told me you were coming. To what do I owe this honor?"

But Lucius was staring at the two government-issue armchairs with disgust. "Which one did the Mudblood sit in?"

Wordlessly Zvana pointed to the chair on the left. Lucius took the right. He let out a great sigh and took off his fedora, setting it upon his knee. Still lost in his own private world, Malfoy took a long deep drag on his cigarette. "So you've talked to Ulyanov?"

"He told me you were coming."

Again, Lucius sighed, stretching himself out in the armchair like a cat in its favorite puddle of sunlight. "I'm seriously considering whether or not to accidentally put place that fool on the wrong end of a killing curse. Put him out of his misery." Lucius was unable to keep the smile from his face when faced with this delightful prospect. "But, business. The British Ministry of Magic has sent two of their Aurors to Moscow to investigate any involvement the S.D.E. may have with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I arranged for Ulyanov to bring the Aurors to your delightful club last night, or rather..." he glanced at his pocket watch. "This morning."

"Old friends?" Zvana raised an eyebrow.

Lucius smirked to himself. "You could say that. One of the Aurors is the son of the British Minister of Magic."

"Ooh," Zvana giggled. "I see where this is going. How deliciously tabloid of you, Lucius!"

"Oh yes, isn't it?" he smirked, radiating raw smugness. "One of your girls seduced the Minister's son last night. And Ulyanov caught it all on film."

"Blackmail?" Zvana asked, leaning forward. She was apparently enthralled.

"Oh, better yet," Lucius smiled conspiratorially. "I'm releasing the photographs straight to the Daily Prophet. It's perfect timing. The Minister's son was just married, his wife is pregnant. The English public will not let his indiscretion go unforgiven. It should be enough to also discredit that idiot Minister Potter. He'll be booted out in shame, leaving the way clear for my master to put one of his faithful followers in the top position."

"Diabolical," Zvana said, shaking her head in admiration.

"No," Lucius corrected. "Genius."

"I think a plan of that caliber calls for a little celebration," Zvana said, abruptly standing up. "And I have just the girl for you. She's a pureblood witch," Zvana said quickly before Lucius could protest. "I know how you feel about the other sort."

"I don't practice bestiality," Lucius said coldly.

A look of disgust passed over Zvana's features, disgust she immediately veiled from Malfoy. "Of course not," Zvana said quickly. "I'll get Narcissa, it will be just a moment--" she strode out the door, shutting in behind her. Almost instantly, Zvana collapsed against the wall, heaving a huge breath. She had been beginning to think she would never escape from that room... that man. He was like a tourniquet, growing tighter and tighter around her chest, squeezing her slowly to death.

"That bad?"

Zvana jumped as Vlad Ulyanov sidled up beside her, appearing out of nowhere.

"You scared me," she said, clasping her hand to her frantically beating heart. "I though he'd eat me alive in there."

Vlad nodded. "Well he is self-confessed Death Eater, and personally, I don't like the way he looks at you."

"Stop being vulgar," Zvana nudged him, but she was unable to keep a tiny grin from coming to her face.

"But did our Diablo bite?" Vlad asked, suddenly serious. "Do we have him hooked, line and sinker?" he pressed, pinning Zvana to the wall with his hands.

She nodded, her head brushing against his chest "He doesn't suspect a thing."

A fierce smile lit up Vlad's face. "After all these years, we're finally so close--"

But he was cut off as Zvana cupped his head in her hands and brought his lips down to meet her own.

His hands wrapped around her back as he pulled her into a tight embrace. "Stay with me," she whispered, his breath lingering on her own lips.

"I can't," he said, his voice, in a lover's urgency, lowered to a mere whisper. "I have to go play caddy to those two little boys."

"Don't stay out too long," she said, a half-smile on her face as she ran a finger up the side of his jaw.

"I'll stay out just as long as I please," he grinned back at her. He paused for a moment, letting her pull up the collar of his overcoat, before turning on his heel and walking to the front door. Within moments, he was outside.

Zvana slid down the wall until she sat in a little ball on the floor, her knees hugged up against her chest, with only her frantic heartbeats for company.

Oh, and while the King was looking down/The Jester stole his thorny crown

 

----

 

"Where the hell did you get that rag?" James clutched Sasha's coat closer to him as he sank down into the bench in front of Miriken's home beside Sirius. It looked surprisingly innocent in the early morning light, the pre-Revolutionary gingerbread architecture making it appear like some sort of childhood fantasy as opposed to an illegal nightclub.

"The S.D.E. has the house under surveillance," James said, ignoring Sirius's disparaging glance on account of his new coat. "We should leave."

"If they're watching the house, we're screwed already," Sirius shrugged, leaning forward onto his knees.

"Where did you go last night?" James said, suddenly realizing how remarkably convenient it was that his friend was sitting on a park bench, right outside the Roulette, waiting for him.

"Girl," Sirius's tone forbade any questions. "You?"

"I passed out in the club. The bartender took care of me. Speaking of the bartender--"

Sirius cut him off. "Someone drugged us last night."

James stopped, his jaw dropping. "What?"

"We were drugged last night," Sirius repeated.

"We just had too much to drink," James said, scoffing at his friend's paranoia.

"When was the last time you passed out after one shot of vodka?" Sirius pressed.

"Sirius," he began condescendingly. "Be real. We had more than just one shot--"

"I was damn near plastered after one shot," Sirius said, meeting his friend's skeptical stare. "And you were too"

"Just supposing you're right," James began hesitantly. "Not that I'm saying you are." Sirius rolled his eyes. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Vladimir Ulyanov," Sirius said flatly.

James laughed, and then he realized that his friend wasn't kidding. "Vladimir Bleeding Ulyanov? He's working for us, Sirius."

"So he says," Sirius replied darkly. "I don't trust him at all."

"Why?"

"Instinctive. I don't like his look."

James snickered. "Sirius, the first time you saw Peter, you told me you didn't like his look."

Sirius shrugged. "So I've been wrong in the past. I still don't think Ulyanov can be trusted."

James shook his head, unable to see Sirius's point of view. "He seemed like a bit of a weak-willed sot to me. No great criminal mastermind there."

"If you trust a double agent," Sirius said firmly, "you'll end up dead."

James shrugged. "Fair enough, but I still don't see it your way. We agree to disagree then, eh?"

Sirius barely nodded agreement. "I'm keeping my eye on him."

"Is that why you told Ulyanov you were the Minister of Magic's son?" James said, suddenly putting the pieces together.

"Yeah."

"I appreciate the sentiment, Sirius, but I can take care of myself," James said, mildly annoyed.

"I trust you," Sirius said. "I just don't trust him."

James shook his head. "You're sounding as paranoid as my father."

"My father," Sirius corrected halfheartedly. His mind was clearly elsewhere. "There's another thing."

"What?"

"When I was coming out of the house about fifteen minutes ago, I saw Lucius Malfoy going in."

James whistled. "Are you sure it was him?"

"I could recognize that slimy git 100 miles away," Sirius replied darkly.

"You know what this means?" James said, trying to coax Sirius from his pensive shell.

"What?"

"My father may be right about the Communist-death-eater conspiracy."

Sirius gave a sideways grin. It was the first smile James had coaxed from his friend all morning. In spite of everything, Prongs felt a general wave of relief. If Sirius was laughing, then the Communists could scheme, the Death Eaters plot, but everything would work itself out in the end. "Nah. I'm sure there's a plausible explanation."

James smirked. "I should tell him your high opinion of his theories."

"You do that," Sirius said, his good humor abandoned in lieu of whatever was hanging over his shoulders. James was willing to bet that Sirius's black mood had something to do with the "girl" but he wasn't about to press Padfoot for information he didn't want to give. Sirius would open up in his own time and until then, James would have to cope with his friend acting like a pessimistic prat. Gryffindor only knows he had done that to Sirius enough in the past, and his friend had borne him with as much grace as it was possible for Padfoot to muster (James was of the educated opinion that Sirius and grace were polar opposites, but that was strictly beside the current point). It was high time that he collected his comeuppance. "I couldn't care less what he thought," Padfoot growled.

"But seriously, no pun intended," James made a feeble joke as Sirius rolled his eyes. He bit his lip as he remembered Sasha's warning. "We're in deep shit here, Padfoot."

"No shit," Sirius iterated darkly, curtain of black hair falling across his eyes, shielding them from view.

"The bartender who found me in the Roulette, seems to be a part of whatever racket is going on." At no reply from Sirius, James continued. "Sasha, the bartender," he added for Sirius's benefit. "Kept referring to this Boss."

"Boss?" Sirius raised an eyebrow. "What the hell is this, the Russian Mafia?" His crack seemed more halfhearted and bitter than anything else.

Biting his lip, James tried to ignore the black mood that had settled upon his friend. "Could be for all we know. Actually," he paused a moment, considering. "That may not be too far off. The Russian Roulette is the Boss's brainchild, so there we have the illegal clubs. Who knows, maybe it's an international drug scam?"

Sirius muttered something that sounded suspiciously like dragonshit, but once again James decided to turn a blind eye.

"From what Sasha told me, and it isn't a lot mind you, the Boss sounds like some sort of anti-Communist trying to change the government. But..." he bit his lip in confusion. "He deals in black market clubs, which isn't quite usual for a political revolutionary..." James trailed off, utterly bamboozled.

"So he's a idealistic revolutionary Mafioso," Sirius filled in drolly. "Put him under the same list as Father Christmas, that idiotic Easter Rabbit, and your father's bloody conspiracy."

"There's nothing wrong with Father Christmas," James smiled, remembering the warm cozy Holidays of his youth, which he had spent half buried in wrapping paper, eating with a piece of his mother's famous Holiday Pixie pie (James often said that the Cornish Pixies tasted like chicken). Christmas would often find him stretched out in front of the fire on the enormous hearth rug embroidered with the Potter coat of arms and family motto: "Semper Ubi Sub Ubi". Yes, those had been the days.

Sirius was nonplussed. He obviously did not hold the holidays in such an esteemed position. James went rather red when his friend raised an eyebrow. "Father Christmas, James? And how old are we?"

"Erm" James decided to avoid any further embarrassment and just drop what could prove to be a very damaging topic. "And get this!" James said hastily, leaning forward. "The Boss knows everything about us. He knows I'm married to Lily, and that she's pregnant. How screwed is that?"

"So we're obviously not as incognito as we thought," Sirius said, brows knitting together. James had the feeling his friend was doggedly rolling their predicament around in his head, trying to make heads or tails of it. By the black look on Padfoot's serious face, Prongs could see that he wasn't getting very far.

"Sasha is evidently working for this Boss," he said, trying to spark an idea for his friend. Then, he added something that had been gnawing at him all morning. Something that hovered over his head like a tiny storm cloud, ready to burst at any moment. "He told me to leave Moscow before it was too late--"

"Who? The Boss or Sasha?" Sirius interrupted, spoiling James's entire dramatic effect.

"Sasha," James replied shortly. "Haven't you been listening? I don't know who the Boss is! When I asked Sasha to tell me the truth," Sirius snorted derisively at this point, "he told me to find the Sad Clown, whoever that is..."

"I would have just stuck a gun to his head, until he coughed up the information," Sirius said, more to himself than James.

"A gun?" James asked, drawing a blank.

"A metal wand Muggles use for killing each other," Sirius explained impatiently.

"Why would you want to kill Sasha?" James asked, getting quite wide eyed.

"I wouldn't actually kill him, I'd just threaten," Sirius said, and at the horrified look on James's face he shook his own head. "Just forget it--"

"Promise me you won't kill anyone, Sirius," James said quietly, his face loosing its puerile gleam.

After a slight pause, Sirius opened his mouth. "I can't do that, James." He didn't meet Prongs's eyes.

"Promise me, Sirius," James repeated earnestly, his voice taking on desperate fervor.

"What if it comes down to one of us or one of them?" Sirius said quietly. "Don't worry about it, James, it'll all be me. You needn't get your pretty little hands dirty," he added bitterly.

James didn't rise to the bait. "I don't want you to do something you'll regret."

Sirius spoke his words through clenched teeth. "It's my life, James. My life."

"I'm just looking out for you," James iterated defensively.

"I appreciate the sentiment," Sirius said, echoing James's words from mere moments earlier. "But I can take care of myself." His tone ceased the discussion and James leaned back onto the bench, his glasses sliding steadily down the bridge of his nose.

"Remus," James finally said after a long and tightly strung silence.

"What of him?" Sirius said, but his mind was already whooshing down James's train of thought. The two of them were that close. In most circumstances, one knew exactly what the other was thinking seconds before he even opened his mouth.

"We should owl him," James said. "See if he'll crack into the classified files at the Merlin Archives and get us anything they have on the Sad Clown, Russian Roulette, or," he begrudged, "Vladimir Ulyanov."

Sirius raised one eyebrow. "And where are we going to get an owl around here?" he opened his hands wide, gesturing to the tall concrete buildings sticking like overlarge tumors out of the wasteland of never-ending snow.

"Erm..." James drew a blank. "Ulyanov?"

"Yes, Mr. Ulyanov, we want to borrow an owl to write our friend to convince him to look up classified and quite probably damaging information on you, because we think you are full of shit." Sirius finished, batting his eyes sarcastically. "Bloody convincing argument, that one is."

"You think he's full of shit, not me," James corrected sulkily. "But point taken."

"No, we'll just have to call Remus," Sirius shrugged. "The Merlin Archives have ties to the Muggle Government so they have to have a telephone. I'm sure I have the number somewhere," he said, reaching into a pocket of his indispensable denim jacket. James couldn't remember a time when he had seen Sirius without the now ragged coat. Even at Hogwarts Padfoot had used to wear the jacket over his school robes giving him an air that girls seemed to find irresistibly debonair. James privately thought that it had made him look like either a complete fashion victim or someone very ahead of the trends, it all depended if you saw the glass half empty or half full. "The only problem I can see," Sirius continued, oblivious to his friend's sudden interest in his fashion sense, or lack thereof. "Is if someone has set up a wire tap on the phone..."

"Phone?" James sounded more than a little unsure.

Sirius smiled. "It's a Muggle thing."

"Shhh-" James jerked his head away from Padfoot. "Your favorite friend, twelve o'clock."

Sirius turned his head, just in time to see Vladimir Ulyanov shutting the door to Miriken's idyllic home. His tiny eyes darted across the snow-covered street, finally settling on Sirius and James.

Sarcastically, Sirius waved a hand.

Ulyanov didn't return the gesture. As the informant began to walk down the stone steps of Miriken's home to cross the street towards them, James gripped Sirius's arm. "Look at his face," he whistled.

A thick silver scar that had been hidden by the vodka-drenched ambiguity of the previous night snaked up the left side of Ulyanov's face. It abruptly stopped just below his eye and continued down into the depths of his coat, cutting their informant's face into jagged relief. The scar still held some of the raw horror of the original wound.

"What do you think happened to him?" James breathed, his jaw dropping.

Sirius leaned forward. "Why don't you ask him?" he insinuated mischievously.

"Hah," James said drolly as he drew up the collar of Sasha's coat. The rough wool scathed the soft flesh of his throat.

"Where was the scar last night?" Sirius muttered quietly to himself, eyebrows knitting together.

James snorted. "I bet it's a bloody conspiracy, Padfoot," he iterated rather sarcastically.

Sirius shrugged off James's sardonic reply. Instead of replying with a cynical cut of his own, Sirius leaned back against the bench, his features arranging themselves into a mask of bored contentment. "Its show time," he murmured under his breath to no one in particular.

Ulyanov stepped up onto the curb and turned to face the Aurors.

 

----

 

Lucius's eyebrow arched like a taut bowstring as Zvana led the girl into the room.

She wasn't ugly by any means, in fact Lucius might go as far as to deem the girl beautiful, a term he very rarely applied to his numerous putas, numbering from the incredibly valuable underlings such as Zvana to the bumbling fools like Ulyanov. He was strongly tempted to put that sorry excuse for a man out of his misery. But not now. Now there was the girl.

Oh, the girl.

Her silvery blond curls hung loose about her shoulders, shimmering like silken moonlight. Her high cheekbones and almond eyes gave her almost as Asiatic flavor, though her bright blue irises pointed to more than a few Slavic ancestors. Yes, she was a fine piece of flesh.

She was dressed the part. On top, she was wearing an old gray sweatshirt, factory issue by the disgusting look of it. The slut had cut the neck out of her shirt with the idea to expose her milky white neckline to where it curved into the gentle hills of her shoulders. She was like a beautiful porcelain doll, ready and waiting for him to shatter.

He took a drag of his fag. Somehow, the shavala had squeezed herself into a tarty red skirt with leather lacings up the side that revealed far more than it covered. Her whory fishnet stockings were held up by two twin garters, embroidered MARX and ENGLES, respectively. How delightfully cynical. It was a joke from a woman who had grown up in a word where Communism whored itself to the powerful, where corruption was the norm.

Lucius smirked; he enjoyed a woman with a sense of humor, especially since he had none himself. The touch was probably Zvana's though, this particular tart looked a little too much like a kneazle in the headlights to have thought up something so wickedly underhand. Lucius scowled. If it wasn't for Miriken's overly excessive grief over her long dead husband, he would have had her a long time before now. She was one of the few people he could stand talking to for a few moments without feeling dirty-- contaminated. He wouldn't go quite so far as to say that he actually liked Miriken, she was simply tolerable. Tolerable was about as good as it got for Lucius Malfoy.

Perceptive as always, Zvana flashed him a quick smile that he didn't return before skulking out of the door and into the hallway, leaving them alone together.

He stared at the tart for a moment, cool gray eyes narrowing. Her hand was trembling.

He smiled, relishing her discomfort. Quietly, he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a fresh fag. "Incindio," the flame leaped from the tip of his finger to the end of the cigarette. "Can you do that?" he said, acknowledging her for the first time. He'd rather be damned and on a broomstick straight to hell before he so much as touched a Mudblood.

She nodded.

"Good," he hissed, taking a particularly long drag on his cigarette. The smoke floated around his head like some horrible travesty of a halo. "Now, take off your shirt."

 

----

 

"Zdravstvuite, Comrade," Sirius said sarcastically as Ulyanov focused his gaze upon the two Aurors. "See? I'm learning."

"Congratulations, I trust that's very difficult for you, Mr. Potter," Ulyanov sneered, his fur hat pulled low over his calculating eyes. The dislike in his tone was almost palpable.

"Yeah," Sirius snapped sarcastically. "If I keep going this strong, pretty soon I'll be able to see through your condescending insults."

"Erm," James cut off his friend before he made the worst of an already sticky situation. "We're very glad you're able to take time away from your busy schedule to aid us, Mr. Ulyanov."

Ulyanov smiled hastily. "One of you patronizes and the other blatantly insults. If it wasn't for the utter corruption in the S.D.E., I don't think I'd bother with either of you."

"So that's why you're helping us?" James asked, remembering one of his father's countless lessons on interrogation. He could hear his patriarch's voice ringing in his ears, dredged up from the depths of his subconscious where it had undoubtedly been hiding: "Rule One: establish a personal connection with the subject. Rule Two: If that fails, use torture devices." James gave their tight-lipped informant what he hoped was a disarming smile, as he didn't think the chances of hustling Ulyanov into a convenient neighborhood iron maiden were all that high, even in Soviet Moscow. "You think the S.D.E. is corrupt? Why don't you tell us more about your point of view? We will be glad to listen." The look on Sirius's face stated quite plainly that he was sure that James had just gone inexcusably insane.

"I don't have to answer any of your questions, Mr. Black," Ulyanov said smoothly, without so much as batting a eyelash. "I am not a case study."

"I never said that--" James began, feeling rather miffed that his offer of a friendly ear had been mercilessly rejected.

"All right," Sirius interrupted, his eyes focused on Ulyanov and Ulyanov alone. "We'll skip the pleasantries, eh?"

"Fair enough," Ulyanov stroked his chin, considering Sirius's words. James shivered as his bony finger ran up and down the contours of his disfiguring scar.

Sirius stood up. Even at his full height, he was a good foot shorter than Ulyanov. "Does the name Lucius Malfoy sound familiar to you?"

"No," Ulyanov said after a moment of apparent consideration. "It doesn't."

"Funny," Sirius raised any eyebrow, "as he walked into the house you just exited." He pointed to Miriken's home, pausing dramatically. "Are you sure you've never heard of him?"

"Yes," Ulyanov sneered, not in the least bit impressed with Sirius's over-confident posturing. He made it quite clear that his already threadbare patience was rapidly raveling away. "Don't patronize me, Mr. Potter. Zvana receives all kinds of visitors that I know nothing of."

"So you're friends with Mrs. Miriken?" Sirius prodded, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"I'm no intimate," Ulyanov replied coldly. "I am merely a customer. We've talked face to face two, three times at the most."

"What about the Sad Clown?"

Ulyanov jerked his head towards James, all color draining from his already wan face. "What?"

"The Sad Clown," James repeated. "Have you heard of him?"

"Of course," Ulyanov snapped, crossing his arms defensively. There was a slight pause as both of the Aurors waited for their "informant" to continue. When it seemed like no reply was coming, Sirius prodded Ulyanov with a sarcastic:

"Enlighten us."

Ulyanov gave the Aurors a sulky look. Looking extremely put-upon, he started his story. "The first signs of the Sad Clown were in the province of Kolyma, about 4 years ago. There was an explosion in one of the mineshafts, which was later traced to a homemade bomb. One-hundred twenty eight of the prisoners working in the mine were killed in the explosion and fourteen of the soldiers guarding them. At first the authorities thought nothing of it, after all, this was a mine and explosions happen all the time, but by then explosions were picking their way across the continent, over the Urals, and finally to right here in Moscow. Always the bombs were home-made and always the causalities were both civilian and military. The authorities had no choice but to pin it on the work of one man. They have since received a few letters from this psychopath, claiming responsibility for the blasts and demanding equal rights, redistribution of the wealth, your typical idealistic Marxist blather. Each of these letters is signed the Sad Clown."

"In short," Ulyanov continued, his scowl growing, "the Sad Clown is a terrorist of the worst kind. He's responsible for countless civilian and military deaths, I think the current total is around 1,100. He's an underground threat. No one knows quite who he is, except that he's a psychopathic fool. And not only that, he's very dangerous to the stability of the state." Not even Ulyanov could say this without a smirk.

"Last time we checked, you were no fan of the state," Sirius challenged.

"Oh?" Ulyanov chuckled derisively. "You're checking up on me, are you?"

"Answer the question" James said coldly. Sirius turned around in surprise and shot his friend a grateful look for his support. James smiled back, but he was far from convinced that Ulyanov was the source of all of the present mayhem.

Ulyanov gave James a withering look. "The Sad Clown is a clumsy, needlessly violent fool who is seeking attention more than any political objectives. It is only a matter of time before he is sent back to the Gulags. I do not wish for that unfortunate fate to be mine, so I approach my rebellion against the state in a systematic untraceable way, like passing information."

"In other words, you're a coward," Sirius hissed.

Ulyanov raised an eyebrow. "If slaughtering innocent civilians is your idea of valor, Mr. Black, then I'm afraid we have a much larger problem on our hands than a Communist-Death-Eater conspiracy." Sirius quietly seethed, angry at Ulyanov for easily disarming him in the quick verbal skirmish. Ulyanov ignored his unspoken victory and pressed on without drawing a breath. "I have to return to the S.D.E offices or my absence will arouse suspicion. I'll contact you boys later, hm?"

"Don't bother," Sirius muttered under his breath as their informant turned on his heel and stalked away into the blinding sheet of snow.

"It doesn't look like he's too high up in the Roulette hierarchy," James thought aloud, huddling deeper inside Sasha's coat. Moscow was colder than his wildest imaginings. Besides the blanket of icy white that covered everything for hundred of miles around, their was an omnipresent wind, biting deep and hard, chilling Prongs to the bone. James could see quite easily why Russia had produced some of the most feared dark wizards in Magical history. It was hard to believe that any wizards other than the toughest and the most brutal could ever exist here.

"Not so," Sirius repeated. Even in his flimsy denim jacket, Sirius seemed unfazed by the brutal cold, though James supposed his coat had some sort of warming charm upon it. His friend was ignoring the snow completely, his eyes focused of Ulyanov's retreating back. "He called Miriken Zvana. They're on first name terms."

James paused for a moment before replying, a slow mocking smile working its way across his frostbitten features. "Well, Sherlock, hats off to you--"

He was cut off as Sirius stuffed a handful of snow into his open mouth. "Do shut up, my dear Watson."

----

 

"They've been developed," Lucius shut the door to Zvana's office behind him, redoing his silver and green striped tie with one hand at the same time. He had left the girl on the couch, futilely trying to keep her beside him with the whispers of sweet, insubstantial nothings.

"Excellent," Malfoy said as he plucked the envelope from Ulyanov's outstretched hand. "You took these last night?"

"After I finished receiving your orders," Despite the fact that he towered over Malfoy, Ulyanov managed to look remarkably diminutive. "May I take this opportunity to thank you from dropping your most important business in Spain--"

"No," Lucius snapped, deftly flicking the envelope's lip open. These photographs were the key to all of his meticulously laid plans. They would single-handedly pave the way from his master's rise to supreme power and he would be remembered as the Death Eater who had made Voldemort's empire possible. He would rise above them all, the first among a tribe of winners.

Heart beating fiercely underneath his three-piece suit, Malfoy slid the photographs from their envelope. There was a sickly scrape of paper against paper as he turned his eyes to the moving images.

Ulyanov's heart jumped in his chest as the photographs slipped through Malfoy's fingers, fluttering through the air to lie still on the floor. There was a positively murderous silence, as the matador licked his lips.

"Is there a problem?" Ulyanov said nervously, having the funny feeling that Malfoy was about to go for his throat.

"No, no problem," Malfoy scoffed, "Only this isn't James Potter."

"Of course its James Pott--" Ulyanov began. Then he broke off as the realization dawned upon his face. "Those little gov'nky--"

"This is Sirius Bloody Black," Malfoy screeched. "Perhaps the most notorious womanizer in the entire history of the Auror Bureau. There are dozens of photographs just like this one. I send it to the Prophet, I get laughed out of--" Malfoy broke his tirade off, suddenly staring at Ulyanov. "You knew, didn't you?"

"What?" Ulyanov laughed nervously. "I had no idea he wasn't the Minister's son! Black, you say? Black told me he was the one, how could I have known differently? I know nothing about England! I--"

"Don't lie to me!" Malfoy yelled, reaching forward and gripping Ulyanov by the throat. "You knew! Maybe they switched names; I don't give a shit! But you knew the man you were photographing was not the Minister's son. I can see it in your eyes, you lying little fool. I always know!"

"Little fool?" Ulyanov took a step forward, kicking the photographs across the floor, much to their occupant's chagrin. "I think it is dubious who the little fool is, Mr. Malfoy." It was the first time that day that he seemed to be taller than Lucius.

And Lucius didn't like it. Without so much as blinking an eyelid, the smaller man swung his fist hard. It connected almost immediately with Ulyanov's jaw. A thin dribble of blood trickled down the older man's chin. Lucius half-noticed that some of Ulyanov's blood clung to his own hand, staining his porcelain skin a deep red. Coolly, Ulyanov wiped his blood off his chin, regarding Lucius with the utmost scorn. "You're always," he said quietly, "such a gentleman, Mr. Malfoy."

For once, Lucius didn't have a glib underhand barb ready and waiting to fire. Ulyanov reached down toward the other man's mouth and pulled the cigarette out of Malfoy's mouth. "Smoking is bad for you. That's the one worthwhile thing I learned in medical school."

"That's why I smoke," Lucius supplied sulkily as Ulyanov dropped his smoking fag on the floor and put it out with the heel of his shoe.

"Then you need more help than I can supply," Ulyanov snapped, raising a gray eyebrow. "Though that's hardly a revelation."

"Just who do you think you are?" Malfoy sneered, a red and angry flush rising to his face as Ulyanov surveyed him with a slightly amused expression. It was as if his servant had undergone a transformation. The sniveling fool of a few moments previous had, at the drop of a photograph, become a slick foe cutting him to pieces with minimal effort. Though he wouldn't admit it to Ulyanov, Malfoy felt rather dazed.

"Your superior," Ulyanov drawled, running his finger up and down the line of his scar. "As much as you like to pretend you're a tough man with your chain smoking and your asshole of a master, you're as much of a clueless child as those two English pups I've been forced to escort all over Moscow. You're in too deep, Mr. Malfoy."

"I--"

Ulyanov wasn't about to let Lucius get a word in. "I have you all figured out, Malfoy. You were about to insult me back there. If there's anything you don't like, it's being reminded of your own inferiority. That's why you're obsessed with all of that pureblooded shit, so you can somehow feel some sort of," Ulyanov's lip curled in scorn. "Genetic dominance. That went out of vogue with the fall of the Third Reich, Mr. Malfoy. But," a thin smile curved across Ulyanov's face, twisting his scar into a half-moon. "You have no idea what I'm taking about. That's the main weakness of most pureblood wizards. You're so removed from Muggle culture. It had its bonuses, that I don't deny, but it also means you don't learn from the Muggles's mistakes."

"You don't know the first thing about me," Malfoy sneered. He was overwhelmed with anger, hate, and though he'd hardly even admit it to himself, fear. This man, whoever he was, was not the Vladimir Ulyanov he'd grown to know and scorn.

"Of course I know about you," Ulyanov snorted, walking in a tight circle around Malfoy. "How do you think I was able to remain as your servant for so long? I played up to your insecurities, always flattering, always sniveling. You suspected nothing, other than that I may be a halfwit. That's your Achilles heel, Mr. Malfoy, you underestimate other people. That," he said, with a touch of relish. "Will be your downfall. Never did you suspect that I may be holding all the strings."

Malfoy's lip curled in absolute fury, but he couldn't find his voice, it was lost somewhere between the twin poles of hate and terror.

"How do you like being the marionette, Mr. Malfoy?" Ulyanov smirked, leaning closer to Lucius, so that he was whispering in his ear. "Watch out for the Sad Clown, she has her eye on you."

"What is this nonsense!" Malfoy twisted away, groping wildly inside his overcoat for his package of fags.

Ulyanov held up his hand, revealing a box of cigs. "Missing something?"

"Give me that--"

Ulyanov shook his head. "I told you, cigarettes are bad for you. Next time, you need to listen to what I have to say, Mr. Malfoy."

"You will pay for this," Lucius hissed, but his threat sounded empty to even his own ears.

Ulyanov found it hilarious. He let loose a long laugh before shaking his head in what could be mirth, or just sympathy. "I have been setting you up, Mr. Malfoy. That was very good, I didn't expect you to catch on so quickly."

"Who the hell are you?"

Ulyanov pulled up his coat collar, his gray hair blending in with the ratty wool of his government-issue overcoat. "Vladimir Ulyanov. And if you had done your background research, you would know exactly what I meant." With that, he dropped the cigs scornfully on the floor, kicking them towards Lucius's feet. "Here. You'll need these more than ever in the coming days."

Before Lucius had a chance to reply, Ulyanov had disapparated, leaving him to curse the empty air.

 

----

 

"Are you sure this will work?"

Sirius gave James a withering look as he put the telephone receiver to his ear. "Just trust me."

James laughed hollowly.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I'll ignore that vote of confidence."

"Be my guest," James snorted into Sasha's ratty coat.

"Watch and learn, grasshopper," Sirius said as he quietly dialed the number. Even in the non-capitalist world of Soviet Russia the two Aurors had managed to find a pay phone, yet another State hypocrisy to add to the rapidly growing list.

"What in Griffindor's name is it doing?" James jumped back in alarm as the phone began to ring.

Sirius grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and dragged him into the booth. "That's how it's supposed to happen," he said in a long-suffering tone.

"Are you sure?" James said nervously, still staring at the phone as if he was afraid it would explode.

Sirius didn't even bother to reply. After about twenty rings, he heard a slight click.

"Merlin Archives. This is Horace speaking, how may I help you?" It was a relief to hear good old Queen's English after twenty-four hours of non-stop Russian. Sirius hadn't realized how tense he had been until he found himself letting out a long sigh.

"Yes," Sirius spoke into the receiver, trying to ignore James's incoherent exclamations of excitement. "Is Remus Lupin in?"

"It talks, Sirius! It talks!"

Sirius bent closer to the receiver, cupping his hand around the mouthpiece. "May I inquire who is calling?" the voice on the other end said suspiciously. These were dark days in Wizarding England, days when Voldemort's spies lurked in every puddle of shadow and in every deserted alley. The old adage "trust no one" had been resurrected with new meaning, and wizards everywhere regarded strangers as enemies. The voice's suspicion was perfectly understandable.

"Yeah," Sirius replied. "This is the Minister of Magic. It's urgent." He wasn't quite sure if Horace would let him through to Remus if he was anyone less official.

"Oh!" Horace sounded surprised. "Well, right away then, Mr. Potter. Would you hold on a moment?"

"Sure," Sirius said, as the sound of breathing ceased from the other end of the line.

James was still floored by the success of the phone. "How do those Muggles think of these things?" He gaped in wonderment. "It's incredible."

"Bloody magical it is," Sirius said with a grin as he switched the phone to the other ear, tapping his foot impatiently. He had never been a fan of being put on hold.

"Hallo Sirius," a voice, unmistakably Remus's, drifted in from the other end of the line.

"How did you know it was me?" Sirius asked.

"Who else would claim to be the Minister of Magic?" Sirius didn't have a reply for that, so he just let Remus continue. "I thought you were in Russia with James."

"I am," Sirius said.

"Where are you calling from?" Remus asked.

"A pay phone."

"There are pay phones in Soviet Russia?"

"Evidently so," Sirius snapped, "and every second you spend wondering about it eats up another one of our rubles."

Remus cut straight to the chase. "Well, what damage control do you need done?"

"What makes you think we need damage control?" Sirius said, eyebrows knitting together.

Remus's silence said more than 1000 words.

"All right, all right," Sirius began. "You know us far too well for your own good, you know that?"

"I figured that out a while ago, Sirius," Remus said in a long-suffering tone.

"Well, it's not quite damage control," Sirius began hesitantly. "We want you to break into the classified section of the Merlin Archives."

Originally Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs had all enlisted in the Auror training program. Those had been the days when they had all been young, idealistic, and utterly inseparable. Of course Voldemort was going to be beaten and they would be the ones to do it. On the eve of their Hogwarts graduation the boys had made a pact to "Become Aurors and fight in the war against Voldemort until our gums are bloody from hanging on by the skin of our teeth or until we beat the bastard." Sirius had coined the phrase, and when James made the offhand remark that it sounded like something his father had written a pillow fight ensued, the ferocity of which quite unlike anything that had ever occurred in the entire illustrious Hogwarts history of Messieurs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.

But the pact had been broken within days of its making. Peter dropped out in the first few days of Auror training, and Remus was expelled by Barty Crouch himself a mere four weeks later. Crouch insisted it was because Remus wasn't ruthless enough for hunting dark wizards, and though Sirius was privately inclined to agree, he thought the real reason behind his friend's expulsion had more to do with his own dark magic origins than his temperament.

Lycanthropy or not, Remus had managed to get a job as a research librarian at the Merlin Archives, a joint project between the Ministries of Magic of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The purpose of the Archives was to document every facet of magic in the British Isles from Charing Cross road to Confrwiddla the Cantakerous's rebellion of 1543. As an added bonus, the four Ministries had combined their classified intelligence files, forming one of the most comprehensive collections of sensitive information in the Wizarding world.

If there was dirt on anyone chances were that it would be in the Merlin Archives. Sirius had it on Remus's authority that his own file was thirty-two centimeters thick, most of which he guessed was handwritten complaints from James's father and all of his (numerous) ex-girlfriends. Of course Remus strictly wasn't supposed to be in the classified section of the Merlin Archives, but Sirius hadn't corrupted Moony for nothing.

On the whole, Remus was a much better librarian that he would have ever been as an Auror and Sirius wasn't quite sure if his friend would betray the institution that had taken him in by stealing classified information. He held his breath, waiting for his friend's response. He shouldn't have worried. "What do you need?" Remus said with a excruciatingly long-suffering note in his voice.

Sirius bent down closer to the mouthpiece, half afraid that an S.D.E agent was peering over his shoulder. He got that feeling in Moscow, as if someone's eyes were constantly on the back of his neck. It put him off guard, as he wasn't usually skittish in the least. "Get us everything you know about a man named Vladimir Ulyanov."

"Hmmm... I'm sure I've heard that name somewhere. Is he a Death Eater?" Remus asked.

"Not as far as we know, though I wouldn't be surprised," Sirius replied.

"Sirius doesn't like his look," James said loudly so that Remus could hear. The skepticism in Prongs's voice was palpable.

"Didn't you say that about Peter?" Remus said from the other end of the line, mildly amused.

Sirius shot James a dirty look. "Well I'm starting to like the look of a certain Mr. Potter less and less." Remus snorted on other end, muffling a laugh. "Ulyanov is actually James's father's contact in the S.D.E." Sirius said, trying to get back to business before they run out of change and were forced to cut the call off.

"Double-agent," Remus said quietly, suddenly deep in thought. It was a special talent that was uniquely Remus, the ability to be laughing and joking one moment and lost in his own tiny world the next. "You can never trust a spy."

"If you can," Sirius added, breaking into his friend's reverie. "Be a good dog and look up someone known as the Sad Clown--"

"Tell him Zvana Miriken," James added from his spot behind Sirius.

"And Zvana Miriken," Sirius channeled to Remus. "Send it by owl, these Russians are nutters and there's some sort of a ban against using magic, which we've already broken once," Remus muttered something sounding suspiciously like "of course". "Oh," Sirius added as an afterthought. "If you can, get us some scarves; it's fucking freezing."

"I told you it would be cold," Remus said peevishly. "You're wearing that denim jacket of yours, aren't you? A denim jacket. In Moscow. In January."

"Thanks for the tip, Mum," Sirius said sarcastically.

"My pleasure."

James suddenly spoke up. His initial fear of the phone seemed to be completely gone. "Tell him to tell Lily that I love her."

"Tell Lily that I love her," Sirius said automatically. It was barely out of his mouth when he realized it sounded wrong. "No I mean, James says to tell Lily that he loves her..."

Remus sighed rather obnoxiously. "Anything else? Do you want me to pick up milk, oil your bike, and feed the cat?"

Sirius smirked. "Well, if you're offering--" It was a good thing that his money ran out there and then or else poor Remus would be running errands all night.

"Well," James remarked, leaning nonchalantly against the door of the phone booth. "That was a pleasant surprise, wasn't it?"

"Never thought it would work," Sirius said in mock-sincerity. "Very funny, those fellytones."

His sarcasm was lost on James. "Well, there's only one place to go now."

"Where?"

Now it was James's turn to grin impishly. "Back to the Roulette I suppose. After all, its the only lead we've got."

 

----

 

"Have you ever wanted to destroy something beautiful?" he said, slamming the door of Zvana's office so hard that it almost fell from its fragile hinges.

She stared at him, he wide mooncalf eyes unreadable as the collar of her decrepit shirt slid down her painfully thin arm, revealing a pure white shoulder.

Milky.

Whole.

Still staring at her, waiting for a reply that he knew would never come; Lucius reached into the pocket of his overcoat. Fingers shaking, he raised the cigarette to his lips, lighting it with a wave of his hand. He took a long drag.

The smoke filled his mouth.

His head.

His lungs.

Soothing, smothering, suffocating.

Maybe if he smoked enough cigarettes, it would pull the pillowcase over his own head once and for all, finish what he had tried so long ago to begin.

Death was a way out to Lucius. Escape from all the griping, sniveling, Mudblood sonsofbitches who picked on his carcass like maggots, trying to change him into one of them. Contaminate him.

Death was an escape from his endless self-imposed quarantine against the world.

But he didn't have the courage to kill himself.

So he killed everyone around him.

The smoke of the cigarette covered him like a blanket, his only regret was that there were no hands to hold it down. His own hung by his lips, trembling as the fag littered hot ash across the hardwood floor.

He turned his eyes to her. She wasn't staring at him anymore; instead, her eyes were focused his fingers, hanging listlessly by his mouth.

Blood. Ulyanov's blood.

Oh, God-- he had touched that bastard's blood, he his hands were coated in it.

Fuck, Fuck, he needed smoke, he needed scouring, he needed--

Her.

She looked up at him, blue eyes as pales as the snow falling outside, covering Miriken's gingerbread home in a sickly sweet white frosting.

Don't eat the house, Hansel and Gretel, don't eat it or the witch will bake you for dinner. Candy walls aren't always sugar sweet and things are never what they seem.

"Have you ever wanted to destroy something beautiful?" he repeated, bending down so he was on the same level as her oh-so-innocent moonbeam eyes. "Answer me!"

"No," she replied, voice trembling as he wrapped his hands around her slender throat.

"You will," he laughed. "You will..." her jugular throbbed just under his thumb.

Her breath came in short intervals of terror. He laughed again, enjoying the effect he was having on the mooncalf girl. She was so fragile, like a tiny little dove.

Doves are the birds of love.

He told her so.

And she just shook her head. "There isn't any love here."

"No," he said quietly, letting go of her throat. "No, there isn't."

She blinked at him, utterly abashed that anyone had agreed with anything she had to say. The girl was afflicted with the condition of worthlessness, believing completely that she was worth nothing to anyone in the world. And the sad thing was, she was right.

"There is no such thing as love," he murmured, staring at her with a sudden respect. "But there's business."

She didn't reply. She wasn't really listening to anything he had to say, she was too wrapped up in the trials of her own soul to even begin to care about his. Her blue eyes darted over his shoulder to the frost-covered window, looking for an escape.

He noticed this, and he decided he didn't like her mind wandering. He reached out and firmly gripped her chin, wrenching her gaze to meet his own. "Do you understand what I'm saying, girl?"

Dumbly, she shook her head no. He got the feeling that she was absolutely terrified, and he got a small chill of pleasure from that, from the power he had over her.

"I'm saying that I'd be very good for you," he hissed, leaning forward so that there were mere inches between their faces. Mere inches of frigid air, strung with palpable tension.

"What" she began hesitantly. "What do you want with me?"

He leaned back, surveying her as one would a pound of flesh at market. "I'm not sure."

"Is that--"

He cut her off. "You're surprisingly beautiful, you do know that? I was expecting some dirty little stick of a whore like the rest of Zvana's brood," he paused, spinning her around with his hands. "How much do you weigh?" he abruptly barked.

"110 pounds," she began nervously.

"110 pounds of flesh for me," he smiled nastily. "For free." A chill ran up her spine as he placed his hand upon her shoulder. "Does that sound like a good business deal to you, whore?"

"I don't--"

He wasn't really interested in her reply. "A diamond in the rough, for nothing at all" he stared at her through cold gray eyes half closed, nevertheless piercing icicles into her soul. "You know what they used to do when a landlord would receive a new piece of property? A silver plate, a set of candlesticks, or," he gave a sick smile, "a bitch for his hounds?"

"What would they do?" she asked quietly, as he tightened his grip upon her shoulder. She didn't really want to know the answer, but fear of the fingers digging into her flesh made her ask the question.

He pursed his lips together, finger lingering on a spot on his forearm. "They'd brand it. Should I brand you, girl?"

Her mouth opened, buy no sound came out, heart beating in the frenzied rhapsody of terror.

"No," he said quietly, cigarette smoke hanging about his head like the horrible travesty of a halo. "No. I don't need to brand you. You're already mine, heart, body, and soul. I need no mark to prove it."

He let go of her, watching apathetically as she fled from the room in terror, though a small smile laced across his lips when he heard the terrified sound of her sobs echoing in the hallway outside.

Have you ever wanted to destroy something beautiful?

He wasn't really speaking to her at all.

Candy walls aren't always sugar sweet and things are never what they seem.

So he took the lit cigarette from his lips, dangling it almost lazily between his fingers.

I need to brand you. You're not mine, heart, body, and soul. I need a mark to prove it.

He inhaled deeply as he jammed the butt deep into the soft flesh of his own hand--

"Have you ever wanted to destroy something beautiful?" he repeated, bending down so he was on the same level as her oh-so-innocent moonbeam eyes

"No!" she replied, voice trembling as he wrapped his hands around her slender throat.

"You will," he laughed. "You will..."

There was an angry red weal in the continuity of his skin, a place where charred flesh met smooth porcelain, a scar that could never completely heal.

 

 

----

January 1, 1980

Offices of the Auror Bureau

London, United Kingdom

Moody tapped his gnarled fingers on the hard resin of the table, surveying the motley crew he had hand-picked from the best of the best at the already elite Auror Bureau. With ever new Muggle-baiting and torched home, Moody gained fresh awareness of how urgent their fight against Voldemort was. As for Moody himself, he didn't even sleep in his own bed anymore. He was forced to move from house to anonymous house like a Lethifold in the night, lest the Death Eaters finally put a finger upon his whereabouts. Moody's old adage of "Constant Vigilance!" had gained new meaning in these dark days, days when there was no one to trust but your own feeble wits and nothing to count on but the clothes on your back, and even their loyalty was dubious.

With every fresh day, Moody was acutely reminded of how tenuous and vulnerable their position was. He felt as if he was trying to plug a broken dike with just his pinkie, a finger holding back the flood of Voldemort's forces. And when the day came that his dike buckled, his last defense torched and sundered, Moody could only hope that he and his motley crew of Aurors would be ready to face the howling storm of Death Eaters.

But was hope enough?

For now, Moody thought ruefully to himself, it would have to be. Hope was one thing that even Voldemort could not steal.

Thanks to the propaganda machines at the Department of Misinformation the greater wizarding public didn't know how tight their situation really was. The average witch or wizard off the street believed that the Ministry was winning the war against Voldemort, but that was far, far from the truth.

Moody was counting the days until all hell broke loose.

And so he had assembled his motley crew of Aurors, the best of the best to somehow try and breach the ever-growing advantage between the Aurors and the Death Eaters, and try, despite the fact that they were outfoxed, outnumbered, and outwitted, to dig the Ministry out of the grave that Voldemort had so easily pushed them into.

Always alert, Moody's eyes traveled down the right side of the table, and as his piercing gaze lingered upon each face, a dossier immediately opened in his mind, revealing each of the Auror's name, rank, and credentials, what they could do to possibly tip the balance of the war in the Ministry's favor.

To Moody's direct left were Frank and Lottie Longbottom, a husband and wife team of Aurors known for their bravery, daring, and selfless courage. They were some of Moody's staunchest supporters. However, Lottie was already showing signs of a pregnancy and Moody feared that he would be forced to take her out of the line of fire any week now. When the balance between stasis and subjugation was so intensely fragile, she would be sorely missed.

Pushing Lottie and her pregnancy from his mind, Moody continued sizing up his troops. Next to the Longbottoms was Arabella Figg, an wizened wisp of a witch who was rumored to be older than Hogwarts itself. Figg was not often seen without one of her innumerable pet kneazles, and one was playing on her lap right now, swinging two and fro on her hand-knitted shawl. Despite her harmless-old-bat appearance, Moody had learned long ago not to underestimate Arabella, for the ancient Auror could speak almost any language on Earth and besides that, she had a keen mind for code breaking.

Next to Figg sat the only American present. Mundungus Fletcher was from somewhere in the Southern States and had an absolutely ridiculous fashion of talking, he used phrases like "hot as the hair on a hog's belly" and "blushing like a baby's behind", but Fletcher was a Master of Disguise. He could take a man, cast a few glamours, call up an illusion or two and God be damned if his own mother knew him. Moody often found Mundungus's services much more valuable than the tried and true Polyjuice, which wore off in a single hour, as often the Aurors couldn't afford such crippling time restraints.

Fletcher was talking animatedly to Charlie O'Reilly, whose flaming red hair stood out like a beacon against the drab gray walls of the Auror Bureau. Charlie was a damn good Auror, but he wasn't a patch on his sister. Moody's elite team had suffered a brutal blow when Molly O'Reilly had married one of the innumerable Weasley brood and punched off a couple of kids. Moody had tried everything within his power to try and get Molly to stay, but she had adamantly refused, saying: "It's all right if I put myself at risk, Alastor, but I can't place my family in such jeopardy. Besides, who in Gryffindor's name would cook dinner?"

Next to Charlie was Severus Snape, brooding and aloof as always. Moody couldn't quite say why he had included Snape in his hand-picked squadron, the former Slytherin wasn't an especially adept Auror, though he was far from inept. Moody would credit Snape's appointment to instinct alone, which he had learned to trust more than his critical judgment over his many years as chief of the Auror Bureau.

Finally, next to Snape was Albus Dumbledore, who, strictly speaking, wasn't an Auror at all, though any anti-Voldemort group was incomplete without the headmaster of Hogwarts in attendance. Dumbledore was the rallying figurehead of the Dark Lord's resistance, and rightfully so.

Moody cleared his throat. It was time for the meeting to come to order. "I realize this is New Years Day and I have stolen you away from your various celebrations," he began gruffly. It was the closest to an outright apology that Moody would get, though most of those present recognized and appreciated his sentiment. "But the Dark Lord does not observe holidays, and right now, he is the one calling the shots." Moody cleared his throat, drumming his fingers in the table. "You are all undoubtedly familiar with our Minister's ideas on the USSR"

Frank Longbottom laughed. "Outright nutty, I say. Who'd ever heard of a Communist-Death-Eater? What next? Voldemort's really a bloody Catholic priest?" Longbottom's feeble crack warranted a few equally weak laughs.

"Thank you, Frank," Moody cut him off, turning his eyes back to the rest of the table. "As some of you may already know, Minister Potter had decided to act on his... theory." Moody's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"Theory? Fantasy is more like it," Frank muttered under his breath to his wife.

Moody pretended not to hear, although he privately agreed with Frank's sentiment. "The Minister had sent two Aurors, two of our very own, to the Soviet Union... without notifying me," Moody said simply, inwardly fuming that an oblivious prick like Harold L. Potter had gone straight over his head.

"Can he do that?" Charlie interjected.

"Evidently," Moody answered dryly. "And the two Aurors in question are none other than Sirius Black and James Potter."

A noise escaped Severus Snape that could only be interpreted as a derisive snicker.

"Do you have something to add, Snape?" Moody snapped.

"No sir," Snape answered, though his face was lit with a poorly concealed smirk.

"To make matters even more complicated," Moody continued, massaging his temples with his right hand. "I just received an owl from Miriken. He says Lucius Malfoy is in Moscow."

Charlie whistled and Fletcher muttered an expletive Moody chose to ignore.

Lottie gave words to Moody's worst fears. "If Voldemort gets his hands on the Minister's son--"

"Then we're all screwed," Moody finished. "You might as well kiss this good-bye," he snapped bitterly, gesturing around at the Auror's offices. "Tomorrow it may be Voldemort's headquarters all because that brat wasn't content with his desk job. He had to go under my nose and whine to Daddy. And Black--"

"Egged him on, no doubt," said Snape, looking like a child on Christmas morning.

Dumbledore spoke up for the first time. "I remember then at Hogwarts, Alastor. They were as inseparable as brothers," he paused, considering. "I wouldn't be so hard on them. They're young."

"This is a war, goddammit!" Moody yelled, slamming his fist onto the table. "We can't afford for them to play around. Russia is not a priority right now. We have enough trouble right here on the home front!"

"Potter and Black are undoubtedly off on a little ego trip," Snape, of course. "They've been crossing lines ever since they were children. They undoubtedly have some foolhardy notion of capturing You-Know-Who themselves. They have no concern for the overall safety of the Ministry, but then again, Potter and Black were never two to think for anyone but themselves--"

"Severus," Dumbledore cut his former pupil off gently, and Moody was amazed to see an almost sad look on his heavily lined face. "I'd like to remind you all that James and Sirius are acting under the orders of the Minister and are probably not responsible themselves."

Snape looked as if he could have strangled something.

"Regardless," Moody scowled. "The Minister is an adult. He should know better than to send his son halfway across the world away from all of our careful protection."

"Since when had the Minister known better, Alastor?" Dumbledore said gently, a faint smile on his face. Moody grimaced as he thought of the bumbling, oblivious stumbling block that was Harold L. Potter. Potter was a pompous, arrogant fool, there was no denying it, and he often got in the way of Moody's meticulously laid plans. For the (supposed) head of the forces against Voldemort, Potter was far more trouble than he was worth.

"Right now," Moody began. "Miriken is the only contact the Auror Bureau has in Moscow, and though his loyalty is dubious, at the moment he's the best we've got. Potter doesn't know about him. Since he sent the boys to Moscow without my sanction, they are without a guide, unless Potter has a contact I know nothing of, which is doubtful. This brings the situation from bad to worse, considering we have Potter and Black wandering around the Soviet Union without a guide, expecting to stumble over a Communist-Death-Eater conspiracy that doesn't exist!" By the end of this tirade, Moody's voice had reached a hopeless roar. He threw his face into his hands, accepting the inevitable defeat.

"Knowing Black and Potter, they'll stumble over something," Snape smirked. He was the only one at the table who was smiling. "If I were you, I'd just wait for the Soviet prison camps to call."

Moody ignored the younger Auror's suggestion. "Whatever happens, Lucius Malfoy must not know that James Potter is in Moscow, unsupervised and unprotected. I cringe to think of what will occur if he find out."

"Lucius Malfoy," Arabella murmured, breaking the tension filled silence. She was stroking her pet kneazle absently, staring off into space. Moody wouldn't be surprised if the ancient Auror hadn't heard a single word of the last five minutes of conversation. "I remember his father... what was his name?"

"Angelo," Moody supplied impatiently.

"Ah yes," Arabella mused, snapping her fingers. "Angelo Malfoy." She frowned, biting her lip. "He was an Auror, wasn't he?"

"One of the best," Moody nodded, though he still couldn't see what Figg was getting at. Unbidden, Moody's eyes lingered on the seat where Snape now sat. This time last year, that chair had been occupied by none other than Angelo Malfoy. The famed Auror had finally surrendered ten months ago, not to a Death Eater's curse or a Basilisk's glare, but from a bad cold that festered into pneumonia. By the time the mediwizards had reached a diagnosis, it had been too late. Moody shook his head, there was no use in lingering on the past. What happened had happened and all of his wishings couldn't bring Angelo back from the grave.

"Whatever happened to Lucius? Why did he turn?" the old woman rambled. "The Malfoys have done so well for us in the past."

"You know those Slytherins--" Charlie broke off, turning red when he saw Snape's glare.

"If I remember correctly," Dumbledore mused. "Angelo himself was in Slytherin."

"I was in Slytherin, Charlie," Moody said, raising an eyebrow in amusement when the young Auror went as red as his hair. "As for Lucius, I suppose the Dark Lord offered him treasures we can only dream of."

Frank snickered. "As if the Malfoys need more treasures. They're as rich as Sultans as it is."

"Lucius is a bad egg," Moody snapped, his lip curling into a snarl. "They have them in the best of families. He is no Angelo and he never was."

Dumbledore shook his head slightly. "Lucius was never the same after the war, Alastor."

"Vietnam wasn't easy on any of us," Moody growled, turning to Dumbledore. "Look here," he pointed to a particularly jagged scar on his left cheek. "I got that off of one of those damned American curse wizards." If there was one thing Moody had no patience with, it was Dumbeldore's ridiculous notion of redeemable evil. He half believed that Dumbledore would give Voldemort himself a second chance if he repented his sins on bended knee. Moody had learned long ago that such idealistic notions were just the naive dreams of fools. He had seen too many corpses, too much pain to give any stock in the innate goodness of man. A Death Eater was a Death Eater through and through, evil to the core. Each "second chance" was another opportunity for the scum to curse you when your back was turned.

"But Lucius," Dumbledore said quietly, almost as pensive as Arabella. "He had a hard war, Alastor. A hard war."

----

 

"Narcissa!" The slender blonde brushed past her employer, a flush of anger and pain raising in her paper-white cheeks. Zvana reached out, her hand gripping the other's wrist, tightening around the slim circle of skin and bone. "Narcissa..."

"Let go of me," the girl cried out, wrenching from the older woman's grasp. "You make me sick!"

"Narcissa, please try and understand--"

"Why me?" she shook her head. "Why?"

"It had to be you," Zvana whispered, drawing the other girl closer. "There's no other witches. He'll give you what you want."

This quieted Narcissa, her pale blue eyes drifting over Zvana's shoulder. The owner got the feeling that Narcissa wasn't really speaking to her at all when she next opened her mouth. "So this my handsome prince, my hero on the white charger..."

"I'm sorry," Zvana said quietly, letting go of Narcissa's wrist.

The girl rubbed her arm, but she didn't turn away. "No you aren't," she said quietly. "You'd do it again."

Zvana knew this was true, but she shook her head for the girl's sake. "You'll learn to love him, as he already loves you," the lie came easily to her tongue. "You two will be happy together in England, in a huge house with thousands of servants. You will have a new gown for every hour of the day, spoils from all corners of the world--"

Narcissa shook her head. "You make me want to believe in fairy tales again, Zvana," she said softly. "But fairy tales are just lies," her lip trembled, "and love the greatest lie of all."

Zvana met the girl's terrified gaze head on, and she willed the child to believe her lie with every ounce of her being. It may just save her in the end. "I used to believe that too," Zvana said quietly, catching Narcissa's hand in her own and squeezing it tight. "I lost all faith in love, I though it was only a dream, created by poets to torture those of us foolish enough to believe in it. But then my love, the love that thought I had lost forever, came back to me," she hesitated, trying to weave her fiction with all the fluid grace of a Shakespearean sonnet. "Love is like catching the wind," Zvana smiled. "It's an impossible dream, but so painfully beautiful when it is realized."

"I can't believe that," Narcissa said, extricating her hand from Zvana's. She turned her eyes slowly to the door of the Roulette. Her voice trembled. "I wish to God I could but then I hear my cue."

"All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players," Zvana quoted pensively, her eyes turning to the Roulette's secret entrance, and her mind brushing upon the world held behind that door. A world of hope and decay, of filth and frivolity. It was a world where nothing made sense, and where everything had its place. It was the world that had corrupted this young girl, the world that had stolen her husband, and the world that now threatened to engulf her: mind, body, and soul.

Narcissa shook her head quietly. "Why do we always have to play such elaborate games?"

"Why?" Zvana smiled bitterly. "So we don't know the lies from the truth."

----

 

"Where's all my soul sisters? Let me hear y'all flow sisters... Hey sister, go sister, Soul sister, flow sister... Hey sister, go sister, Soul sister, go sister..." Sirius paused in the doorway of the Roulette, the opening stanza's of Patti LaBelle's 1973 hit serenading his less than glamorous entrance.

Despite the fact that James had told Sirius that the Roulette was hidden in a basement, he had found it slightly disconcerting passing through the idyllic hardwood hallways of Miriken's home, hallways that would not look out of place in an upper crust British home, and then entering what seemed to be another world entirely. A world of neon lights and cheap whores, a world where everything had its price. The Roulette was a world of pure fantasy, spun by criminals who dared to dream in the stifling world of Soviet Moscow. It was the escape hatch where Muscovites fled the daily grind, and submitted to their wildest fantasies in a club where a magic carpet ride was waiting in the back corridor, a short trip away.

The Roulette was the place where the comrades of Moscow came to forget the gun they were holding to their own heads, where they overlooked the dangerous gamble they played every time they entered the club, pulled the trigger. Soon enough all of the clubber's chambers would be empty save one, and on that day, Stalin would have his due.

And they would all pay it.

Even James.

Even Sirius.

The Roulette created dreams for the citizens of Moscow when they were dying in that bitter cold winter of 1979. In turn, the Roulette would shatter all dreaming for two boys from halfway across the world.

But tonight, things were just warming up. It was barely nine and the old adage "the night is young yet," was hovering on every tongue. The club had yet to be filled to its full capacity, though there was still a healthy crowd ready to start pissing the night away. Three women were on the makeshift stage, including the tattooed broad who had been singing "Auld Lang Sin" the night before. She didn't have much of a voice, she was screaming the words more than singing them, but that didn't matter to most of the Roulette customers, whose attention was focused mostly on her too-small bra, full to the bursting. "Hello, hey Joe, You wanna give it a go? Oh, Gitchi gitchi ya ya da da..."

Sirius had never considered himself conservative, but he found himself hard pressed to understand the wild whoops of the men watching, who were full of rabid enthusiasm. "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" The men let loose one collective cry that could only be interpreted as an affirmative.

Padfoot's disgust was not lost on James, who surveyed his friend with detached amusement. "You got laid last night, didn't you? Fucking hypocrite."

If there was one thing about James that Sirius couldn't stand it was his upper-crust smugness. Prongs was always so above-it-all. Far above his Mudblood friend, who was the proud descendent of an illustrious line of Liverpool factory workers.

"Boy drank all that magnolia wine, On her black satin sheets--"

"You were the one who wanted to come back," Sirius snapped defensively, crossing his arms in front of himself. James raised an eyebrow, amused at his friend's preschool protest. Prongs's face was lit with a smug holier-than-thou grin, which only fueled Sirius's annoyance more. True, he did have a reputation as a bit of a lady-killer, but there was a very thick line between breaking hearts and outright exploitation. Truth be told, he wanted to leave the Roulette as soon as possible, not because of the strippers and defiantly not because of the booze, but he was afraid of running into Narcissa. Their meeting that morning had been tense if anything, and he didn't fancy finding her in a compromised position. For that matter, he didn't fancy finding her in any position, and risk reminding himself of the previous night "Creole Lady Marmalade!"

"Look," James said, nodding towards the bar. Ulyanov was standing behind the counter, watching the club with what could only be deemed amusement. There was a shot glass of a clear liquid in his hand, either water or vodka. Considering that this was Russia, Sirius was willing to bet the latter. Ulyanov hadn't seen either of them yet, and Padfoot was more than happy to keep it that way.

"Going to the S.D.E., my ass," Sirius sneered, eager to have a diversion, anything to turn his mind from Narcissa. Every time he saw the slimy bastard, he liked him less and less.

"I wonder what he's thinking," James said thoughtfully, his friend's indiscretions forgotten. Ulyanov had set his glass down on the bar, and was now saying something in lowered tones to Sasha, who had appeared out of nowhere, a plain manila envelope in his hand.

"If we knew that," Sirius whistled. "We could go home."

James remained silent for a moment before replying with unnatural insight. "You really hate it here don't you?"

Sirius shrugged and looked away, Narcissa's face coming unbidden to his mind, stark white and contorted with terror as she huddled behind her tiny, ragged excuse for a sheet. He had done that. He bit his lip. "Yes." He said softly, surveying the club with quiet desperation. "Yes, I hate it here." Sirius paused for a second as James's stared at his friend in shock. "I want to go home, James."

Prongs could scarcely believe his ears. Not only was Sirius acting slightly off kilter, he now seemed to be loosing his much-famed nerve. "We have a mission, Sirius," he said resentfully, crossing his arms.

Sirius stared at Prongs with ill-disguised disgust. "Mission?"

"I promised my father that we'd get to the bottom of whatever is going on in Moscow," James said insufferably, once again oblivious to his friend's angst. "I promised him, Sirius, and I don't break my promises."

Sirius's jaw dropped a little bit, at James's utter naivete, but he knew when he was trapped in a loosing battle. Biting back a vindictive reply, he resigned himself to his fate. "Alright James"

James shook his head, taking Sirius's agreement for granted. "Look at him," he said scornfully, turning his eyes to where Ulyanov lurked by the bar. By now, he seemed to agree with Sirius that Ulyanov was defiantly up to something without outright admitting that his friend had been right all along. Suddenly, a spark came into Prong's eye, "I'm going over there."

"James..." Sirius began.

"You stay here," James ordered. "I'll take care of it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Sirius said, not really joking at all.

James ignored him. "You'll only incite Ulyanov, since you don't seem to able to control yourself. I don't want to have to tear you off of him."

"James--" but James had already gone, not even interested in Sirius's reply. He was lost in the un-navigable sea of smoke and sluts.

"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi... Ooh--" There was a sudden break in the music as if the tattooed shavala and her two backups were waiting for something. A rapt, expectant silence hung over the club. In spite of his anger at James and his disgust at his surroundings, Sirius found himself waiting too, eyes passing over the suddenly silent girls in their leather and fishnet. Shaking his head, Sirius wrenched his eyes away from the stage. He had to find James before the insufferable sot got himself shot. Sirius tried futilely to press his way through the crowd towards his friend but it was impossible, all of the clubbers were moving in the opposite direction, towards the stage. Turning around, Sirius saw what was the source of all the commotion.

The back door of the club had just slammed open, smacking against the opposite wall with a resounding bang. Silhouetted in the entrance, the friendly lights of Zvana's home encircling her like a solar eclipse, was Narcissa. "You make me sick," she spat. For the second time that night, Sirius's jaw dropped. The crowd went wild as all thoughts of the James vanished neatly from his mind. "You make me sick."

She pushed her way through the crowd. Her shirt was ripped down the center so it flapped about her lacy black bra and exposed stomach like a cloak. She took several steps into the club, tossing a lighted cigarette from her lips and into the crowd.

"I want you and I'm hatin' it--"

She strode through the club, taking off her ripped shirt all the while. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as she made her way up towards the stage. The lost little girl of this morning was gone completely, and in her place remained a woman so completely in charge that Sirius could hardly believe that it was the same person.

"Got me lit like a candlestick-- Get too hot when you touch the tip--"

A couple of the men sitting near the stage lifted her up onto their table, groping liberal amounts of her ass at the same time. Tattooed -lady from the stage tossed her the antique microphone, which she caught one handed.

"I'm feelin' it, I've gotta get a grip on this--"

Sweat glistened on her naked torso. Narcissa raised one hand, tracing the line of her exposed stomach, trailing between her breasts, up her throat, between her lips--

"And it's drivin' me crazy, Baby don't you quit--"

The men seated at the table she was standing on continued their catcalls, hands moving up the line of her fishnet tights until they reached the contours of her red skirt, the curve of her hips--

"Can't get enough of it, You got me--"

Her eyes, which had been closed through all of the mayhem, finally opened. Opened and focused on him. He could have sworn he saw her falter.

"Goin' again--"

She motioned to several of the oafs at her table and they lifted her up off of the table and onto the floor of the club. She was instantly swarmed by a beehive of clubbers, who swallowed her whole. Sirius lost sight of her, but not of the sound of her ravaged voice: "Baby, you got me goin' again--"

He turned his back to walk the other direction, futilely trying to push his way through the frenzied club towards the door, towards freedom, towards escape. Escape from Ulyanov and his schemes, the Roulette and its dreams, and the memory the memory of what he had done to her--

A hand caught his arm. He didn't even have to turn around to know that it was her. "You make me sick."

But then someone had bumped into them, pushed them together and his hands were around her neck and this time it wasn't her doing the talking as she pressed her lips to his and all reluctance seemed shallow and unnecessary.

I want you and I'm hating it

From somewhere very very far away the tattooed woman had picked up her song again, heavy techno beats backing her up, pulsing in a frenzied rhythm.

"Touch of her skin feeling silky smooth," she fumbled at the buttons of his denim jacket, the snow still lingering about its collar freezing her hands. But ice alone couldn't numb the intensity they felt as for the first time that night, his lips met hers, joined heat rising into a crescendo. "All right! Made the savage beast inside roar until he cried, More-"

"More," she whispered, breaking the desperate kiss.

"More, More!" The singer's voice hit a note it couldn't possibly sustain, and she cracked, coughing as the song continued to blare.

"Now he's back home, Doing nine to five," One of the backup singers took over.

"That's you," she giggled, her forehead resting against his.

He smiled, the entire world narrowing to her. "I don't wear gray flannel."

"Sleeping the gray flannel life-- But when he turns off to sleep, old memories keep--"

"And I'm just a memory..." her pensiveness from the previous night reared its head as her eyes wandered over his shoulder, to where moonlight was drifting in through the open window, pooling on the floor.

He laughed. "Pleasantly forgettable."

Abruptly, she pushed him away. Stumbling he knocked into a couple grinding a few paces away. They gave him a few good gov'nky to chew on before he turned away to find Narcissa. She was gone. This entire night was becoming more and more surreal, he felt as if he was trapped inside a Salvador Dali painting, time hanging sideways as sanity fled. "More, more, more!"

A flash of silver caught his eye. She was running through the club towards what he could only suppose was the exit.

"Narcissa!"

"Gitchi gitchi ya ya da da-- Gitchi gitchi ya ya hee-- Mocca chocolata ya ya!"

"Narcissa!" He knew she heard him, but she didn't turn around.

"Creole Lady Marmalade!"

"Narcissa..." he was out of breath, having run from the center of the club to the absolute fringes in mere seconds. Her hand was on the door knob, ready to open it, to shut him out forever, then she turned around...

"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir!" she turned around, singing in time with the tattooed wench and her cronies on the stage. But, it wasn't an indecent proposal of any sort. It was a death cry, a wounded sob as she advanced upon him, dead eyes blazing with the life of fury. She launched herself at him, he caught her fist as she lunged for his jaw. "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi! Isn't that what you wanted? All you wanted!" He didn't reply as she dug her nails deeper into his wrist. "Fuck me you bastard! It's what you came here for?" She screamed as he dragged her towards the door. "Voulez-vous... voulez-vous..." like the tattooed woman, her voice broke and her fury spluttered like a doused flame.

He opened the door and pushed her out, keeping a firm grip on her wrist all the while. "What are you doing?" she said, trying futilely to shake from his grip.

"Taking you upstairs," he said, avoiding her burning gaze.

"Oooh!" She laughed viciously. "So you want some voulez-vous after all? You almost had me believing that you were different, that..." she trailed off as he picked her up and began to walk up the stairs. "Stop it! Put me down! I have to go back... back..."

"You're going to bed," he repeated, feeling like he was reprimanding a five year old. "You're drunk."

"Of course I'm drunk!" She snorted, still clawing halfheartedly at his shoulders, trying to twist away. The idyllic smile faded from her face as she began to speak again. She lost all awareness that Sirius was even there. "How could I not be drunk after him?"

"Who?" Sirius said, afraid for a moment that she was talking about him.

"Mr. Malfoy," she replied, drawing the name out accenting each syllable. "Whoops!" She laughed wildly as he almost dropped her. "I think you're going to break my neck!"

"Not if I can help it," he said between clenched teeth as he hoisted her over his shoulder.

"How rape and pillage of you," she said in a sing-song voice.

They had reached the top of the stairs and he dropped her, steadying her with his hands as she looked about to keel over without any of his help. "I'm not going to rape you," he said firmly.

"Why?"

"Why would I want to?"

She broke away from his protective hand, saying a bit and then steadying herself on the banister. "Because I'm a whore."

He reached out a hand to brush her cheek, but then dropped it to his side when she flinched away. "No you're not."

Bitterly, she laughed. "Stop mocking me."

"No."

She didn't resist as he leaned forward into the kiss. Almost instantly she felt like a piece of a puzzle finding its mate, corner to corner, opposites together in perfect harmony, the resonance between them a spherical rhapsody.

Heat expanded in her chest, melting through the icy layers of fear and doubt coating her heart. She could hear his own heart beat against her and that tryst, that trust was enough.

Or maybe, she thought to herself, it just felt right because men were the only thing she knew how to do.

 

----

 

"Did I ever tell you the story about the vodka and the Muslims, Dmitri?" Sasha said, not looking in the least bit surprised to see James as he sidled up beside the bar, trying his best to look furtive. Ulyanov was nowhere to be seen.

"Er..." James was a little disappointed by Sasha's amiability. After Sirius's bizarre behavior, he felt the strong need to hit something very, very hard, and was secretly hoping Sasha would prove himself an easy target. James experienced violent feelings of any sort very infrequently, and this rarity only increased the power of his anger, which was now languishing like a popped balloon, deflated by the pinpoint of the bartender's friendliness. "No. I don't think you have..."

Sasha rubbed his hands together eagerly, leaning over the bar. "The year was somewhere back in the middle ages, I forget what exactly, and the Muslim horde rides up in front of the gates of Moscow with their usual amicable convert or die message," Sasha laughed at his own dull wit. "So the Grand Duke of Moscow suddenly thinks that kneeling down and praising Allah wouldn't be that bad of an idea until the Muslim chieftains start reading the laws of Islam. He agreed with quite a few of them and," Sasha's mischievous grin grew wider, "was particularly tickled by the ones involving a harem," James grinned, thinking of how much he wouldn't want to be the Muslim leader when Lily heard the word "harem". She'd go nothing short of berserk. "Then, the Muslim chieftain got to the law stating that alcohol was the lifeblood of Satan and it's a mortal sin to consume it." Sasha took a swig out his bottle of vodka for good measure. "That was the end of the peace talks then and there, Dmitri. The Grand Duke threw the Muslims out and Moscow was sacked and burned, but the Russians wouldn't convert if they had to give up their vodka. Now that," he said, filling up a shot glass for James and pushing it across the bar, "is something to drink to, eh Dmitri?"

James took the shot glass from the bar eagerly. "To the Muslims?" Sasha grinned, hoisting his own measure of vodka.

"To the Muslims," James agreed, in quite a good humor now. Sasha nodded at him and downed his drink. James was about to do the same, and then when the glass was at his lips, he paused. Sirius's voice was suddenly in his ear, whispering, whispering words that changed everything: Someone drugged us last night... when was the last time you passed out after one shot of vodka, James?

Suddenly Sasha's smile seemed not amiable but sinister, swerving across his face like a snake waiting to choke the life out of him. The wild strobe lights of the club were closing in around his tiny stool, focused on only him like a prisoner awaiting interrogating. A narrow band of sweat dripped down his face, splattering onto the bar.

"What's the matter?" Sasha hissed, eyeing James like a prize quarry. "It's only one shot of vodka, James."

For the first time that night-- for the first time in his life, James felt the eyes on the back of his neck. Eyes that had been following him ever since he had first set foot in the club, in Russia, eyes that he had made himself blithely ignore. And now, when he finally saw, it was too late. The shot glass slipped through James's fingers, shattering on the counter of the Roulette bar and splattering James with the drugged vodka. He watched at the potion burned a hole in the counter, hissing gently and letting off a thin column of smoke. Instinctively, he swallowed hard. "Don't press him, Sasha," Ulyanov emerged from the shadows behind James, completing the trap. "The boy is finally learning."

Sasha immediately straightened up as much as his ruined body would allow. It was as if he was addressing a general, a war hero. "What can I get for you, Doctor?"

"Nothing," Ulyanov said smoothly, his tiny calculating eyes focused on James and James alone. "Nothing except your guest here because..." he paused, inhaling slowly, "...because our little charades have gone on long enough. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Potter?"