The Years of Terror

Chapter Three

With a flick of her wand, Dorcas charmed the sugar bowl to drop three cubes of sugar into her cup of coffee, the pitcher of cream to pour a generous amount of milk (magically flavored to taste like buttered rum) and charmed a nearby silver spoon to dance in the pearl-streaked murky coffee. She stared moodily at the curling steam which somehow seemed to form a shadowy image of Moody's face.

She drummed her fingers on the table and glared into her coffee as the steam drifted away. The interview had not gone well. She had not really expected it to, though she had not been prepared for the suspicion -- which was odd. Moody seemed to know that she had considered being an Auror. In fact, Professor Flitwick, when giving her his career advice, had highly encouraged her to go into the Auror business. Why had Moody seemed so suspicious? He had seemed almost annoyed when she had said that Dark Wizards just lurked in black alleyways.

A sound like a dozen popping crackers ruptured outside. Terrified shrieks echoed through the walls, shivering the windows. Knocking her chair away from the table, her hand gripped upon her wand, Dorcas sprang towards the window and jerked the curtain open. She froze.

A dozen robed and hooded men were circling the next-door Muggle house. One of them, a tall gangly fellow, held the wife at wand point. She was jerking and screaming in pain -- a victim of the Cruciatus Curse. The heavy double paned windows could not smother her shrieks. The husband was being dangled in the air, various hexes and curses being put upon his person. The daughter lay immobile, sprawled across the doorstep...and all the while, the robed men laughed.

Dorcas froze...her mouth partly open. How could they do this...those people were just Muggles...With a snap she closed her mouth, took a deep breath, and with a popping crack, disapparated. She appeared a few feet from the nearest Death Eater, who happened to be the one torturing the wife. She could almost see the shadowy image of a leer underneath his cloth mask. Pointing her wand at him, she said, "Expelliarmus!" Immediately his wand sprang from his hand, arching gracefully in the air. Taking careful aim, she shrieked, "Diffindo!" There was splintering crack, and the wand fragmented into two, tattering pieces.

By this time, the other robed men had noticed her and were shouting their own curses and jinxes at her. The red ball of a stunning spell shaved her leg as she dived behind a nearby bush and Apparated into the Muggle's house. She crouched beside their sofa and breathed heavily. What were they doing...why did no officials from the Ministry come? Where were the bloody Aurors?

She couldn't think about that now. She had to get up. Help those people. Climbing cautiously to her feet, she glanced towards the front door. The shadows of the masked men fell upon the threshold. She would have to get out another way...creeping towards a window, she broke the glass with a softly muttered spell. Just as she was about to scramble through the opening, she felt her feet flip out from under her. Her chin rammed into the window sill, while the palm of her hand fell upon a jutting edge of glass. She could feel warm blood trickle down her hand, and a leering voice say, "Going somewhere, Pureblood? Locomotor Mortis," he whispered softly.

Her legs snapped together. Flipping on her side, she glared at him.

"Trying to help them, are you, Traitor?" came a silky voice under the grey hood. "Trying to help the filthy Muggles. You ...a Pureblood..." he tutted softly to himself. "What a disgrace."

She swallowed and said, "Better die a disgrace than die a murderer." She could feel the invisible bond around her legs loosen.

"Die? Whoever said anything about dieing?"

Dorcas received the distinct impression that the hooded man was smirking beneath his mask.

"Isn't that what people usually do to traitors?" she asked, her voice shaking a little. "Kill them?"

"Oh yes. But you can't deny us our little fun now. You've already denied the members of one of our ranks their wands --" Dorcas smiled in spite of herself -- "and I'm sure that he would love to turn your own wand against you. Speaking of which --" He lifted his own wand and said, "Accio Wand!"

"PROTEGO!"

She gripped her wand tightly as she felt the lure of the spell try to pull it from her. Struggling to her feet, she shouted, "Silencio! Petrificus Totalus!" She watched with some satisfaction as the robed man keeled over and landed with a resounding thud on the floor.

Running towards the broken window, she climbed through it, and dropped into the dying garden below. Pointing her wand at the window, she hissed, "Reparo!"

She could still hear the angry shouts and taunts of the robed men. She smiled in spite of herself. She had taken one of them out of the fight and had broken his wand...if only she had been able to break more of them. She peeked aroud the corner of the house. The man, who was still hovering in the air, was now being rammed by two of the robed men into his roof.

Gathering her concentration, thinking how dearly she would love to send the wands of those two men into oblivion, she pointed her wand at them, and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

The wands sprang from their hands, flipping through the air. As the man plummeted to the ground, she shouted, "Accio Muggle!" She dodged out of the way as he zoomed towards her, landing on his bottom in front of her.

His face was white and pale and he jerked away from her as she tugged him to his feet. "Come on," she snapped, pushing him 'round the house and into the cover of some dying hydrangea bushes. "I'm not going to hurt you. If you haven't noticed I just saved your life. By Merlin! I've got to get your wife now and your daughter and where are the bloody Aurors when you need them?" she shouted. She couldn't fight all of those men alone...she couldn't keep apparating and disapparating...they would catch her again and if they did, she might not be so lucky as to escape once more. She was outnumbered six to one. "You stay there," she ordered gripping her wand and wondering what curse she should use.

There were more popping noises and Dorcas groaned, "Not more of them...please not more of them."

Alastor Moody, with a dozen other Aurors behind him, materialized in front of her. His face was rigid with fury, his eyes glinted in the sunlight. Within seconds they were dueling with the robed men. One fell, his body rigid with the Petrificus Totalus jinx. One was knocked out of the action with a simple stunning spell.

After a few minutes, it appeared that the robed men had come to the conclusion that they had had enough. Cracks rang in the air as they vanished.

"Moody!" she called, trying to summon a vaguely happy smile to her face. "Glad that you could make it!"

"You all right, Meadowes?" growled Moody as they both hurried to the wife and daughter.

"Besides a bit of tingling in the legs when one of the men bound them, I'm fine," she replied as she knelt beside the girl.

She was sprawled face down on the stone steps. Gently pulling her onto her back, Dorcas looked at the pale taut white face: fear was frozen in her pale flesh. Her blue eyes were glazed. "Merlin..." Dorcas whispered.

She could feel the tears prick her eyes. Looking up at Moody she said, "She's dead."

He didn't seem surprised. In fact, he seemed to have been expecting it. He gestured up towards the sky.

A green shadowy figure clouded the noonday sun: a human skull with a serpent crawling through its jaws. Dorcas blinked.

"We saw it over one other house just a few hours ago," Moody said, glaring at it. "There was a death there too. That's why we weren't able to come sooner. We were still cleaning up."

"Who were they, Moody?" she asked. "Why would men kill an innocent girl with the Unforgivable Killing Curse?" It was sick...civilized people didn't do that. She could feel her stomach clench and she willed herself not to vomit.

"She was a Muggle, Meadowes, that's why."

"That's it? Well that's a rubbish reason."

A chorus of cracks rang around them and three St. Mungo nurses hurried over to the wife who was still whimpering on the ground, and to the husband who was kneeling over her.

There was another pop and a Ministry official appeared. His brown hair curled in wavy wisps and his tie hung loosely around his neck. "Duncan Eliot," he said. Glancing over at the dead girl, he said, "Not again. This is getting ridiculous. Stupid fanatics. Who died this time?"

"This is more than a case of simple fanatics, Eliot," Moody said sharply.

Dorcas frowned at Duncan Eliot. Who died this time? What did he think this was, another egg that a bratty child dropped onto the kitchen floor? "Her name is Sarah Henry," she said.

"Sarah Henry...Sarah Henry," he said. His eyes widened. "She was supposed to go to Hogwarts this September."

"What?" Dorcas asked.

"She's a Muggle-born," Moody said, frowning.

"A Mudblood," Dorcas whispered, ignoring the sharp glances thrown in her direction. "Well that's what they're called by some," she snapped. "Maybe that's why she was killed. Dirty blood. What do you do with dirt...you get rid of it."

Moody stared at her through narrow slits. "You think that's why she was killed, Meadowes?" he asked.

"I was called a blood traitor, Moody. I think that that has something to do with it."

"I think a more important question," Moody growled, "was how they could have known that she was a Muggle-born witch?"

"Well the Ministry keeps tabs, of course," said Eliot in a bored tone of voice.

"Which means that there is someone inside the Ministry leaking information," Moody snapped, glaring at Eliot.

Dorcas's brows shot up. Not only had these fanatics attacked before, but they had contacts in the Ministry. She didn't even want to think about the effects of that. "I think we need a butterbeer," she said suddenly. Waving her wind in the air, five bottles appeared in the air. She charmed one of them to Eliot, one to Moody, one to the wife who was being attended to by the nurses, and one to the husband who stood looking anxiously on. She took a long gulp from the fifth bottle and said, "Well, I'll let you two sort this out."

Sipping her butterbeer, she walked slowly towards the husband. "I'm sorry," Dorcas murmured.

"Why did they kill my daughter?" the husband asked.

Dorcas frowned, wondering whether she should tell him the truth or to lie and say she just got in the way. She frowned. Lies were false comfort. "She was a witch," she said softly. "Which means that she would be able to do magic like me and those men. But she was born to Muggle, non-magic, parents: you two," she said, pointing to him and his wife. "So they killed her. Because she was dirty. Because her parents were not magic like them. I am sorry."

She patted him sympathetically on the shoulder, and then walked slowly back to her house while Ministry officials wiped their memories, telling them that their daughter had been killed when she had foolishly run into the street. How could they do that? How could they make the child's death her fault? Her parent's fault because they had not taught her properly? Their daughter had been a witch. They had the right to know the truth. She shook her head, ignoring the tears that leaked from her eyes. It just wasn't right.

Chapter 4

Dorcas fiddled with the brass handle of her front door before she realized that she had locked it that morning as she had left for the Auror head-quarters -- had it only been that morning? It seemed like ages ago, she thought. She whispered, "Alohomora!" With a soft click, the dead bolt slid out of place and the door eased open.

She slipped inside her home, shoes clicking on the dusty stone-tile of the entry hall, and flicked the door behind her as she stepped into the living room. Walking towards the kitchen, with her wand hanging loosely in her hand, she peered into the twilight that had settled in her house. Narrowing her eyes, she squinted into the shadows that spilled from the corners of the living room like a dark potion oozing from a broken vial --

SLAM

With a yelp, she whirled around, clutching her black wand in her sweaty palm. "Stupefy!" The red-balled curse erupted from her wand point and hurled itself forwards, colliding with the front door. With startling speed, it bounced back towards Dorcas. "Protego!" Dorcas blinked and heaved a sigh as she stared at the door. "It's only you," she muttered to the door.

But what if someone was waiting on the porch, trying to lure her outside? One of those masked men coming after her because she had helped the Mudblood child. Creeping towards the door, she peered into the peep hole.

Contorted Ministry officials glided by, quickly being absorbed by the rim of the glass. Eliot was standing just in viewing distance, his hands shoved inside his pockets, a bored gaze sprawled across his pale face as he watched the staff and some Aurors disapparate.

How silly of her...masked men wouldn't be lurking on open porches with all of the Aurors and Ministry officials hanging around. They would be hiding in shadows and...she stopped, as she realized that they could be in her house.

A cold feeling clenched in her stomach. Waving her wand, she enchanted stray candles to burst in flame, cupboards to fling their doors open, closets to thrust their clothes apart to reveal any hiding masked men.

Satisfied that no lurking masked men in her house waiting to do her in, she hurried to the nearby window and pushed the dusty curtain aside. Looking up, she could vaguely see the blurred green shadows of a human skull with a serpent tongue hover in the evening sky; it's neon edges were smudged by the wind, yet the Mark persisted to hang above the Muggle house like a transfigured hand of death.

Death...the Muggle child was dead, murdered by maniacal mad men. They were probably laughing, thinking how grand it was that they had gotten rid of impure blood. Her eyes narrowed at the thought as she walked angrily towards the kitchen.

With a flick of her wand, she heated a pot of water and charmed it to fill her cup. She glared moodily into the steam, absentmindedly dunking a bag of dried herbs into the water, as her mind replayed the events of the past few hours like a broken record.

That Eliot -- he couldn't have cared less. And why had it taken the Aurors so long to get there? Surely the Ministry was more effectual than that -- or did they only care to be effectual when a student broke the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery? She snorted. No time was wasted in sending an owl with a letter stuffed with pompous indignation to the offender. But no. Somehow catching and reprimanding practicing underage student was loads more important than rescuing helpless Muggles from the hands of murdering men!

The Muggle man...blood appearing on his forehead as over and over he was rammed head first into the roof. The girl sprawled lifeless across the threshold, trod upon as if she was nothing but a dirty welcome mat. The mother twitching and moaning from the lingering ripples of intense pain of the Cruciatus Curse...

The cup shivered on the saucer as she seethed with anger, anger at the fact that the Ministry was not more competent. It cracked, splattering Dorcas with scalding water. Pieces of china sailed through the air amid a rain of red and gold sparks that had burst from the wand she still held in her hand.

"Bloody hell!" she shouted, jumping up and brushing the hot water off her arm. Pointing her wand at the cup she said, "Reparo." Then she snapped Evanesco to the spilt tea.

There was a sharp rap on the door. She stiffened, wondering who it could be. Creeping towards the door, wand at the ready, Dorcas told herself that if the masked men had really come to do her in, they wouldn't knock politely and inform her about what they were going to do. That would be a bit anti-productive to a nice surprise attack, wouldn't it? Yet it would be the perfect ruse...what normal person would expect a pack of murdering maniacs to knock on the door like civilized wizards?

She pressed her eye to the peephole and saw the hugely warped form of Moody's wooden face. His dark eyes flicked around and she could have sworn that he was fingering his wand.
She opened the door with as big a smile as she could muster and saw that Eliot was with him too. Her smile twisted into a glower that struggled to retain the mask of politeness.

She ushered them into the living room and gestured them to a plump plum colored couch while she herself curled up on a ragged, worn, rocking chair.

There was an awkward pause. Eliot looked around with a bored expression while Moody stared fixedly at her. Dorcas shifted uncomfortably. She wished that he would stop -- she felt as if he was inspecting her thoughts and feelings. With a cough, she said, "Well?"

Flicking his eyes from her, Moody fixed them on Eliot. "He seems to think that you might have some information about those masked men."

Eliot blinked his eyes wide open, as if trying to cast off the bored expression. However, it seemed to be stuck with a permanent sticking charm and he failed miserably. Eliot fished a quill and parchment from his robes and asked in a dull voice, "Name?"

"Dorcas Meadowes."

"And tell me what happened here today."

Dorcas swallowed. No, she didn't want to tell him. He didn't care that an eleven year old girl had died, that her parents had been tortured, that their memories had been altered to a lie. Fixing on a portion of wall directly above Eliot's shoulder, she told him how she had heard apparation cracks; how she herself had apparated and had tried to save them.

"You do realize that you interfered in Auror Business," Eliot drawled, interrupting her. His poised quill dripped watery ink onto the parchment.

"I'm afraid I was more concerned with their lives than with bothering with Ministry protocol," she said sarcastically.

"I suppose, Eliot," Moody growled, glaring at him, "you would have preferred Meadowes to sit on her hands and tell herself that people must die because Ministry protocol and procedure must not be interfered with." His wooden face was carved in an expression of the deepest disgust.

"Yes, especially since you gits took so bloody long to come to the rescue," Dorcas snapped, resisting the urge to hex Eliot.

"I got there as quickly as I could, Meadows," Moody said swiftly.

Eliot rolled his eyes upward and said, "I am merely saying it was very foolish for you to interfere --"

"If she hadn't interfered the whole family would have died," Moody snarled, his gnarled fingers digging into the couch with restrained rage.

"--interfere with Auror business, especially as you are not a qualified and certified Auror to efficiently deal with Dark Wizards. By so doing you also put more innocent lives in danger --"

"Are you sure you're not a dustpin, Eliot?" Dorcas snapped, "because you sure are acting like one with all the rubbish you're throwing out."

"--as well as potentially impeding Auror --"

"Oh, eat frogs, Eliot," Dorcas snapped, pointing her wand at him.

He stopped reciting, looking as if he was suppressing vomit. Hastily standing up, he dropped his quill and parchment and fumbled for his wand.

A green-colored frog burst from his mouth and landed in a cascade of spit onto the carpet at his feet. Dorcas' stomach clenched and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

With an angry, horrified glare at Dorcas, Eliot vanished with a crack.

"A bit old for that, aren't you, Meadowes?" asked Moody with the barest perception of a wink.

"The git!" she shouted. "What does he think he's playing at? He basically told me I should have let them die! How could he say that? How could he even think that!" She spluttered, her hands clenching. "That cold hearted little cockroach..."

He pulled his wand from his back pocket and growled a Vanishing Spell at the frog and said, "Meadowes, I want you to listen to me. Eliot, incompetent fool that he is, wasn't wrong when he said that you had put more innocent lives in danger -- namely yours, of course. I wouldn't be surprised if you were marked as a future target. Anything special about this house?"

A target?

She closed her eyes. She couldn't think about that now. But what did he mean by anything special about her house? "No," she said, frowning. "It's just your typical Muggle house."

With a few flourishes of his wand and several muttered spells, Moody said, "There. A few protective spells and Stealth Spells should alert you in case they try to kill you in your sleep." He stopped and said quietly, "We could use you...you would make a good Auror, Meadowes."

She smiled faintly, and said, "Thanks, Moody."

He swiveled his head round at her and barked, "Constant Vigilance, Meadowes." Dorcas nodded as Moody apparated from the house.