Til The End

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`Til The End

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"Who pissed in your cauldron?" the big, dark-haired man smirked at his companion. The second man glowered ferociously.

"Weston."

The first man raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Charisse Weston. You know, Head Girl with you, blonde..."

"I know who she is, Nott!" the man rolled his eyes, "Just because I´ve been hit by a few bludgers doesn´t mean that I´m entirely stupid. I´m not Ludo Bagman, you know. But did Weston really piss in your cauldron?"

"The absolute bitch..." Hector Nott hissed out between clenched teeth and slammed his tankard down on the table. Several patrons of the Three Broomsticks looked up.

"All right, all right... How about we go outside? People are looking at you," his companion remarked.

"Bugger them all!"

"Sorry, but I think that might be illegal, and Madam Rosmerta might object. Besides, I don´t swing that way," the big man deadpanned. "Still, tell me what happened with Weston; I´m quite curious."

"You know how I´ve told you... there´s been a mole...."

"...NO..."

"Yes. BITCH!" Nott spat bitterly, "She´s been on their side the whole time. But..." and Nott´s face took on a look of sadistic anticipation, "She won´t be for long..."

"I see... and dare I ask what you´re going to do with her?"

"Oh, we are not going to do anything. Her father has already informed the Dark Lord. He will deal with her accordingly. We will just watch." Nott smiled cruelly, "I will dearly love to watch her plead for mercy."

His companion gave a noncommittal shrug, not voicing his belief that the day that Charisse Weston pleaded for mercy would be the day that he, Carl Warrington, would swallow his broomstick. The two men sat for a little while longer, and then Nott left, saying that he had to "prepare for tonight".

"All right then, goodbye!" Warrington called as the other man strode out of the pub. When the door had shut behind the man, Warrington beckoned for Madam Rosmerta, putting on the smile he generally used when greeting Falcons´ fans.

"Oh Madam Rosmerta, would you happen to have a bit of parchment and a quill I could borrow?"

* * *

Carl Warrington strode purposefully towards the post office after he had paid for his drink in the Three Broomsticks. He held in his hands a very small piece of parchment, carefully rolled. Entering the post office, he schooled his face into a typical "I´m filthy rich, famous and Slytherin, do as I say" look, and stalked over to the front desk. "The fastest owl you have, please, for London."

The receptionist at the Post Office nodded, then looked up to see his face. A moment later, she squealed.

"Aren´t you THE Carl Warrington of the Falmouth Falcons?!"

"Yes I am, woman, kindly desist with the adulation until you have gotten me my owl, if you please," Warrington said impatiently.

An autograph, a photo and a pair of tickets later, Warrington finally got his owl, and tied his note to its leg. He watched the bird fly out of the post office silently. "All right, let´s hope that the feathered beast gets to where it should on time..."

* * *

As a tawny owl was making its way to an office in the Ministry of Magic´s Department of Mysteries, Charisse Weston felt a sharp twinge on her forearm. Glancing down, she saw the Dark Mark burning coal-black against the skin of her arm, and her eyes widened. There was no planned meeting this evening of any sort, to the best of her recollection. Oh, well, she was being summoned, and in order to avoid suspicion, she must go. There was a soft pop, and she Disapparated.

Twenty minutes later, an owl landed on her windowsill.

In the office next door, Cho Chang finished organizing the last of her papers for the day, and glanced at her watch. It was six o´clock in the evening, high time for her to go home and rest. "Hmm, I think that I shall see if Charisse is willing to go and dine with me tonight," she reflected as she stood up and put on her cloak. After gathering her things, she walked out of her office and knocked on the door of Charisse´s.

No answer. Cho frowned. This was highly unusual. She certainly did not hear Charisse leaving. She opened the door slightly, and peered in. No sign of Charisse anywhere, although at the windowsill, a large tawny owl was tapping the pane impatiently, trying to get in.

Cho opened the window and let the bird fly in. It dropped a small piece of parchment on the desk, and flew out just as quickly as it had come. "Hmm, I guess that she will just have to get to this piece of correspondence tomorrow, then." Cho reflected to herself.

She was just about to leave when she noticed that the parchment had partially unrolled itself on the desk, and that a word, written in a vaguely familiar, bold handwriting, in green ink, was visible. BEWARE.

Cho´s eyes widened, and silently apologizing to Charisse for snooping into her private correspondence, she unrolled the rest of the small sheet of parchment and read the message. And felt her heart drop like a stone to the ground.

"BEWARE. YOUR DECEPTION HAS BEEN DISCOVERED. DO NOT OBEY SUMMONS. HE WILL KILL YOU."

It took Cho only a few minutes to piece together the meaning of the message. Somehow, someone in the Dark Lord´s Inner Circle had discovered Charisse´s true loyalties, and had informed Voldemort of the spy in their midst. Cho shivered. And Charisse was gone. She must... oh GOD... she must have been summoned! She was going to her own death!

Frantically, Cho ran out of the office into the pensieve room. Making a beeline to Charisse´s pensieve, she restlessly sifted through the thoughts siphoned inside, trying to figure out where Death Eater meetings took place.

An agonizingly long, incalculably precious ten minutes later, she Disapparated from the Ministry for the graveyard.

Only to be thrown back about fifty feet from where she had tried to go. Apparation wards had been put up. This was not looking good at all. She tore forward. As she went onward, she heard them. The screams... oh, the screams...!

"CRUCIO!" A high, cold voice that sent chills down her spine, followed by unintelligible feminine shrieks. About two hundred feet away, there stood a circle of black-robed figures, all wearing masks, surrounding a small, crouched figure in the fetal position on the ground. The tallest of the figures, without a mask, red eyes gleaming evilly in the light of the rising moon, had a wand pointed at the figure on the ground. Cho halted. There were ten men there, including the Dark Lord. There was nothing that she could do.

"It is not a pleasant situation for me to contemplate," Lord Voldemort said coldly as the girl continued to scream, "That one of my Inner Circle... one who had sworn lifelong loyalty to me... was in fact a traitor and a spy. Miss Weston, we had such high hopes for you, too."

He lifted his wand, and the screams died down to gasps for air. Voldemort continued, "You... Charisse Weston, I had wished to take the place of Regan Lestrange, at least until we had freed her from Azkaban. You... Head Girl... so talented... so much promise for your age... you would have been great indeed. BUT YOU BETRAYED US!" the last few words were said in a menacing snarl, and the other black-robed figures made sounds of scorn and hatred, some spitting upon Charisse´s trembling form.

"Do you not have anything to say, Miss Weston? Aren´t you going to... beg for mercy?"

As Cho watched with horror-stricken eyes, Charisse, blanched with pain and still shaking like a leaf in the wind, got to her feet with great effort. There was a thin trail of blood coming from her lips, and her robes were torn to shreds. And yet, there was defiance and pride shining in her pale blue eyes. "I´ll die before I beg, Voldemort," she said rather hoarsely, but still in a voice filled with dignity, "You will never win. There will be others, mark my words."

The red, glowing eyes narrowed into angry slits, and the voice became an icy hiss, "As you wish, then." Voldemort raised his wand, and pointed it directly at Charisse´s chest. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

And at that moment, as the blonde girl dropped, lifeless, like a stone to the ground, as the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters Disapparated, Cho Chang, tears streaming down her face, ran forward, completely ignorant or uncaring of the fact that her legs were getting badly bruised from repeated impact with jutting headstones. Nearly blinded by her tears, she fell on her knees to where her friend had fallen a scant few seconds ago.

"CHARISSE!"

But Charisse Weston lay dead on the ground, blonde hair a tangled halo around her head, her face forever frozen in an expression of quiet pride and strength, blue eyes wide and unseeing, fixed unnervingly up at Cho. She was still warm.

And Cho Chang crouched there by the dead girl´s side, in a crumpled heap, crying her eyes out for the second bosom friend that she had lost to the force of evil.

* * *

When she awoke, she was in a hospital bed in St. Mungo´s. She sat up, owl-eyed, and saw several sorrowful, familiar faces looking down at her. Cecilia Bode, looking careworn, stood at the foot of her bed. Her mother and father were on her left side. And... someone was holding her hand. Roger.

It took Cho perhaps a minute to realize what was going on, and to remember all that had happened. The tears started again, falling down silently her face. "Charisse... Charisse... they..."

"We know," Roger said quietly and sadly, putting an arm around her shoulders for comfort. Cho buried her face in the crook of his neck and sobbed.

"I saw... I saw..." she managed to choke out brokenly between sobs. He simply ran a hand slowly up and down her back, in an effort to comfort her.

The hospital room was entirely silent except for the sound of her tears. Roger simply held her, knowing that there was nothing that he could say or do at the moment. Her head buried in his neck, her shoulders shaking, Cho wept until she was too drained to cry any more.

And then, Roger spoke, his voice rather husky and deadened, "They had cast the Dark Mark over the graveyard. We went to investigate and found her, and you, unconscious, lying next to her. Cho... I thought you were dead! Your lips had turned blue with the cold." He pulled her slight form into a hug, "Kindly don´t do that again, all right?"

Cecilia continued, "She has been buried. Mordred Weston," and here the Unspeakable spat, as if the name was a vile poison, "held an extravagant funeral for his `poor daughter´. Gave a fancy, polished, absolutely and disgustingly fake eulogy. She´s been buried in the graveyard, though. Not in the family´s burial grounds by their manor. She´s still an outcast, in death as in life."

Cho remained silent. Roger looked at her in concern, one arm still around her. "You´re to stay here until you´re better. You shan´t recover until you´ve rested some more. Ms. Bode here has excused you from work for as long as need be." He gently lay her back down on the bed, and pulled the covers up to her chin.

She lay and closed her eyes, but didn´t relinquish her grip on his hand. And so it was, that he sat next to her, an expression of sorrow and sympathy on his face, he held her hand and tried to give her his strength as she fell into the sleep of exhausted grief that night.

* * *

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Carl Warrington was steadily and methodically getting Hector Nott plastered with Firewhiskey at a rather risqué pub known as "The Shifty Niffler" in Knockturn Alley. Carl had chosen the place very specifically. It was rather pricey, and also rather sleazy. This meant that any goings on that would take place there would not leave the room, and also that no respectable Quidditch-player-crazy females would be found there. True, it would be a kick in the wallet, but Carl Warrington had money to spare. Playing professional Quidditch paid quite well.

Nott, once sufficiently sloshed, needed no encouragement at all to tell Warrington everything that had happened the night of Charisse´s murder. With what would have been a sadistic grin, bleared by the effects of several Firewhiskey shots, the last few infused with truth potion from a vial in Carl´s hand, Nott recounted how Charisse had Apparated there, and how himself, his father, her father, Lucius Malfoy, Walden Macnair, Erasmus Parkinson and his father Nigel Parkinson, Demetrius Avery, Xavier Bulstrode and the Dark Lord had interrogated her. Of how she had not denied the charge, and of how the Dark Lord had cast the Cruciatus Curse upon her three times. Of how he, Hector Nott, had come forth and slapped her face as she writhed in pain. Of how all of them had spat at her.

"Bloody bitch didn´t plead for mercy... what a fool..." Nott slurred. Warrington allowed himself a very small, grim smile.

"Of course she didn´t. And then?"

Nott gave a drunken leer. "The Dark Lord allowed me, as one of the ones who had found her out to..." his voice died down to become inaudible, and he laughed lecherously, "She didn´t even notice... in her pain..."

Warrington´s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, "You... RAPED her... while she was under the Cruciatus Curse..."

Nott laughed ghoulishly, "She was a virgin too..."

Warrington remained silent, and gestured for another Firewhiskey. A slip of his hand, and once again, the drink was imbibed with Veritaserum. And then, before he handed the drink to Nott, he took out a sheet of parchment and an exact-quotes quill, laying them down on the seat next to him, the quill poised over the parchment.

"Wait... Nott, I´m lost... what did you do again?"

"You´ve been hit by a few too many bludgers, ole boy..." Nott replied in a drunken voice, "We Summoned her. The Dark Lord cast the Cruciatus Curse upon her. She was a virgin when she arrived, but after I was done with her..." he paused and laughed fiendishly again, "The Dark Lord, my father, her father, Lucius Malfoy, Walden Macnair, Erasmus and Nigel Parkinson, Demetrius Avery and Xavier Bulstrode all watched. The Dark Lord cast the curse on her three times. Then stopped and asked if she would beg for mercy. She didn´t, said she´d rather die. He cast the Killing Curse. We Disapparated." Nott gulped down the last of his drink, and slumped, unconscious, on the tabletop, snoring like a hog.

Warrington laid a handful of Galleons upon the table, then stood up, his face stonily expressionless. Levitating his companion in front of him, he approached the fireplace at the back of the establishment, and threw in some floo powder. As the fire burned green, he muttered a Memory charm at Nott, and then, threw the unconscious man into the flames, shouting the name of the Nott estate. After watching Nott disappear in front of him, Carl Warrington stalked out of the pub.

* * *

Two days later, Cho Chang left St. Mungo´s, a trifle thinner and paler than she had been, but otherwise healthy. A bouquet of white lilies-of-the-valley in her hand, she headed towards the graveyard.

Charisse had been buried under the boughs of a weeping willow at the western side of the cemetery. Cho walked slowly towards the spot, then stopped about thirty feet away, rubbing her eyes in surprise.

She was not the only visitor to the grave. Standing by the headstone was a tall, stalwart man with dark hair. He bent down, and dropped something at the foot of the grave. Just as he stood up, he turned his head slightly, and Cho´s eyes widened in recognition.

"Carl Warrington?!"

She quickly made her way forward to ask him what he was doing here, but before she had gone two steps, he had Disapparated with a pop. Something told her that she would not be seeing him again.

Rather dazedly, Cho walked forward, until she was standing in the same spot that Warrington... was it Warrington...? had vacated a moment ago. She knelt to set her flowers down, and gasped softly.

Lying at the foot of her grave, polished as shiny as if it were brand new, winking up at her in the sunlight, was Charisse´s Head Girl badge.

Her flowers forgotten, Cho Apparated to the entrance of Hogwarts.

* * *

Minutes later, she was sitting in the circular office of Professor Dumbledore, who gazed at her with a benevolent but careworn smile. "Miss Chang, a pleasure. Is there something I could help you with?"

"Professor Dumbledore... I... you´ve heard of the death of Charisse Weston...?" Cho asked.

Dumbledore nodded his head gravely, "She died bravely and heroically. The good people in the wizarding world will miss her."

Cho nodded, and wondered what the best way was for her to ask her question. Finally, she spoke again, softly, "I visited her grave today."

Dumbledore looked at her steadily, "Ah, so. You might have met Mr. Warrington there."

"So it was Warrington..." Cho muttered, half to herself. Dumbledore nodded.

"Mr. Warrington came to my office early this morning. Imagine my surprise, for according to Madam Hooch, he should probably have been at Quidditch practice, as it was the beginning of a new season. But, here he was, and he told me that he had something that might be of great interest to me, and he would give it to me quite willingly if I would do a favor for him.

I was quite surprised when I saw what it was that he gave me. It was a piece of parchment with an account of a conversation he had with a Mr. Hector Nott, who seemed to have been a friend of his."

Cho grimaced. Nott was a Death Eater. Dumbledore continued.

"It was written by an exact-quotes quill, and gave the names and a recounting of exactly what had transpired that night of Miss Weston´s murder. Mr. Warrington said that Mr. Nott had been under the influence of Veritaserum, and that this was exactly what he had revealed. I have heard that you had seen the end portion of her ordeal, but... perhaps it is best that you did not see all of it." Dumbledore shook his head sadly, before concluding, "In any case, Mr. Warrington, after handing me the information, and telling me that I could give it to whomever I wished, made a most peculiar request in exchange. He asked that I give him Miss Weston´s Head Girl badge. I do not know what he had planned to do with it. Perhaps he means to keep it as a souvenir of their collaboration as Head Boy and Head Girl of their class?"

Cho found herself rendered absolutely speechless.

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