Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat

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Chapter 43: The Hand of Voldemort

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The shrine to Voldemort at Malfoy Manor was located in a small room deep in the interior of the house. Hermione could feel the strength of the wards protecting it as she passed through riding on Malfoy's shoulder; the elves fell silent and backed away rather than following him in. When the door closed behind him it seemed to seal them into complete silence.

Velvet draped the walls, and magically sustained candles kept the floor in perpetual light. The room's only other feature was a small altar upon which a statuette of a snake lay coiled. In the center of its embrace rested a small bronze sphere.

Instead of going straight to the altar, Malfoy stopped and leaned his back against the door, exhaling a deep sigh. Then he reached up with both arms, and Hermione could hear joints pop as he stretched his whole body. Next he shook his hands out, as if loosening them.

It took Hermione a moment to realize what he was doing: he was limbering up, like an athlete before a competition.

Or a raid, she thought with a sinking feeling.

---

Voldemort's bid for living immortality had ended forever with his eighth and final defeat at the hands of Harry Potter many years before. But although dead, Voldemort was far from gone; in the years since his downfall he'd attained a sort of quasi-divinity in the eyes of his followers.

Whether this meant he actually did still exist in some godlike state, or if in name and idea only, was a matter of debate. Of course, all divine entities endured such question, so this was hardly unique to Voldemort.

If he did exist, his ability to affect the real world seemed to be limited. He might be able to communicate his wishes to his followers in vague terms. He might be able to perform brief interventions in times of dire need, or assist in such rituals as required the help of a higher power - the Dark Link, for example. But in the absence of physical manifestations of Voldemort himself, or the creation of great miracles, concrete proof of his continued existence was difficult to come by. Ultimately it came down to what a person believed. And enough people actually believed in Voldemort that the Death Eaters had proved impossible to stamp out, even so many years after their Dark Lord's demise.

---

Whatever Malfoy's issues with painkillers, someone had at least taught him how to warm up properly. By the time he was done, even Brunhilde Stompkinder, the twins' slavedriving ballet instructor, would have been satisfied.

Afterward his breaths were coming light and quick from the mild exertion, and a thin sheen of sweat gleamed in the candle-light.

Malfoy found the Time Turner in a pocket and pulled it out. He looped the thin gold chain around his right wrist, then twined it around several more times and dropped it through itself to leave the ouroboros dangling on a short tether. He twitched his hand experimentally, then adjusted the chain, tugging it snug against the heel of his palm. Now when he flicked his wrist, the Time Turner came easily to his fingertips again and again.

Hermione had the awful feeling he'd used it on raids many times in the past. This casual motion, flick, flick, like a gun spinning on a Muggle cowboy's finger, spoke of long familiarity with the tool.

---

Voldemort's followers consisted of two groups: the Inner Circle, who were a sort of priesthood and the only ones who could supposedly commune directly with him; and the Hand of Voldemort, which was the ever-evolving strike team that had wreaked so much devastation along the interface between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds over the years.

The former group was thought to be made up of the last remaining survivors of Voldemort's original followers, though in truth there had never been such a thing as an 'inner circle' before Voldemort died. That there was one now was, in some people's opinions, fairly strong evidence that Voldemort himself no longer existed even in part.

Besides announcing the supposed will and intentions of Voldemort, the Circle were also believed to be the ones responsible for manufacturing the real-world "acts" of their Dark Lord. Whether this was true or not, nobody but them could know; naturally they represented these events as direct action taken by their fallen lord from beyond the veil.

Communications with the Inner Circle were addressed to Voldemort himself, with the understanding that the Circle either presented those communications to Voldemort and obtained an answer, or else answered themselves in his name. Again, only they could know exactly which, and perhaps even they no longer knew. After all, most of them had spent far too long in Azkaban under the Dementors, and chances were they weren't at all sane. It was said that they even communicated with each other in terms of Voldemort's name.

By contrast, the activities of the Hand of Voldemort - known among those who still feared to speak his name simply as the Hand - were much more clearly defined. The Hand learned the identity of, and sought out, Muggles who knew about the Wizarding world. In a way, they were similar to the Ministry's Obliviators in that their goal was to keep the Muggle and Wizarding worlds as separated as possible. But unlike the Obliviators, they brutally killed their Muggle victims, as a warning to witches and wizards who had associated with them. And if those witches or wizards happened to be in the way at the time, they killed them too.

The media and the Ministry represented the Death Eaters as criminals, and of course they were. But some in the wizarding world felt that the Death Eaters were not the real problem, but only a symptom: a vigilante group that acted decisively to clean up what the Ministry refused to acknowledge as a growing issue. In fact, the Death Eaters might even have enjoyed fairly widespread support had they chosen to employ Obliviation techniques instead of killing.

---

The Time Turner must have been enchanted to go back mere seconds per turn, because Malfoy had to turn it dozens of times to take them back the short time to the hour of the Death Eater raid.

If Hermione hadn't used a Time Turner quite a bit herself she might not have recognized that they'd gone back in time at all; the room itself looked exactly the same. But now Malfoy was moving more quickly, and his breaths held a slight shiver that could have been adrenaline or could have been something else. The burning of his Dark Mark, perhaps, calling him to a meeting, a raid, or worse.

He knelt before the altar and drew the Wanmaker wand, laying it on the floor. If it was a raid he was being called for, it stood to reason he wouldn't want to carry a wand that could be connected to him legally; if it were somehow captured in battle it would be powerful evidence against him. Or maybe wands simply were not allowed when one was summoned. From what Hermione had heard about Voldemort's methods, and later the Inner Circle's, paranoia and keeping the individual Death Eaters from becoming too powerful seemed to be the way things were done.

Then he reached into his robes and withdrew a white mask - a Death Eater's mask. He put it on, tying it firmly into place and pulling up his hood to cover his head. Without the hood's folds to shadow her Hermione felt terribly exposed on the surface of his robe, but she didn't dare leave his person. If she did, she'd lose him for sure. And she had to know what happened in the next several hours!

When he was finished with these preparations he bowed his head in an attitude of prayer and took a deep breath. Hermione could feel the tension in him lessen slightly, as if he were forcing himself to relax somewhat. He took another deep breath, and this time he whispered something Hermione couldn't quite catch. The candles flared momentarily brighter, and a faint rasp sounded from the sphere in the snake's coils. It rocked slightly as if touched; afterward, it seemed somehow changed.

Hermione guessed that the sphere was a one-shot Portkey, designed to remain nonfunctional until the night of a given raid, and then filled with that night's secret meeting-location on a need-to-know basis. This would keep even the Death Eaters going on the raid in the dark about the raid plans for as long as possible.

The filling of the one-shot had probably been triggered by whatever keyword or phrase he'd whispered. Hermione was sure he could have used it at any point after that, but Malfoy did not pick it up right away. He remained kneeling there for quite a bit longer, head bowed. She wondered if he was trying to ready himself further, or if it was an attempt to demonstrate reverence above and beyond the minimum.

---

In her youth, Hermione had believed that there was such a thing as an absolute moral right and wrong, universal and untouchable, and that rules and laws were meant to enshrine and illuminate this pair of supposedly immutable concepts. She'd believed that everybody already knew right from wrong naturally, and that anybody who did wrong did it on purpose to be malicious. To her teenaged mind, it seemed the process of crafting the laws should have been as simple as writing them down, since everybody already knew how people ought to behave. Anybody who made passing a law more difficult was therefore by definition an obstructionist, or greedy, or had ulterior motives. The idea that right and wrong were subjective, and that differing points of view actually had some bearing on their definitions, was a concept she never quite took seriously.

Living in wartime hadn't exactly helped to convince her otherwise; in war, one fought for one's own beliefs and the enemy was automatically wrong. And even during the years after the war, which she'd spent building up S.P.E.W. and lobbying for elf rights, and then the heady time of their victory when law had been passed freeing all of the elves simultaneously from their bondage, it was too easy to see only her own point of view, and to see everybody else as wrong.

It wasn't until much later, when reality came crashing down and the ugly process of integrating elves into society dragged on longer and longer, that Hermione finally began to understand.

---

The bronze sphere did indeed turn out to be a one-shot Portkey; when Malfoy picked it up and squeezed it, he and Hermione fell into a whirling blackness and eventually resurfaced in an equally darkened, but much larger place.

Several voices had been raised in a loud argument, but were abruptly hushed when the participants noticed Malfoy's arrival.

"I'll handle him," said a woman's voice, grim and determined.

Malfoy turned and Hermione was able to see the huge chamber they had appeared in. It had apparently been magically carved from stone. Perhaps it was located far underground; there certainly didn't seem to be any entrances or exits.

There were some twenty-five other people there, all robed and masked as Malfoy was, their eyes shining with an eerie white glow through the holes of their masks. They were clustered at the far end of the giant room, all save the one who was stalking toward Malfoy and Hermione.

But far more eyecatching than the oncoming witch was a larger-than-life-size statue looming along the wall halfway between. It was a bipedal, manlike figure with a snake's neck and head. Its arms were outstretched as if in offering, or perhaps to receive, and a heavy gold chalice rested between them apparently held in mid-air by magic. Dozens of lighted candles were clustered on the dais around the statue's feet.

"You're late!" snapped the witch as she descended upon them.

"Always such a pleasure, Brandt," Malfoy muttered under his breath. He turned his back on the witch in order to place his one-shot on a shelf on the wall next to him. It was one of many shelves lined with shallow depressions holding other Portkeys - perhaps those belonging to the other Death Eaters.

Amexia Brandt - for it was apparently she - used the moment of his distraction to hurry her last steps, then launched herself at his back, slapping and punching him several times.

"How dare you keep us waiting!" she exclaimed in indignant tones. "Of all the -" whap, slap " - inconsiderate -" whap!

"Brandt!" yelped Malfoy, turning quickly to face the onslaught. "Get off me!"

Hermione buzzed away in a hasty retreat, as finding out what Malfoy did in the next few hours was not going to happen if she got squashed flat first. She circled down toward the other end of the room, then came back to track Malfoy's progress as he attempted to escape in the direction of the large statue. Amexia Brandt was following him, her voice raised to a near-screech.

"Forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes, Malfoy. We could have done the whole damn raid ten times in the time you've kept us waiting."

"Leave me alone," he snarled, pushing her away. "If you had any idea of the night I've had -"

"Your night?" she exclaimed. "Try being one of twenty-four people who had to maintain a battle-ready state for the last forty five minutes."

"You're standing in the way," said Malfoy. "Or do we demonstrate obeisance to you instead of Him now?"

It was true; they had arrived at the statue and Brandt had come between him and it. Grudgingly she stepped aside, and Malfoy went down on his knees immediately, bowing his head in an attitude of prayer.

"This is the third time you've been late," she said. "It won't do at all. Everybody hates you enough as it is, without your rubbing their faces in how much we need you for the raids."

"Can't you see," said Malfoy, "that I'm doing something rather important that shouldn't be interrupted?"

Brand crouched down and dug her fingers into his shoulder, right where Hermione had been sitting a short time before. "This transition won't last forever and you know it," she hissed. "You'd best stop making enemies and start making friends, before it's too late."

"Oh, do piss off, Brandt!" exclaimed Malfoy. "I'll be done in a moment!"

"Wilcox and Stanleigh have almost figured out the Animagus transformation," said Brandt. "And when they have, we won't need you any more. At all."

Animagi to scout, thought Hermione. To spy without arousing suspicions.

There was a long pause, and Hermione realized Brandt had finally gotten Malfoy's full attention.

"We'll see about Wilcox and Stanleigh," he muttered.

"We'll see them take your place," said Brandt, an unmistakable hint of triumph in her voice.

"Don't count on it," said Malfoy. "You can't learn that transformation from a book."

"Maybe they're not learning it from books," she said.

There was another pause, this one a bit longer.

"Look," said Malfoy. "Can we talk about this later? Everybody's waiting."

"Oho," said Brandt. "Now you care."

"He's waiting."

Brandt glanced carelessly up at the statue looming over them. "He won't bother to protect you anymore when there are better alternatives available," she said.

"Do you want me to scout tonight or not?" snapped Malfoy. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Amexia Brandt looked at him for a moment longer, then pushed off on his shoulder to stand up.

"For now," she said. "You're here for now."

And she stalked off to rejoin the others.

---

House-elf magic was, in its own way, more powerful than witches and wizards could muster. They had their own rules and means that human magic would never be able to control. And now that they were free, they could use that magic for anything at all in the world.

But being free hadn't changed the house-elves fundamentally. The ones that were meek as slaves were still meek as freed elves. The ones that were cunning before were still cunning now. The ones that had been filled with rage were still filled with rage. And the ones that had been quite mad were still mad as hatters.

Actually, truth be told, almost all house-elves were a bit mad in one way or another. And on top of that, for most of them, losing their Families was a devastating and traumatic experience.

In the years following the freeing of the house-elves, the news became filled with stories of the crazy things freed house-elves had done. Many of them became fiendishly prankish. Others took revenge or committed random acts purely for entertainment. And in a few cases freed-elves indulged in truly dangerous criminal acts: vandalism and assault, arson and murder. Sometimes the victims of the pranks or crimes were the house-elf's own former family, for their abuses. Sometimes the victims were in fact the enemies of the house-elf's former family, people the elf could never have attacked before without incriminating their former masters. And sometimes, tragically, the victims were their fellow house-elves.

But despite all of that, the one crime house-elves were guilty of most often was attempting to re-form family bonds.

And that, to Hermione, was the greatest tragedy of all.

---

As Malfoy knelt in apparent prayer before the statue of Voldemort, a thin black snake issued from the statue's mouth and coiled down around its neck. The surroundings remained so quiet Hermione could hear the soft hiss of the snake's scales on stone as it wound its way down one of the statue's arms and through its fingers. Then it shifted and paled, becoming a simple card of paper with elegant handwriting on it resting in the statue's hand. From her new vantage point on the floor behind Malfoy she could read it easily:

Family gathering at 21 Lancaster Row, Bingleton.
15 Muggles in-the-know, 10 Muggles who do not know.
House owned by Jelida Rose, Witch, Age 46
Other magical occupants: Mason Frame, Age 75, Colleen Becker, Age 45.
Objective: Total elimination, no exceptions.
Special Instructions: Danager

Liquid welled from the statue's fangs, then trickled like blood or wine down its stone front following the folds of its carven clothing, down its arms. Its many paths seemed meandering and random, but they all ultimately led to the same place. A tinkling sound filled the hushed chamber as the purply-red substance began to fill the chalice floating between the statue's hands. Hermione realized that this chalice must contain the combat potions St. James spoke of. It could just as easily have been poison, though, just as the one-shot Portkey could have transported its passenger into the heart of a volcano. Partaking of these tools and gifts was an act of faith in Voldemort's - or the Inner Circle's - continued favor.

It occurred to Hermione now to wonder whether Malfoy truly believed in Voldemort, or if he were simply afraid of the Inner Circle. Perhaps it didn't matter, though; whichever it was clearly had a powerful hold over him, for him to have remained a Death Eater all this time.

From their distance, the other Death Eaters watched with glowing eyes as Malfoy lifted the filled chalice down carefully and drank its contents. They looked hungry, jealous even, and Hermione was reminded that these potions were also addictive.

When Malfoy looked up again, his eyes were faintly glowing.

---

House-elves were really only good at one thing: household magic. They could do harmful or destructive things just about anywhere, but their good and positive abilities all centered around serving in houses.

To the members of S.P.E.W., as they lobbied feverishly for the passing of the elf freedom law, it had seemed only natural that Freed elves would be employed in people's homes as before - only being Freed, they would actually be paid. And because they weren't bought and sold like merchandise, anybody would be able to afford to use one, provided they could pay for the hours.

But when the time came, most of the newly-freed Elves were appalled at the idea of being paid, and found it vastly demoralizing and degrading. It took many years for even a sensible and mentally stable elf to come to accept money as a necessary evil, and take a practical approach to being paid. Not that they had any choice; if they tried to work for free, their employers were arrested. And most house-elves didn't want that.

The second problem was much trickier, and that was that while house-elves generally didn't care how much they got paid, they did care a great deal about where they worked. There was a good reason the Burrow had never had a house-elf to date, despite Hermione's many connections and her lack of interest in housekeeping: house-elves quite simply refused to work in a house they viewed as a dump. They didn't like small houses either, or ones without architectural merit, or houses that didn't have rich famous people living in them.

And not everybody could be famous and live in a beautiful manor house or castle, after all.

Truth be told, most of the elves wanted to live and work in the exact same kind of house they'd been enslaved in a short time before. The only difference being, some of them were opportunistic enough to attempt to work in a better house or different house than the actual one they'd belonged to before, as a way of advancing themselves or to escape bad owners.

And then, once they'd found the best possible place of employment, most elves wanted to lock in their hold on that family by becoming that family's bonded house-elf, which was now of course illegal. In most cases the family was prosecuted rather than the elf, because that was how the law was written. But the truth was, in at least half of the cases of post-emancipation elf slavery, the elf wanted it as much as the family. Many witches and wizards spent time in Azkaban for a crime that almost any house-elf would have been a glad accomplice to.

---

When Malfoy was finished, he arose and joined the other Death Eaters at a huge broad table at the other end of the room. The table was about counter-height and covered with sets of shallow depressions corresponding to the people standing around it. Most of them were empty, but each person had at least a couple of the round one-shot Portkeys resting in front of them. The center of the table contained an urn with ice water and an assembly of water glasses; neatly rolled white towels and a tray of refreshments. A blackboard with chalk stood nearby.

"New and old business," said Malfoy, his voice crisp and precise in the hushed surroundings.

"Already handled," said Amexia Brandt. "While we were waiting for you." There was an edge to her voice, testy and ready for a fight, that nearly demanded a retort.

But all Malfoy said, after a slight pause, was "The minutes, then?"

A couple of sheets of parchment were passed around the table to him and he took the time to read them over, while the rest of the Death Eaters stood there watching him.

"Very well," he said, when he was finished. He lowered the parchments. "Anything else?"

"You mean such as, the raid?" said Amexia Brandt sarcastically.

Malfoy frowned, but again forbore answering the challenge in her voice. He only nodded and handed the parchments back to the Death Eater next to him, then picked up a wand from the section of table in front of him. The other hollows on his portion of the table were filled with a dozen Portkeys, a wizard-photo of a house, and, incongruously, a dog-eared Muggle street atlas. Malfoy stored the wand in his forearm sheath, then picked up the atlas, flipping through it at length until he found the page he was looking for. After double-checking the address written on the card the statue had given him, he tossed the book back onto the table.

"One hundred fifty seconds," Malfoy said. His voice was different now, seeming a bit more breathless than before. Hermione noticed his eyes were glowing brighter - nearly as bright as the others' now. She realized the combat potions must be gaining in strength in his system, making him faster, stronger, more alert, and all the rest. Presumably the peak of the effects would be centered on the raid itself, but St. James had said there were also residual effects that would take many hours to come down from fully.

"One hundred fifty seconds for initial scout," said Amexia Brandt. "I do hope you don't require time to prepare, we've been waiting long enough."

"No," said Malfoy. "I'm ready." He drew his wand again and picked up the wizard-photo of the house, studying it minutely.

The other Death Eaters looked more alert. The only sounds from them were their breaths, the scuff of cloth and leather as they adjusted masks and robes, made sure of wands tucked into pockets and sashes.

This is it, thought Hermione. The beginning of an actual Muggle raid.

"Scout one, stand by for initial scout and mapping," said Brandt.

Malfoy raised his wand in Apparition position and Hermione knew that if she wanted to go with him, she'd have to land on his shoulder again now.

But Apparating was unpleasant enough in human form; it was excruciating for an insect. She could stand it for the brief time a normal Apparition took, but Nesbitt had said Malfoy used extreme Soft Apparition techniques to scout. Theoretically the entire one hundred fifty seconds could be one long Apparition, fading in and out to the different parts of the target location. In fact it really had to be, for him to retain a foothold here at the launch point without actually knowing its location. Could she endure that and remain conscious? She, unlike Malfoy, hadn't drunk Pain No More beforehand.

Reluctantly, she circled past Malfoy and landed on the wall nearby instead. He'd be back. He had no other choice. And he wouldn't be able to sneak off to Hogwarts in the middle of it, not without losing the ability to return here. Georgia and Freida were safe for now.

"Scout one, go," said Amexia Brandt.

---

Hermione wasn't stupid. In fact, she was quite bright when she wasn't blinded by her own ideals. As several years passed and things continued to get worse and not better, she had to admit deep in her heart that freeing the house-elves had caused more problems than it had solved.

But try as she could, she could think of nothing S.P.E.W. should have done differently. Certainly if it was in her power to go back and undo it, she wouldn't. The elves were freed - and freedom was a privilege that everybody deserved. Right?

But S.P.E.W. had become bitterly divided as to what to do next. One faction advocated more laws, to set minimum wages for house-elves or to make illegal the working of a house-elf for their original master for any price. Others wanted mandatory education for the freed-elves, a probation of sorts to be ended only when they could be consider well-adjusted citizens of the wizarding world. Still a third group thought perhaps isolation and containment - such as was practiced upon the Centaurs - was the only solution. And of course, there were plenty of S.P.E.W. members who thought all of these ideas would do nothing but take away elf freedoms.

Hermione knew that the last thing the Wizarding World needed was laws dictating who could work for who. Mandatory education for the house-elves would be nothing more than brainwashing them. And containment was out of the question, having in fact had become a highly contentious issue as other nonhuman races had become more militant after the house-elves were freed. But Hermione had nothing better to suggest. At least those other people were trying to offer up solutions, instead of getting stuck in the apathetic political funk she increasingly found herself in.

The truth was, it seemed to her that there was no best solution to this problem. The only way might be to tough out the bad times for several house-elf generations, until elves who'd never known anything but freedom had finally been assimilated into Wizarding society completely. Until there were no more old elves who pined to belong to a family left anymore. Until it had all been forgotten like it never was.

But wasn't that just another, longer-term form of brainwashing?

---

Just as Hermione anticipated, Malfoy faded in and out several times, pausing only long enough for a snatch of breath before disappearing again. When he finally resolidified fully at the Death Eater launch point, he was breathing hard, and a light sweat had sprung up on his skin. To Hermione's fly senses he smelled pleasantly of green grass, flowers, and fresh cold rain. His robe was sprinkled with wet dots as if he'd been caught in a light drizzle.

He picked up the chalk with his free hand and began to sketch an outline of a house on the chalkboard. It was quick, quiet, businesslike. Nesbitt had told her that this was what made Malfoy valuable to the Death Eaters and she could believe it; in less than two minutes he'd sketched a crude floor plan of the house complete with x's to mark the occupants, as well as a basic sketch of the yard and streets surrounding. There were even notations as to where and how the magical occupants had placed the house's wards.

He tossed the chalk back into its tray and there was a bit of a silence while everybody studied the drawing, possibly memorizing it. Hermione could hear several watches ticking softly in the room. Malfoy massaged his left shoulder with his right hand, leaving chalky fingerprints on his robe.

"Well?" said Amexia Brandt, after a couple of minutes had passed.

"We'll use two jump points, I think," said Malfoy. "Merchant Street Pub in Foxborough, and… Camel Creek Campgrounds in West Ides. Wards Team One will be Danager. Wards Team Two will be Ryder, Castleton and Briggs. You'll tackle West Ides. It's deserted, so the warning-perimeter can be wide, twenty meters I think. Apparition and Muggle repulsion wards at the jump point itself. Breaker Team One will be Kittering, Landower and Barnham." Malfoy pointed at a line on the map. "This is the one I want taken out: the No-Harm-Charm on the house itself. Everything else will help us as much as it helps them.

"Wards Team Three will be the same three joined by Ryder when he's released from Wards Two. I want full anti-Muggle and combat wards on the front and back property lines. There are gates here, and here. Double ward them please. Silence and electric-proof the structure walls and everything within, and make the yard a no-fly zone for good measure. Everybody else, you're on Combat."

"How much time will you need for Wards One?" asked Amexia Brandt, as one-shots all over the table started rocking and jerking, their enchantments taking hold now that the destinations were known.

"Twe-" began one of the Death Eaters, presumably Danager.

"Forty-five seconds," interrupted Malfoy.

"Forty-five? That's twice as long as anybody takes for jump point wards, Malfoy," snapped Amexia Brandt.

Under the edge of the mask, Malfoy's lips drew into a thin scowl. "Too bad, Brandt. He's taking forty-five seconds."

A couple of the other Death Eaters snickered anonymously from behind their fellows, and Hermione could see a defensive tension growing in Malfoy's body language. She also noticed he hadn't sheathed his wand since he'd come back, and now gripped it tighter than ever. He and Brandt stared at each other for a few seconds, neither backing down.

"Wards Team two," said someone else. "Thirty seconds."

"Breaker Team one," added another. "Six seconds."

It was Amexia Brandt who relented first, tearing her eyes away from Malfoy's stare. "Thirty and six," she repeated. "How long for Wards Team Three then?"

She didn't look at Malfoy again after that.

---

Some niggling part of Hermione knew that her grandiose notion of freedom had never been wanted by more than a few individual house-Elves. Had, in fact, been inflicted on the entire race using the leverage supplied by S.P.E.W.'s work to shame all of wizardkind and inflame the public conscience.

And had the true happiness of the elves ever been considered, or had human values been pasted onto them covering up their own desires and culture? And was it even the majority opinion when it came to humans, at that? No. It had been the morals of a minority, inflicted upon the rest of the wizarding race.

At some point it had finally dawned upon Hermione that the reason she had won on the issue of elf emancipation wasn't because she was more "right" than anybody else. In fact, no matter how righteous she felt, no matter how passionate she felt about her own point of view or its ultimate correctness, when it came to morals it was simply impossible to be more "correct" than anyone else, objectively speaking.

She could, through a titanic effort, force her opinion of right and wrong on others, and even cause it to become law. But that didn't make her opinion better than theirs; it just made her the most influential. The greatest triumph of her young life had come about not because she was a visionary leader, but because she was a colossal bully.

And there was a part of Hermione that could admit she had turned away from politics and entered into the business world specifically to escape that awful realization. In consulting, she could always be right because nobody hired a consultant for something they already knew how to do. The results spoke for themselves. And only one person's opinion - the client's - mattered, so that made solving problems so much less complicated. And in business, as in law and medicine, there still existed a code of honor that worked because of the narrow, artificial environment it existed in. Everybody knew how it worked, and only criminals intentionally did any different.

She couldn't stop believing that all house-elves should love their freedom and stand up for their rights. She couldn't stop wanting to change the world for the good, despite not knowing how it should be done. And she couldn't get rid of the guilt of what she'd done already.

But she could turn away from it and refuse to dwell on it any longer, in a decade-long avoidance more shameful and appalling than just a night in a dumpster.

---

"Wards Team One, stand by for final check and wards setup. Floo jump point one. Merchant Street Pub. Forty-five seconds. Stand by."

Malfoy picked up the first of the one-shots in front of him and placed it in his pocket, then picked up the second and gripped it in his right hand. The other Death Eater Hermione assumed was Danager did the same. She didn't recognize Danager by name, nor could she tell much from his robed silhouette. But why should she recognize Death Eaters these days anyway, when she'd recognized nobody in Ernie's Café?

"And, go Wards Team One," said Amexia Brandt.

Malfoy squeezed his Portkey and vanished during the word 'and', with Danager following a couple of seconds after.

There was a brief silence.

"One," said Amexia Brandt.

"What the devil?" said one of the remaining Death Eaters.

"I know, I was going to say," said another.

"Three," said Amexia Brandt.

"Since when does Danager do wards?" said someone else.

"I've seen him do anti-Electrical wards."

"Not regular Muggle wards though. Not in years."

"Forget the wards, why did Malfoy put himself in a position to be alone with Danager, and for forty-five whole seconds?"

"Talk with him privately maybe?" suggested someone.

"Twenty-five," said Amexia Brandt.

"He wouldn't dare," said someone else. "Not without a good reason. The way Danager's been talking lately, he's as likely to curse Malfoy as one of the Muggles."

"I've seen him do it."

A beat of silence.

"Thirty-three," said Amexia Brandt.

"Curse Malfoy? You have?"

"No joke… just last week, too. Took a pot shot at him during a raid and tried to claim it was an accident."

"Ha, accident my arse. Just doing what any of us would do, only he had the balls to actually do it."

"Forty-two," said Amexia Brandt.

At that point, Malfoy reappeared and immediately staggered. He was panting fit to burst a lung. He went down on one knee, taking his weight briefly on his non-wand arm, as two Death Eaters standing near him surged forward to help him.

"Forty-three," said Amexia Brandt. "Fifteen second turnaround. Fifteen seconds, people."

"You're losing it, Malfoy," said one of the other Death Eaters.

"Like hell," said Malfoy, as Brandt said 'forty-seven' and they were hauling him to his feet.

"Are you all right?" asked one of the others.

"Water," he panted. One of the people helping him reached for a glass of water and handed it to him.

"Where's Danager?" someone asked.

"Fifty One," said Brandt. "Stand by Scout One, stand by Wards Team Two."

"I'll be damned if I baby-sit that bastard any longer than I have to," said Malfoy, "And he's got his own Portkey, hasn't he?" Malfoy gulped his water, forestalling any further questions. Then he shoved the glass back onto the table and swapped out his Portkeys for two new ones

"Fifty-eight," said Amexia Brandt. "Go Scout One and Wards Two."

"But what about," began one of the others, but Malfoy and the three members of Wards Team Two vanished simultaneously.

There was a pause.

"Where the hell is Danager?" said someone. "He better not have cut and run."

"Sixty-three," said Amexia Brandt.

"Danager? He wouldn't run… or squeal. He's loyal."

"He's bloody insane is what he is. I wouldn't curse Malfoy unless I knew it'd take him down permanently in one shot … and I'd taken care of the surrogates first. Anything else is just asking to be made an example of later."

"Saw it with my own eyes… Friday before last. Tried to use Furtive Strike on him from behind but Malfoy deflected it."

"Danager only did what any of us would do, if we thought there was a way. I mean, if there was a way to make certain of Malfoy. And the surrogates."

"Seventy-six," said Amexia Brandt.

There was a pause.

"Better not let one of Malfoy's crew hear you talking about this, or you'll all be made an example in advance," advised one of the others, and some of the listeners chuckled uneasily.

"Or any of the Circle," someone else added. "They'd do it too."

"When's the last time any of you saw one of Malfoy's crew on a raid?" scoffed the speaker.

"Zabini two months ago," said someone promptly.

"Baby Bulstrode beginning of the summer," said another.

"Yeah, well, for Crabbe it's been more than two years, and the rest of them even longer than that. And as for the Circle, Carroll there has been with us three years now and he's still to see one of them in person. Just when would they be overhearing anything anyway?"

Several people glanced at the statue, as if it might in fact be overhearing them now, but just then the three Death Eaters of Wards Team Two burst back into the room, Portkeys in hand.

"Eighty-eight," said Amexia Brandt.

"Malfoy killed Danager!" the first of them exclaimed, just as another said, "Danager's dead!"

"He was lying face down in front of the first jump point. Hadn't a mark on him - Malfoy must've AK'd him but he rushed us straight past the body so we couldn't get a better look."

Hermione knew there was no way to prove Avada Kedavra had been used without a formal magical autopsy, because the spell left no marks. Danager could easily have died any number of other ways, including a heart attack, stroke, or even an overdose. But just the fact that they automatically assumed it was Malfoy's doing said a lot about what they thought of Malfoy.

"He had it planned," said one of the others. "He said forty-five seconds, not twenty-something. He knew he was going to have to figure out the wards and set them himself."

"He must have had Special Instructions," said a third.

There was a pause.

"Ninety-eight," said Amexia Brandt. Her voice sounded funny. Hermione realized there were tears in the witch's eyes. She wondered if Danager had been someone special to Brandt. Or maybe the witch was only callous about Muggle deaths.

"Or he just wanted to kill him."

There was an even longer pause.

"Ninety-nine," said Amexia Brandt. "One hundred seconds." Her voice was grimmer now, harder, as if she was determined to believe nothing until she saw the proof.

"Malfoy wouldn't dare."

"The hell he wouldn't. Danager tried to kill him first, didn't he? It's only sense to make a preemptive strike before Danager got another chance."

"Malfoy wouldn't just kill someone without orders. Try to teach them a lesson maybe, but not kill them."

"One oh six," said Amexia Brandt.

"It was planned, I tell you. Everybody knows how Danager felt about Malfoy. With him at his back, Malfoy can claim it was in self-defense and it's the perfect excuse. We can't let him get away with that shite."

"One-twelve," said Amexia Brandt.

"You accuse him of that, he'll deny it and then demand a duel for the insult."

"He will," agreed another. "Guaranteed. And he can take you, Tucker."

"He could take any of us," said someone else.

"Not if we all confront him at once. He can't duel us all."

"You're mad!"

"Stand by Breaker Team One and Wards Three," said Amexia Brandt.

"If he has Special Instructions, all he has to do is prove it. That's simple enough."

"And if he can't?"

Any chance for further discussion was lost as Malfoy reappeared and rolled his one-shot smoothly back into its spot on the table.

"All clear for Breakers and Wards at target," he said breathlessly. His eyes darted to the group of people staring at him but by then Amexia Brandt had spoken to fill the gap.

"Go Breaker Team one. Go Wards Team Three. Stand by Scout One. Stand by Combat Teams One and Two."

"This is it," said Malfoy. "Everybody stay sharp." He took the other Portkey from his pocket and put it on the table, then took two new ones.

"One twenty-nine," said Amexia Brandt. "One-thirty."

They're going to do it, thought Hermione. The actual raid is happening now.

She hesitated, then darted down from the ceiling to land on Malfoy's shoulder and flattened herself against the dark cloth, making herself as difficult to see as she could. Dangerous though it was, it might be the only chance she ever got to see this. And she had to know. She couldn't kid herself. She had to see what he really did.

When Amexia Brandt reached "One thirty-three" she said "Go Scout One," and Malfoy gripped his one-shot harder.

And then the world disappeared from around them.

---