Order Only: Last Night

[alt_poppy]

As Paracelsus is my witness, yesterday was an awful day.

First there was that dreadful business with young Marvolo's broken arm. He had suffered a great deal of very nasty bruising, but I can tell you no more of the Bludger's effect because that imbecile Lockhart vanished every bone in the boy's arm. Vanished them! I hope never again to have to dose a child with Skele-Gro: it is an utterly brutal thing to regrow bone within living tissue. He was very, very brave, and under exceedingly difficult circumstances. As you know there were crowds of well-wishers, and even when I succeeded in evicting all of the young folk, the Malfoys insisted on staying close by, which meant the poor boy was forced to keep up a steely exterior all afternoon and evening.

When his visitors finally took their leave, my patient collapsed into a deep, much-needed sleep, and I thought to hear no more from him until morning. Alas, he was granted no such reprieve. Just as I began my two o'clock rounds, I heard the boy call out, so I cast a silencing spell to keep the rest of the ward from being troubled. But it was not, as I first believed, that he had been woken by excruciating pain in his arm; as I approached, I realised he was not alone! I was appalled to think that someone should have crept past me to trouble him in the night, but I was completely unprepared for what I saw and heard next.

Just as I put my hand out to pull aside the curtain, Marvolo said, 'It was you! You made that Bludger try and kill me?!'

I put my eye to the gap in the curtain and received quite a shock. Sitting atop Mr Marvolo on his bed was an elf, the most hideously misshapen elf I've ever seen.

'Indeed yes, sir,' said the elf, his great ears flapping madly.

'You'd better get lost before my bones come back, Dobby, or I might strangle you.' I believe the boy was trying his best to sound fierce, but the elf was unmoved.

'Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them five times a day at Buckingham. You know that's true, sir. And Dobby isn't the only one He tortures, no. And you know that, too.'

I pulled the curtain ever so quietly aside until I knew that my young patient could see me, but he gave me a look that said I should wait, and so we allowed the elf to go on.

'Calls himself Protector, but does He protect? No! Say it, sir!! You must say it!!!'

'What?'

'Harry Potter must say he knows that He Who Must Not Be Named is not his father,' said the elf. 'Not his father! Oh, Harry Potter knows it, I can see it!! He knows!'

It went on like this for some time, all of it quite mad, but very true. And I believe the elf was right: the boy accepts that Voldemort is not his father, truly. He didn't deny knowing his birth name, either. But he was shaken when the elf's ravings became a litany of the horrors Voldemort has committed--Voldemort and Amycus Carrow. The elf seemed well aware that the boy condemns Carrow for his violence. It was very clever and equally cruel, what the elf had to say. Perhaps I should have cut it short, but it seemed to me that these are truths the boy does need to hear.

He himself brought it to an end when he had heard all he could stomach.

'What do you want from me?' he demanded.

'Harry Potter is the One, the Chosen. He Who Must Not Be Named knows this. That is why he stole Harry Potter and murdered his parents. And Harry Potter must not join Him. No! He must fight. Fight for us, the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! We who are treated like vermin! And Harry Potter knows, knows it is evil to treat creatures like vermin and people like animals. That is what Carrow does. And He Who Must Not Be Named! Harry Potter knows! And he must choose! He must say it!!! And if he will not--'

The boy seized the elf's arm with his one good hand.

'What! What will you do if I don't say-- what? What do you want me to say?'

'If you will not fight Him, you must die!! Fight or die!!!'

I moved as the elf shrieked these words, as quickly and quietly as I could, and caught hold of him. Only then did I see the long, vicious blade he held at the boy's throat, but the knife clattered to the floor as I dragged the elf backwards off the bed.

'Say it!!!' he screamed. 'Say it or die!!!'

I tried questioning him, but he was far beyond reason. When I asked how he could have come here if he served at Buckingham, I got only elf gibberish about being unable to answer things his master forbids and frantic efforts to punish himself, though it was a sign of his madness that he did not punish himself at any point in his conversation with the boy. However he has rationalised it, the elf has convinced himself that his mission to Harry Potter is beyond his master's will. I've never seen anything like it. I did try to persuade him that I agreed that Harry Potter is important to us all, and I suggested that the boy must be allowed to grow wise and strong, but it did no good. The elf lapsed back into his raving that the boy must choose now to fight or he must die. He grew frenzied and suddenly broke my grasp, disapparating from the room the moment he squirmed free.

In the silence after his departure, the boy looked at me wide-eyed, but even as I asked if he were all right, the alarm sounded on my fire. He nodded, said he was fine, and turned his head away.


He was asleep when I returned from seeing to Mr Boot. And this morning when I asked after him, he seemed disinclined to discuss what happened in the night.

Comments

[alt_alice]

Well, we both know the most likely answer to that. Perhaps our very High and Mighty is using an old ghost story as a cover so he wouldn't be directly implicated? He could be trying to drive all the halfblooded students out to make it harder for them to get educated and get jobs, while at the same time, undermining Minerva's authority over the school.

We all know he's using Regulus to do some underhanded things. Perhaps this is something similar.

But... that doesn't make much sense either, because the school enrollment would be so very small if only the pureblooded students were let in.

Which is all to say that I have no idea, Sirius. None at all.

[alt_sirius]

I can't work out why he'd do that, though - why now, when it seems things are already fairly stable as far as the balance of power goes, and why he'd do it this way instead of simply 'phasing out' the halfbloods. I mean, isn't that the whole point of the laws against Muggleborns, to gradually breed pure lines again? Obviously it's bollocks, as there have always been Muggleborns and Squibs, and always will be, but ... I dunno. It seems short-sighted even for Voldemort.

And Regulus ... Merlin, I dunno what his love notes to Voldemort are about half the time, but you're right, Allie. It's nothing good. Making him Apparate all over on Friday? I know what that does to me, and he's the same when it comes to rapid jumps. It's vicious, that's what. I wish .... Well, it doesn't matter much what I wish.

But Carrow ... it's possible. Perhaps he petrified Terry out of pique, or in utter madness, or in a shrewd attempt to deflect suspicion. We're all supposed to think that he wouldn't harm his own servant, right? But of course, he does, on a regular basis. And as Poppy has pointed out, while the poor lad will be like that for some time, it's not a permanent condition, so it's not as if Carrow has deprived himself of his servant forever.

Nick's case is puzzling, though. Poppy, did you say they were found together? Obviously, Nick must have happened upon the scene at just the right moment and had to be silenced. What sort of spell would freeze a ghost, though?

And what about this Brutka chap? He impressed Lucius Malfoy; that must mean he has a pureblood agenda of his own. He seems clever enough to be able to cast suspicion on someone like Carrow, who's such an obvious candidate for murder and mayhem. What do we know about the man? The chamber's supposed to house a creature - and he is the Magical Creatures teacher, isn't he?

[alt_poppy]

Do you know, I've been thinking about this all morning: could Voldemort's hand be in the opening of the Chamber? What would he gain from that? And at first I saw it just as you do, Sirius. He's firmly in control of the country as Lord Protector, seems to have absolute sway not only within the Ministry but with the Wizengamot, and people seem placidly content to swallow his ideas and teach them to their young. Why stir the pot?

Except that's what he does, isn't it? Perhaps an occasional dose of horror really does serve his purposes. Especially if he can engineer the event to showcase his power. Suppose there are more attacks and more petrifications of students or staff? And then the Protector solves the mystery and saves us all... just the sort of theatrics he enjoys, I'd say.

Or here's another thought: what if it's a diversion? What if things are not quite as stable in this country as we think? What if he needs to stage a crafted and controlled drama here at the school to draw attention away from things happening elsewhere? Could it be that there is something more to fear from the sickness in the camps than we've yet understood?

[alt_sirius]

Well, I suppose anything's possible. It could be that he wants to further things along faster than he thinks can be achieved through so-called 'legitimate' legislation. For example, if he created this crisis, it might convince people to ostracise halfbloods much more readily than they already do, or even force them to adopt some new restrictions. I wonder if there are any matters of law before the Wizengamot that might tip in the Death Eaters' favour if panic about the Chamber were to spread?

Or this could well be a distraction from what's going on in the camps, I suppose, as you say. A ghastly one, I'll grant you, but if everyone's fixed on what's happening at Hogwarts, then no one's paying much attention to all the prisoners ailing and dying, are they?

But then ... how is he causing it? Even Voldemort can't penetrate Hogwarts without Minerva knowing he's there.

Can he?

[alt_poppy]

Goodness, I hope it's not that he's decided the halfbloods must be purged. I've always thought, as you said earlier, that the notion was to reincorporate the halfblood lines--gradually and in a way that keeps those lines firmly at the bottom of his new, pure society (because there must be a bottom in order for there to be an enviable top).

But I'd be completely unsurprised to see him stirring up further hatred against Muggles and possibly against Muggleborns, too. I'm not sure that they've had much success convincing people to employ them as domestics, so perhaps Voldemort has decided that it's time to kill them en masse. He would definitely need to ready the public for such an extreme programme, and I suppose that the sort of thing we are seeing in our corridors at Hogwarts might be just the sort of first step he would imagine.

[alt_mcgonagall]

I highly doubt that Professor Brutka is involved. Certainly he must have an agenda; but if I recall - well, in any case, such things have happened before, and Professor Brutka was hardly present.