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The Curse of the GateKeeper (James Potter #2)

Page 48

by G. Norman Lippert


  "Give it to me and maybe I'll only cut out your tongue, old man," Baddock had said.

  Lucius had merely sighed. He closed the book he'd been reading and, almost lazily, produced his wand. He fingered it idly, not really pointing it at Baddock. "And what makes you believe, young man, that you won't be killed where you stand by this very wand?"

  Baddock's grin widened eagerly. "Because this here's my lucky knife, it is," he said, displaying the darkly glinting blade. "It's not failed me yet. It'll kill you three times before you hit the floor, you daft old coot. No wand's ever been any good against it before, and yours won't be any different. Now take me to the gold!"

  Lucius narrowed his eyes. "Tell me, my friend," he said silkily, "does your lucky knife know when a wizard is going to do this?"

  In one deft movement, Lucius drew a short flick in the air. A thin red line slashed across Baddock's throat and he flinched. Blood began to bead from the cut. It dribbled down his throat and Baddock tried to look down at it, frowning rather comically. His face contorted with rage and he reared, hoisting the knife by its tip. As he opened his mouth to speak, however, his head quietly toppled backwards off his shoulders, separating neatly along the line of blood. It fell to the floor with a thunk.

  Lucius was already pocketing his wand and wondering if he'd tell the rest of the team what had happened to Baddock when something poked him in the stomach. He looked down curiously and noticed the hilt of Baddock's knife protruding from his robe. A moment later, he heard the thump of the man's headless body striking the floor, dead. Truly, it had been a lucky knife if Baddock had succeeded in finishing the throw he'd begun while his head was still marginally attached.

  Lucius reached for the knife to extract it from his stomach. It would hurt, but it wouldn't be fatal, not to a wizard like Lucius. He stopped, however, before his fingers touched the hilt. His eyes widened slowly as he stared at it. The bit of hilt he could see protruding from the slowly darkening folds of his robes was quite ugly and jewel-encrusted. Lucius recognized it. Slowly, he wrapped his fingers around the silver hilt and pulled the blade out of his gut. He barely felt it. He slid to his knees, holding the dagger up, turning it, and watching the firelight play on its dark, bloody blade. He began to laugh.

  "Thank you, my Lord," he cried through his laughter. "Even dead, your word rings true! Your final Horcrux has found me! Thank you! I will not fail you! Your final task will be completed!"

  Lucius laughed until he was hoarse, only remembering to heal the wound in his stomach when he noticed the blood soaking the front of his robes and pattering to the floor.

  It had been over two years since the Battle of Hogwarts, since the inconceivable death of the Dark Lord, but Lucius was finally able to complete his duty. He told Gregor of the surprising appearance of the dagger, and they dismissed the rest of the siege team with a small pay-off in gold, warning them that if they told anyone what they knew, they would experience the same fate as had befallen their mate, Baddock.

  Lucius had long since determined the family that would play host to the Dark Lord's 'gift'. They were pureblood, but lowly and poor. Lucius spied on them and discovered that a young woman in the family had just become pregnant. Her name was Lianna Agnellis and her husband had recently been apprehended by the Ministry, suspected of low-level involvement with Death Eaters in the last days of Voldemort's reign of terror. Lucius had vaguely known the man, whose name was Wilfred. He had indeed been a tool of the Death Eaters, although he himself barely knew it. The young man had been extremely simple and gullible, and Lucius himself had even used him as a messenger. It was Lucius who had anonymously informed the Ministry of Wilfred's Death Eater connections, knowing full well that the pathetic man would never be able to implicate anyone by name; Lucius and his cohorts had been far too careful for that. Wilfred was interrogated by the Wizengamot and eventually imprisoned in Azkaban until such time as he might choose to divulge the names of his purported accomplices.

  After Wilfred's imprisonment, Lucius paid a visit to the young, quite pregnant Lianna in her tiny flat. He ingratiated himself to her, claiming to be a concerned friend and former associate of her incarcerated husband. Lianna made tea for the two of them and they sat at her rickety kitchen table. Lucius explained that he had both the money and the influence to see to her husband's release if she was willing to perform a small service on behalf of her husband's benefactors. Lianna was desperate: she fell upon Lucius, sobbing and promising she'd do anything to get her Wilfred back home. She asked what Lucius required of her, and he balked, suggesting that she might think twice once he told her. He asked her to take a moment to consider it while she refilled his tea.

  As she returned to the stove, sniffing and wiping her eyes, Lucius peered into Lianna's empty teacup, examining the shreds of tea leaves scattered in the bottom. He had to be sure that the child in the woman's womb was a boy child; surely, Lucius was wizard enough to ascertain something as simple as that. He looked closely, squinting, but for some reason, the tea leaves blurred before his eyes. He blinked, trying to focus, to concentrate. In his robes, the Horcrux dagger seemed to vibrate. He felt it reaching into his mind, calling him. It was distracting him. Lately, Lucius never went anywhere without the dagger, but now he suddenly wished he'd left it at the manor house. And then, just as Lianna was returning, settling Lucius' own cup onto the table, the strew of sodden leaves became clear. Lucius stared at them, even reaching for the woman's cup and tilting it to the light. Yes, there it was. There was no question: the child in the woman's belly was a boy child. The leaves proved it. Lucius sighed and smiled with relief. The dagger in his robes went still again.

  "What?" Lianna had said nervously, sitting back down. "What do you see in the leaves? Am I going to get my Wilfred back?"

  Lucius looked at her with gently shining eyes. He placed his hand on hers comfortingly. "You will both be together very soon," he promised, "if you do as we require. You may do it today, this very afternoon if you wish. I will assist you. But you must do it with no hesitation and no questions. It may shock you and even pain you, but only a little, and it will be over in mere minutes. Can you do that, my dear Mrs. Agnellis?"

  She nodded, nervously but with great resolution. "I knew that Wilfred's bosses weren't the nicest of people, and that the things they made him do were sometimes awful. I told him then what I'm telling you now, sir: I don't want to know anything about it. I'll do what you want me to do, but don't make me know any more about it than I have to. I just want my Wilfred back, and after that, we'll take our leave of the lot of you, if you don't mind."

  Lucius nodded understandingly, patting her hand, but Lianna seemed to have nothing more to say. The firm line of her mouth proved to Lucius that the simple-minded woman had determined to do nearly anything to get her husband back. She seemed to sense it would be rather horrid, but she had a look on her face that Lucius knew well. It was the look that said I will do whatever it takes, and then I will never speak of it or think of it again. No one will know, and I will forget it myself. I am already forgetting it. My mind is a blank. Please just get it over with.

  When Lucius was quite confident that the look of resolve was fully solidified on Lianna's face, he reached slowly into his robe, maintaining his expression of kind concern. He produced a folded black cloth and laid it on the table.

  "Unwrap it, Mrs. Agnellis," he said quietly. "It is for you."

  She reached and pulled the folded cloth to herself. She unwrapped it and stared blankly down at the ugly silver dagger.

  Lucius continued to smile at her. "It'll only hurt for a moment," he said reassuringly. He began to explain to her what she must do.

  "That's absolutely horrible," Rose said, her voice shaking. "Your grandfather is a monster!"

  Scorpius didn't respond. He looked away, glancing at the dusty Mirror of Erised.

  Ralph frowned. "So how did that Baddock bloke get the dagger Horcrux?"

  "He was a seventh-year student at Hogwarts right before the
battle," Scorpius said. "My grandfather thinks the dagger somehow allowed Baddock to find it, knowing it could use him to get to where it wanted to be."

  "Poor stupid git," Rose said, sighing.

  "But if the dagger was with Baddock," James asked, "then what was the magical object your grandfather sensed in the Forbidden Forest—" He stopped suddenly as the answer came to him. Rose's eyes widened as she also made the connection.

  "The Resurrection Stone!" she breathed. "That's how they found it! He got lucky enough to get near it when his senses were on high alert! He felt the lost Resurrection Stone and mistook it for the hidden dagger!"

  "He must have realized that as well," James nodded gravely. "He probably didn't know what it was, but after Baddock tried to attack him, he knew the thing in the Forest couldn't have been the dagger. Eventually, he snuck out into the Forest to look for it. Bloody hell! He must have wet himself when he found out it was Slytherin's half of the Beacon Stone!"

  Scorpius shook his head. "I don't know anything about that part, but yes, it would make sense."

  "So," James asked, "that's the end of the story, then? This poor Lianna woman scratched Voldemort's initial on her belly and gave birth to a baby with part of Voldemort's soul in it?"

  Scorpius nodded, still averting his eyes, "She was sick with what she'd done, and of course, my grandfather did nothing to see that her husband was released from Azkaban. Not that he really could even if he'd wanted to. All of that had been lies. Eventually, as Wilfred wasn't released, Lianna became convinced that she'd done something awful, and for no reason. She became very sick and was taken to St. Mungo's hospital. That night, she died giving birth to her baby."

  Ralph's lips were pressed into a thin line. He shook his head and said, "This is awful. I didn't need to know any of this."

  Rose looked up, her eyes shining. "Whatever happened to the baby's father?"

  "Wilfred stayed in Azkaban for years. He knew his wife had died giving birth to his child, but he never saw the baby. He demanded to be let out so he could raise his child. He became irrational and was put into solitary confinement. A short while later, he was found dead in his cell. My grandfather believes he was thrown into the Dementor pit by some of the guards."

  "The 'Dementor pit'?" Ralph said, shuddering.

  Rose sighed shallowly. "The Dementors used to be the guards at Azkaban. When they were deemed untrustworthy, most of them were rounded up and imprisoned there themselves, in a virtually lightless room in the cellar. Just like with the Borleys, the Dementors are creatures of shadow: without light to show up against, they're helpless. Azkaban's dark pit keeps them imprisoned and weak but mad with hunger. If a human was thrown into the pit with them, it'd be an extremely horrible death."

  Ralph asked, "But why would the guards throw that poor sap into the pit?"

  "Revenge," Scorpius said simply. "They believed he was holding out, protecting the worst Death Eaters, the ones who hadn't yet been captured. Most of the new guards at Azkaban had been former Aurors and Harriers. They'd seen loads of people killed by the Death Eaters and had no mercy on someone they believed was protecting those responsible. Nothing was ever proved though."

  "So the baby was an orphan," James said quietly. "Just like my dad."

  Scorpius nodded. "To my grandfather's great anger, the baby was a girl child. To this day, he has no idea that it was the hex of Severus Snape that clouded his judgment, working through the dagger itself. He refuses to refer to the child as a 'she', calling it either 'the Bloodline' or even 'it'. He simultaneously despises her and obsesses over her, knowing she bears the last shred of his dead master. The baby girl was raised by Lianna's parents, who were not particularly loving. My grandfather has spied on them regularly through the years. The grandparents were never overtly cruel, but Grandfather believes they secretly blame the girl for the death of their daughter."

  Rose shook her head. "Stop. I don't want to hear any more. It's just too beastly."

  James face had grown hard and resolved. He looked at Scorpius. "No," he said. "You've told us everything else. Now tell us the most important part. Tell us who the Bloodline is."

  "I'd thought you would have figured that bit out by now," Scorpius answered. "She is the only known orphan girl currently at Hogwarts, although she never speaks of it. She has her mother's dark hair and her father's height, but everything else, she gets from the persistent dark influence of the dagger Horcrux, from the last fragmented wisp of the soul of Voldemort. She was standing right next to you this afternoon, hidden behind a bookshelf in the library, listening to you three. It was her presence that set off the Sneakoscope in Ralph's satchel. You know who I mean. Tell me her name because I can't bring myself to say it out loud. My grandfather would kill me, and he'd probably use that stupid dagger to do it."

  James looked at Rose and Ralph, measuring their faces, and then he looked at Scorpius.

  "The Bloodline of Voldemort is Tabitha Violetus Corsica," he said firmly. "Somehow, I've known it all along."

  "Then you know something else as well," Scorpius said, sighing and standing up.

  "What?" Ralph said, looking one by one at everyone in the room.

  Rose answered calmly, "We know who Bloodline is, so we also know who the host of the Gatekeeper is going to be. Both are Tabitha."

  James shook his head slowly. "The only thing we don't know," he said, "is how and when it's going to happen and what we can do to stop her."

  18. The Triumvirate

  Last year, during a rather harrowing adventure in the Forbidden Forest, James had met something called a 'dryad', a living spirit of a tree. The dryad had been quite beautiful, in a sort of sad, hypnotic way, and she had warned James that the blood of his father's greatest enemy beat in a new heart, not one mile hence. The dryad had also said that James should beware: your father's battle is over, she'd told him, yours begins.

  James hadn't known what the dryad meant by that, but he'd had a nagging idea of who the Bloodline of Voldemort was. He'd suspected Tabitha Corsica all along, even though others had told him she was simply a smart, rather devious girl with some nasty delusions about recent history. Now that James knew that Tabitha was, in fact, the Bloodline of which the dryad had warned, he felt increasingly helpless. There was nothing he could do to stop Tabitha's plan, mostly because he didn't know what the plan entailed. Scorpius insisted that his grandfather had never told him the specifics of how the Bloodline was to become the Gatekeeper's host apart from it being a test that would prove Tabitha's willingness and commitment to the Gatekeeper's purpose. James would have liked to ask Merlin about it, but his latest interview with the Headmaster had only increased his worries and fears about the great sorcerer. Similarly, James might have written a letter to his dad explaining everything and asking for his help, but his dad already had his hands full with the sale of the Burrow, providing living arrangements for Grandma Weasley, and heading up the new sub-department for quelling the mysterious Dementor uprisings in London. Besides, in his last letter, James' dad had admitted that they believed the whole Gatekeeper affair was a complicated ruse created by enemies of the Ministry to sow fear and instability. How could James ask his dad for help fending off something that his dad believed was imaginary? More and more, James found himself thinking of the dryad's last words: this wasn't Harry Potter's battle; it was James'.

  Scorpius had suggested that the best they could do was to simply watch Tabitha as closely as possible, a task that was increasingly difficult as the end of the term neared. James saw her regularly during rehearsals for The Triumvirate since Tabitha was the assistant director and increasingly in charge of the rehearsals while Professor Curry attended to final production planning. Tabitha's malicious critiques of James' performances had not let up. If anything, she was even harder on him, always apologizing for making him repeat his lines in front of the rest of the cast, as if she was trying to assume polite responsibility for his apparently woeful performance. "After all," James had heard Tabitha sayin
g quietly to Professor Curry, "I did consent to his receiving the role along with the rest of the casting committee. Nevertheless, hindsight is always clearest, as they say…"

  The main task of observing Tabitha fell to Ralph since he shared the same house as her. Apart from the same general moodiness, however, Ralph couldn't report anything unusual about Tabitha's conduct. To James, she seemed either vaguely impatient or even more ingratiatingly polite than ever.

  Classes began to wind down as the final performance loomed. Loads of parents and family were travelling to attend the show, including James' mum and sister. His dad, much to his own disappointment, was needed in London for the first crackdown by the Dementor task force and therefore would not be able to attend the show. Ginny, however, had promised to record James' performance on a borrowed set of Omnioculars so that Harry could watch later. In light of the suspected large audience, Professor Curry's intention of conducting an entirely non-magical, Muggle-style production had been overshadowed by her students' increasing determination to put on a wholly sensational show. James had seen evidence of secret magical enhancement in nearly every aspect of the production, from the treadle-powered wind machine running mysteriously without anyone manning the treadles, to unplugged electrical spotlights that still glowed. In fact, since Hogwarts castle had no source of electrical power, several small Muggle generators had been delivered to the school to provide power for the lights. Even Professor Curry, however, had failed to realize that the generators needed a constant refill of petrol to run. In the interest of expediency, Damien had surreptitiously charmed the generators to emit an industrious chugging sound and, just for the look of it, plugged all the electrical cords into them. Professor Curry had wisely stopped asking after the generators and turned to more pressing matters.

  Petra's class schedule seemed to consistently conflict with James' so that he rarely had the opportunity to rehearse with her on-stage. This was unfortunate, Professor Curry admitted, but not a great problem since Tabitha Corsica had arranged for an understudy to fill in for Petra whenever she couldn't attend rehearsals with James. Josephina Bartlett's vertigo had abated to the point where she could read through the lines on Petra's behalf, and having originally been awarded the part of Astra before her unfortunate 'accident', she was the logical choice to serve as Petra's stand-in. She did so with a kind of resigned fervor, caught between her embarrassment at having to serve as understudy and her desire to prove how much better an Astra she would have made. She lurked on the stage, arms folded and barely noticing any of the other actors, until Astra's lines came up. At that point, she would launch into her readings, switching from apathy to full melodrama in the mere blink of an eye, and then switching back to apathy the moment Astra's lines were completed. She barely seemed to notice James on the stage even though many of her lines were meant to be directed toward him. For her own part, Tabitha seemed pleased with Josephina's discomfiture, smiling smugly whenever her lines came up. James was especially annoyed to have to practice the climactic kissing scene with Josephina, especially since he'd never once rehearsed it with Petra herself.

 

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