When I was arrested I was dressed in black….

The pact was breaking. Once their leader had begun his descent into madness and decrepitude, the followers left and right turned on themselves and each other. The Ministry had started its own warpath through England, tracing the trail of carnage wrought. The knights of good were closing in on their prey like a bloodhound mere paces away from the injured fox.

They didn’t know how many it would take, but they knew how many they had brought. The thirteen best aurors that the Ministry could offer surrounded the forbidding house, the place many claimed as the lair to the Dark Lord. He had become more erratic, organization among his minions quickly disintegrating. Rather than staying true to their nature as simple killers, the Death Eaters indulged in further depravities. The last one they arrested, a pathetic man named Valerius Avery, had been found next to his most recent victim trying to snort sugar; he was blathering about something called a ‘Colombian rum-runner.’ His bloodshot eyes were sunken into his withered face, and they only needed to placate him with a bottle of stout whiskey. The aurors killed him out of mercy; it was like putting down a dog. The man’s son could pretend that his father had died more nobly.

It felt much later than mid-afternoon with the overcast sky threatening to dump rain on the aurors stationed vigilantly around the house. There was a recently created mound in the back where it looked like the house owner had buried something large. The dirt there was turned over often as if holes had been dug multiple times. Within the house, two aurors chosen by lot had been sent to tease out the Dark Lord. They were good as dead, but they knew that this was the only way to do it. Oberon Quince and Salerio Shylock had met only during brief moments in the Office, so neither felt more than professional trust in the other’s abilities. They counted on mutual protection, but they didn’t expect any extraordinary acts of heroism.

Together, they stalked up the dusty stairs after finding the first floor deserted. The only things out of place were some dark spots on the carpet and a bed stripped of its sheets in the master room. Both felt their anxiety spiral upward the longer it took them to find the Dark Lord. They kept entertaining the idea that this was a trap.

Still no sign of life until Oberon found the library door ajar. Wands at the ready, the pair walked inch by painful inch into the room. Nothing threatened them aside from cobwebs and more dust billowing up from the rug. Huddling behind the large wing-backed chair facing to the window, they motioned three counts before leaping out with wands stretched toward their enemy. Their eyes held the same wild passion of warriors ready to die.

A scraggly hair man with a thick, dirty beard had curled up on the floor wearing black and unkempt robes, either asleep or unconscious. With his good hand, he clutched the neck of an empty bottle. His other hand was so withered that it seemed to belong to a mummy. They were stains near his mouth on the floor, suggesting that he had vomited something. The thing most striking was the smell of sweat, liquor, and rotting food. Even with the robes, his body seemed too angular as if he had only bones in his body rather than organs and muscle.

While their emotions ran high, their fighting passion had morphed into an animal’s terror and confusion. Before, they had been thinking up ten different spells. Now, no a single coherent thought fluttered through their brains. It was like seeing magic for the first time when they were children. There was no explanation for what lay before their eyes, and they had no way of justifying the bizarre spectacle.

After staring in bewilderment at each other and the man on the floor, Oberon broke the silence. “We must have the wrong house,” he said, voice laced with fear.

With a shaky and cautious sigh, Salerio shook his head. “Karkaroff and the others said this was where he came. Feleena as her owl animagus form gave us plenty of intelligence—”

“All she said was that she saw a man who looked similar to the Dark Lord,” snapped Oberon, folding his arms tightly. He paced back and forth like a caged ocelot. “She said herself that her owl eyes are quite bad. She could only see him very well at night, and the light from the house hurt her eyes.”

“This is him.” Salerio felt a chill go down his spine as he spoke. “This is the man responsible for the reign of terror we fought against.”

“No, we can’t be so certain.” Reaching into his robes, he withdrew a crumpled paper containing the Dark Lord’s picture and a few other notes. Their fugitive looked clean-shaven and handsome, his cold face smiling sinisterly back. “Karkaroff said he had something none of them had. On his wrist—no, that one, the other one.”

Praying that he would not suddenly rouse the curled-up man, Salerio gingerly picked up the man’s good wrist to turn it over. In blue ink was tattooed a snake swallowing its tail. “The ouroboros, just as he said. There’s no one else who would have this.”

Oberon felt an asthma attack coming on, although he couldn’t tell if it was from the stress or the dust. Well, he thought that one might be coming on. With his head in a tizzy, he just couldn’t tell what was going on with his body now. Pulling a bag from his pocket, he breathed deeply in it until he felt the panic slowly die away.

Salerio continued checking over the man, further confirming his suspicions. “You know what we need to do.” He wanted to finish this quick while they had the chance. “We can end this horror.” Swallowing hard, he readied his wand again. “We could tell them he attacked us. Even if it weren’t true, no one would know. And if they did, no one would blame us for killing him. We’d be praised for years to come.”

Stuttering and stammering, Oberon’s pacing grew more frantic. “This! This is the Dark Lord! Look at him!” He pointed accusingly at the man on the floor. “This is the man whose name is enough to make us piss ourselves in fear!” In a strange way, he was angry about how pathetic their great enemy looked.

“He still killed so many people. He made this happened.” Salerio had lost more than a few friends to the battles. Tightening the grip on his wand, he took a deep and calming breath so he wouldn’t do anything rash. “We can end everything now. We gave up far too much to let him get away. We’ve gotten this far.”

The fugitive on the floor stirred and moaned, rolling onto all fours. He crouched down, coughing forcefully as something else came out of his mouth. Clearing his throat, he crawled to his feet while still clutching his bottle as he clung to the wing-backed chair. After a few grunts, he spoke in a hoarse, grumbling voice. “Damn it, Yaxley. I told you to not come here without telling me first. Did you even bring me any more whiskey?”

Salerio somehow found his voice in spite of his panic. “I—I left it downstairs. Sir.”

“Stupid as always,” he sneered, slurring. “Bring me water. I’ll make it myself.” Though the statement was to his self, he didn’t bother changing the volume of his voice. “Wouldn’t know common sense if it chewed off his voice. Never was good for a damn thing.” When he scratched himself vigorously, tiny flies flew out of his robes. “Damn little midgies.”

“Sir, we should take you out of here.” Salerio reluctantly moved closer, offering his body as a support.

“Fine here,” he said gruffly, falling against the auror anyways. “Don’t need...hm. Water. Take me down to get some water. Not letting a damn third-rate wizard like you tell me what’s what. Bugger.”

The two aurors let their fugitive leaned on them as they walked down the steps, playing the part of his minions. The worst of it was the terrible smell, but it didn’t help that they often got the feeling that little insects were crawling on them as well. He felt as bony and emaciated as he had looked; his withered arm seemed so delicate that even the slightest bit of misused force might break it into a bunch of flaky pieces. It was like leading a corpse than an actual man.

Behind the house was a pump which served as their only source of water. After Oberon pumped some into a pail, the Dark Lord stared at it mutely as if not certain what to do with it. After long moments, he mumbled, “Change it into something. I don’t have my wand.” The two aurors noticed his wand sticking conspicuously out of his pocket.

The men traded helpless glances, wondering if this was some kind of test. After a calming sigh, focusing as best he could on the pail of water. With a sharply uttered spell, he turned the clear water to light amber liquid. The pungent, aromatic vapors reached their noses quickly. He offered a ladle-full to the Dark Lord.

Sniffing it gingerly, he took a sip and cringed. “I should’ve known that you’d make it taste like piss. Can’t expect you to do a damn thing right, Yaxley.” Despite the awful taste and his many complaints, he kept sipping. “Take me somewhere to get a decent drink.”

Had no friend for to go my bail….

With a little magic, the Ministry had constructed special quarters for the Dark Lord’s prison cell. He would be placed next to the attached infirmary because they still had to do an examination. Based on descriptions from the aurors who had surrounded the house, they fashioned a living area analogous to the room where he had been found. Their fugitive seemed vaguely aware of the fact that he wasn’t in the hands of his followers, but he showed neither anger nor distrust to the people who now called themselves his caretakers. He was like an aged and wounded dog, too frail and too pained to put up much protest. Curled up in the padded armchair, he nursed his whiskey and stared into the middle distance with vacant brown eyes.

Through the polished wooden bars of the giant frame they had made to section off the quarters, Millicent Bagnold peered at their captive with a whitewashed face. Her riveted eyes watched every twitch he made. Behind her, Rufus Scrimgeour fidgeted and paced as he gnawed impatiently on his fingernails. “What are we waiting for, Minister?” he hissed in hushed tones. “We’ve got the man we want. We shouldn’t even be so accommodating.”

When she shook her head, she became reminded of how stiff and tense her muscles were. “I have never seen the Dark Arts do this to a wizard.” She furrowed her brow, flabbergasted by how docile their enemy acted. “I—I can’t understand it. Why would he let this happen?”

“It’s all a ploy.” The way that Rufus had been agonizing over the whole affair the moment that Oberon Quince and Salerio Shylock had presented the Dark Lord at his office came through clearly in his voice. He was tired of waiting around; as a man of action, he wanted to do something as soon as possible.

“But why…?” A realization suddenly came. “You said that you arrested a handful of Death Eaters. One of them—the name doesn’t matter—one of them looked like this. He was a minor wizard, more of a brute than a magic user.”

The head of the Aurors’ Office growled. “What by Merlin’s beard does that have to do with him?”

“The Death Eater mentioned something, a special kind of magical stuff that the Dark Lord gave him. He called a Colombian run-runner.” Her blue eyes made her look like a frightened cat. “I think the Dark Lord has found a kind of Dark object far fouler than we have ever known.”

Rufus was shuddering by now as he paced. The Dark Lord was the man he had focused all of his energy on defeating. With him gone, they would be safe at last. The idea that there was something strong enough to cripple the Dark Lord like this utterly terrified him. “So what is our next move?”

When Millicent looked back, she caught the blood-chilling and pitiful glance of the Dark Lord. The expression on his face let her know that he knew they were talking about him. She watched him turn to the wall as he had been before, pressing a little further into the chair. Millicent swallowed hard. “We do with him what we do with all mis-users of magic. Tell the Wizengamot to prepare for a trial.”