Chapter 5 of HP:DHM is up!
Chapter 5 of Harry Potter and the Death's Head Mark has been updated
Chapter 5
Rubeus was alone, in the dark, surrounded by sleeping portraits and Nazi patrols, alone, alone, alone…
“That’s enough, Hagrid-take off the cloak.”
…with…
“Filch?” Rubeus asked, looking down at his savior.
“That’s Mister Filch to you,” Filch grumbled. He looked not a day above twenty, but he growled like the old man Apollyon Pringle had been.
“Sorry,” said Rubeus. His relief gave way to worry. Filch was working for the Nazis, wasn’t he? He thought he’d heard some of the older Gryffindors talking about it. And…was that a horsewhip he was wearing? Rubeus had never liked horsewhips-it was cruel to hit a horse, even if most thought it a perfectly fine way to tell them to go faster…
“Well now, get moving,” Filch went on, starting to walk, “and follow me.”
He led the boy into a broom closet. It looked unused, for the most part, but Rubeus knew that sometimes older boys went in there to…to be alone with girls. Rubeus reddened at the thought of it. He recalled a night of jokes down in the common room, where numerous couples had turned as red as he. He also remembered that one of the jokes had been about Filch and Pringle.
Filch went to the back of the closet and tapped the wall a few times. Then he bent down and touched the floor once.
The wall disappeared, replaced by a rack of coats. Parting the coats, Filch walked out of what had now become a coat closet…
…and into his office.
“All broom closets lead to the caretaker’s office,” Filch told the startled boy. “Well?” he added impatiently. “Come out of there, will you.”
Rubeus left the closet, scraping his head on the doorway and stooping to avoid crashing into the candelabra hanging from the office’s ceiling.
“But this…” Rubeus said slowly. “This isn’t Pringle’s old office. It’s too small. And the…” He motioned to the candelabra. “…wasn’t there before.”
“Yes, I daresay you’ve been in Mister Pringle’s office enough to know the difference,” Filch snarled. “That business with the werewolves…and the skrewts…and that thestral…suffice to say, you’ve been there a bit. And no, this isn’t his office. I work out of my office, and leave Mister Pringle’s be.”
“Where is Mister Pringle?” Rubeus asked, before he could stop himself.
Anger rippled through Filch’s face.
Rubeus backed into a filing cabinet.
“Mister Pringle,” growled Filch, “is dead.”
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“Just kill me,” said the Auror. His words were remarkably coherent for a man with both his legs cursed with advanced leprosy and his wand arm blasted off, but Harry didn’t think about that. He’d never seen so much blood before. He tried to look away, but he couldn’t move. He would later be glad he hadn’t, as he soon learned that a leader like The Chosen One couldn’t afford to show grief. He had to think about troop morale now.
“Jus’ kill me,” he said again. “Say ‘ssommnus.’ Do it. Please.”
Somnus. A sleeping charm.
“Don’t let him sleep!” the healer had said. “Sleep would put him in a coma, or kill him.”
“What should I do?” Harry had asked, regretting that he’d ever offered to help the mediwizards. What had he been thinking? He wasn’t a healer. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. Except watch them all die.
“Talk to him!” the witch snapped, already moving for another room, another makeshift casualty ward. “Keep him awake!”
He couldn’t do this.
“Wait!” cried Harry, but she’d already gone.
“Please,” the Auror said again, snapping Harry back to the moment. “Kill me.”
Harry didn’t. He’d told the man he’d be okay until the healer came back. An hour later, he died.
This was just a dream, a memory, but he couldn’t wake up.
Harry looked back down at the man. This was all routine-he’d had worse dreams lately. He took the wand from his holster (remembering the time Moody gave him that holster, so he wouldn’t blow off his buttocks by using his trouser pockets) and turned it over in his hand. Then he pointed it at the man’s shivering form.
There was no sense in him suffering for the next hour, even if he was merely the figment of a dream. The man breathed out and leaned back. Harry thought the Auror looked afraid for a moment, but he uttered “Somnus” anyway. Within five minutes, he had stopped breathing.
“Harry,” a woman breathed.
He didn’t look up. “Hullo, Hermione.”
He heard the rustling of another set of robes. “Hi, Ron.”
“Harry,” Ron greeted.
Harry remained still, staring at the dead man. He thought dead men were supposed to look peaceful, but this one didn’t. He just looked like a corpse.
The two shadows stood at his back. He knew they wouldn’t try to comfort him. Harry hadn’t been able to handle the dream where Hermione tried to help him and put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t need this comfort-he could handle the pain. He was better with pain.
“You need to wake up,” Hermione said.
Harry shrugged. He didn’t mind the dreams anymore. They’d come to him so often they were like old friends now, more real than the ghosts behind him.
“Get up, Harry,” Ron insisted.
“It’s important,” begged Hermione.
Harry shook his head and stepped away from them-he didn’t need this.
“Harry!”
“They’re coming.”
Ron grabbed his shoulder and forced him around. Resigned, Harry raised his eyes to look at Ron’s.
“They’re coming,” the boy repeated. But it wasn’t Ron anymore.
It was Tom Riddle.
He looked the same as ever. Still taller than Harry, with the same blue eyes. Only not. They were blue like ocean now, not ice. In the chamber, they’d been ice-blue, the color of detachment. But now his eyes were blue like a hurricane sea, dark and filled with rage.
“Harry Potter,” Riddle spat, and punched him in the face.
Harry woke up.
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Someone was knocking on Filch’s door.
“Mister Pringle is…dead?” Rubeus repeated.
“Yes!” said Filch. It took Rubeus a moment to realize that he was talking through the door and not to him. “One moment!”
He turned to Rubeus and shoved the boy in the direction of the closet. Rubeus got in, kneeling to make himself fit more comfortably.
“Good morning, Hauptscharführer Weiss,” Rubeus heard Filch greet.
“Scheisse!-it is morning, isn’t it?” the German replied. “Mein Gott, I’ve been patrolling since yesterday afternoon.”
Filch grunted his agreement. “Same here. Tea, Konrad?”
“Nein, Argus. I’m looking for a kid. Gryffindor. Damn boy gets himself lost and we find out about just as I’m about to go off shift. Lousy kids.”
“Gryffindors are troublemakers like that,” Filch agreed. “What’s the name?”
“Rufus Haygrid? I think that’s it.”
“I know who you mean-real troublemaker, that one-but I haven’t seen him.”
“Troublemaker?”
“Oh, nothing for you to get worked up about. Mostly he finds monsters and makes them his pets. Nothing sinister ’bout it, just typical bleeding-heart Gryffindor.”
Weiss snorted. “You know, I never understood why you wizards refer to each other by houses.”
“I don’t either,” Filch replied. “I was never sorted myself. Never went to school, see.”
“Ach, ja,” Weiss replied. “You’re a-what do you call it?”
“Squib,” Filch told him. “And a lot of trouble I get for it too. Damn wizards think they’re superior to the rest of us. You should know, being muggle.”
“Ja,” Weiss spat. “All I get from this place is-verdammte Scheisse! You hear what those kids did today? They turned Schroeder’s head into a fish! Rudi almost died, the little Schweinhunde! It’s all a game to them, yes? Those little wizards. Our lives are games for them.”
“It’s always been that way,” Filch replied. “They never respected me, or men like me. ’Course, it probably doesn’t help that I’m less than two years older than the seventh-years. Plus, my family’s not too influential, even in the wizarding world.”
“Damn politics,” Weiss snarled. “We have it also. Can’t have admirals’ sons going to the front with the rest of us, no.” The German sighed. “But it’s getting better. The Hitlerjugend kids all help work on the farms, even if they’re city brats. Everyone does the same Hilfswerk, the same duties. Of course, that can be a joke-one of the kids assigned to help my mother’s farm has never even seen a cow, let alone milked one. Dummkopfe, the lot of them.”
Filch laughed. Rubeus expected the man’s laugh to sound like a rasp or a cackle, but Filch’s laugh was a full-throated chuckle.
Rubeus was beginning to feel better about his situation.
“Well, Argus, I’d better go,” Weiss was saying. “I only had time to stop in and ask about the kid. Tell me if you’ve seen him, ja?”
“If I see him, I’ll send a ghost,” Filch replied.
“A ghost?” Weiss repeated. “Not one of them-they give me the…ach, just send a student.”
“A student?” Filch repeated. “Better stick with ghosts, they cause less trouble.” There was a pause. “Usually.” Another pause. “Bloody poltergeist.”
Weiss laughed. “Ja, Herr Peeves-I’ve seen his work. He frightened a load of new men the other day-now they’re hunting after him with guns.”
Filch snorted.
“I’d better go,” said Weiss.
“Here’s hoping you get some sleep,” Filch offered.
“You also,” the German replied.
Rubeus heard a door open and close. Then he heard another door open-only to blink and realize that Filch had just opened the door to the closet he was crouching in.
“Come out,” said Filch.
“Thank you,” Rubeus replied. Filch merely grunted. “Who was that?”
“Hauptscharführer Konrad Weiss,” Filch replied. “Muggle SS. He’s decent-for one of them. More a soldier than a Nazi.”
“What do you mean?”
Filch sighed. “Too young to know the difference, kid.” But at Rubeus’s insistent look, he continued. “There are three kinds of Nazis. The first fights for his country, but he cares about his own advancement too. Doppelburg’s like that.” Filch took off his coat. “Think of them as Slytherins. Then there’s the fanatics-they fight for their country because their leader tells them. You’ll find them with both the wizards and the muggles, only the wizards quote Grindelwald and Himmler, while the muggles-” He tossed his coat onto a coathanger. “-salute Hitler. Bit mad in their loyalty, they are-” From the corner, the coathanger gave a polite bow. “-they’re like Hufflepuffs gone wrong. That’s Spungen. Then there’s the soldiers about them, the Gryffindors, the ones who fight for their country. Weiss is like that. These men’ll fight for Hitler too, but given a choice between him and the Fatherland, they’d choose the Fatherland. But, unfortunately for us, most of em never have to make that choice.”
Rubeus tried to digest the new information, and failed.
“Knew you were too young,” Filch said. He waved Rubeus to his desk. Rubeus walked over, forgetting to duck under the candelabra. His head smacked straight into it.
Rubeus rubbed it, wincing.
“You’d better sit down,” Filch muttered, using a booted heel to nudge a chair over to him. Momentarily ignoring the boy, he reached down to stroke a cat that had suddenly appeared. Rubeus realized that it was Pringle’s old kitten, Mrs. Norris. She was less than a year old, but her gray coloring and scraggly fur made everyone think she was older. Perhaps even as old as Pringle himself had been. Pringle, a man like a stone gargoyle-eroded something fierce, but in a way immortal.
Mrs. Norris sauntered by Rubeus’s chair, and the boy automatically reached out to pet her. She preened under his touch.
“She likes you,” Filch said, sounding almost reluctant. “Must be something worthwhile in that head of yours. She doesn’t like the Germans-she knows they killed him, see.”
“Mister Pringle?” Rubeus asked.
Filch nodded.
“How do you know?” the boy asked.
“Found his body in the Forbidden Forest,” Filch replied. Rubeus was startled-he hadn’t expected Filch to answer so readily. “Over by the centaurs. You know where-you’ve been in there enough.”
Rubeus nodded sheepishly. He had served two detentions in the forest and gone there a few other times as well.
“He was with the professors,” Filch continued, his voice growing soft.
“What about the other teachers?” Rubeus interrupted. “What happened to them?”
“Oh, they’re dead,” Filch said tonelessly. “Never saw them come back.”
Rubeus was quiet.
“How did Mister Pringle die?”
“Wasn’ a mark on ’im,” Filch murmured, his eyes seeming to focus on something far away. “Must ’ave been the Killing Curse.” His eyes grew dim with something-a sort of mist? “He was like my father, you know. The father of my birth didn’t care for me after he learned I couldn’t do magic, but Apollyon was a squib like me. But I doubt you’d understand.”
“My father never thought I’d be magical,” Rubeus admitted. “’cause of me mum…you see…she wasn’ae human.”
“She was a giantess,” Filch replied. At Rubeus’s look of astonishment, he explained: “I guessed it was somewhat like that. I suppose you’d understand some of it, then.” His eyes hardened and he looked away. “But they’re all dead now, and there’s nothing we can do, magical or not.
“At least,” his eyes snapped back to Rubeus, “there’s nothing we can do about them. But the rest of us can do something for ourselves.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rubeus.
Filch shook his head. “Just tell Mr. Moody and Mr. Weasley what I’ve just told you. About Mister Pringle, and the others. They’ll know what to make of it. Tell them about the broom closets too-just warn them I’d better not catch them in here over something stupid, or I’ll hang them by their thumbs.” He jerked his head at some chains on the wall, which reacted to Filch’s attention by giving an obedient rattle.
Filch stood up and moved to a filing cabinet. “Now, about you…you can’t go back to the Tower now-it’s being watched by the Nazis. You’ll have to stay in here til curfew ends. Then you can go to Appell. Tell the others you were in the Tower the whole time. Tell them you spent the night on the watchtower-no one goes up there when the weather’s this stormy. They’ll probably think you were trying to breed killer pigeons or secretly raising a dragon.”
Rubeus looked away. He’d always wanted a dragon. Oh well. Aragog was the best pet a boy could hope for. And, even better, it looked like Filch didn’t even know about him!
“But in the meantime…” Filch’s eyes glittered dangerously. “You can make yourself useful. Help me sort out these detention records, starting with the Cs…”
It was three-thirty in the morning.
Rubeus had a good three hours to go.
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There were rafters above him and a bunk below. He was in the barracks.
Harry rolled over. Animal was snoring and he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore that night. He stared out vacantly. Animal was snoring, the air was cold, the searchlight was shining through the window, and the Germans were talking outside.
Home sweet stalag.
Wait.
Harry sat up and listened. The German was too soft to make out, but Harry didn’t like it. The Germans were never this loud after lights-out.
Harry felt for his wand. He’d hid it inside the band of the sock he wore, with his trouser leg covering the end of it, and now he grabbed it with ease.
He listened for the words again. He still couldn’t make them out, but he could tell-the words were moving. The voices had been coming closer all along.
Harry slid off the bed and landed in a crouch, ducking so the searchlight wouldn’t catch his shadow in the window. When the light moved away, Harry stood up to reach his bed. He had eight seconds-he’d timed the searchlight before. Boots, jacket, and a hat he’d won off Shapiro in a poker match. He grabbed them all and crouched down again.
He dog-crawled over to the corner and pulled out his wand.
He was wondering what to do when he heard someone sit up. Harry’s heart froze until he saw that it was Crazy Joey, looking down at him with wide child’s eyes.
“Go back to sleep, Joey,” he whispered, trying to keep the harshness out of his voice. Joey’s plane had been shot died and he’d been the only crewman of six to make it. He hadn’t spoken a single word since. He just sat on his bunk all day and played a piccolo Carter’d made from wood. “It’s not morning yet.”
Joey swung his feet over the side of the bunk and slid off with a strange sort of grace. For a moment, Harry wondered if it was because the man was mad. He remembered Voldemort in the cemetery. He’d moved with the same kind of grace. An unnatural, inhuman kind of grace - the grace of a leopard poised to pounce, or a god hurling thunderbolts in the sky. A madman’s grace.
“No!” Harry hissed. “Joey! The guards are coming! It’s the goons, Joey-go back to bed!”
The man blinked at Harry. And then, he knew that Joey knew.
“Yeah,” Harry admitted. “It’s because of me.” The guards are coming because of me. The Nazis invaded Britain because of me. Grindelwald and Hitler will rule the world-because of me.
Joey stepped forward. Harry stepped back. Fear hit him like a fist. Joey knew-and now he was angry. He was mad.
Joey moved past Harry and strode to the stove at the center of the room. He wrapped his arms around it like a bear and tried to lift it. He failed and waved an arm at Harry. It was a moment before Harry understood that Joey was asking him to help.
The voices were moving closer; they were almost at the door. Harry had to do something-stand just inside the door and jump the first man who came in. And pray his wand would defend him from the rest.
There was a thud. Joey had picked up the stove-and dropped it.
Animal stopped snoring. Hoffie rolled over. “What the-Joey?” He sat up. “Harry?”
Harry stepped closer to the madman. The stove was on its side and in the space where it had been was…a hole. A big, deep hole.
A tunnel.
Harry dove for it.
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“Al!” called Septimus, striding into the sixth-year boys’ dormitory. “Alastor!”
Two of the room’s three occupants (Gryffindor had been a bit down on numbers lately-Muggleborns hadn’t started at Hogwarts since the war began, while wizardborn boys were leaving to join the Ministry’s hastily-formed Home Guard) were up and dressed. The third was merely a lump in his bed.
“Hey, Bones, Lockhart,” Septimus greeted. The others nodded back.
Bertran Bones began to respond when Septimus put a finger to his lips and started tiptoeing over to Alastor’s bed. He stood over the bed for a moment, looking for all the world like a vampire about to swoop down on his prey-save the fact that Alastor Moody wasn’t a nubile young woman in a nightdress, but a half-shaven sixth-year boy with a dire need to charm his breath with mint or something.
Septimus took out his wand, brandishing it for the benefit of Bones and Lockhart. He drew a circle in the air above Alastor’s head and shouted: “PANDEMONIA!”
A noise that managed to resemble nails on chalkboard, screaming five-year-olds, magic-carpet jousting, and a quartet of accordions erupted from the tip of Septimus’s wand.
Alastor jumped out of bed and made to strangle the other boy, but Septimus leapt out of his way.
“CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” he shouted merrily.
It was Alastor’s family’s motto. For four hundred years, the Moody Family had been known for its stewards, guardsmen, law enforcement officers, and watchtower keepers. It wasn’t a glamorous legacy, but it was better than none. The coat of arms was a lone figure standing before a mighty castle. The man was a Moody, the castle’s sole sentry. There was a legend about that man, Virgil Moody, but Septimus had forgotten the specifics. He’d have to ask Alastor about that one.
With a flourish, Septimus holstered his wand in his robe pocket. Alastor muttered a recommendation for an alternative place to put it as he reached for his uniform.
Septimus smiled. He hadn’t seen Alastor acting so normal since before…
Suddenly, all memories of last night hit the waking boy. Septimus could tell, just from the now-murderous expression on his face.
“Where’s the kid?” Alastor muttered. “Damn kid kept us up half the night-”
“Hagrid’s safe,” Septimus replied. “A house-elf came with a note. It was from Filch.”
Alastor flinched in surprise. “Filch?”
“It’s okay,” the Weasley reassured. “He said he-”
“Are we all ready for the morning Appell?” came a voice.
The four boys whirled around to face the speaker. His stomach sinking, Septimus wondered how much the man had heard.
It was a German, one of the SS wizards and Doppelburg’s “adjutant.” Septimus wasn’t too good at reading insignia, but he could tell the man had a middling rank, perhaps a low-grade lieutenant. He was important enough to strut, but not important enough to get out of the menial task of being the morning wake-up call for a houseful of young wizards. Septimus, through careful scrutiny, had learned his name-Hasselbach.
Septimus felt uneasy. It had been over a month since the occupation began, and the Germans had never gone so far as to enter individual dormitories before, not since the second day, when they had gone in to check “for weapons” and found none save the wands the students wore.
But now the soldier was just standing in front of them, nonchalantly as the sun, as if he had a right to be there. It occurred to Septimus that this was the way it was going to be now. The wake-up Nazi would always go straight to their rooms now, and soon the students would forget that he hadn’t done that at first, that he had once waited for them in the common room, leaving them to wake up in privacy.
“Yes,” Septimus replied, noticing Bones and Lockhart straighten their postures like soldiers standing at attention. “Yes, we’re ready.”
This statement was rather ludicrous, as Alastor was still changing clothes. He wasn’t even wearing trousers. The Nazi grinned at them in a way that made Septimus uncomfortable and barked a laugh. “See that you are, men.”
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The tunnel wasn’t what Harry had originally expected. It only cut through the barracks floor, to the dirt underneath. Each barrack was built on a raised foundation (meant to prevent tunneling), so the tunnel under the stove was really merely a hole in the floor.
He tried to move up and hit his head. There was too little space to crawl-he’d have to squirm his way out. To crawl not on hands and knees, but on his stomach. Move like a snake, not a dog.
He swiped a hand over the dirt coating his glasses. He could barely see through the smears, but at least the largest dirt clods were off. He’d fix his glasses later-the voices were at the door now. Harry could see German boots a mere meter from his face.
“Everybody up!” a German shouted. “Out of your beds! Schnell, macht schnell!”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Hoffie asked. His voice was muffled. Joey must have moved the stove over the hole again.
Harry watched the boots ascend into the hut.
Time seemed to slow. They’d realize his escape in mere moments, but he couldn’t run yet. The searchlight was in front of his barracks, now right in front of the barracks across from him-now.
He sprang from the dirt like a zombie out of hell.
Then he ran.
It was a miracle the lights didn’t hit him-he wasn’t stopping to calculate their movements. He wasn’t even staying in the shadows of the prisoners’ huts-he was making a mad, linear dash for the wire.
The guard nearest the wire began to turn. Surely he had seen the mad runner out of the corner of his eye.
Harry hissed a Cutting Charm: “Severo!” Another: “Slicendice!” Another: “Sectumsempra!”
Nothing worked.
The guard gaped at him, fumbling for his gun.
“No!” Harry breathed. “Don’t shoot!”
The gun barrel rose.
“No-don’t! Don’t shoot!”
Harry stumbled. He was dead now.
But where were the bullets? It was supposed to be raining them by now. Why hadn’t the guard shot him?
Harry lifted his head.
The guard was frozen and his eyes were distant. Glazed. Like Viktor Krum’s had been, after being Imperius’d in the Triwizard Tournament…
The guard blinked and re-aimed his gun.
No - not again!
“Stop!” he screamed.
Again, the guard froze.
Harry rose.
For some reason, he wasn’t scared anymore. The guard’s eyes were dimmed with white and he wasn’t using his gun. Harry reached for the weapon, but he had barely outstretched his arm before the guard handed it over. Just like that.
Harry heard a shout from his barracks. But he still wasn’t scared. It was like he was living on borrowed energy, stolen from the man he’d just cursed.
He turned back to the guard, but his eyes were still glassy. The (Imperius) curse wasn’t wearing off as fast this time. Good. “Open the door,” Harry ordered. The guard stumbled to obey. “Hurry!”
A whistle pierced the night.
The first gate opened.
“Now the next one!”
The searchlight moved to find Harry, and the second gate opened.
“Stop them!” Harry finished, beginning to run again. The guard likewise began to run, moving towards the barracks he’d just escaped from, doubtless attempting to take on his fellow guards singlehandedly.
Harry threw his borrowed rifle on the ground. It was heavy, and Harry hadn’t the faintest clue how to use it. He should have given it back to the guard-then the soldier could have a chance at slowing the others down. Oh well.
He ran beyond the searchlight. The forest was safe, too dark for any searchlights to find him. He grinned as the shadows swallowed him up.
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MINI-GLOSSARY:
Hauptscharführer - Waffen-SS sergeant.
Scheisse - German curse (of the non-magical variety). Alternative word for excrement.
Mein Gott - “My God!”
Nein - “no”
Ja - “yes”
Verdammte Scheisse - German, similar to “bloody hell.”
Schweinehunde (plural) - German. Literally “pig-dog,” but can be understood as “bastards.”
Hilfswerk - Something like “public social work.”
Dummkopfe - (hopefully this is the right plural form - couldn’t get my trusty online German dictionary to help me…) Literally “dumb-head”-“idiot”-but the meaning is a little stronger than that.
Stalag - P.O.W. camp
Crazy Joey - Character and backstory shamelessly stolen from Stalag 17. This is the last of the blatant WWII movie ripoffs. (I think.) That’s right - Harry’s on his own now!