Dangerous Driving (Pt.2)
Title: Dangerous Driving (Part 2 of 2)
Word count: Total 11,600; this part 6,300
Part One
Ernie knew something was up as soon as he arrived home. The tension in the air all but hit him in the face the moment he walked in the door.
Ethel greeted him with relief. "Ernie! At last. Talk to our granddaughter, will you?"
He looked between them with a sense of foreboding. Melanie had that mulish look on her face, the one that had always meant she was digging in her heels about something and refusing to listen to her grandparents. Ethel was tight-lipped, and clearly outraged by whatever it was she'd come up with this time.
"What's going on, Melanie love?" he asked weakly.
"Going on? I'll tell you what's going on!" cried Ethel before Melanie could open her mouth. "Our granddaughter has decided to ..."
"Do something useful for a change!" interrupted Melanie, eyes flashing. "It's about time somebody did!"
Ernie winced. "Melanie, no need to talk to your Gran like that ..."
"What Gran's bursting to tell you is that I've left the broom control job and signed up for the new Patroller training programme," she informed him, brushing aside his recriminations with the air of someone both ready and willing for a fight on the subject. She stared at him defiantly. "And I've done it now, so there's nothing either of you can do to stop me!"
"The Patroller ..." Ernie had to stop for a moment to work that out, and when it dawned on him that she meant Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, it sent a chill down his spine. "But ... Melanie, you're not qualified, you didn't get the N.E.W.T.s for it ..."
"I nearly did," she said. "And they need all the people they can get now, with the war on. If they think you might be able to do it they're willing to take you and train you up!" Ernie's heart sank at her enthusiasm, and it must have shown in his face, because she added in a hurt tone, "I'd have thought you'd have been proud of me, Granddad. This way, I can help fight the war, not just sit on the sidelines. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get the chance to do something to pay those bastards back for what they did to Mum and Dad!"
Ethel gasped. Ernie went white. She surely couldn't know that she had just named their worst fear. "Melanie, love," he said desperately. "Don't you see how dangerous this'll be? You're an easy target. We lost them. Couldn't bear to lose you too, can't you see that?" He took off his glasses to wipe away a tear that had found its way into the corner of his eye.
"I'm sorry, Granddad." Melanie's eyes were moist too, but she obviously wasn't going to back down. "I'm not going to do anything stupid. But I need to do something, not hide away and hope it all blows over. Because it won't, will it, not just like that? We've all got to do what we can, haven't we?"
Ernie exchanged hopeless looks with Ethel. "That's the sort of thing your mum and dad would have said." It had also been the sort of thing that had meant they had found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he knew that his granddaughter was well aware of that and more than willing to ignore it.
*****
"I hear your granddaughter is going to join us, Ernie. Congratulations!"
Ernie half-nodded. Robards himself had come to meet him again tonight, which presumably meant that something he'd passed on had been useful. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what. "She insisted, Mr R."
"You must be very proud of her, making a stand like that?"
"Ar. She's a good girl, Melanie is." That consideration hadn't shaken his cold terror at the thought of what might happen when she was set on watch in Diagon Alley, or sent to patrol the streets of Hogsmeade. But at some level, her confident declaration had left him feeling confused, and oddly shamed by his recent behaviour. Ever since then, despite himself he'd found that the information he passed on to the Aurors had begun to be increasingly detailed. It was an odd feeling, one he wasn't sure if he actually liked or not. "I try to help, Mr R."
"Well, you did, Ernie. You have my thanks for that. In confidence --" Ernie's stomach lurched, that sounded like something he'd have to be very careful to pretend not to know afterwards "-- you might have given us a good lead on the Abbot case. Her neighbours never told us people were coming round asking them questions about the family beforehand, so now we've got an excellent description and something we can look into."
"Ar. That's good." Privately, Ernie was sure the questioners, if they were who he thought they were, would have made themselves scarce as soon as they found out that the investigation was taking place. At least it kept them out of the way. He still didn't have to tell everything he knew, at least not immediately.
"That's three arrests we've made already this year. Three Death Eaters off the streets." Robards seemed to be in an expansive mood, and although a picture of a weeping Cicely Shunpike flashed through Ernie's mind he didn't try to argue the point again. "All because people gave us information. People like you, Ernie. I've been a bit hard on you sometimes, I know, but we do have to have our sources. After all, we know the Death Eaters must have theirs, the same as they did in the last war."
"No kidding. That Rookwood, you mean," muttered Ernie darkly.
Robards chuckled. "Yes, indeed. Proper little organisation, his was," he added reminiscently. "We never even had a scent of it until afterwards. Gave us some good ideas we could use, though." He gave Ernie an appraising look. "Brought us together, Ernie, didn't he? That's why I thought of you this time around. Remember meeting him?"
Ernie shuddered and drained his glass. "Wish I didn't, Mr R." He rather wished Robards hadn't either.
"He's back there now, you know. Didn't stay out long."
"Good." Even Ernie was surprised at his vehemence. The meeting Robards was referring to had haunted him for years ...
*****
By the time Augustus Rookwood had been brought to justice, one of the last Death Eaters to be captured, the Prophet's court reporting had become perfunctory as public attention moved onto other matters. Rookwood's trial had changed all that.
People read the reports avidly as the nature of his network of informants was laid bare by the testimony of recanting Death Eater Igor Karkaroff. Neighbours looked uneasily at each other, wondering if Rookwood's interrogation would reveal that they were living next door to a traitor. Ernie himself had observed people on the bus reading the paper and then glancing around at their fellow passengers with deep suspicion, and nervously wondered what the outcome of the trial would be.
And then Rookwood, when questioned, had just sat in the prisoner's chair and sneered at the court, refusing to name a single member of his organisation, nor even confirm or deny the membership of those such as Ludo Bagman who had been accused of being part of it. None of the threats or inducements Barty Crouch had tried to bring to bear had had any effect. Rookwood, like the Lestranges, seemed to believe that his Dark Lord would return some day, and might need his old resources.
That had scared people.
So when Ernie encountered the man a few days later, it was both unexpected and unpleasant.
The booking written at the top of the sheet when he came on duty told him to go to a place he didn't recognise, on the far north coast of Scotland. Whoever had taken the booking had scribbled a note next to it: 'Do this one before you pick anyone else up. Standing start. Sooner you than me, Ernie.' That didn't sound encouraging, especially the 'standing start' comment. It suggested he was being sent somewhere too small for the bus to move normally.
Ernie told Harper to brace himself and hit the control that moved them to the indicated spot. He was astonished to find they had arrived in what looked like a small cove with a shingle beach, into which the weight of the Knight Bus was slowly settling. There was little enough space to park it, let alone move, and there was nothing of interest to be seen except for a little jetty extending out into the sea.
He exchanged puzzled looks with Harper and got off the bus to investigate. The place was surrounded by high cliffs, and seemed to be completely deserted. It was fully five minutes before anything happened; and then he jumped as several people suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of him.
It was an odd-looking group, half-a-dozen Aurors surrounding a thin man in plain grey prisoner's robes who was staring at his shoes. One of the Aurors tossed away an old bottle, then nodded to Ernie and Harper, muttered something to his companions and detached himself from the group. As he did so, Ernie caught sight of the prisoner's blemished face, and couldn't manage to stifle a gasp.
The noise made Rookwood look up, his eyes first resting on the Knight Bus crew and then flicking past them to take in the incongruous sight of the violently purple bus itself. Ernie froze as the man stared at them, his bored expression suddenly giving way to a cruel mocking grin and then to loud laughter, as if at some very funny private joke. He didn't quieten down until one of the guards gave him a shove and threatened to use a Silencing Spell, but nevertheless he still continued to chuckle maliciously to himself.
Harper swore quietly. "You know where we are, Speedy?" Ernie shook his head. "Must be where they transfer prisoners to Azkaban. They send one out, we fetch one back."
"Well spotted, Mr ... Harper, isn't it?" The Auror had joined them; his look of malicious humour almost matched that of his captive. "We're sorry you had to wait. Shouldn't be long now before your passenger gets here."
Ernie felt his heart sink. His conductor didn't seem too pleased either. "Why us?" he asked the Auror. "Why don't you just take him back yourselves, the same way you got here?"
"He refused," said the Auror with a look of scorn. "Wanted to be out of our hands as soon as possible. Doesn't trust us for some reason. Sorry you were inconvenienced, Harper."
The other Aurors were gazing out to sea nervously; but a minute or so later, to their evident relief, a small boat came into view. As it approached the jetty, Ernie could see that it contained three passengers. One was curled up near the bow, apparently trying to stay as far away as possible from the other two. They were the ones that caught the eye; impossibly tall figures in black cloaks with shrouded faces.
He realised that Rookwood had suddenly stopped laughing and glanced across at him. The man was also watching the hooded figures in the boat, with a look of increasing fear, and as the boat slid smoothly against the jetty their nature suddenly hit Ernie like a physical blow to the gut.
Azkaban guards. Dementors. A name of terror.
It was a summer's day, hot as a furnace and with the sun high in the sky, but as the passengers disembarked the light seemed to dim and the entire cove turn icy cold. The man who had been cowering at the front of the boat lurched past, ashen-faced, without even a glance at them; he stumbled onto the bus and collapsed on the first seat he came to. Rookwood's last trace of defiance faded away as the Dementors glided towards him, and as they seized an arm each and began to carry him to the boat he started to shake violently. Even the Aurors seemed under deep strain.
Ernie glanced at Harper, who seemed to be of one mind with him; they turned and positively ran back to the bus to get as far as possible from the Dementors. It didn't help. Perhaps the creatures could sense their panic, or perhaps they merely wanted to take a parting shot at the man who had travelled with them from Azkaban. They turned towards the bus, and from underneath their cowls came a sucking sound that was like a death rattle.
"Granddad, when are Mummy and Daddy coming home?"
"The Knight Bus travels all over, Ernie. You must hear all sorts of things. Who talks to who. Where they go. That information could be very valuable to the Ministry ..."
"Abigail, love, don't you see how dangerous that'd be? You're an easy target there! They know where to find you!"
"You didn't realise what was going on? Of course you didn't, Ernie. But you know now. So you'd best remember it, hadn't you?"
"Mr Prang, we regret to inform you that your daughter and son-in-law have been killed in a Death Eater-related incident ..."
"ERNIE!"
He was shaking ... no, being shaken ... no, both at once ...
"Ernie! Are you all right, mate?"
Harper's face swam into view. Above him. Chalk white. More frightened than he'd have believed possible. Things slowly coming into focus. Boat had gone. Sun was shining as brightly as before. Cold, so cold. Seemed to have soaked into his aging bones ...
"Here." An amused voice. Above him. The Auror. He'd spoken to them earlier. Holding out ... chocolate? "Eat this. Those things can affect you badly, if you're on the weak side."
Ernie bit into it and was surprised at the sudden warmth it brought. He crammed the rest into his mouth and climbed to his feet, still shaking. "Thanks, Mr -- er ..."
"Robards. In charge of the team investigating Rookwood's little network. Last either of us will see of him, I hope." His gaze suddenly sharpened. "You're Ernest Prang, aren't you?"
"Ar," said Ernie suspiciously.
"I see. Well, I'm sorry I didn't warn you, then. I remember hearing about your recent loss. Dementors home in on that sort of thing." He didn't look especially sorry, but at least he'd stopped grinning. "Do you think you're fit to drive? Could be dangerous in your condition."
He was feeling light-headed, as if a terrible curse had only missed him by that much, but he wasn't going to let Robards know that if he could help it. "Won't be no more dangerous than usual. Bus more or less drives itself."
Harper gave a weak laugh. "Come on then Speedy, get us out of here. These nice gents are waiting for a lift back to town. We'd better drop this poor sod off first, though." He nodded at the man slumped on the front seat of the bus, pale and thin with hollow, haunted eyes, and lowered his voice. "How long did he have to put up with them? What did he do?"
Robards turned to look at the ex-prisoner and frowned. "Do? Barker here? Offered to supply dangerous contraband to the Death Eaters, but committed the elementary error of making the offer to one of our undercover teams. And unfortunately for him, that meant he didn't have any useful information to bargain himself out of Azkaban with. We really didn't like that. Five years imprisonment. I tell you what, though, he won't do it again."
"I bet." Harper looked almost as shaken as Ernie felt. "Off you go then, Speedy. Swansea for him."
Ernie hit the control with enormous relief. The Knight Bus immediately jumped from Scotland to Wales, leaving the Dementors hundreds of miles behind. But from then on, they remained lodged in Ernie's nightmares.
*****
"Made a sweet little OFFER for a-goblin, she did, if she could ONLY play with my WAND ..."
Ernie grimaced. He had the night shift this week, and that usually meant at least one trip taking Willy Croaker home from whatever wizarding pub he'd been attempting to drink dry. He didn't need Extendable Ears to hear his off-key (and usually off-colour) singing. And he wasn't sure he wanted to hear, let alone pass on, anything the Unspeakable might say about his work while in his cups.
As the bus jumped hundreds of miles and appeared on the main road leading into Northampton, he suddenly shivered. It seemed unusually cold for the time of year. Even the Muggles in the cars passing by on the other side of the road looked chilly and uncomfortable. And it was darker than he'd expected ...
He looked up in horrified realisation to see the two tall, black-cloaked, hooded figures that were hovering in ambush on either side of the road.
Ernie slammed his foot down hard and the Knight Bus accelerated past them, but the cold didn't seem to be going away ... He tapped the rear-view mirror with his wand and it widened to show the Dementors gliding in pursuit at high speed.
"Faster, Speedy! They're catching up!" moaned Harper from the back of the bus. Ernie could tell that for himself, from the steadily growing cold alone. The few passengers on the bus all seemed to be whimpering in fear. And then he felt it for the second time in his life; the sickening, disorienting sensation as the Dementors leached away all traces of happy thought, leaving only the terrors that stepped from the shadowed places of his mind ...
"And people talk all the time about what friends and neighbours are up to, pass on little bits of gossip they've heard."
No Mr R, please, don't ask me that ...
"Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get the chance to do something to pay those bastards back for what they did to Mum and Dad!"
No Melanie, no, no, please love don't do that ...
"Of course you didn't, Ernie. But you know now. So you'd best remember it, hadn't you?"
No Mr R, you don't mean that ...
There was a bright flash at the back of the bus, and a misty silver shape flew from the rear window and made the Dementors hesitate; Ernie felt the cold fade slightly, and as his mind cleared he suddenly realised that there was only one thing he could possibly do. He hit the controls hard and the bus made another huge jump to its next planned destination. He slammed his foot on the brakes and spun the wheel frantically; gradually the vehicle slowed to a modest cruising pace along the road, no longer causing trees and hedges to jump out of its path.
He pulled over at the first convenient spot and stopped. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest.
"Bloody hell, mate. Bloody hell," said Harper, making his way past scattered beds to the front of the bus and looking thoroughly shaken. "I hoped we'd never have to see them again. Where are we?"
"Somewhere in Kent." Ernie gripped the steering wheel hard. "What were that silver thing?"
"A Patronum whatsit. That Unspeakable bloke cast it. What do we do now?"
"Take me in to the Ministry." The hoarse voice startled them; it came, appropriately enough, from Croaker, who appeared to have been sobered up quite effectively by recent events. "I have to report the Dementor attack anyway. And I don't want to get caught out again while I'm still not capable of casting a proper Patronus. You never know, this might have been planned by someone who knew my schedule."
"What for?" asked Harper.
"A threat perhaps. Or a warning shot. Send a message."
"No kidding. Heard it loud and clear," muttered Ernie. He adjusted the controls once more and sent the Knight Bus leaping back to London.
*****
"What were you saying about Elladora Guffy the other day, Freda?"
Ernie pricked his ears -- and his Ears -- up at this. Freda Mordaunt had always been an incorrigible gossip, and her ramblings were usually good for a supply of trivial material that could be passed on to the Aurors. Ever since the encounter with the Dementors, he'd returned to his old policy of being very wary indeed about passing on anything that might relate to real Death Eater activity, and thus get him into trouble if the source of the information was traced back. He wasn't proud of it, but ...
"Ooh, it was terrible, it was!" The statement was belied by the relish with which Madam Mordaunt said it. "Her old man, they say in the village someone held him up at wandpoint when he was taking the Crup for a walk. Told him to tell his wife she shouldn't cross people who had important friends." She managed to make the last two words sound darkly mysterious.
"Elladora? What for?" asked her companion, who by contrast sounded thoroughly sceptical. "She's no-one special, is she?"
"Well you know what she's like," said Madam Mordaunt, who was clearly enjoying herself. "Oh, doesn't she think she's the funny one! My Ethelbard, he was so mad at her, but she didn't care, oh no. Put Sticking Charms on all our garden furniture, it ruined his best outdoor robes when he sat down, it did! I said to him, one of these days she'll end up trying on one of her little jokes with somebody who'll do more than just write to the paper about it."
"I see." Her companion sounded impressed. "Well, I hope she doesn't go too far. What do the authorities think about it?"
"Hasn't told them, she hasn't."
"What? Why ever not?"
"Doesn't trust them, she said. Ever since they fined her for turning the back of a Patroller's robes transparent when he came to investigate a complaint. He was walking round the rest of the day with his bum showing. I felt sorry for him, I did," she added, not entirely convincingly.
"Well, I hope someone puts a stop to it."
"Oh, there's probably nothing to it. Just someone playing games, I should think, giving Ella a taste of her own potion. I don't suppose we'll hear any more of it now they've warned her, we won't. Oh, this is my stop!" Ernie glanced up to see where they were and hastily jabbed his foot on the brakes.
No proof. There's no proof. Ernie was trembling as he removed the Extendable Ears later. Might just be a wind-up. That's all. He put them back in the box and tucked it into his pocket. If they're for real, wouldn't like me talking about it to Robards' lot. His conversation with Varney was quite perfunctory as he got off the bus. No proof, Ern. No proof. You stuck your neck out a bit with the Abbot stuff. Should have known better. You never should have got carried away.
The bearded Auror was waiting for him in the Leaky Cauldron. "Anything to tell me, Prang?"
"Well ..." No proof, Ern. No proof. "Not much really. Sorry, lad."
*****
Ernie had more or less dismissed Freda Mordaunt's tittle-tattle by the following Tuesday morning. So when his granddaughter opened the morning edition of the Daily Prophet and gave a horrified yelp, it startled him.
"Melanie?"
"There's been another one!"
"What's that, love?" he asked, his attention still mostly on his breakfast.
"Another Death Eater attack! Some family called the Guffys, found murdered in their own home with the Dark Mark set over it!" She rapidly scanned the report and snorted. "No-one in their village saw or heard anything, Oh no, of course they didn't. No-one ever does, do they?"
"Well ..." A chill was creeping up his spine.
She sprang up, a hard look on her face. "I'd better get in to work, they might need the trainees to help out with routine stuff." Ernie looked up at that and she held up a weary hand before he could say anything. "And don't start telling me it's dangerous, Granddad, please."
"But it is, love ..."
Melanie shocked him by spitting out a swear word she'd never used in their company before. "I don't care!" she screamed. She had a wild expression, as if something inside had finally snapped. "I've had enough of this crap, Granddad! Those bastards killed mum and dad, remember! Don't you care? Don't you want to pay them back too?"
Ethel had turned white. Ernie was sure he had, too. "Melanie, you don't understand," he said pleadingly. "You really don't understand the trouble I could get into -- could get you into ..."
"So you're happy just to sit here and be terrified? Treat me like a little girl as always, and hope somebody else's kid is the one to get killed?" The honest answer to that question was yes but Ernie didn't dare say so while his granddaughter was in this state. "Do you know, I met someone I knew from school on patrol in Hogsmeade the other day? She's fought them, she's already lost people, she's got loved ones in the firing line. But she still grits her teeth and does it!"
"But ..."
"Look, anything they'll let me do probably isn't dangerous, but even if it is, it's my duty to do it if I can. Remember that? If I have to sit back and do nothing any longer I'll go stark raving mad! And I'd rather you did something if you ever have the chance instead of always making the excuse that you're worried about me!" She had grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the jar on the mantelpiece and thrown it in the fire before Ernie could come up with an answer, and as she disappeared into the flames he stared helplessly at where she'd been only a few moments before.
"How could she talk to us like that?" said his wife, bristling. "I never would have thought she'd be so ungrateful ..."
"Ethel. Please."
There must have been something in his voice, because she trailed off and looked at him in silence for several minutes. Ernie hadn't realised quite how long it had been until Ethel said his name tentatively.
He turned his head in her direction. "Ethel?"
"Ernie ... what's the matter, love?"
He felt sick. That was what was the matter. But there was no way to tell his wife why he felt sick without revealing things he'd never told her, things he knew would both disgust and terrify her, and he couldn't bear to hurt her like that. No, that wasn't true. He couldn't bear to say them out loud at all. "I drove a Muggle car once when I was young, Ethel, did I ever tell you?" he said finally, his voice hoarse.
"Er ... I don't think so, no ..."
"Gave me the collywobbles, it did. You've got to be spot on with those things! Can't afford to get in some other car's space, they just hit each other, not get out the way! How anybody can learn how to drive in cars like that I don't know. It's dangerous, driving like that. Well, everything I'm doing's dangerous driving now."
"What are you talking about, Ernie?" Ethel sounded alarmed, as if worried for his sanity.
"Nothing, love. I just hate this bloody war. Maybe Melanie has got the right idea. Always the young ones who think it's easy, isn't it? She's a good girl. Abigail would have been proud of her, wouldn't she?"
Ethel blinked away a tear. "Well, she's her mother's daughter. I ... well, it terrified me when Abigail and Ben told those scum where to go, but I suppose I was proud of them, too. And in the end it was --"she swallowed "-- really just foul luck that they got caught up in an incident, wasn't it?" That was true, but of course it had never made Ernie feel any better about it. "Melanie ... well, she's braver than we ever were at her age, when we were just hoping that Grindelwald wouldn't come over here. I'm scared, Ernie, I'm scared, but ... I'm proud of her too, in a way, for doing something. Are you?" Tears were running down her face now.
Ernie put a comforting arm around her. "Ar. I am, Ethel love. That I am." He stared into the flames of the fire, which were still sparking with occasional emerald flickers from leftover grains of Floo powder.
He'd been vacillating all year, sometimes doing one thing, sometimes another.
He'd been making excuses, just like Melanie said.
He decided, then and there, what he was going to do next, and shuddered.
*****
Ernie left through the back door of the Leaky Cauldron, taking a deep breath of the night air and tapping the stones on the wall with his wand. As it slid open, he passed into Diagon Alley with what was almost a spring in his step. He'd just told the Auror every little thing he'd heard on the bus that week; it wasn't much at all, admittedly, but you never knew -- they might find something useful there, and he'd come to realise that there really wasn't much chance of it being traced back to him. And despite everything the Auror Office had done to him, they were definitely the lesser of two evils.
And even if the information was traceable ... what was done was done now, and he was feeling strangely reckless. He didn't know how long the feeling would last, and suspected he might bitterly regret acting on it later, but he intended to make the most of it while he had the chance.
Diagon Alley was more or less deserted at this late hour, apart from the occasional restaurant patron preparing to return home, and a solitary uniformed goblin in the distance on guard duty outside Gringotts. That suited Ernie; he preferred not to have an audience on the rare occasions he needed to Apparate. Although splinching himself would be extremely embarrassing regardless, considering where half of him would end up.
He took a deep breath, focused very hard on his intended destination, and felt the horrible squeezing sensation that told him he'd succeeded. He opened his eyes to see the familiar small forest clearing, and the by now far too familiar sight of the huge blond man standing there waiting for him.
"You're late, Prang," he said without preamble.
"Sorry, Mr R, the Auror contact were there waiting, weren't able to get away till now ..."
"Well try harder next time! You think I like standing around in the middle of nowhere, waiting for one of Rookwood's little pets to show up whenever he happens to feel like it? They can send that useless tosser Gibbon again next time. He seems able to put up with you." Rowle's right hand was twitching as if he wanted to grab his wand and start throwing curses, and Ernie hastened to distract him.
"Nothing much happening this time, Mr R ..." He gave the man an outline of what he'd just told the Auror, but left out anything that had sounded like it might be important, and mixed in much detail that was irrelevant and just a little that was actually untrue. Rowle was soon tapping his feet with impatience, and when Ernie started talking about the domestic arguments of a wizard living just outside Basingstoke he cut him off with a disgusted sound.
"I waste my time for this? We expect better from people like you, Prang! We've had Aurors getting close to finding people they should never have stood a chance of finding!"
"Can only tell you and Mr G what I hear, Mr R ..." He hesitated, then, amazed by his own daring, added "You mean the ones who did in Mrs Abbot?"
Rowle looked at Ernie with narrowed eyes. "What do you know about the Abbot affair?"
"I know they had a lead," he said stubbornly. "I heard people saying the Aurors had been round, asking about the ones who'd been there ... I told Mr Gibbon, he said it didn't matter ..." He suspected Gibbon had actually only said that to put him off asking any more questions, but in Ernie's opinion, anything that might put his two 'handlers' at odds was well worth the trouble. Sure enough, Rowle didn't take it well.
"We should have killed the witnesses too," he growled. "That's two good people we had to send into hiding. Don't even think of repeating that, Prang."
"I won't, Mr R."
"You'd better not. Remember, what happened to your daughter could happen to her brat as well."
Ernie gritted his teeth and tried not to react. That had been Rookwood's approach too, way back in the first war; threats brought to bear as soon as Ernie had realised that the information Rookwood had asked him to collect wasn't being passed on to the Ministry as he'd originally thought. "Ar, I know," he said aloud.
"Good. We don't like leaks, and when we get them we deal with them. Gibbon might not have told you that, but he fancies himself as a subtle man. I don't."
"I know, Mr R. I do know." He didn't know if the Death Eaters would really bother to follow up on the threat and risk losing a source, or if it was just routine intimidation. He certainly didn't know if what he was doing made sense, or if he was getting himself in too deep. But what he did know was that somehow he could no longer sit back and do nothing, even if the 'something' he was able to do wasn't much.
But any seeds of doubt he could sow in the minds of his handlers had to be worthwhile ... "Are you sure no-one's passing on stuff, Mr R? When Robards asked me to spy for him, sounded like he knew summat about me, even back then. Must have got that tip about the Knight Bus being a security risk from somewhere ..."
Rowle snorted. "Are you still going on about that? We fixed it for you, didn't we? Told that spotty loser a few things, let him fantasise like you said, tipped off the Ministry? What else do you expect?"
Ernie winced at the reminder. Of all the things he'd done over the last year, that was perhaps the one he was most ashamed of, but he persisted. "No, but ... it were like he knew I were doing this, that I'd done it before. Maybe someone your end tipped him off, like?"
"Not me. And even that imbecile Gibbon shouldn't have said anything, he can usually keep his mouth shut better than that," said Rowle shortly. That was an admission he shouldn't have made, but Ernie reckoned the blond git had always relied on his intimidating presence and let his wand and his fists do his thinking for him. "And I don't want you telling Robards anything we don't tell you to tell him, Prang, got that?"
"But Mr G, he always said I had to pass on all that stuff to keep my cover, like," said Ernie, again surprising himself with his nerve. "He were definite about that." Gibbon had in fact suggested something of the sort, probably while congratulating himself on his subtlety, but he couldn't help wondering if the other man would take it badly.
"Was he?" sneered Rowle. "Well, I'm telling you not to. We don't want any more leaks around here. I'll have a word with Gibbon and make sure he keeps his mouth shut. And if I think anyone's out of line ... well, I might arrange a little accident for them one dark night. So remember that, Prang."
"Ar, Mr R. Anything else?"
"No. I can't stand talking to you any longer. Same place next week, and be on time." With a final disgusted look, the Death Eater spun and Disapparated, leaving Ernie alone in the clearing.
He waited a few minutes before returning to Diagon Alley the same way he'd arrived, and then made his way back into the Leaky Cauldron. The Auror was still there, in the private room at the back; still looking at him with the same deep suspicion he'd shown before. "You're early."
"There weren't much he wanted to listen to. But I made sure I told him all you said to tell him." Quickly, he outlined the conversation with Rowle; and if he made it sound more heroic than it had actually been, that was his own affair.
"Right. You'd better keep telling him what we want you to tell him. You've got a long way to go before we trust you again, Prang my lad."
"I know, Mr O."
Confessing his situation to Robards had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He hadn't known whether the Ministry would even be willing to do a deal with him, or if they would just send him on another trip to Azkaban, one from which he would not be making a return journey. But unlike Barker fourteen years ago, he'd had information to bargain himself out of Azkaban with, low-level admittedly but a rare open door into You-Know-Who's intelligence operations. Not to mention a willingness to pass on whatever misleading information the Ministry requested him to pass on.
He had no idea if what he'd said tonight would produce any results, but it had been worth a try.
And he was tired of making excuses for himself. He finally had the chance to do something.
It would be dangerous driving for him whatever happened from now on. But at least some of the roads would now be of his own choosing.
Additional Notes:
The idea for this story came from idly reading the passage in PoA where Harry takes the Knight Bus, and wondering why exactly its driver would be so worried about Azkaban and the Dementors. Had he been a Death Eater perhaps? When I re-read the Pensieve scene in GoF and saw the mention of Rookwood's organisation, the outline of a fic started to take shape. The original crack idea of DE!Ernie ended up being toned down to this.
As I said, this story just kept growing when I realised it needed development in between the scenes where Ernie is approached by Robards and later talks to his DE contact, and needed to have a flashback scene in which Ernie actually met some Dementors, to show why he was so spooked by them. His family in general and granddaughter in particular were introduced to give him some additional motive to go along with the DEs -- of course, that meant that I had to show the granddaughter a few times, and she came in quite handy as a counterpoint. Things like the Extendable Ears were just those sorts of ideas that crop up when you have to start filling in the details.
Although some aspects of this story are obviously making a (very slight) play criticising the 'patriotically correct' frenzy that's hit in recent years, one thing about it is that it's not entirely clear in general who, if anyone, has the right or best approach here, even to me. So I tried to just let the characters do their own thing and speak for themselves, and let the reader sort it out if they wished.
For the record:
Word count: Total 11,600; this part 6,300
Part One
Ernie knew something was up as soon as he arrived home. The tension in the air all but hit him in the face the moment he walked in the door.
Ethel greeted him with relief. "Ernie! At last. Talk to our granddaughter, will you?"
He looked between them with a sense of foreboding. Melanie had that mulish look on her face, the one that had always meant she was digging in her heels about something and refusing to listen to her grandparents. Ethel was tight-lipped, and clearly outraged by whatever it was she'd come up with this time.
"What's going on, Melanie love?" he asked weakly.
"Going on? I'll tell you what's going on!" cried Ethel before Melanie could open her mouth. "Our granddaughter has decided to ..."
"Do something useful for a change!" interrupted Melanie, eyes flashing. "It's about time somebody did!"
Ernie winced. "Melanie, no need to talk to your Gran like that ..."
"What Gran's bursting to tell you is that I've left the broom control job and signed up for the new Patroller training programme," she informed him, brushing aside his recriminations with the air of someone both ready and willing for a fight on the subject. She stared at him defiantly. "And I've done it now, so there's nothing either of you can do to stop me!"
"The Patroller ..." Ernie had to stop for a moment to work that out, and when it dawned on him that she meant Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, it sent a chill down his spine. "But ... Melanie, you're not qualified, you didn't get the N.E.W.T.s for it ..."
"I nearly did," she said. "And they need all the people they can get now, with the war on. If they think you might be able to do it they're willing to take you and train you up!" Ernie's heart sank at her enthusiasm, and it must have shown in his face, because she added in a hurt tone, "I'd have thought you'd have been proud of me, Granddad. This way, I can help fight the war, not just sit on the sidelines. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get the chance to do something to pay those bastards back for what they did to Mum and Dad!"
Ethel gasped. Ernie went white. She surely couldn't know that she had just named their worst fear. "Melanie, love," he said desperately. "Don't you see how dangerous this'll be? You're an easy target. We lost them. Couldn't bear to lose you too, can't you see that?" He took off his glasses to wipe away a tear that had found its way into the corner of his eye.
"I'm sorry, Granddad." Melanie's eyes were moist too, but she obviously wasn't going to back down. "I'm not going to do anything stupid. But I need to do something, not hide away and hope it all blows over. Because it won't, will it, not just like that? We've all got to do what we can, haven't we?"
Ernie exchanged hopeless looks with Ethel. "That's the sort of thing your mum and dad would have said." It had also been the sort of thing that had meant they had found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he knew that his granddaughter was well aware of that and more than willing to ignore it.
*****
"I hear your granddaughter is going to join us, Ernie. Congratulations!"
Ernie half-nodded. Robards himself had come to meet him again tonight, which presumably meant that something he'd passed on had been useful. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what. "She insisted, Mr R."
"You must be very proud of her, making a stand like that?"
"Ar. She's a good girl, Melanie is." That consideration hadn't shaken his cold terror at the thought of what might happen when she was set on watch in Diagon Alley, or sent to patrol the streets of Hogsmeade. But at some level, her confident declaration had left him feeling confused, and oddly shamed by his recent behaviour. Ever since then, despite himself he'd found that the information he passed on to the Aurors had begun to be increasingly detailed. It was an odd feeling, one he wasn't sure if he actually liked or not. "I try to help, Mr R."
"Well, you did, Ernie. You have my thanks for that. In confidence --" Ernie's stomach lurched, that sounded like something he'd have to be very careful to pretend not to know afterwards "-- you might have given us a good lead on the Abbot case. Her neighbours never told us people were coming round asking them questions about the family beforehand, so now we've got an excellent description and something we can look into."
"Ar. That's good." Privately, Ernie was sure the questioners, if they were who he thought they were, would have made themselves scarce as soon as they found out that the investigation was taking place. At least it kept them out of the way. He still didn't have to tell everything he knew, at least not immediately.
"That's three arrests we've made already this year. Three Death Eaters off the streets." Robards seemed to be in an expansive mood, and although a picture of a weeping Cicely Shunpike flashed through Ernie's mind he didn't try to argue the point again. "All because people gave us information. People like you, Ernie. I've been a bit hard on you sometimes, I know, but we do have to have our sources. After all, we know the Death Eaters must have theirs, the same as they did in the last war."
"No kidding. That Rookwood, you mean," muttered Ernie darkly.
Robards chuckled. "Yes, indeed. Proper little organisation, his was," he added reminiscently. "We never even had a scent of it until afterwards. Gave us some good ideas we could use, though." He gave Ernie an appraising look. "Brought us together, Ernie, didn't he? That's why I thought of you this time around. Remember meeting him?"
Ernie shuddered and drained his glass. "Wish I didn't, Mr R." He rather wished Robards hadn't either.
"He's back there now, you know. Didn't stay out long."
"Good." Even Ernie was surprised at his vehemence. The meeting Robards was referring to had haunted him for years ...
*****
By the time Augustus Rookwood had been brought to justice, one of the last Death Eaters to be captured, the Prophet's court reporting had become perfunctory as public attention moved onto other matters. Rookwood's trial had changed all that.
People read the reports avidly as the nature of his network of informants was laid bare by the testimony of recanting Death Eater Igor Karkaroff. Neighbours looked uneasily at each other, wondering if Rookwood's interrogation would reveal that they were living next door to a traitor. Ernie himself had observed people on the bus reading the paper and then glancing around at their fellow passengers with deep suspicion, and nervously wondered what the outcome of the trial would be.
And then Rookwood, when questioned, had just sat in the prisoner's chair and sneered at the court, refusing to name a single member of his organisation, nor even confirm or deny the membership of those such as Ludo Bagman who had been accused of being part of it. None of the threats or inducements Barty Crouch had tried to bring to bear had had any effect. Rookwood, like the Lestranges, seemed to believe that his Dark Lord would return some day, and might need his old resources.
That had scared people.
So when Ernie encountered the man a few days later, it was both unexpected and unpleasant.
The booking written at the top of the sheet when he came on duty told him to go to a place he didn't recognise, on the far north coast of Scotland. Whoever had taken the booking had scribbled a note next to it: 'Do this one before you pick anyone else up. Standing start. Sooner you than me, Ernie.' That didn't sound encouraging, especially the 'standing start' comment. It suggested he was being sent somewhere too small for the bus to move normally.
Ernie told Harper to brace himself and hit the control that moved them to the indicated spot. He was astonished to find they had arrived in what looked like a small cove with a shingle beach, into which the weight of the Knight Bus was slowly settling. There was little enough space to park it, let alone move, and there was nothing of interest to be seen except for a little jetty extending out into the sea.
He exchanged puzzled looks with Harper and got off the bus to investigate. The place was surrounded by high cliffs, and seemed to be completely deserted. It was fully five minutes before anything happened; and then he jumped as several people suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of him.
It was an odd-looking group, half-a-dozen Aurors surrounding a thin man in plain grey prisoner's robes who was staring at his shoes. One of the Aurors tossed away an old bottle, then nodded to Ernie and Harper, muttered something to his companions and detached himself from the group. As he did so, Ernie caught sight of the prisoner's blemished face, and couldn't manage to stifle a gasp.
The noise made Rookwood look up, his eyes first resting on the Knight Bus crew and then flicking past them to take in the incongruous sight of the violently purple bus itself. Ernie froze as the man stared at them, his bored expression suddenly giving way to a cruel mocking grin and then to loud laughter, as if at some very funny private joke. He didn't quieten down until one of the guards gave him a shove and threatened to use a Silencing Spell, but nevertheless he still continued to chuckle maliciously to himself.
Harper swore quietly. "You know where we are, Speedy?" Ernie shook his head. "Must be where they transfer prisoners to Azkaban. They send one out, we fetch one back."
"Well spotted, Mr ... Harper, isn't it?" The Auror had joined them; his look of malicious humour almost matched that of his captive. "We're sorry you had to wait. Shouldn't be long now before your passenger gets here."
Ernie felt his heart sink. His conductor didn't seem too pleased either. "Why us?" he asked the Auror. "Why don't you just take him back yourselves, the same way you got here?"
"He refused," said the Auror with a look of scorn. "Wanted to be out of our hands as soon as possible. Doesn't trust us for some reason. Sorry you were inconvenienced, Harper."
The other Aurors were gazing out to sea nervously; but a minute or so later, to their evident relief, a small boat came into view. As it approached the jetty, Ernie could see that it contained three passengers. One was curled up near the bow, apparently trying to stay as far away as possible from the other two. They were the ones that caught the eye; impossibly tall figures in black cloaks with shrouded faces.
He realised that Rookwood had suddenly stopped laughing and glanced across at him. The man was also watching the hooded figures in the boat, with a look of increasing fear, and as the boat slid smoothly against the jetty their nature suddenly hit Ernie like a physical blow to the gut.
Azkaban guards. Dementors. A name of terror.
It was a summer's day, hot as a furnace and with the sun high in the sky, but as the passengers disembarked the light seemed to dim and the entire cove turn icy cold. The man who had been cowering at the front of the boat lurched past, ashen-faced, without even a glance at them; he stumbled onto the bus and collapsed on the first seat he came to. Rookwood's last trace of defiance faded away as the Dementors glided towards him, and as they seized an arm each and began to carry him to the boat he started to shake violently. Even the Aurors seemed under deep strain.
Ernie glanced at Harper, who seemed to be of one mind with him; they turned and positively ran back to the bus to get as far as possible from the Dementors. It didn't help. Perhaps the creatures could sense their panic, or perhaps they merely wanted to take a parting shot at the man who had travelled with them from Azkaban. They turned towards the bus, and from underneath their cowls came a sucking sound that was like a death rattle.
"Granddad, when are Mummy and Daddy coming home?"
"The Knight Bus travels all over, Ernie. You must hear all sorts of things. Who talks to who. Where they go. That information could be very valuable to the Ministry ..."
"Abigail, love, don't you see how dangerous that'd be? You're an easy target there! They know where to find you!"
"You didn't realise what was going on? Of course you didn't, Ernie. But you know now. So you'd best remember it, hadn't you?"
"Mr Prang, we regret to inform you that your daughter and son-in-law have been killed in a Death Eater-related incident ..."
"ERNIE!"
He was shaking ... no, being shaken ... no, both at once ...
"Ernie! Are you all right, mate?"
Harper's face swam into view. Above him. Chalk white. More frightened than he'd have believed possible. Things slowly coming into focus. Boat had gone. Sun was shining as brightly as before. Cold, so cold. Seemed to have soaked into his aging bones ...
"Here." An amused voice. Above him. The Auror. He'd spoken to them earlier. Holding out ... chocolate? "Eat this. Those things can affect you badly, if you're on the weak side."
Ernie bit into it and was surprised at the sudden warmth it brought. He crammed the rest into his mouth and climbed to his feet, still shaking. "Thanks, Mr -- er ..."
"Robards. In charge of the team investigating Rookwood's little network. Last either of us will see of him, I hope." His gaze suddenly sharpened. "You're Ernest Prang, aren't you?"
"Ar," said Ernie suspiciously.
"I see. Well, I'm sorry I didn't warn you, then. I remember hearing about your recent loss. Dementors home in on that sort of thing." He didn't look especially sorry, but at least he'd stopped grinning. "Do you think you're fit to drive? Could be dangerous in your condition."
He was feeling light-headed, as if a terrible curse had only missed him by that much, but he wasn't going to let Robards know that if he could help it. "Won't be no more dangerous than usual. Bus more or less drives itself."
Harper gave a weak laugh. "Come on then Speedy, get us out of here. These nice gents are waiting for a lift back to town. We'd better drop this poor sod off first, though." He nodded at the man slumped on the front seat of the bus, pale and thin with hollow, haunted eyes, and lowered his voice. "How long did he have to put up with them? What did he do?"
Robards turned to look at the ex-prisoner and frowned. "Do? Barker here? Offered to supply dangerous contraband to the Death Eaters, but committed the elementary error of making the offer to one of our undercover teams. And unfortunately for him, that meant he didn't have any useful information to bargain himself out of Azkaban with. We really didn't like that. Five years imprisonment. I tell you what, though, he won't do it again."
"I bet." Harper looked almost as shaken as Ernie felt. "Off you go then, Speedy. Swansea for him."
Ernie hit the control with enormous relief. The Knight Bus immediately jumped from Scotland to Wales, leaving the Dementors hundreds of miles behind. But from then on, they remained lodged in Ernie's nightmares.
*****
"Made a sweet little OFFER for a-goblin, she did, if she could ONLY play with my WAND ..."
Ernie grimaced. He had the night shift this week, and that usually meant at least one trip taking Willy Croaker home from whatever wizarding pub he'd been attempting to drink dry. He didn't need Extendable Ears to hear his off-key (and usually off-colour) singing. And he wasn't sure he wanted to hear, let alone pass on, anything the Unspeakable might say about his work while in his cups.
As the bus jumped hundreds of miles and appeared on the main road leading into Northampton, he suddenly shivered. It seemed unusually cold for the time of year. Even the Muggles in the cars passing by on the other side of the road looked chilly and uncomfortable. And it was darker than he'd expected ...
He looked up in horrified realisation to see the two tall, black-cloaked, hooded figures that were hovering in ambush on either side of the road.
Ernie slammed his foot down hard and the Knight Bus accelerated past them, but the cold didn't seem to be going away ... He tapped the rear-view mirror with his wand and it widened to show the Dementors gliding in pursuit at high speed.
"Faster, Speedy! They're catching up!" moaned Harper from the back of the bus. Ernie could tell that for himself, from the steadily growing cold alone. The few passengers on the bus all seemed to be whimpering in fear. And then he felt it for the second time in his life; the sickening, disorienting sensation as the Dementors leached away all traces of happy thought, leaving only the terrors that stepped from the shadowed places of his mind ...
"And people talk all the time about what friends and neighbours are up to, pass on little bits of gossip they've heard."
No Mr R, please, don't ask me that ...
"Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get the chance to do something to pay those bastards back for what they did to Mum and Dad!"
No Melanie, no, no, please love don't do that ...
"Of course you didn't, Ernie. But you know now. So you'd best remember it, hadn't you?"
No Mr R, you don't mean that ...
There was a bright flash at the back of the bus, and a misty silver shape flew from the rear window and made the Dementors hesitate; Ernie felt the cold fade slightly, and as his mind cleared he suddenly realised that there was only one thing he could possibly do. He hit the controls hard and the bus made another huge jump to its next planned destination. He slammed his foot on the brakes and spun the wheel frantically; gradually the vehicle slowed to a modest cruising pace along the road, no longer causing trees and hedges to jump out of its path.
He pulled over at the first convenient spot and stopped. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest.
"Bloody hell, mate. Bloody hell," said Harper, making his way past scattered beds to the front of the bus and looking thoroughly shaken. "I hoped we'd never have to see them again. Where are we?"
"Somewhere in Kent." Ernie gripped the steering wheel hard. "What were that silver thing?"
"A Patronum whatsit. That Unspeakable bloke cast it. What do we do now?"
"Take me in to the Ministry." The hoarse voice startled them; it came, appropriately enough, from Croaker, who appeared to have been sobered up quite effectively by recent events. "I have to report the Dementor attack anyway. And I don't want to get caught out again while I'm still not capable of casting a proper Patronus. You never know, this might have been planned by someone who knew my schedule."
"What for?" asked Harper.
"A threat perhaps. Or a warning shot. Send a message."
"No kidding. Heard it loud and clear," muttered Ernie. He adjusted the controls once more and sent the Knight Bus leaping back to London.
*****
"What were you saying about Elladora Guffy the other day, Freda?"
Ernie pricked his ears -- and his Ears -- up at this. Freda Mordaunt had always been an incorrigible gossip, and her ramblings were usually good for a supply of trivial material that could be passed on to the Aurors. Ever since the encounter with the Dementors, he'd returned to his old policy of being very wary indeed about passing on anything that might relate to real Death Eater activity, and thus get him into trouble if the source of the information was traced back. He wasn't proud of it, but ...
"Ooh, it was terrible, it was!" The statement was belied by the relish with which Madam Mordaunt said it. "Her old man, they say in the village someone held him up at wandpoint when he was taking the Crup for a walk. Told him to tell his wife she shouldn't cross people who had important friends." She managed to make the last two words sound darkly mysterious.
"Elladora? What for?" asked her companion, who by contrast sounded thoroughly sceptical. "She's no-one special, is she?"
"Well you know what she's like," said Madam Mordaunt, who was clearly enjoying herself. "Oh, doesn't she think she's the funny one! My Ethelbard, he was so mad at her, but she didn't care, oh no. Put Sticking Charms on all our garden furniture, it ruined his best outdoor robes when he sat down, it did! I said to him, one of these days she'll end up trying on one of her little jokes with somebody who'll do more than just write to the paper about it."
"I see." Her companion sounded impressed. "Well, I hope she doesn't go too far. What do the authorities think about it?"
"Hasn't told them, she hasn't."
"What? Why ever not?"
"Doesn't trust them, she said. Ever since they fined her for turning the back of a Patroller's robes transparent when he came to investigate a complaint. He was walking round the rest of the day with his bum showing. I felt sorry for him, I did," she added, not entirely convincingly.
"Well, I hope someone puts a stop to it."
"Oh, there's probably nothing to it. Just someone playing games, I should think, giving Ella a taste of her own potion. I don't suppose we'll hear any more of it now they've warned her, we won't. Oh, this is my stop!" Ernie glanced up to see where they were and hastily jabbed his foot on the brakes.
No proof. There's no proof. Ernie was trembling as he removed the Extendable Ears later. Might just be a wind-up. That's all. He put them back in the box and tucked it into his pocket. If they're for real, wouldn't like me talking about it to Robards' lot. His conversation with Varney was quite perfunctory as he got off the bus. No proof, Ern. No proof. You stuck your neck out a bit with the Abbot stuff. Should have known better. You never should have got carried away.
The bearded Auror was waiting for him in the Leaky Cauldron. "Anything to tell me, Prang?"
"Well ..." No proof, Ern. No proof. "Not much really. Sorry, lad."
*****
Ernie had more or less dismissed Freda Mordaunt's tittle-tattle by the following Tuesday morning. So when his granddaughter opened the morning edition of the Daily Prophet and gave a horrified yelp, it startled him.
"Melanie?"
"There's been another one!"
"What's that, love?" he asked, his attention still mostly on his breakfast.
"Another Death Eater attack! Some family called the Guffys, found murdered in their own home with the Dark Mark set over it!" She rapidly scanned the report and snorted. "No-one in their village saw or heard anything, Oh no, of course they didn't. No-one ever does, do they?"
"Well ..." A chill was creeping up his spine.
She sprang up, a hard look on her face. "I'd better get in to work, they might need the trainees to help out with routine stuff." Ernie looked up at that and she held up a weary hand before he could say anything. "And don't start telling me it's dangerous, Granddad, please."
"But it is, love ..."
Melanie shocked him by spitting out a swear word she'd never used in their company before. "I don't care!" she screamed. She had a wild expression, as if something inside had finally snapped. "I've had enough of this crap, Granddad! Those bastards killed mum and dad, remember! Don't you care? Don't you want to pay them back too?"
Ethel had turned white. Ernie was sure he had, too. "Melanie, you don't understand," he said pleadingly. "You really don't understand the trouble I could get into -- could get you into ..."
"So you're happy just to sit here and be terrified? Treat me like a little girl as always, and hope somebody else's kid is the one to get killed?" The honest answer to that question was yes but Ernie didn't dare say so while his granddaughter was in this state. "Do you know, I met someone I knew from school on patrol in Hogsmeade the other day? She's fought them, she's already lost people, she's got loved ones in the firing line. But she still grits her teeth and does it!"
"But ..."
"Look, anything they'll let me do probably isn't dangerous, but even if it is, it's my duty to do it if I can. Remember that? If I have to sit back and do nothing any longer I'll go stark raving mad! And I'd rather you did something if you ever have the chance instead of always making the excuse that you're worried about me!" She had grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the jar on the mantelpiece and thrown it in the fire before Ernie could come up with an answer, and as she disappeared into the flames he stared helplessly at where she'd been only a few moments before.
"How could she talk to us like that?" said his wife, bristling. "I never would have thought she'd be so ungrateful ..."
"Ethel. Please."
There must have been something in his voice, because she trailed off and looked at him in silence for several minutes. Ernie hadn't realised quite how long it had been until Ethel said his name tentatively.
He turned his head in her direction. "Ethel?"
"Ernie ... what's the matter, love?"
He felt sick. That was what was the matter. But there was no way to tell his wife why he felt sick without revealing things he'd never told her, things he knew would both disgust and terrify her, and he couldn't bear to hurt her like that. No, that wasn't true. He couldn't bear to say them out loud at all. "I drove a Muggle car once when I was young, Ethel, did I ever tell you?" he said finally, his voice hoarse.
"Er ... I don't think so, no ..."
"Gave me the collywobbles, it did. You've got to be spot on with those things! Can't afford to get in some other car's space, they just hit each other, not get out the way! How anybody can learn how to drive in cars like that I don't know. It's dangerous, driving like that. Well, everything I'm doing's dangerous driving now."
"What are you talking about, Ernie?" Ethel sounded alarmed, as if worried for his sanity.
"Nothing, love. I just hate this bloody war. Maybe Melanie has got the right idea. Always the young ones who think it's easy, isn't it? She's a good girl. Abigail would have been proud of her, wouldn't she?"
Ethel blinked away a tear. "Well, she's her mother's daughter. I ... well, it terrified me when Abigail and Ben told those scum where to go, but I suppose I was proud of them, too. And in the end it was --"she swallowed "-- really just foul luck that they got caught up in an incident, wasn't it?" That was true, but of course it had never made Ernie feel any better about it. "Melanie ... well, she's braver than we ever were at her age, when we were just hoping that Grindelwald wouldn't come over here. I'm scared, Ernie, I'm scared, but ... I'm proud of her too, in a way, for doing something. Are you?" Tears were running down her face now.
Ernie put a comforting arm around her. "Ar. I am, Ethel love. That I am." He stared into the flames of the fire, which were still sparking with occasional emerald flickers from leftover grains of Floo powder.
He'd been vacillating all year, sometimes doing one thing, sometimes another.
He'd been making excuses, just like Melanie said.
He decided, then and there, what he was going to do next, and shuddered.
*****
Ernie left through the back door of the Leaky Cauldron, taking a deep breath of the night air and tapping the stones on the wall with his wand. As it slid open, he passed into Diagon Alley with what was almost a spring in his step. He'd just told the Auror every little thing he'd heard on the bus that week; it wasn't much at all, admittedly, but you never knew -- they might find something useful there, and he'd come to realise that there really wasn't much chance of it being traced back to him. And despite everything the Auror Office had done to him, they were definitely the lesser of two evils.
And even if the information was traceable ... what was done was done now, and he was feeling strangely reckless. He didn't know how long the feeling would last, and suspected he might bitterly regret acting on it later, but he intended to make the most of it while he had the chance.
Diagon Alley was more or less deserted at this late hour, apart from the occasional restaurant patron preparing to return home, and a solitary uniformed goblin in the distance on guard duty outside Gringotts. That suited Ernie; he preferred not to have an audience on the rare occasions he needed to Apparate. Although splinching himself would be extremely embarrassing regardless, considering where half of him would end up.
He took a deep breath, focused very hard on his intended destination, and felt the horrible squeezing sensation that told him he'd succeeded. He opened his eyes to see the familiar small forest clearing, and the by now far too familiar sight of the huge blond man standing there waiting for him.
"You're late, Prang," he said without preamble.
"Sorry, Mr R, the Auror contact were there waiting, weren't able to get away till now ..."
"Well try harder next time! You think I like standing around in the middle of nowhere, waiting for one of Rookwood's little pets to show up whenever he happens to feel like it? They can send that useless tosser Gibbon again next time. He seems able to put up with you." Rowle's right hand was twitching as if he wanted to grab his wand and start throwing curses, and Ernie hastened to distract him.
"Nothing much happening this time, Mr R ..." He gave the man an outline of what he'd just told the Auror, but left out anything that had sounded like it might be important, and mixed in much detail that was irrelevant and just a little that was actually untrue. Rowle was soon tapping his feet with impatience, and when Ernie started talking about the domestic arguments of a wizard living just outside Basingstoke he cut him off with a disgusted sound.
"I waste my time for this? We expect better from people like you, Prang! We've had Aurors getting close to finding people they should never have stood a chance of finding!"
"Can only tell you and Mr G what I hear, Mr R ..." He hesitated, then, amazed by his own daring, added "You mean the ones who did in Mrs Abbot?"
Rowle looked at Ernie with narrowed eyes. "What do you know about the Abbot affair?"
"I know they had a lead," he said stubbornly. "I heard people saying the Aurors had been round, asking about the ones who'd been there ... I told Mr Gibbon, he said it didn't matter ..." He suspected Gibbon had actually only said that to put him off asking any more questions, but in Ernie's opinion, anything that might put his two 'handlers' at odds was well worth the trouble. Sure enough, Rowle didn't take it well.
"We should have killed the witnesses too," he growled. "That's two good people we had to send into hiding. Don't even think of repeating that, Prang."
"I won't, Mr R."
"You'd better not. Remember, what happened to your daughter could happen to her brat as well."
Ernie gritted his teeth and tried not to react. That had been Rookwood's approach too, way back in the first war; threats brought to bear as soon as Ernie had realised that the information Rookwood had asked him to collect wasn't being passed on to the Ministry as he'd originally thought. "Ar, I know," he said aloud.
"Good. We don't like leaks, and when we get them we deal with them. Gibbon might not have told you that, but he fancies himself as a subtle man. I don't."
"I know, Mr R. I do know." He didn't know if the Death Eaters would really bother to follow up on the threat and risk losing a source, or if it was just routine intimidation. He certainly didn't know if what he was doing made sense, or if he was getting himself in too deep. But what he did know was that somehow he could no longer sit back and do nothing, even if the 'something' he was able to do wasn't much.
But any seeds of doubt he could sow in the minds of his handlers had to be worthwhile ... "Are you sure no-one's passing on stuff, Mr R? When Robards asked me to spy for him, sounded like he knew summat about me, even back then. Must have got that tip about the Knight Bus being a security risk from somewhere ..."
Rowle snorted. "Are you still going on about that? We fixed it for you, didn't we? Told that spotty loser a few things, let him fantasise like you said, tipped off the Ministry? What else do you expect?"
Ernie winced at the reminder. Of all the things he'd done over the last year, that was perhaps the one he was most ashamed of, but he persisted. "No, but ... it were like he knew I were doing this, that I'd done it before. Maybe someone your end tipped him off, like?"
"Not me. And even that imbecile Gibbon shouldn't have said anything, he can usually keep his mouth shut better than that," said Rowle shortly. That was an admission he shouldn't have made, but Ernie reckoned the blond git had always relied on his intimidating presence and let his wand and his fists do his thinking for him. "And I don't want you telling Robards anything we don't tell you to tell him, Prang, got that?"
"But Mr G, he always said I had to pass on all that stuff to keep my cover, like," said Ernie, again surprising himself with his nerve. "He were definite about that." Gibbon had in fact suggested something of the sort, probably while congratulating himself on his subtlety, but he couldn't help wondering if the other man would take it badly.
"Was he?" sneered Rowle. "Well, I'm telling you not to. We don't want any more leaks around here. I'll have a word with Gibbon and make sure he keeps his mouth shut. And if I think anyone's out of line ... well, I might arrange a little accident for them one dark night. So remember that, Prang."
"Ar, Mr R. Anything else?"
"No. I can't stand talking to you any longer. Same place next week, and be on time." With a final disgusted look, the Death Eater spun and Disapparated, leaving Ernie alone in the clearing.
He waited a few minutes before returning to Diagon Alley the same way he'd arrived, and then made his way back into the Leaky Cauldron. The Auror was still there, in the private room at the back; still looking at him with the same deep suspicion he'd shown before. "You're early."
"There weren't much he wanted to listen to. But I made sure I told him all you said to tell him." Quickly, he outlined the conversation with Rowle; and if he made it sound more heroic than it had actually been, that was his own affair.
"Right. You'd better keep telling him what we want you to tell him. You've got a long way to go before we trust you again, Prang my lad."
"I know, Mr O."
Confessing his situation to Robards had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He hadn't known whether the Ministry would even be willing to do a deal with him, or if they would just send him on another trip to Azkaban, one from which he would not be making a return journey. But unlike Barker fourteen years ago, he'd had information to bargain himself out of Azkaban with, low-level admittedly but a rare open door into You-Know-Who's intelligence operations. Not to mention a willingness to pass on whatever misleading information the Ministry requested him to pass on.
He had no idea if what he'd said tonight would produce any results, but it had been worth a try.
And he was tired of making excuses for himself. He finally had the chance to do something.
It would be dangerous driving for him whatever happened from now on. But at least some of the roads would now be of his own choosing.
Additional Notes:
The idea for this story came from idly reading the passage in PoA where Harry takes the Knight Bus, and wondering why exactly its driver would be so worried about Azkaban and the Dementors. Had he been a Death Eater perhaps? When I re-read the Pensieve scene in GoF and saw the mention of Rookwood's organisation, the outline of a fic started to take shape. The original crack idea of DE!Ernie ended up being toned down to this.
As I said, this story just kept growing when I realised it needed development in between the scenes where Ernie is approached by Robards and later talks to his DE contact, and needed to have a flashback scene in which Ernie actually met some Dementors, to show why he was so spooked by them. His family in general and granddaughter in particular were introduced to give him some additional motive to go along with the DEs -- of course, that meant that I had to show the granddaughter a few times, and she came in quite handy as a counterpoint. Things like the Extendable Ears were just those sorts of ideas that crop up when you have to start filling in the details.
Although some aspects of this story are obviously making a (very slight) play criticising the 'patriotically correct' frenzy that's hit in recent years, one thing about it is that it's not entirely clear in general who, if anyone, has the right or best approach here, even to me. So I tried to just let the characters do their own thing and speak for themselves, and let the reader sort it out if they wished.
For the record:
- Robards is mentioned as the new Head of the Auror Office in HBP (A Very Frosty Christmas), but AFAIK has no other mention.
- Rowle is the blond DE firing curses everywhere in the Astronomy Tower fight, not named until DH (originally I guessed he was Yaxley; name changed here).
- Gibbon is the one Rowle kills with the AK that narrowly misses Remus.
- Croaker is mentioned as an Unspeakable along with Bode in GoF (Bagman and Crouch).
- The Mordaunts and Guffys are quasi-canon characters according to the Lexicon definition, appearing in the fanclub newsletters from 1998.
- The names Harper, Varney, and Cicely are references to the, erm, 'classic' British sitcom On The Buses