Chapter 351: Interrogation
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Quinn pulled himself atop the Hogwarts Express. The black roof was windy, fluttering Quinn's clothes and hair back and making his balance difficult. He snapped his fingers, and the winds neutralized their assault on him.
The Death Eaters that flew above the train, like annoying mosquitos buzzing. Spells came down from the sky at the train, but shield spells would shoot up and intercept the attacks.
Quinn watched as a rope shot up on the side of the next coach, and an Auror climbed up on the roof just as himself. Quinn stilled himself and focused more on his invisibility— he didn't want to get found out like he did during the Azkaban transport— unlike that time, he wasn't masked. Similarly, several Aurors climbed up on the roofs, and the exchange immediately became more heated as the Aurors began to attack while protecting the train.
Quinn stayed put on his spot. He wasn't going to make a move if the train wasn't in explicit danger. . . and from the looks of it, the Aurors were doing a good job protecting the train.
'Should I shoot some of them down?' he still wondered, looking between the Death Eaters and the Aurors. After a thought, he decided not to do anything, but just as he was about to close down the query, his eyes caught an unmasked Death Eater flying among the masked ones.
An unmasked Death Eaters. . . those among the Dark Lord's rank, who didn't mind their identities revealed while doing their Death Eater duties— they were those been broken out of Azkaban, who knew that showing their faces would make no difference, thus hiding them provided no value.
"Bartemius Crouch Junior," Quinn muttered as his eyes followed the one guilty of patricide. 'I can't let this chance get away, can I?'
Bartemius 'Barty' Crouch Junior was an inner circle Death Eater, a fanatic one at that. It was no secret that he worshipped the dirt that Voldemort had walked on and thus wasn't scared to follow every word uttered by his master— and he did have a reputation for being crazy in the head with a passion for destruction and chaos.
Quinn glanced at the Aurors before raising his hand with his palm following the flying Barty Crouch. Quinn waited for him to lower his altitude, and the moment Quinn thought that the range was close enough for absolute hit accuracy, he let the spell fly. It whistled through the wind and struck Barty in the back.
Barty's broom immediately dipped, and the rider leaned to the slide and slipped off. For a second, Quinn watched the man free fall through the floor; he thought if he should just let the man fall— the height of the fall wasn't enough for absolute death, there was an equal chance of life and death— and for a moment, he was fine with taking the chance and let luck decide Barty's fate. . . . But the, at the very last moment, Quinn apparated from the roof and appeared right under Barty's free fall.
He raised his magic up and cut off the body's momentum. He caught Barty and immediately apparated off from the scene.
. . .
Quinn appeared in a forest and dumped the unconscious body on the ground before sighing.
He knew that Aurors would question among themselves who shot the Death Eater down, and when they would conclude that it was none among them, they'd go to the professors, who would again refuse, and then it'd go to students. If, by chance, Barty had died, Aurors would need to launch a mandatory investigation involving everyone second year onwards, and he didn't want that to happen— adults questioning young children, who would obviously be anxious about the questioning— and that didn't sit well with Quinn.
He didn't want the young children to go through such experiences. Even if none of them would be charged, he didn't want them to take the stress that would naturally pop up even if they knew they were safe. Moreover, who knew how Voldemort would respond. Maybe the mad man would use it as an opportunity to attack every first-generation magical's family for revenge, so Quinn whisked Barty away to ensure that no student would be involved.
"Now, what should I do with him?"
He stared down at Barty Crouch with narrowed eyes. First, he stripped Barty naked; even the underwear wasn't spared, but because he didn't want to have a wiener in his vision, he conjured underwear over Barty. Next, he cast a space-locking ward around them to disable apparition and portkeys. While he had taken away all the clothes and belongings, there was no telling if Barty had something inside his body that could be used as a portkey.
Then there was a stretch of stillness. Barty lay unconscious as Quinn stared down at him. . . . Quinn took out a triangular black patch from his pocket. He tapped it, and the black Noir mask came out with a pair of leather gloves. He put the mask and gloves on, leaving the rest of the outfit inside the Noir patch. His hair changed colors, and even their style altered.
"Wake up."
Quinn removed the spell he had cast and then dumped ice-cold water on him. Barty sucked in a cold breath along with the ice water and turned to his side, coughing his lungs out.
"H-uh? W-What?" Barty muttered under confusion.
"Bartemius Crouch Junior," said Quinn, gaining Barty's attention.
"You!" Barty recognized Quinn's Invisible Vigilante immediately.
"You have failed the magical community, Death Eaters," said Quinn, his voice distorted. You have killed, maimed, harmed countless innocent lives, and have done so without a single shred of regret inside you— it is time for you to be judged."
"You filthy—"
Quinn swiped his hand in the air, and Barty was struck with an invisible slap.
"HOW DARE—"
Quinn swiped his hand again, and another tight slap attacked Barty's face.
"sToP—"
Another slap knocked Barty down as he tried to get up.
Barty stared at Quinn with vigilant eyes. He opened his mouth but then promptly closed it when he saw Quinn raise his hand.
"You will speak when I allow you to speak," said Quinn.
Barty reached around seemingly for his wand. His eyes widened as he realized that his wand wasn't near him. He looked down and saw that he was only wearing underwear that wasn't his.
"I will have you answer some of my questions," said Quinn, deciding to exploit the chance that he had unexpectedly created. "How is the Dark Lord doing? I heard that he is not feeling these days."
Barty's eyes widened, "How did you?!"
"When it comes to filth like you, I know things. Answer my question."
Barty spat in response. "You can go to hell, you blood traitor. . . no, I'm sure you're a foul mudblood."
Quinn calmly raised his hand, and a spark of lightning zapped Barty, sending him into screaming pain. "Don't answer my questions— be ready for some punishment."
"Fuck you! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
"How is the Dark Lord's health," Quinn asked again.
Barty refused to answer and was again struck with magic that sent him rolling in pain. Barty continued refusing to answer, and Quinn continued to dole out punishment in painful proportions.
Barty laid on the ground, panting, writhing in pain. His body twitched and spasmed with tremors. Seeing that, Quinn spoke, "It looks we need to raise the stakes. Continue to not answer my questions— and I'll take your magic away."
That made Barty twitch from something other than the pain. He looked up at Quinn, wariness and fear in his eyes. His eyes studied Quinn— studied the Invisible Vigilante, who was known to have taken magic away from various Death Eaters.
"I see you have made your decision," Quinn spoke when Barty kept his silence. "Then you know what you have to pay."
A dark haze suddenly puffed out Quinn's hand, startling Barty. The Death Eaters pushed himself back on the ground, away from Quinn. However, it was futile as Quinn raised his hand, and a copious amount of hazy smoke flew out of his palm and pooled onto the earthy ground. The magic moved like it had a mind on its own, chasing Barty, and when it reached his body, it rose and covered him up. Sticking to him.
"Stop!" yelled Barty
Quinn clenched his fist. The haze grew darker with soot puffing up around Barty, covering him in an almost opaque smoke. When the screams began, Quinn ignored them and continued to operate his magic, guiding the magic to the intended areas on Barty's body.
Quinn waved his hand and blew Tentani Nervum's haze away. He stared at the pathetic-looking Barty and offered, "Answer my questions, and I'll return you your magic."
". . . F-Fuck Y-Y-Youuuu. . ."
Quinn sighed. He wondered why he wasted so much time going through his method. He wanted to see if he could pry one of the Dark Lord's fanatic followers' mouths open. "I do not want to go inside that disgusting mind of yours, but you leave me no other option. . . we will do this the hard way,"
Emperyean ropes shot out from the ground. They wrapped around Barty and pulled him firmly to the ground, keeping him still even with him thrashing around.
Quinn kneeled down beside Barty and placed his palm over his forehead. "This will hurt, do try to endure."
Barty's eyes turned to the back of his head, leaving only the whites. Again, a scream pierced the forest as Quinn's Legilimency tore through Barty's mind, scouring through the Death Eater's memories. Experienced them one by one— numerous meetings, small operations that had gone under the details, shady dealings, and the various others related to Death Eaters.
"Ah, please excuse me for a moment," said Quinn. He got up and turned away from Barty while casting an opaque black ward that blocked out Barty from witnessing anything outside.
He took out the vibrating two-way mirror from his pocket and was about to answer it when he looked around his entirely forest surroundings. He waved his hand, and the scene around him shimmered into a scene of his room with a slight change— the wall behind him was a nondescript wall in case he needed to change locations.
"Hey," he said, answering the call.
"Are you alright?" Ivy peered through the mirror, looking at Quinn and his surrounding. "Where are you?"
"In my room. It's going through a repaint," said Quinn, thinking he'd need to repaint his room now. "I hope the Death Eaters didn't return," he said, gambling on the fact that their leader(Barty) disappearing must've made them leave.
"No, they left. It was very sudden."
"One of the Death Eaters got shot down and disappeared; I think that scared them off," said Quinn, knowing that said Death Eater was behind him.
"Oh, I didn't know that," she said. "You should've come in."
"I thought of doing so but thought that after the attack, your friends would come looking for you— and thought it'd better to leave."
"They haven't come yet—" Ivy turned when there was a knock on Ivy's door. "They're here. I will talk to you later. Love you."
"Love you too," said Quinn, waving her goodbye before putting the mirror away. He put on his mask and turned back, and the black dome crumbled away with Barty still on the ground, writhing.
"Sorry about the wait; let's continue."
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Quinn West - MC - Wanted to see if he could interrogate(extract information) without Legilimency.
Bartemius Crouch Junior - Death Eater - Pain and whiteness.
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Chapter 352: He Strikes Again?
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
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A single candlestick glowed in the darkroom.
The door creaked open, and Peter Pettigrew stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He stared at the sole figure illuminated by the candle and internally sighed. Since when had he become the messenger? In charge of relaying the news to the Dark Lord, risking his well-being every time Voldemort was in a bad mood or had terrible news.
Pettigrew didn't break the silence and stood beside the door, waiting.
After a couple of minutes, Voldemort spoke, "Speak, Wormtail."
"Barty is missing, My Lord," said Pettigrew bluntly. "He was shot down during the Hogwarts Express attack. According to his team, he fell off his broom and disappeared before they knew it. The same goes for the Aurors; there hasn't been any information about Barty's arrest."
There was no response from Voldemort, and Pettigrew, too, stayed silent until Voldemort finally spoke,
"Who shot Barty down?"
"It is not known, My Lord. Barty's team said that the spell came from the roof. The roof was only occupied by Aurors. . . so we think that one of the Aurors shot Barty down. . . but—"
"— but then where did Barty go?" completed Voldemort.
"Yes. None of the Aurors left the train. The question of Barty's disappearance still remains. If you could use the Dark Mark to contact him. . . ."
The Dark Mark. An honor bestowed upon the Death Eaters by Voldemort, signifying their value in the eyes of the Dark Lord. The mark had various use, and one of them was that Voldemort could issue a summons to his marked Death Eaters. It was up to them if they wanted to answer those summons, but only a few dared to refuse the Dark Lord's summons.
"Hmm. . . . Give me your arm, Wormtail."
Pettigrew walked to the Voldemort's chair, and being this close, he could finally see the Dark Lord's visage. Voldemort was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, with a pungent smell wafting from the medicinal pastes applied underneath the wrappings. When Pettigrew presented his marked arm, Voldemort raised his trembling arm slowly.
Pettigrew kept his face and body still under his control. He knew that the ruthless Dark Lord was having a moment of calmness, a rarity since he had returned from Numengard in the Austrian Alps. Whatever happened there had left Voldemort severely injured, so injured that even now, after several days, the injuries had persisted.
Voldemort touched the Dark Mark, which was lighter from its usual darkness. Pettigrew clenched his jaw as a burning pain shot up his arm. The mark's color bubbled and darkened, the blacks turning blacker and the red tuning bloodier. . . until the mark returned to normal.
". . . Bartemius is trapped or dead," said Voldemort.
'Or he defected,' thought Pettigrew, but his thoughts remained unsaid. While he understood Barty's personality and devotion, he didn't believe in absolute trust— he believed that even someone as messed up as Bellatrix would turn if someday the Dark Lord turned to the light side. . . a hypothetical that he could never see happening.
". . . Bartemius is still in the country," Voldemort said, his voice flat.
Pettigrew quirked his brow. 'So it was true that he could track the marked Death Eaters down. . . or at least could tell the general position,' he thought. The last time he had suspected of this was when the Dark Lord had hunted down Igor Karkaroff. . . and they had been able to find the traitorous man surprisingly easily.
"Can you tell if he's dead?" asked Wormtail.
"It takes time for the body to decompose and break down. The mark will remain true for some time after death. . . that is if Bartemius is dead. . . . What do you think happened to him?"
"I don't know enough to form a conjecture," said Pettigrew.
"Take a guess, Wormtail."
Pettigrew thought for a bit. "I believe that the Aurors, or at least a group of Aurors, are operating independently. . . or covertly under orders. My guess is that they abducted Barty so they could interrogate him to get information about us. He cannot use his mark to escape, nor can he use the extra portkey issued to him— Aurors have him trapped."
"But they could do the same if they simply arrested him."
"They could, but if it's not on the official records, they could use Legilimency to force the information out of his mind without having to face the very severe laws prohibiting the use of the mind arts in interrogations."
"Ah, those laws, the fact that those particular ones exist slipped from my mind," said Voldemort.
"It could be that, but would Rufus Scrimgeour permit this?" asked Pettigrew. "He seems to be a stickler for rules; would he break the law?"
"You misunderstand him, Wormtail," said Voldemort. "Rufus Scrimgeour is what you call a lion. He isn't like Amelia Bones, who would die before getting caught breaking the law. And he would is anything but Cornelius Fudge. . . People like Scrimgeour will go to lengths to accomplish what he wants to achieve— I would not put it past him to resort to such methods."
Pettigrew made a mental note of that. He was sure that he was going to have to deal with Rufus Scrimgeour in some time. It was better to have a hand on the pulse of the important people.
"Then what is your command on this, My Lord," asked Pettigrew.
". . . I will tell you the part of the country Bartenius is in. Search for him. If he is alive, I want to see him tell me what happened. If he is dead, get me his corpse. He needs to be rewarded for his service and devotion."
Pettigrew bowed.
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Quinn stood up from the ground. He removed his gloves as he stared down at Barty Crouch's body.
"You know, I do not like using Legilimency this way," said Quinn, narrowing his eyes at spasming caused as a side-effect of brute-force Legilimency. "I prefer the gentler, more elegant approach, the one that doesn't leave a trace— it is one the things my master insists is a sign of a true master Legilimens— to leave as if you never came." Quinn's face twitched in disgust, "But, what have you done. . . every decision you have made has affected innocents, spilled so much blood, destroyed lives, families. . . . I could not stop myself from being forceful."
Despite being under his father's Imperius for more than a decade, Barty Crouch had done so many vile deeds before his incarceration that even those among the Death Eaters would find their stomachs turn. Barty had gotten back on track with his activities right after his freedom— it was as if the man had been starved of his appetite for blood, fear, and agony— and like a hungry maniac, Barty had done everything to abate his unending cravings.
"I wish to purge my brain from what I have seen. . . but at least I got some precious information from it," said Quinn. "Some very useful information. . . the Dark Lord is injured."
Barty's body twitched, different from his spasming.
"If I had to mention your one positive quality, it would be loyalty, but unfortunately, it is not to the correct party," said Quinn.
Barty's spasms had calmed down. His eyes regained partial focus as he glared at Quinn. "M-M-y Lor-d-d is goi. . . to kill you!" he spat.
"I would not put it past him, but how would he know that I was the one who brought you here."
"H-He will kno-ow."
Quinn narrowed his eyes. He had scoured Barty's memory, and he couldn't recall anything that would implicate him. But then he realized that it was Barty's fanatic worship talking.
"Then so be it," Quinn shrugged. "But do you think the Dark Lord will come with his injuries? What do you think? I do not think he will."
"He w-will!"
"If that helps you feel good in your heart," Quinn said but at the same time thought, 'I need stop now. . . too much of Quinn West is leaking out,' he looked down on his suit, 'I blame these clothes.'
"You have run your usefulness, Bartemius Crouch Junior," Quinn put on his leather gloves back. "But unfortunately for you, now I have to end this." Quinn raised his hand, and a green glow covered his hand. "You are going to be the second one I am going to send away directly— you are going to stay in my mind forever. And believe me, I do not like the thought of that— but I am not going to stop."
"M-My Lord will—"
Quinn unleashed the killing curse on Barty, cutting the guy's thread of life.
"Hmm, I don't feel guilty. . . I don't know if that's a good thing or not. . . but I like it."
He stared down at Barty's dead body and sighed, "Let's dig you a grave. Most deserve one; you do too."
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Pettigrew stared at the grave in the middle of a forest. It looked freshly dug, even had a simple headstone with the dead man's name. He looked around. The place did not look somewhere Aurors would operate— he thought it would be more of a secure, underground bunker.
"Did you find anything?" he asked.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," said a member of the search party.
". . . It doesn't look like this was Aurors doing."
Pettigrew turned to his left and saw Rivers Lock peering down at the headstone with indifferent eyes.
"No, it doesn't. Who do you think it was then?"
Rivers shook his head. "I don't know enough to speculate."
"Take a guess," said Pettigrew.
River's eyes studied Barty's grave. Pettigrew could tell that the devious mind behind those dead eyes was turning in thought.
"Invisible Vigilante," said Rivers. "A ridiculous name."
Pettigrew blinked in surprise, "Why do you say that?"
"This doesn't look like Aurors' work. The Order of Phoenix won't do this, or at least not like this. The third, but the most probable option is him— he somehow knows what we are going to do and wholeheartedly opposes us. He killed three of ours before and must've decided to take out a more prominent one this time."
"There is no evidence that it was the Invisible Vigilante."
Rivers shrugged, "It is just a guess."
Pettigrew wanted to dispute, but the more the thought stayed in his mind, the more it started to feel like it fit. There were others who would have loved to take revenge against Barty, but as far as he knew, there wasn't anyone who had the capability to do it or the means to know that Barty was going to be present at the train attack.
"What should tell him," asked Rivers.
Pettigrew shook his head, "We don't offer conjectures to the Lord. He is resting, maybe when he is feeling well."
Rivers stayed silent, and Peter took that as his ascent. He turned to the other Death Eaters around him and ordered,
"Let's dig the body up if there is one remaining."
After all. . . the Invisible Vigilante wasn't famous for being kind and peaceful with those he came across.
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Quinn West - MC - His clothes help him separate his two personas.
Barty Crouch Junior - Death Eater - His headstone only had his name written on it.
Peter Pettigrew - Death Eater - The messenger.
Rivers Lock - Death Eater - Just speculating.
Voldemort - Dark Lord - Injured by another Dark Lord.
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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.
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CREATORS' THOUGHTS
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