Capítulo 1578: 40
Chapter 40: Interlude: Rookwood and ParkinsonNotes:
Good morning everyone, here is this week's chapter. I hope you'll enjoy it, now that we come closer to the end of this story.
Have fun reading :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The day Voldemort fell
As Voldemort's head hit the ground, Augustus and Nathaniel looked at each other. This fight was lost, and so they did something which would anger the other inner circle Death Eaters. They used Augustus' emergency portkeys, both of them simultaneously.
Once Potter had used a family magic spell against the Dark Lord, Nathaniel moved closer to Augustus, standing right next to him, exchanging looks that basically said "we've got to go as soon as he's dead". And that's exactly what they did.
The pull of the portkey through Hogwarts' wards (and across the North Sea) combined with the age of the spell was quite…uncomfortable, one might say. In truth, it was a horrible and painful transport, ending with Nathaniel laying face-down on a cold stone floor, while Augustus was straightening out his robes.
With a snap of his finger, the room lit up and Nathaniel could finally see where he was.
Not that it helped him much, because it was a windowless stone chamber, the floor filled with now nearly faded norse runes which were once engraved in the tiles.
"Come, Nathaniel, and let me show you my refuge. Its original Norwegian name, oh yes, we're in northern Norway in the middle of nowhere, by the way, is absolutely unpronounceable, at least for me. I call it "Castle of the Mysteries". It's a small castle, though some parts of it, including one of the three towers, is nothing more than a ruin. Interesting are the magical aspects. It is built on some powerful energy lines powering the anti-muggle charms and the protection wards, and it's all somehow connected to the ritual chamber. But I don't know anything about it, it's a nearly unknown variation and I did use a lot of free time to work on it, just as a hobby and to write a book about it."
"So you say it's a hidden spot in the middle of nowhere where you did some research as a hobby?"
"Exactly."
"So we'll have proper food, warm water, and a library?"
"Oh yes."
After months - or in Augustus' case years - of lacking any of their usual luxury (Neither Albania nor Little Hangleton had been anyhow comfortable) the two of them spent their first two days just regenerating.
Just after a few years of working as an Unspeakable, Augustus had found this spot here during a research on magical energy lines. It was a subject that barely anyone studied these days, because you learn nothing about it at Hogwarts anymore and most of that knowledge was restricted to the DoM or private family libraries. He had to admit though that it was quite fascinating, for example Hogwarts itself was on one of the strongest crossing points of such lines (specifically the Great Lake actually), and so were spots like Glastonbury Tor, Stonehenge, Tintagel Castle and dozens of other spots all over the world. He had visited most of them, trying to find out more about these magically saturated areas, but it wasn't very helpful. Angkor Wat's hidden library had offered a few insights on how it affected wardings and that one could hypothetically take power from the lines (not that it was known if anyone ever actually did that), Giza had been a total bust, nothing had survived the millennials there. At Yellowstone no one had ever bothered to research it properly, there the effect was only on the land itself. Machu Picchu had lost its magical library too, a few centuries back, and so this was no help either.
One of the last big crossings of energy lines on his list was this location here, far north in Norway. He hadn't really expected anything out of the ordinary there, but was quickly met with old and pretty strong wards. Once he got through them, he found the castle (ruin), abandoned and forgotten for at least one hundred and fifty years.
He used nearly all of his vacation time up to make this place livable again and went as far as to buy the surrounding acres of land in the muggle world (under an alias of course) to make sure no one would bother him here. And from then on he always returned, cleaning up sections of the castle, stocking up the library with some more books, bringing in two house elves to help him, setting up stronger wards and much more.
One day then he discovered a secret door, though a muggle, not a magical one, which was the main reason he had missed it up until now. The hidden staircase led him into a circular room below the castle's main building, a room that had no windows or other source of light until his feet crossed the first line of engraved runes.
If he had seen them, he would have probably not crossed them without analysing them beforehand, but they were so faint and seemed like mere fissures and bumps in the rock. And luckily those were just the light and temperature control runes, all the other rune circles were too far gone to do anything, as the quick analysis told him.
This room and its secrets became his main occupation when he was here, aside from fixing the castle up further, but even the eight years in which he spent nearly all of his free time up here in Norway, hadn't been helpful at all, neither with the origin of castle and ritual chamber, nor with its functions. It was his little secret, the thing not even the Dark Lord could have pulled out of his head, and that's what made it perfect as a bolthole now.
He had even managed to get a steady food supply, since there were a few farms on his land, though far away from the castle. Instead of the rent, he had his elves (disillusioned as humans) pick up food supplies and put it in stasis regularly, most food coming from local production. Which meant that he had a huge and filled pantry, thanks to his family ties into the wine business, a filled wine cellar, three bathrooms with hot water, a library, lots of comfortable bedrooms and elves that loved to cook for him - and now his guest too.
So over all the perfect place to hide for as long as necessary and still enjoy the luxury of comfortable living.
The only thing that was bothering Nathaniel slowly was his family, or rather lack thereof. Via patronus message, house elves and magical communication mirrors, he was still occasionally checking in with the few remaining contacts in Britain, just to know that they're somehow safe. While he never was a real family man, he still cared for his wife (even though that marriage was a result from a betrothal contract before his birth) and Pansy was still his blood, even though she was annoyingly bigoted. The downside of having your kid hang out with the youngest Malfoy and the other Death Eater children before and during Hogwarts. But educating her against the bigotry would have weakened his social standing among the inner circle even after Halloween '81. And now it seemed like his little girl got caught up with the other bad kids and would be sentenced to homeschooling and supervision. Nathaniel was hopeful that her mother would at least do something against the horrible bigotry of their child, she too was familiar with the muggle world and its benefits.
But he couldn't dare contacting her directly, that would be too dangerous. Maybe in a few years when the Voldemort war was not still fresh on people's minds. He was still a wanted man after all.
After the first few weeks of doing nothing or at least close to nothing, Augustus invited Nathaniel to go outside with him, hunting the muggle way. Not that Augustus had any real idea how that worked, at least beyond knowledge from a book, but the confunded shop clerk where he had bought himself a few muggle guns had told him how to operate those brilliant things. The rest of it was basically "apply silencing and disillusionment charm, go looking for deers or bears and try your best at landing a killing shot." To his embarrassment, it had taken Augustus three days to make his first kill, but then came the dismembering and cooking together with the elves (to gain the full experience, he was a curious man after all). Certainly not an easy task either, but undoubtedly worth it. And for a man like Augustus, a brilliant man whose head was always filled with knowledge and questions, just being silent and focussed on observing and aiming was a welcome change on occasion.
Nathaniel had far more problems with it than Augustus ever had, but on the other hand, he had someone to teach him, and the curiosity into guns was certainly helping. While being familiar with those weapons, or at least the general concept, he had never seen, let alone held, one of those. Kind of a revelation, to be honest. And while Augustus was able to take his mind off all the troubles in life, Nathaniel couldn't, the silence and lack of challenging occupation was causing his thoughts to spin, so after an entire day they gave up and went back into the castle to enjoy a bottle of wine or two.
It took a while until they got a hold of the news from back home. Severus' death for example filled them with glee, he had been a traitor after all, even if they hadn't been true believers. On the other hand, he had been a genius, and Britain's best potioneer for sure, a true prodigy.
Many great wizards had been lost at the Battle of Hogwarts, mainly on the Dark Lord's side though. Sure, it was bloody for both sides, but the light side got away better. Charlie Weasley might have been a promising dragon handler and Ted Tonks a great healer, but Severus aside they lost none of the irreplaceable prodigies and masters on their side, like McGonagall, Flitwick, Babbling, Shacklebolt or Bill Weasley, the very talented curse breaker.
As far as they could tell, the British Ministry was aware of them being alive and escaped, but there was not really a manhunt going on. They were busy rebuilding their society, and while they were looking, they didn't have the capacity to spare to do a lot of looking. Other European countries were asked to be on the lookout, but the press also said " the two men are powerful wizards who decided to leave the side of their master, so they're rather craving for power than being devoted Death Eaters. Interviews with friends and family strengthened this point of view, so we don't expect them to be out for blood and retaliation. Still, they are very dangerous and wanted for several crimes."
Basically, the British Ministry was trying to reassure the European Wizarding communities that their two escaped Death Eaters won't go for a "Bella Lestrange kind of riot" like with the Longbottoms after Halloween '81, but rather lay low. Which was accurate, neither of those two had any interest in the bloodshed or murder, just in power and advanced magic. And for the foreseeable future, all they wanted was to stay here and hide while living in luxury.
By January, they didn't leave the castle anymore, because it was much too cold and snowy for them. Not that they minded at all, much the opposite, they were too busy working through the library and trying a few of the experiments they always wanted to do. These days not every manor had a working ritual chamber, and those that had one didn't really keep them stocked with the necessary objects. Ritual magic was very uncommon outside of the Ritual Department of the DoM, at least since the nineteenth century.
Augustus though had managed to steal (from the DoM) or buy enough of the rare yet necessary things (ghost essence, phoenix dust, leaves of a dead tree, those kinds of objects) to have the best-stocked ritual chamber of all British wizards (that he knew of). And so, the two of them began with a bit of ritual magic, some to strengthen mind or body temporarily, others to gain deeper understanding of elemental magic and natural magic and some to do enhanced enchantments.
Ritual magics were quite an interesting topic, to be honest. The rituals they used to strengthen their bodies and minds (out of mere curiosity) were quite complex and historically speaking a replacement for runes. Up until the fourteenth century, enhancements were mostly done with runes, written on the body, but back then they had issues with overpowering the individual so they tended to die due to extreme infusion of magical energy. That was when they got back into researching druid techniques, based on rituals, which weren't that long-lasting, but more stable and secure.
The costs of such a ritual were too high though to be applicable for soldiers in high quantities, and the durability was depending on the moon and sun phases, so anything but constant. It was being done now and then, but not often, and the research shifted back into runes and how to control the infused power, trying everything from blood runes to tattoos (both of which were efficient if properly applied, but forbidden and had the tendency to cause madness in the long run).
Sharpening their minds for three hours was something they tried though (calculating the time beforehand), and it was an interesting experience, but too expensive and not too strong to be helpful in the long run. Besides, they didn't know the long term effects of rituals on the mind.
The rituals through which they gained more understanding for elemental and nature magic were interesting too, basically pushing their minds into communication with the magic, just like wizards often did with ambient magic. It wasn't easy to describe, but they were deeply connected with the magical energy, saw how it moved and behaved, giving them a better understanding of how to approach this magic. Now that they knew what elemental magic felt like, it was much easier to search for it without having to resort to forcefully summoning it via fiendfyre etc.
But what they also did was work on their enchantment skills, and then infuse the engraved runes and the woven enchantments with ambient magic channelled through the ritual so it would be more durable and stronger.
By April both of them were getting noticeably stronger with the elemental and natural magic, but that work had involved a lot of meditation. After getting a feeling for it, they both meditated to find this specific feeling again in midst of all the ambient magic (not easy on the crossing of magical lines), and that wandlessly.
Eventually they'd be able to do the same elemental magics as Harry and Hermione, but learned with a different approach, they had studied the elemental magic out of Potter family books and went from wandbased magic to wandless magic over time.
What Augustus and Nathaniel did was meditate and try to light a candle with only their mind, and not a wand. Not a wandless Incendio either, but the natural fire magic. The difference was hard to explain, to be honest, but for the caster it was noticeable. After nearly a week both had managed the candle exercise and went on to stronger and bigger challenges, occasionally trying the basics with another element too, until they ended up debating.
Augustus was of the opinion that it was the wisest thing to study all elements at the same time, while Nathaniel thought that mastering one element would make the approach to another element simpler, and so they both started documenting their process in trying to find out who was correct.
But before they could continue that research far enough to be somehow conclusive, they were rudely interrupted.
Well, not rudely per se, but they were interrupted by someone knocking on the front door without having triggered any of the alarm wards or traps beforehand.
It was the last day of April 1994, a bit less than half a year after the fall of Voldemort, when someone found them, and both Nathaniel and Augustus were beyond surprised by that. But instead of asking themselves "how?" and "who?", they opened the main door, carefully and with wands drawn.
In front of them stood an old and familiar looking man.
"Augustus!"
"Who are you?"
"Oh come on, put your wands away, you two. Nathaniel, I can sense you in there too."
"Wait who are…Dumbledore!"
As soon as Augustus Rookwood realised that he was standing in front of Albus Dumbledore, he raised his wand even further and fired off half a dozen spells, none lethal but all intended to hurt and immobilise.
Nathaniel joined the attack only fractions of a second later, but Albus Dumbledore was still the strongest wizard of them all, and with his new wand and having expected an attack, he managed to deflect every single spell and set up a protective barrier that would stop all short of an unforgivable.
"Put your wands down, I'm just here to talk, I need your help!"
That made at least Augustus stop in his efforts to bring down the barrier, and his hesitation made Nathaniel follow suit just seconds later.
"Before we let you in, explain. Nathaniel, set up a similar barrier. How are you alive, old man, I saw you die."
Albus laughed.
"Oh no, what you saw was a body collapse while my fire disappeared."
Then Augustus understood.
"Transfiguration? And you timed your apparition with the shattering of the shield to hide the noise. I'm not surprised that you managed to break through the anti-apparition wards, they were done quickly. And what's your agenda now?"
"Good that you ask. I've taken up residence in Nurmengard, killed Gellert and am collecting my followers to take out Potter and bring back the old world."
"But Potter is the Master of Death, I don't see either of us defeating him, and with the support he has we can't take him together."
"That's why I'm here. I need two brilliant minds to break an encryption for me."
He held up the diary of King William and opened it so Augustus could see the floating symbols on the page.
"Which century, and how many wards you need to entangle?"
"Late eleventh or early twelfth, and a bit more than five hundred. I just did the first three before I started looking for you."
"Five…come in and explain."
"Augustus! You think that's a good idea."
"Maybe it is, maybe not. And if he thinks we can take out Potter and the others then we're free again. As much as I love this castle, I want to be able to travel…oh and maybe take over the Potter and Black libraries."
Once the three of them were sitting in the library, in big comfortable armchairs and with a glass of exquisite wine and around a table, Albus handed Augustus the book, who couldn't wait to analyse it.
"Fascinating, that's even more complex than the last one we handled. You probably didn't know it, our names were always classified, but I helped solve the last one in the DMLE. But this is much more complex. You know how you create those, Nathaniel."
Nathaniel, who was still very wary of Dumbledore, shook his head.
"Well, usually, if you want to encrypt and ward a book, then you use a few layers of encryption wards, mostly with a password or a wand signature, sometimes an enchanted trinket as the key to unlock it. Woven in usually a few traps for someone trying to break them, and around them the usual protection wards."
"Yes, that I know."
"But from the tenth century on this technique got pretty popular after discovering it in Roman and Greek libraries, but hardly anyone used it after the sixteenth century because it's so complicated. You take a normal wardstone, sync it with the book and text, then you put your wards on the stone. Back then people got very crazy and had about two hundred encryption and protection wards plus traps on those stones. The advantage was that if you hid the stone, no one could break the wards because there were none on the book itself. And then there were the insane people that connected the wards to their personal signature and smashed the wardstone, causing the wards to jump over onto the book and become a literal gordian knot and creating hundreds of additional wards due to crossing and overlapping of the separate spells. Only the person tied into the wards could use the book then."
"Twenty points to Ravenclaw, Augustus. And since the person warding that book isn't alive anymore, one has to sort through every single ward, untangle them so the original structure that was on the stone is redone, and then you can break through that like through any warded object."
Nathaniel did understand the concept now, he even took a look at the book, and then asked the most important question.
"And why do you want that book decrypted? What are you after?"
"Well, that's a long story."
"We have time, Albus."
"In short, Merlin's wand."
All hell broke loose as the two former Death Eaters began to ask dozens of questions, hoping that the old man could give them any clarity. Once Dumbledore raised his hand, they got silent again.
"Thank you. You are welcome to look at my research back at Nurmengard, but the essentials are that Gellert managed to pinpoint the year of death of Merlin, or at least estimate it. And the only person of whom I'd be sure to have attended his funeral is the muggle regent at this time."
"Really? When did he die?"
"1084"
"Oh, okay, predating most families, and those that we know have existed don't have records left like the Malfoys or are inaccessible to you, like Black. What about the founders?"
"Didn't leave the castle anymore since 1081, there I'm rather certain."
"Okay, so King William is the best choice, true. And this is obviously his diary in regards to magic. Where did you get it?"
"MACUSA archives, I stole it."
That fact caused Augustus to down the rest of his wine at once and get a refill, he had tried that too a few times, but never with any success.
"HOW?"
"Luck, actually. Met the First Lady, who has a bag that allows her to take out books, a long conversation, a few wandless confounding spells overpowering her protective bracelet and afterwards a memory modification. Pretty easy."
Albus began to tell them the whole tale, knowing that he needed their trust, so he started with Gellert and him back in the day.
"Wait, you were in a relationship with Gellert Grindelwald?"
"Yes, Nathaniel, I think I made that quite clear."
"That's…surprising. Lovers to enemies…what a story."
"Yes, but I had to. I had to take the Elder Wand off him."
That fact caused even more surprised looks, excessive alcohol consumption (no longer wine by now, that was not strong enough anymore) and A LOT of questions while Albus continued to tell his tale. By the end the two former Death Eaters were convinced to help the old man, because they were still wanted in the UK, so getting rid of the current government and their supporters was not a bad idea, and because if Dumbledore could actually rise to the top (and he had much higher chances than Voldy ever had), they could get a hold of all that knowledge and power they wanted. Augustus could lead the DoM and raid as many private family libraries as possible, and Nathaniel could get back together with his family, get a high-ranking position and be a researcher alongside Augustus.
So they agreed to go with the old man, still somehow doubting his change and his plans, but agreeing that it was the option with the best future prospects for them. After packing, they met with Albus in the entrance hall, who offered both of them one of his hands to portkey back.
"Seriously? Can't we just touch the portkey, Albus?"
"No, because it's the ring I'm wearing, look. A reusable portkey to Nurmengard. Let's go, my friends."
Both Augustus and Nathaniel rolled their eyes, then grabbed the old man's hands.
"Activate!"
Notes:
So, that's it for this week. As always, feedback in the comments would be appreciated.
Until next week, see ya
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder