[slaughter hall] the remedy [eris]

When she came back from the Ministry he was sitting in the dining room, the candlelight feeble overhead, squinting through the rolls of handwritten notes -- phonetic guides and lists of names and itineraries and arrows drawn on maps. He didn’t need to look up to know it was her -- the elf didn’t walk so much as slink -- he said, around his cigarette, “Welcome back.”

They hadn’t made it to the Ministry in the first war -- the Dark Lord had wanted to eliminate the threat of a nemesis first, and that’d ended with the Boy Who Lived and a lot of strife -- and when they’d finally gotten there, in 1997, Avery had been in prison and in disgrace. Ironically, that’d been for a failed attempt to infiltrate the Department of Mysteries -- his one and only bit of experience with something like this, something like waltzing into the stronghold of a state with the intent to steal, to kill. The Dark Lord hadn’t generally trusted him with matters this delicate, and Avery hadn’t blamed him.

He had no illusions that the Swedish Ministry would protect its state officials with any less ferocity than Britain had protected her secrets. They didn’t want to kill until they’d gotten to Nyström -- that would bring nothing but a headache and unwanted attention -- but he suspected they wouldn’t be so lucky.

(Mulciber had said with a laugh, the first time they’d crossed paths in Azkaban in 1996, “Things have a way of working out, don’t they?” He’d followed it immediately with, “Straight to shit” and Avery had laughed too. They’d been thirty-five; even then Avery hadn’t believed in good luck.)

Straight to shit, thought Avery with amusement -- he’d have done nearly anything to have Mulciber as an ally again. He looked up at her finally, pushed a few rolls of parchment across the table at Rosier. “Think you’re ready?”

@Eris Rosier

There was a high chance this was a suicide mission, and having spent almost forty years trying to remain alive by whatever means necessary, the prospect of death was not a welcome one -- but, over the past few weeks, months, she had come to realise that within her lifetime, she had only truly lived for a few brief periods. The last few years had been more of an existence, and wasn’t this worth it? Her brother and father before her had done their bit, now it was time for her to do hers.

Eris was reassured by the sight of Avery, of all people, pouring over their plans as she entered the dining room. In her hand she was carrying a large bag, which she set down on the table in front of him with little finesse. “For you.” In the bag were some new robes, good quality and to his measurements (or close enough, but she trusted Spawler to have been discreet when she had instructed the elf to get his sizing when he slept).

Trusting Avery with this was risky -- given past experience, he was not the strongest candidate, but he was the only candidate and Eris thought his previous failure haunted him enough to want to absolve himself.

She sat at the table, and on cue her elf shuffled into the room with wine and a tray of food that was set down between her and Avery, who asked if she was ready. Had she been a funnier person Eris might have replied with I was born ready, but she wasn’t, so she didn’t. “Yes.” He reached to pour them each a glass of wine and she held up her hand when he reached a certain point on the glass; “Not too much,” she warned. They needed to be clear.

Still, she pulled her glass closer and sipped from it, began picking at the food listlessly, then with more purpose when she realised he might interpret her actions as fear; weakness. “Are you?” she turned the question back on him, holding his gaze for a long moment before drifting to the plans spread across the table. Her light eyes fell on the list of names, on which two stood out above any others. “The priority is Nyström,” she reminded him -- herself, too, “after him...” she shrugged one shoulder, focusing heavily on Jessica Jonasson in Avery’s untidy scrawl.

The elf slunk in after her; Avery cast a dismissive glance over the food it had carried in -- he had little appetite, lately -- and reached for the wine instead.

Not too much, Rosier warned -- he let her see him curl his lip with distaste at the rebuke, but he obliged, sliding her glass aside and pouring his own. “We were clear as crystal in ninety-six,” he said, almost lightly. After months living together she seemed to spend less time parsing his thoughts and more time having her own, but just now it behoved him to share. Rosier hadn’t spent much time in Azkaban -- as far as he knew, the closest she got had been visiting Purcell -- but he had, and he’d been thinking about the possibility of failure all day.

If they were truly, really going to do this -- if they were going to unseat the leeches that had crawled after their pitiful, lost numbers hoping for allies -- they had to be thinking about the possibility of failure.

“Yes,” he said, and had to resist the urge to laugh at her, the purposeful confidence she seemed so anxious to project; he looked away before he could, followed her gaze to his notes. As easily as they’d been able to decide on their targets -- the plan had been far more difficult -- he didn’t know truly if they were working to the same end. He had little love for Gaius Purcell but no desire for revenge, no jealous vendetta. (He wouldn’t fault Rosier for either -- but he’d dared not ask about Purcell, while he was living in her house.)

“After him, his bitch,” he intoned, “They’re the dangerous ones.”

Part of him did want to ask about Purcell, or at least what she was aiming at. Instead he prodded open the bag she’d set unceremoniously before him, raised his eyebrows at the fabric.

He wasn’t about to start thanking her, so he just nodded, cast her a shifty look over his dinner. “We’re not trying to kill more than we need,” he added, only a little condescending. Sweden, if nothing else, was full of proper, conservative wizards -- they’d do European politics no favours by massacring their purebloods.

She stared at him, unimpressed. “And still a schoolboy outwitted you?” she asked, eyebrow raised knowingly. “You’re not filling me with confidence,” she told him, sipping from her wine and trying to tell herself that it would be fine. It wasn’t the first time during this planning that it had occurred to her that Avery might not be the best co-conspirator for this mission (for want of a better word).

But he was ready, apparently. That made one of them, and it bothered her that she felt like he knew it, too. Part of her was ready -- ready for it all to be over. It was time to do something more than hide behind a mask. If it showed Gaius what she was worth comparable to that Swedish bitch, then that was just a bonus. Speaking of...

Eris nodded, trying not to let a smirk creep onto her features (succeeding, just). “There’s a chance he’s shared his plans with others, but I somehow doubt it.” Usually, her logic here would have been backed up by experience -- that Gaius had shared plans with her and nobody else -- but she didn’t feel like opening herself up to that sort of scrutiny, given her mentor and lover had unceremoniously abandoned her the moment he was out of Azkaban. The Auror drank. At least Avery seemed to be on the same page; “She’s seen our faces, she’s the greatest risk.”

She picked at the food in front of her and watched Avery inspect his new robes. A small smile of amusement stretched over her lips briefly. “Need you to blend in. You go in looking like that and we won’t get past the visitors desk.”

He surprised her, then -- and her face showed it. “Are you going soft, Cecilius?” she smirked, picking up her wine again and sipping it. She knew what he meant, though -- drawing less attention was one part of it, but the Dark Lord’s words echoed in her mind; every drop of magical blood spilled is a terrible waste. She lowered her glass. “Only if someone gets in our way,” she agreed.

Eris plucked a grape from the tray and popped it in her mouth. Her eyes scanned the floorplan between them. “I think you’re right about the routes, we’ll go with C as the preferred way to him, A can be the backup if something goes wrong.” She flicked her light eyes up to meet his, doing her best to exude that confidence she so desperately needed him to see. “Escape plan, you’re still happy with it?”

She paused for a moment before adding: “If one of us doesn’t get away clean, we don’t come back here.”

“A schoolboy and half of the Order,” Avery corrected her tightly. It had been a humiliation they’d heard about time and again from those who hadn’t been trusted near it, but it bore repeating now: Dumbledore had foiled them then, but Dumbledore was long dead.

It had crossed his mind before that Rosier was not equipped for failure the same way that he was. Where he had fumbled and forsaken as a Death Eater, one of too many young men vying for recognitions as bootlickers and brutes, Rosier had made her way into the Ministry and, for the most part, beyond reproach of anybody but the Dark Lord’s most trusted, the same path Severus Snape had been set on when he’d wormed his way under Dumbledore’s wing. Avery had loathed Snape for that.

He directed his gaze back down at his map. Once, avoiding eye contact wouldn’t have kept his thoughts to himself -- he was getting soft, complacent, with only Eris Rosier to worry about. She couldn’t sniff out his discontent or his unrest from across a damn room the way the Dark Lord had been able to.

Need you to blend in, she said -- he afforded her a glare. “You’ll fit right in, obviously,” he said sneeringly; was she a natural blonde? Did it matter?

He pushed the map closer to her as she peered over it; he couldn’t keep himself from tracing along their chosen routes with one finger. “Of course,” he said dismissively; if he had changed his mind about their escape plan he’d have told her. If one of us doesn’t get away clean, she said; he almost laughed. This was just posturing -- if she was caught and he wasn’t, he knew better than to return to her house and he imagined he’d not be free much longer.

And if he was caught and she wasn’t, it didn’t fucking matter what she did -- she could turn herself in or run away; she could carry on her Ministry charade, even.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said, only barely smiling.

He turned his attention back to the map, rubbing at his temples with his knuckles. Now that Rosier had come home it felt suddenly like the day had been wasted -- what could be his last day of freedom, he thought wryly. (Freedom -- if it could be called that.) Tomorrow they raided the Swedish Ministry of Magic; tonight they waited.

He pulled the wine bottle back and poured half a glass for himself, raised his eyebrows at Rosier. They had to be lucid tomorrow, but he knew his limits, and he knew there was a real chance that they wouldn’t make it back to finish this wine. “Have a touch more wine before we finalise it,” he said gruffly, then quirked the corners of his mouth into a smile, stubbed his cigarette out. Intoxication the night before a big move was a Death Eaters’ tradition. “Makes it easier.”

[out]

She waved at him dismissively. Half the Order or not, he’d failed and she didn’t care to dwell on that -- lucky him.

Eris looked at him, then at where he was looking; her eyes shot up, even though she could not see the top of her head. She fixed him with an unimpressed stare as she put two and two together. “Ha ha,” she deadpanned, an edge of venom in her tone. The Auror did not need reminding that she’d been traded in for the younger model -- not that she thought that was what he was getting at, but it had done so anyway.

She sat up straighter and helped herself to some cheese. Her light eyes followed his fingers as he led her on a two dimensional version of their anticipated paths for tomorrow. Reassuring that he remembered it, at least.

The blonde witch rolled her eyes, hiding her own smile behind her glass lest he think she was beginning to grow fond of him or something. She drank, then sighed softly. She couldn’t even summon the desire to snap at him about smoking in the house.

“A touch,” she conceded, reaching to hold her glass out to him for a top-up.


END