"Enervate."

Starling woke to a familiar throbbing of the head. Feels like Alabama Slammers, she noted. Must have been a Stunning Spell.

She carefully noted her circumstances in the half-second before she opened her eyes. Bound, probably magically -- those feel like conjured serpents holding me down at my wrists and ankles... to some sort of wooden table.

Hmmm.

Gagged, of course -- he doesn't want me shouting out a spell, even without my wands. And my robes are gone.

Looks like Malfoy thought of everything.

And on that thought, Clarice Starling opened her eyes.

The table on which she was bound was in the middle of the room. All the better for
Lucius Malfoy's torturing pleasure, guessed Clarice. Nothing like easy access.

Malfoy himself, dressed in full Death Eater regalia, was standing near the entrance to the room. He was quite happy to see that she was awake.

"Miss Lucy Stellanova," he said, his own blue eyes meeting hers. "So nice to have you with us."

"You know, I will have to let the Dark Lord have his turn with you, eventually," he drawled, tapping his wand lightly into the palm of his other hand as he slowly sidled towards her. "He's not going to be too pleased to hear that the Muds are missing. And he'll want to vent his frustrations. With any luck, he'll do it all on you and not on me. But," and here he smiled, his teeth showing pearly white like a movie star's, "he won't kill you -- yet. Not so long as he can use you as a bargaining chip."

Clarice saw him point the wand at her, knew what was coming.

She sent her conscious mind away, deep into the center of her memory palace, the bare feet of her inner self running along the deep shag pile of the palace's study, and waited for the blast.

"Crucio," said Lucius Malfoy.

The figure on the table writhed in agony, her back arched and taut. But Lucius Malfoy could not know that the mind that controlled the figure was untouched and inviolate.

In the study, the largest part of Clarice's mental self dug her toes deep into the luxurious shag, and watched on a projection screen as sweat started to pool in the hollows of her physical form. That's not so bad. But I do have to writhe a bit more. Let him think me weakening under the pain. Let him get the idea of wanting to hear me moan and beg and plead for mercy...

"Crucio!" Malfoy said yet again.

The mental portion of Clarice, watching impassively from the protection of her memory palace, instructed her physical self to whimper slightly through the gag. She then returned to sipping her green tea from the bone china cup that she had willed to appear in her hand.

A gleam appeared in Lucius Malfoy's ice-blue eyes. "Oh, it hurts, does it?" he mocked, playfully striking her flesh with his wand. "This is only the beginning, mudblood. Only the beginning."

And he cast the Pain Curse a third time. And a fourth.

The physical Clarice was now bathed in sweat, her eyes goggling, foam appearing around the edges of her magical gag. Her throat was making one long, continuous keening.

Meanwhile, the controlling part of Clarice was still sitting in the study, sipping green tea, watching Lucius Malfoy's face contort in pleasure. Oh, let him be arrogant enough to want to hear me scream, she wished. Let him be sick enough to want to make me beg.

Almost as soon as it was made, her wish was granted.

"Such music to my ears," he murmured, barely audible over her mewlings. "But I think it'd sound better without the muffling." He made a motion with his wand, and the gag vanished from her mouth.

The inner Clarice jumped for joy, sending her teacup flying into nonexistence. She set to work concentrating on a happy memory.

"You have a choice, Mudblood," purred Malfoy as he stood over her, his face bare inches from her own. "Face three more curses just like that.... or beg me to take my pleasure with you."

The inner Clarice directed the outer one to slowly, shamefacedly, turn to meet Lucius Malfoy's lecherous stare. I don't have a wand, but maybe, just maybe, if I use the tip of my nose as a focal point...

A happy memory:

Starling was eight years old, sitting in the kitchen, eating oranges with her daddy.

He would soon be dead, cut down by petty thieves, but that was in the future and not important now. He was peeling the oranges with his old Barlow knife, the one with the tip broken off square, the one he'd got from his daddy. He was handing her the orange sections. Daddy was real and vivid and alive, smelling of tobacco and soap and hard work.

Clarice's heart swelled, and her eyes shed tears of happiness, which she knew Malfoy would mistake for tears of shame -- and this made her even happier.

She was looking Malfoy right in the face now, eyes red-rimmed and bloated with weeping. Now or never, she decided.

"EXPECTO PATRONEM!" cried Clarice, in a voice that shook the walls.

Bright blue light filled the room. The serpents binding Clarice vanished.

Lucius Malfoy found himself flung against the opposite wall, wide-eyed and panicked. He tried to point his wand at Clarice, but something got in his way.

A something that looked like a man.

And it was carrying something that looked like a long brace of tubes, welded together.

"Avada Kedavra!", screamed Malfoy, but of course the Killing Curse was useless against a Patronus, who, strictly speaking, was not alive.

The Patronus smiled, raised the brace of tubes to his shoulder. There was a loud blue explosion.

Lucius Malfoy felt the blast hit him in the chest, a storm of steel particles, and realized that he had just been cut rather messily in two. The Lord of the Malfoys had enough life left him to mouth a last, incoherent attempt at a spell before he slid to the floor. His eyes were still open.

"Daddy," Clarice said, ecstatically extending a hand to her ghostly father.

"How's my baby girl," John Starling said, his coal-miner's twang making each word sing. The blue light clung to him like an aura. His Stetson with the Fort Worth crease, the one he was buried with, sat jauntily on his spectral head. A tin star shone on his shirt front.

The ghost that was once John Starling held his baby girl in his arms for a few moments, rocking her back and forth, smoothing her mussed hair with hands calloused from long years of hard labor; then he released her. "Sugar, I got to take off. You go get dressed and help your friends. They'll be here any minute."

And before Clarice could protest, her daddy shimmered and was gone.




There were several confused persons on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Much of their confusion was due to the fact that, most of the time, they couldn't see the school itself, only an old ruined building with "KEEP OUT!" signs all over it.

But Dumbledore, the old man with the long white beard and the funny clothes, was kind, and the other funnily-dressed people were kind as well, ready with food and drink, as well as preparations for removing the accumulated filth of their captivity.

It was decided that they should stay the night to recuperate before being sent back to their homes; what they could not know was that Dumbledore wanted to make sure that it would be safe to send them home before he actually did so.

"Madam Pomfrey will see you to your quarters," beamed the old man, indicating with a wave of his hand the pleasant-faced, stoutly-built lady who must have been the Matron for the school's hospital. She radiated competence and a comfortingly wholesome authority, and the Muggles gladly turned to follow her into the castle, which most of them could see by now.

His smile faded once the Muggles had gone. "Any word from Lucy?" he asked Harry and McGonagall, both of whom had their magically-adapted cellphones in their hands.

"No," replied McGonagall, with a look on her face as tense as the one now on Dumbledore's own. "But Dobby called five minutes ago."

"Dobby?" Dumbledore raised a snowy-white eyebrow. "Over at Offhand Manor?" Dobby, Lucius Malfoy's former house-elf, had gone to work for Dr. Reader several months earlier, and was devoted to him.

"Yes," nodded McGonagall. "Both Sirius and Dr. Reader left the mansion about an hour ago. Dobby thinks they've gone to find Lucy."

The headmaster blew out a bushelful of air from his cheeks. "I was afraid of that."




Clarice had just finished putting on her robes, and reclaiming her wands, when there was a commotion at the door. She had her wands out in a flash, but it was only Sirius and Hannibal.

Sirius took one look at what was left of Lucius Malfoy and had to fight down the urge to vomit. Dr. Lecter, on the other hand, seemed pleased at the sight.

"So your Patronus carries a shotgun and wears a badge, does he not, darling?" he said, smiling as he stepped gracefully over Malfoy's bloody remains. "I thought he might."

Then he nodded to Sirius, who quickly Stunned Clarice while her back was turned to him.

"I hate to do this to her, but I know her," said Lecter as he caught her falling body, keeping it from reaching the floor. "She won't leave here of her own accord." He lifted up his beloved with the supple ease he still possessed, and handed her into Sirius' waiting arms.

"Take care of her, Sirius," whispered Hannibal Lecter. "Take care of her."

"I will, Doctor," Sirius replied, his voice shaking slightly. "I promise you that from the bottom of my heart."

The doctor smiled, even teeth flashing in the torchlight. "Better go home now with her, Sirius," he said. "Dobby's probably called either Dumbledore or McGonagall by now."

Sirius nodded. "Goodbye, Doctor. And good luck."

Then Sirius, with Clarice safely gathered into his arms, vanished.