Postal

Fourteen

"Merde!"

The old man on the corner of the Boulevard St. Germain and the rue des Saints-Pères threw up his hands, gesticulating wildly and muttering a series of unfamiliar expletives at the pair of black-cloaked figures that had knocked into him, sending his groceries crashing onto the pavement. With a loud ripping sound, the flimsy paper bag tore, scattering a selection of citrus fruits, saucisson sec, bread and yoghurt onto the asphalt. The little glass pots rolled past the Café Rouget downhill into the flow of oncoming traffic and toward the Seine.

The man blinked rapidly. Apparently, none of the preoccupied pedestrians had noticed them, but he was certain that the men had appeared out of nowhere. One had a proud, pinched face with a pointed chin, cold dead eyes and platinum blond hair stemming from a widow's peak on his forehead. A little bald man, encumbered by a large cloth sack struggled to keep up with his companion's brisk strides. He held the sack nervously in place with a heavy-looking silver hand that glinted in the afternoon sun.

Lucius Malfoy was peeved and did not stop for so much as a backward glance, let alone an apology. Malfoy hated Paris. Despite being able to trace his lineage to the French baronial classes, he had always detested the City of Lights, preferring the barren, blustery moors surrounding the Malfoys' Scottish Mansion. But the Dark Lord had convinced him of the advantages of using his in-laws' house. Particularly, the storage capacity it offered away from the prying eyes of the British Ministry of Magic, in general, and that damned Arthur Weasley, in particular. Narcissa had inherited her mother's Paris pied-·-terre and would never have considered selling the house on the Rive Gauche.

Hmmph. Gauche would be the operative word, Lucius thought nastily, sneering at the Muggle women sporting bright colours and clutching monogrammed bags containing tiny live dogs. Lucius paused to peer at the buildings in search of the entrance. As he had only seen the door to La Maison Danglars twice before, his lack of familiarity with the place precluded them from Apparating directly.

Ah, but there it was. None of the Muggles passing by appeared to take any notice of the tall gilded door with the lion's head knocker. Their eyes slid from the red and white wicker chairs of the Cafª Rouget to the brightly-lit display of a women's clothing boutique. Lucius drew his wand and tapped the lion's head between the eyes. He growled the password ("Le Fou du Roi"), impatiently rolling his eyes before stalking through the archway that appeared. With a crude snap of his long fingers, he summoned Wormtail, just as a little terrier, growling suspiciously, started sniffing at the weighty load on his shoulder.

The sack began to stir. Wormtail's beady eyes bulged in panic as the dog's teeth sank into his robes. He pointed a silver finger at the dog, sending out a jet of bright green light and its teeth disintegrated. Before its harried-looking owner, a blonde in head-to-toe camel-coloured cashmere, discovered what had caused its sudden high-pitched yelps, Wormtail and his sack had disappeared.

***

Their footsteps echoed hollow in the entrance hall, windowless but lit with floating candelabras, flickering along the high white-and-gilt walls. A house-elf wrapped in a scratchy-looking paper doily sat in one of twelve carved ebony and pearl armchairs beneath portraits of Narcissa's ancestors. Most were pale and wispy with blond ringlets and ruffled laced collars. And that was just the men. Lucius sniffed disdainfully and the house-elf sprang to standing position with a squeak, noticing the visitors for the first time. After a deep, reverential bow, its eyes widened in fear and recognition, darting from Malfoy's haughty glare to Wormtail's silver hand. If the poor creature had kept his eyes on Lucius, it might have anticipated his wand rising in the air and the malicious little smile that played across his thin lips.

"Crucio."

Malfoy stood back appraisingly in sadistic satisfaction as the elf jerked and twisted, writhing frantically on the floor in pain. A cacaphony of incoherent screams erupted in the hall. Wormtail wondered if one of its eyes was going to come out. Malfoy gleefully hoped one would. And they might have found out if it hadn't been for the door at the end of the corridor.

It flew open with a bang, upsetting the picture frames and the more jittery among Narcissa's ancestors, who ducked out of sight. A long, black-sleeved arm appeared in the shadowy threshold and threateningly aimed a wand at Malfoy's head.

"Stupefy!"

A blinding flash of blue sliced through the hall with great accuracy. Even before Malfoy hit the black marble floor, Wormtail gasped and dropped the sack with an unceremonious thud. He turned to flee, only to run into two tall hooded figures, closing in slowly and blocking the exit. Wormtail screamed and fell to his knees, cowering and shrouding his face with his hands.

The first figure at the far end of the hall came forward and trained a wand on the convulsing house-elf. "Finite Incantatem." The creature's breathing, while still ragged and belaboured, was otherwise normal, and the deep green flush returned to its cheeks, indicating that no lasting damage had been caused.

However, beside the house-elf, Malfoy's rigid frame showed no signs of life, except for his eyes which blinked and darted wildly after the cloaked figure with an expression that on anyone else may have been taken as horror. The figure paused contemplatively, eyeing Lucius. But only for a moment. It drew back its right foot and took aim, evincing several satisfying thunks against Malfoy's ribcage before stepping on his nose with steel-toed Doc Martens until the single sharp crack echoed through the hall.

"Caro, that's enough! Leave him be!"

Alastor Moody hobbled away from Wormtail, whimpering in the custody of Mundungus Fletcher. Both Moody's normal and his Magical Eye traveled to the crooked bend in Malfoy's nose and the stream of fresh blood flowing from it before fixing Malfoy's assailant with a thunderous blue stare.

But his glare was quickly returned. A deliberate hand drew back the hood to reveal a mass of wheat-coloured waves, tied back from the delicate face of a young woman. A face that Moody had seen on the odd occasion chuckling rosily with mirth, but which now turned on him, flushed with fury. Her gaze narrowed at her one-time mentor, the legendary ex-Auror, and her grey-green eyes met both of his evenly.

"He as good as killed my godson, Alastor. My nephew."

Despite himself, Moody winced. Caro's voice was low, but her tone, deadly. Moody had heard that before as well, had been impressed by its determination and conviction, enough to enlist her into service despite her age. The old man sighed. He knew that all his years with the Ministry as an Auror and Chief of the Unspeakables had created a tough exterior. But Moody fully understood how it must be killing his colleague not to be able to exact revenge for the murder of her nephew. He thought of how he might feel if anything befell his own niece, his only blood relative, in her seventh year at Durmstrang Academy and felt an empathetic pang. His brow wrinkled uncomfortably and his normal eye stared blankly at a point past her ear, principally because he didn't fully agree with the sentiments behind the speech he was about to give.

"Be reasonable, Caro. He's more use to us alive than dead. 'Tell ye, there's no one who'd love more than me to hang him by his toenails over a pit of starving Manticores--well, 'cept maybe a few of those Weasleys--but he ought to be taken to the Ministry. Our business is justice, not revenge. No use making yerself a fugitive over him either. Amos wouldn't allow it, anyway. He'd have my head."

"Amos has no say in this," she spat, although the lines on her face were easing. "He's my brother, not my guardian. And he of all people should understand, after what they did to... Cedric..."

Caro Diggory's eyes were bright as she turned away. The girl stomped a boot angrily to stem the flood of tears. Moody's Magical Eye noted her steel toe colliding forcefully with the fingers of Malfoy's wand hand, but quickly looked away.

Then his Eye rolled to Pettigrew, bound and gagged in one of the chairs. His first thought was, Well, I'll be damned. Sirius Black was an innocent man. The Eye rested on the shriveled, rodent-like man and it vaguely occurred to Moody that although he should have been whimpering with fear, Voldemort's right-hand man sat strangely silent, eyeing the motionless sack at Fletcher's feet. There was a triumphant gleam in his watery eyes that Moody didn't like...

He flinched, sensing a swift movement in front of him. Caro's hand had shot forward, her wand conjuring a handkerchief as she sniffed. Moody rested a gnarled hand on her shoulder and said, albeit with more conviction than he felt, "It'll be alright, lass. It will."