Chapter Ten: The Dogs of War

The dog under Milo stumbled slightly as the ground he was standing on shifted from uneven forest floor to smooth, packed dirt.

Milo hopped off, grateful to finally be standing on solid ground. He wasn't built for riding animals.

"Light," he said, tapping the wall and causing it to glow. The previously-dark room lit up instantly, revealing the familiar sights of one of his many nigh-identical bolt holes. This one, which happened to be closest, was located in... ah, who am I kidding, Milo thought. I'm not going to pretend I remember the names of this world's political regions. "It worked," he said, more than a little surprised. He wondered what, exactly, would happen to his newly-learned Teleport spell. In order for him to cast it like that, it had to be in his spellbook. But he didn't have his spellbook... Riddle did, unless it was growing dusty in the Chamber of Secrets. But he had learned the spell—and Wall of Stone, for that matter. Had the text of the spell simply appeared in the book, wherever it was? Or...

Milo quickly skimmed through Thamior's really, incredibly gross spellbook. Nope, not there. Milo shrugged. He was less dependent on his spellbook than most Wizards; the important thing was that it still existed, wherever it was.

On the topic of his old stuff... Milo wondered what had happened to his body. It was a weird experience, knowing that the body you were in, no matter how identical it looked, was not the body you were born in. Was it, too, decaying in the Chamber of Secrets? Or had Riddle taken steps to dispose of the evidence? Could coming back from the dead in this manner be somehow exploited as some kind of macabre corpse-generator? Milo was forbidden from using Necromancy, but if he wasn't, what kind of weird undead could he create using his own body? How could he get around that no-Necromancy restriction? Now there was a thought...

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Sorry?" Milo said, broken out of his reverie.

"I said something to the extent of, 'you didn't know that would work'?" said the dog, who was now a scruffy man again. He looked like a man who had made a few too many Starvation checks in his time. At the sight of his teeth, Milo immediately thought of Hermione's parents. If anyone needed a dentist, it was this man.

"Well, I didn't even know the spell until I took out that Death Eater back there," Milo said. "And once I did, Teleport only has, at best, a 97% success rate." The more familiar Milo was with the destination, the more likely it was that he would arrive on target.

The man-dog-man-person gave Milo a look with which he was fast becoming familiar. It was sort of halfway between cautious and impressed. Oh, and wondering if their leg was being pulled. It was a third of the way between each of cautious and impressed and wondering if their leg was pulled. And the look generally reserved for crazy people. It was a quarter of the way between—

Well, you get the idea.

"I see," the man said, sitting down on one of the wooden chairs. "Who taught you to Apparate without a license? And how come the Ministry lets you do magic underage? Have things really changed so much?"

Milo shrugged. He wasn't sure how much information he should give to this strange man. "I'm out of their jurisdiction."

The man nodded slowly, as if that meant something. For all Milo knew, maybe it did—he understood, dimly, that there were other political bodies outside of the United Kingdom, which had their own Ministries of Magic (or the equivalent). For all Milo knew, maybe the local Ministry really couldn't tell if foreign children were performing magic within its borders, and instead an alarm went off halfway around the world.

"My turn for a question," Milo said. "Who the hells are you?"

o—o—o—o

There was a sharp pop as Riddle appeared by the uninhabited stretch of coastline, drawing his wand. He aimed it at an unremarkable-looking patch of ground and muttered a quick spell incantation. Ghostly shovels appeared, and, in a manner of minutes, had dug a perfectly rectangular hole, about three feet across, six long—and six deep.

Riddle looked down. It wasn't a pretty sight, but even at this stage in his career he'd seen worse. Most importantly, it was still there.

Here, all alone and with no witnesses, he let his icy control slip.

"Impossible!" he muttered. How could that half-crazed boy have managed to fake his own death? And if he had, then whose body was rotting in the ground?

No. It was impossible. Riddle had been inside his mind. There could be no deception. The death had been real.

So who—or what—had come through the ritual? Could it really be the same person? Had the boy really learned to cheat death so completely? Or was the ritual somehow flawed? Did it simply... create these strange, semi-human children as a byproduct of its use?

No. The boy had said something—fourth mistake, pretty boy. Hadn't he said, back in the Chamber, that Riddle had made four mistakes?

It had to be the same boy.

"Madness!" Riddle shrieked. Around him, grass blackened, thin tendrils of smoke rising from their burnt stalks.

He'd come back, as far as Riddle could tell, at full power and in a matter of months. How? Even after all the work Riddle had gone through, he'd still lost the bulk of his memories and it had taken him close to a year living in another's head. What did the boy know that he didn't? What was his secret?

Riddle didn't know how, but he knew that he would find out, whatever the cost.

But for now, he had more pressing business.

With a wave of his wand, the grave filled itself in again, and he was gone.

o—o—o—o

The stranger remained silent, obviously debating how to answer Milo's question.

"I'm Sirius Black," he said, finally. He clearly assumed that would mean something to Milo, which, of course, it didn't. Last Milo had seen, Harry was still carrying the Plot around with him. Maybe Sirius was on there, somewhere, but Milo couldn't remember for the life of him.

"I'm Milo Amastacia-Liadon," Milo said, holding out his hand. "Pleased to meet you." It was amazing what a difference a few extra ranks in Diplomacy could mean, even purchased cross-class. He'd come to learn that there was a lot more dialogue in this campaign world than the one he was used to.

The man stared at Milo's hand, as if he wasn't sure what it was for. He blinked, as if remembering, suddenly, and awkwardly shook it.

"So," Milo said, "what were you doing back there in the forest?"

"Watching," he said. "For some reason, the Death Eaters have gotten into their heads again that forests are private. And now that... he's back, I decided someone had to keep an eye on them. Then my supposedly-dead cousin and you appeared, and I had to act or they'd finish you off." He flicked his eyes over Milo again. "Whoever you are."

"You're Bellatrix's cousin?" Milo was surprised. It was easy to forget that villains sometimes had family, too. He was suddenly keenly aware that he was low on magic, in a small, enclosed space with a man who could turn into a giant dog.

"Estranged cousin."

Milo resisted the urge to say 'Lestranged Cousin,' and felt just a little satisfied at his success. If that wasn't Character Development, he didn't know what was.

"So, what are you, a werewolf or something?" he asked. Everyone was always saying there were werewolves in the Forbidden Forest; it seemed semi-plausible that there were some in this one, too. Of course, it was patently absurd that there were werewolves living in any forests at all, being bog-standard human 27 days a month, but that didn't seem to stop them.

"No, thankfully," Sirius said. "I'm an Anima, Gus."

Milo blinked. "A spirit? And I'm Milo."

"No, an Animagus. I can turn into an animal."

"Oh. Like how McGonagall can turn into a cat." Milo was always careful around shapeshifting magic. While technically it wasn't forbidden, like the Candles of Invocation were, the gods kept their eyes on those who abused it. Milo didn't trust himself not to—in fact, he wasn't even sure it could be used in a non-abusive manner—so he'd stayed well clear of Polymorph and its ilk, despite the phenomenal power those spells offered.

"You've met Minerva?" Sirius glanced at Milo's robes. "You're a student," he said. "I don't suppose you've met Harry Potter?"

"Loads of times," Milo said. "We share a dorm, and fight evil together, on occasion."

Sirius chuckled. "Why am I not surprised? Tell me, how is he—"

"Hands in the air, dirtbag," said a voice.

Milo almost jumped out of his skin, complying immediately. Had his secret hideouts been compromised? Was it just this one, or all of them? Could the Death Eaters somehow track his Teleport magic? Or was it Aurors? The DMLE? Had he taken the blame for the Basilisk attacks in Hogwarts?

Sirius raised his hands, too, looking grim. They both turned to face the door together, and Milo's jaw dropped open.

It was Hannah Abbot, wand aimed menacingly at Sirius. Mordenkainen was perched on her shoulder, explosive knut-launcher (slightly chewed) held at the ready. Milo prayed he didn't use it; the blast would easily vaporize everyone in the room, including himself.

"Hannah?" Milo goggled.

"Don't worry," Hannah said. "You can lower your arms." She glared at Sirius as he began to do so, too. "Not you," she said in a hard voice.

Milo blinked. "I don't even know what question to ask," he said. "Let's start with 'what' and work our way down through 'why,' take a detour on 'how', and end off with another 'what,' maybe."

"I'm rescuing you," Hannah said, as if it was obvious.

"Oh. Good."

"From him," Hannah gestured at Sirius.

Milo looked at the scruffy shapechanger. "Um. Why?"

"Don't you know who he is?" Hannah asked. "That's Sirius Black."

"Yeah..." Milo said. "I feel like that's supposed to mean something to me, but it actually doesn't."

"He's a murderer," Hannah said. "He escaped Azkaban."

The penny dropped. Bellatrix supposedly died in Azkaban, but instead wound up in Milo's world. Her cousin, also a killer, also escaped Azkaban.

"You got Bellatrix out of Azkaban," Milo said. An idea hit him. "Detect Evil," he cast. A minor ability of his Prestige Class, Rainbow Servant, allowed him to cast the spell at-will. It was supposed to highlight evil creatures and people with a glow strength depending on their level. Of course, the local people and creatures didn't seem to have levels, and Milo was uncertain that they even had Alignments. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos seemed somewhat more… fluid here.

Sirius stubbornly refused to glow, however. Whether that meant that he wasn't evil or if the spell simply wouldn't work here, Milo wasn't certain. Unfortunately, he couldn't simply test this by casting Detect Good on Hannah, as it wasn't a spell Wizards had access to.

"I absolutely did not," Sirius said firmly. "I don't know how Bellatrix escaped, but it's absolutely impossible that she did so the same way that I did."

"Don't listen to him," Hannah said. "He killed twelve Muggles—that we know of. He might have done more; he never confessed."

"I never killed any Muggles," he said in a quiet voice. Milo was keenly aware of the difference between his statement and 'I never killed anyone.' Still, who was Milo to judge? When it came to stopping bandit raids, Adventurers were not generally known for taking prisoners.

Besides, there'd been a war. Milo didn't doubt there had been blood on both sides—though which side Sirius was on had yet to be established.

"Then I think we need an explanation," Milo said. "Who are you, where did you come from, how did you get out of Azkaban, and why are you here?"

Sirius sighed. "The other prisoners were acting up," he began. "They were excited. The guards don't like excitement—or rather, they like it a little too much, so that was rare. Unheard of, actually. It took me a long time to find out why, and even longer to work up the effort to want to find out." Milo had no idea what that was supposed to mean, except perhaps that this Sirius fellow might not be the most proactive tool in the shed. "Of course, they thought I was one of their own, so eventually one of them told me. An unexpected upshot of being framed, I suppose." He licked his lips. "It was the Dark Mark," he said. "It began to burn as brightly as ever; a sign that their master was back."

Hannah gasped.

"Hold up," Milo said. "The Dark Mark?"

"It's a sign that... he... marks his inner circle with." If Sirius was surprised by the tangent, he didn't show it.

"Like, a literal sign?" Milo asked. He blinked. "Wait. High-ranking Death Eaters are visibly marked?"

Sirius nodded.

That, of course, struck Milo as sheer idiocy. Tattooing all members of your very-illegal, subversive, criminal organization was beyond idiotic.

There had to be more to it than that, though. Sure, You-Know-Who seemed to make several of the more conventional villain missteps, but he could also be surprisingly devious. Milo was keenly aware that he was one to know, having been thoroughly outsmarted and soundly defeated by him last year.

Milo sat down and thought. He could practically feel the wheels in his head spinning.

He had to look at this from Voldemort's perspective. Why would you brand your own followers? It practically guaranteed that, on thorough inspection, they would be imprisoned on capture as a result. There could be no denial of one's identity as a Death Eater. But evidently that hadn't happened—boatloads of Death Eaters had walked free, Dark Mark or no.

"Was it widely known what the Mark meant?" Milo asked.

Sirius shrugged. "To the general populace, not normally. But the Ministry was well aware of it, as were some of the better-informed members of the public. That may have changed since."

Milo glanced at Hannah.

"This is the first I've heard of it," she admitted.

"So the Mark was a sure sign of guilt, and the relevant people knew it," Milo said. But what if Voldemort put a Dark Mark on an innocent wizard or witch? "Are there any examples of a person known to have the Mark walking free?" Otherwise, it would be a trivial matter to frame an otherwise innocent victim and then set the Aurors on them.

"Several," Sirius said. "But there's three I think you'll be most familiar with. Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy," he said. "And Severus Snape."

Despite himself, Milo stared. "You're not serious," he said. Snape, a Death Eater?

Sirius frowned. "Actually, I am Siri—"

"I'll just head that one off right there," Hannah interrupted. "Sirius, Milo meant 'serious,' with an 'e', as in the opposite of 'silly.' Milo, Sirius mistook you for saying his name."

"Ah," Sirius said. "That happens. Quite a lot, actually. Though most of the misunderstandings in my life were caused by my last name, not my first."

And just like that, in a rare flash of insight, Milo knew what the Dark Mark was really for. Voldemort deliberately marked all of his top minions permanently, knowing full well that it would identify them as criminals. It made sense—from the point of view of someone who was already insane, in any case. Voldemort didn't trust his own people; hardly surprising, considering some of the Death Eaters Milo had met. Given that simple premise, the real use of the Dark Mark became obvious.

The Dark Mark's use as a tool of communication for Voldemort to summon his henchmen was merely an excuse. The real reason his minions were permanently marked was to ensure their loyalty. If they were captured, and the Mark was discovered, they could never fully integrate back into normal society. They were branded. Lucius Malfoy was the perfect example—as much as he tried to appear as a perfectly legitimate businessman, everybody knew in the back of their minds, at least, that he was up to no good. No matter how much he liked to claim that he had simply been bewitched by Voldemort, Ron had told Milo the very first time they'd met what the real truth was. And if eleven-year-old Ron Weasley had been able to see through Lucius's disguise, it was clear that Voldemort's system had worked. Snape was another perfect example—no matter how much Dumbledore insisted that the man had changed, nobody except for the old wizard really trusted him. No wonder the man's hygiene was so poor; there wasn't really any point, anymore, in looking respectable.

Milo blinked. Where had that come from? He was certain he was correct, though the logic was foreign to him. Not a single part of that train of thought relied on knowledge of story conventions or even previous adventuring experience.

"What happened then?" Milo asked. "After you learned that their Dark Marks had become visible." That had probably been how Bellatrix learned that she was about to be summoned back, Milo realized. Her own Dark Mark had begun to burn, just like the prisoners in Azkaban.

"The Azkaban guards, they…" Sirius trickled off, as if unable—or unwilling—to bring himself to remember.

"…they steal your happy thoughts?" Hannah suggested.

Sirius nodded mutely.

Milo shot Hannah a glance. Was this just another one of those things that everyone here knew, that he had somehow missed? But he'd found it practically impossible to get anyone to talk about Azkaban, and the books outside of the Hogwarts restricted section skirted around the topic uncomfortably. It wasn't as if it was secret, so much as if the authors would rather that they themselves didn't know, and wouldn't plague the reader with the knowledge as well.

Milo was aware that wanded wizards were able to read thoughts, and even alter memories (there was a thought to Milo awake at night; he'd have to make a new Amulet of Protection from Evil as soon as physically possible). But deliberately filtering for happy memories to remove? That just seemed…

Well, if the prisoners weren't crazy going in, they'd sure be crazy coming out.

"Locate Object: Sirius's Wand," Milo cast under his breath, disguising it as a cough. The spell didn't turn up anything, suggesting at least that Sirius couldn't use magic on them if he turned violent (possibly explaining his inability to Apparate earlier, though Milo remained uncertain whether or not Apparition required a wand). Though, of course, there was still the matter of his ability to transform into a giant, fanged dog.

Sirius shook himself, a curiously canine act, and the haunted look disappeared from his eyes. "But I knew that, if he ever came back, he'd go for Harry immediately. That wasn't a happy thought, so they left me with it." He swallowed again. Wordlessly, Milo handed him an Everfull Mug (Relkin kept hers in the same pocket that Milo had kept his). Sirius took it and drank gratefully. "I latched onto that thought, and I knew I had to get out. I might be the only one who knew that he was back; the only one that could warn Harry."

"But how did you actually do it?" Milo asked. Again, he didn't know what sorts of defences Azkaban might have, but it was enough to keep the most dangerous wizards and witches locked up in there for decades. Yesterday, Milo would have said that that would be an easy enough task—just take away their wands and put up similar defensive spells to Hogwarts', keeping would-be rescuers from Apparating in. But now… Riddle had almost killed him without a wand. It seemed like no matter how much he read about magic in this world, there was always a new rule or power to be learned in another book.

"It took me six weeks to come up with a plan, and six more to remember it when the guards took the idea away from me. I had to write it in my own blood, because the thought of escape was a happy one, and could never stay in my mind. But the core of it, the driving force that kept me going… it was anything but. That he had returned, and would finish what he'd started, so many years ago.

"It took me months to remember how to use my powers and work up the will to do so. For weeks at a time, I forgot that's what I was even doing. But then, one day when the guards opened the cell door to give me food, I slipped past them as a dog. They don't see the world the way we do, and a dog's emotions were too simple for them to understand. They were confused. Blind. From there, I swam to shore, and I've been following him ever since. I can't… I don't remember where Harry lives. They took that, too."

Well, Milo wasn't about to tell him. But something that Sirius said rang alarm bells in his mind.

"They can't see? Who the hells is guarding this place?"

Sirius shivered slightly, but didn't say anything. Milo glanced at Hannah, whose face was pale.

"Dementors," she whispered reluctantly, as if it were a vile curse word.

Hm. Well, clearly they had the local wizards and witches terrified, but Milo wasn't unduly worried. If their main power was draining happy thoughts, they probably wouldn't affect him, much in the same way that Riddle's Cruciatus curse hadn't really affected him. It would suck, probably, but he doubted it would really inhibit him in combat. For all he knew, they wouldn't even be able to see him.

"Do you mind waiting here a moment?" Milo asked Sirius. "I need to confer with my confederate, here. Mordy can keep an eye on you."

Sirius eyed Milo's rat suspiciously, paying close attention to its paws for some reason, but nodded.

Milo and Hannah walked to the cave entrance.

Once they were out of view, Milo pulled her into a hug.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said.

"I was about to say the same," Hannah said, giving one of those laughs that a person gives when they want to pretend something is funny, knowing full well that both people know it isn't, but also knowing that everyone knows that and won't mention it. People are strange, sometimes. "What happened to you? I thought… Oh, this is going to sound stupid. I thought you were dead."

"I was," Milo said. "Sirius was right about You-Know-Who being back. He, uh… he was, um." Milo briefly debated concealing the fact that he'd been possessed for about a year, but decided against it. He'd probably done some mighty suspicious things, and for all he knew, Hannah and the others thought he'd gone evil. Or maybe that he always had been. "He was sort of living in my head ever since we fought Quirrell back in First Year. I don't fully understand it, but apparently he had a part of himself living in a book, which, like an idiot, I straight-up copied into my brain with a spell."

"So… you were Slytherin's Heir?"

"Sort of, yeah. He could take over, sometimes, and I'd just wake up after time had passed. He had me block off secret passages in Hogwarts with Illusory Wall to give the Basilisk free run of the place. At first, he wanted to get Dumbledore fired by threatening the students—but notice how he never killed anyone? Well… almost never. I think he didn't want Hogwarts to close. I think… I think he likes it there. And then he targeted McGonagall, getting Snape—one of his own people—put in charge."

"What about your amulet?" Hannah asked. "I thought you couldn't be possessed."

"He jumped me when I had it off," Milo said. "I used it to disable You-Know-Who's possession of Quirrell, causing him to flee. I was vulnerable. And then, well, he had me make a new one for myself with a back door, and that was that."

"Wait. You're not still, you know… possessed, are you?"

"No, I'm clear. He lured me into the Chamber of Secrets and killed me, giving him a new body or something. I was pretty out of it, to be honest. Being resurrected hits 'reset' on status effects like possession."

Hannah froze. "You're a ghost?"

Milo laughed. "Oh, thank gods, no." Milo gave Hannah a (highly compressed) version of his last three days.

"I didn't know you had a sister," Hannah said.

"Neither did I," Milo laughed. "But I'm back now, and I have no intention of dying again. But back to the topic at hand: should we trust Sirius?"

"Wait," Hannah said, her eyes widening. "If your amulet had a backdoor…"

Milo cocked his head to the side, wondering where she was going with this.

"…what about all those amulets you made for the Ministry?" she finished.