0235 hours: a dark, nondescript room not far from St.Mungo's Hospital


"Stand."

A voice across the room- a man's voice and yet... and yet?

"On your feet, cretin."


Arthur Lemon staggered, pushing himself off the dusty floor. He squinted into the dark and saw nothing but a silhouette standing against a grimy window- aiming a wand. Fear tightened around his core. He forced himself up with a final heave, coughing.

Not very long ago he had been in a different kind of room. Sterile, clean and reeking of blood. Blood that never was, never is, never stained. He checked himself... first his face. The wrinkled features that contorted into bewilderment, the beard he'd kept through Azkaban. And then his pockets- there. The wizard had given him a wand in their escape.

"Why?" Arthur closed his fingers around it, staring with distrust at the shape of a man. "What.... what business is this..." he was weak, out of breath: still his voice forced itself out, shrill. "Why? Tell me why."


Oh, oh oh. Why. What reason, now that he was out. With deceptive ease, the stranger drew closer and he saw a face- no. Who was this?[1] A jolt of pain seized his chest suddenly, gripping, and Arthur choked.

"None of your concern." The lips moved, lips of a torturer and-- he knew those lips, they were all the same who would reach into him and twist.

The man stopped, relief came. He... no, it moved closer. "Arthur. Arthur, I've just done you a favour you miserable bastard," it whispered sweetly. "You're going to do me one too. You're going to write a letter, you see, Arthur. You have nieces don't you? Lovely little pureblood maggots."

Laughing, its teeth flashed and sent cold sweat down the felon's back. "Don't worry, Arthur. One favour. One little favour and you're free. Can't you just taste it?"

He could. Arthur Lemon was beaten down by the threat of locked rooms and yes: he could taste it better than anyone now.

1.	Michael Dark - or the likeness of Michael Dark.