Chapter Fourty-Eight
Confronting the Faceless 💀 CompleteMay 2, 1998
"Finally, the truth"
Claire likes her team, she decides. They're all quite professional, with only one Muggleborn in the bunch, and they're all excellent at being quiet and going where instructed without asking questions.
Which is, admittedly, why she picked them as her team. She does feel a little bad sticking Rat with Finn and the Muggleborns, but she also has Panther who's basically the best so Claire feels justified in her division decisions for the most part.
Her team had reached the Law Enforcement level quite quickly and it hadn't taken long for them to split off into their pre-assigned pairs to begin sieging the floor.
However, Claire had quickly realized that this wasn't going to be a loud, intense battle like she'd been hoping when she was given this floor during the task division earlier. Instead it feels like a chess game, where each side is trying to make exactly the right move to force their opponent out into the open, and Claire is both extremely stressed and also a little bit bored when after what must have been at least a few hours only five or so spells have been cast, and those were mostly aimed at objects and not people.
One surprising upside to everything is the number of Ministry workers who were caught in the crossfire who have opted to join up and help them fight rather than run and hide. Currently Claire is crouched behind an overturned desk with Clary Travers, or "Kitten" as she's known in the Underground, and a Law Enforcement employee who had introduced herself as Mafalda Hopkirk and offered to help them navigate the floor. She's been incredibly helpful since she knows which desks belong to Deatheaters or Deatheater sympathizers and which house Ministry workers who are on their side (or at the very least aren't going to fight either way).
"We should split cover." Clary says lowly (Claire tries to think of her as Kitten but she knows her better as Clary so she's given up on that endeavor). "You keep Hopkirk as your pair, I can find another Ministry worker, or worst case I'm the ideal person to leave solo anyway. The more points of attack we have the better our advantage will be."
"We don't have an advantage right now." Claire grumbles. "Someone should invent a spell that lets people see through walls, that way we'd know where everyone is."
"Someone probably will eventually." Clary says with a grin, "But for now I think splitting up is our best option."
It's only when Clary doesn't immediately move that Claire realizes she's waiting for approval. "Oh, uh, yeah, you're probably right." Claire says quickly, and Clary shoots her another grin before casting a Disillusionment charm and slinking across the room to the next cover. If Claire didn't know exactly where to look, she wouldn't have seen Clary at all.
Unfortunately, their opponent seems to have better eyesight than Claire does.
Clary does manage to avoid the stunning spell, but only because the person casting it apparently doesn't know what an inside voice is.
"Well we know where he is now at least." Hopkirk says, clearly angling for nonchalant but landing somewhere around strained panic instead.
Claire peers around the side of the desk to try and gauge where their opponent has gone, but there's nothing in sight except more desks and walls.
"I always liked working here." She grumbles. "But I'm officially getting sick of this layout."
Clary snorts, still close enough to be able to hear the comment, though she's slowly inching away again so she'll be out of earshot soon. "We'll add remodeling this floor to the list of to-dos." She snarks lightly before once again diving from cover and out of sight.
Claire huffs out a breath. "Well, just you and me then." She mumbles, and the older woman with her regards her curiously.
"You're a former Gryffindor, aren't you?" She asks with a faint smile. "You know, I might have an idea that would let you actually do some fighting, but it's pretty high risk for possibly very little reward."
Claire immediately turns towards her. "Well right now we're gathering zero reward so I'll take whatever you've got." She says eagerly.
Hopkirk nods. "Alright then. There's an old glass case near the back of the Department, right next to the Department Head's offices. It has a bunch of newspaper articles and such on major cases the Auror department has cracked. Hasn't been touched in years so it's about ready to fall apart. If we can shatter it-"
"The distraction should be enough for our forces to move in and catch them off guard." Claire finishes with a grin. "I love it. Let me just figure out who's closest to the case right now."
Hopkirk watches her curiously as Claire wracks her brain to figure out which pair were sent around to the back. There were two, she knows, but she doesn't want to send more than one messenger, even if she is going to be sending it in cloaked mode so it shouldn't give away anyone's position.
She has a brief moment where Saundra's face flashes in front of her - the covert mode for the Messengers had been developed using the Founder's notes rather early on in the expansion and is usually the version taught now rather than the original, more obvious ones.
She shakes her head - stay on task. She flicks her wand and summons her familiar silver lion.
"Message for Bat." She says, keeping her voice low. "There's an old glass case near your location. Find it and destroy it as loudly as possible, then get clear. Message end."
The lion nods once and then leaps into the air, vanishing as it does.
"Impressive." Hopkirk comments. "That wasn't a standard Patronus, was it? They can't disappear like that. And usually they need an actual name."
"It's how we communicate." Claire says shortly, not wanting to really go into any detail about the Underground, no matter how helpful Hopkirk is being. For all her friction with Python, she agrees with the other's instructions not to share information about the organization with anyone outside of it, even if they seem to be helping.
Hopkirk for her part is savvy enough not to try and push further, and Claire lets them sit in silence as they wait for Bat to receive the message and activate the distraction.
It takes long enough that Claire is pretty sure her joints are going numb from crouching, but the crash does eventually echo through the room, and even Claire jumps despite having expected it.
She's moving in an instant, diving out of cover with one wand out and the other in easy grabbing distance in case she's disarmed (she loves having two wands, why doesn't everyone do that?). Hopkirk is a little slower, but she does follow Claire's lead ultimately which is admittedly impressive. The two woman move to where the blast aimed at Clary earlier had come from, and after a moment their suspicions are proved correct as a stunning spell is flung their way.
Claire deflects it easily, sending it wide, and then shoots off a disarming charm that draws a yelp from their hidden opponent.
"You take it from here, I'm moving further in." She instructs Hopkirk, but she doesn't wait for a confirmation before heading further into the maze of desks and cubicles.
She doesn't remember this floor being quite this cluttered, though admittedly she rarely had to go further than the front few offices back when she worked with the Wizengamot Administrative Services. Still, she knows where the explosion had come from, and figures that if she moves in that direction she'll eventually reach the other side of the floor, and hopefully find a few other Underground members as she does.
A shout from behind her sends her spinning and running back to Hopkirk.
The woman is mostly fine, minus a sluggishly bleeding cut near her left shoulder, but she looks frazzled.
"He had a friend." She says tightly. "Nearly took my arm off but I managed to dodge it. Probably should tell the rest of your group that these guys are fighting in pairs."
Claire nods tightly. Sending off multiple Messengers will be time consuming, but it's necessary since she needs to inform Rat and Python's teams about this as well, and who knows how they've been split up.
She tries to remember everyone who'd come in with them, and sends out a series of messages hoping that she hasn't left anyone out.
"There are quite a few of you." Hopkirk observes, and Claire sighs. This woman is rather inquisitive, which would be fine if the things she was poking at weren't secrets.
"Sure." She mutters. "Just watch my back."
They begin moving further into the room again, and thankfully Hopkirk keeps shut and her wand up. They get into a couple skirmishes, but they're quickly concluded and Claire is starting to realize that they were probably at an hours long standstill with maybe eight opponents.
If she hadn't felt ridiculous already she definitely would now.
The fight is over in minutes, and the Underground comes out on top easily. To Claire's immense pride her entire team had taken advantage of the distraction Bat had provided (she got the best team, hands down) and they all finish subduing their opponent within minutes of each other.
"Alright, so that's this floor secure." Claire says briskly, pulling all attention back onto herself. "Bat, Fox, and Tarantula, are you good to watch this group and keep the floor secure?"
The three women nod, and Boar steps up as well (unsurprising, considering he's married to Tarantula).
"Alright then, I'm going to take the rest of you out into the halls and we're going to have to split up to clear the rest of the floors." Claire instructs. She divides them all into four teams of three, including the Ministry workers they'd picked up as she does. She puts Hopkirk with Clary - the younger woman is notorious for scaring people silent, hopefully she can work her magic on Hopkirk and her insistent curiosity about the Underground.
It's only when she's assigned each group to a floor that she realizes she hadn't given herself a team.
She sighs but sends everyone on their way - no reason to mess up a perfectly good plan just because her brain forgot to include itself in her headcount earlier.
"I can go patrol the halls on this floor with you." Tarantula offers, and after a moment's hesitation Claire tilts her head in agreement.
Tarantula gives Boar a quick kiss before they head out, and Claire politely looks the other way.
"So you two been married long?" She asks awkwardly after a few minutes have passed and the women haven't run into any trouble. She doesn't really know the Safe House operators well - sure she'd been keeping track of them but she never stayed at their homes for longer than absolutely necessary in order to minimize the chances she'd be seen. So she knows a few minuscule details but doesn't have much of a grip on who Tarantula actually is. She doesn't even know the other woman's name.
The other woman grins, flicking a blonde curl out of her face. "Going on six years." She says. "We started dating in Hogwarts and just never got sick of each other."
"Same House?" Claire guesses. Based on her own experience, most school-time romances that worked out happened between people from the same House.
"Hufflepuff." Tarantula confirms. "Started dating... gosh, sixth year I think? It was sort of gradual. We were really good friends for a long time, and then we just started dating. It was pretty seamless."
"Well color me jealous. I've never even been in a relationship." Claire says wryly. "I had a crush on an older boy in my House but that never went anywhere. He got married this year to someone way hotter anyway."
"Oh, Bill Weasley? Everyone had a crush on him." Tarantula laughs.
Claire gives a startled laugh as well and feels her face heating up. "Well I feel a bit less foolish if that is the case." She grins.
The blonde snorts. "Well, Leona didn't, I don't think, but that's because she was drooling after his younger brother in our year. Maybe we should correct it to everyone has a crush on one of the Weasleys." She decides.
Claire didn't really know Bill's brothers as well as she did him, but she can definitely see why "Leona" would have liked Charlie - the Seeker was certainly easy on the eyes. "Fair enough. I do think all the girls in my year were pretty firmly infatuated with Bill, though maybe it was an age thing."
"You're a year older than me, grandma." Tarantula teases. "Age had nothing to-"
She's cut off when a curse flies out of nowhere and sends them both diving to find the nearest cover.
"Surrender and I'll consider letting you live." A voice demands. It's female and a bit squeaky, a tone that Claire immediately recognizes as fear.
She grins over at Tarantula, who looks a bit concerned but gives a sharp nod - ready when you are.
Claire slips her Underground wand into her left hand before jumping back out into the open and throwing up a shield. As expected a spell bounces off of it, and as Claire lets it fall she lifts her left hand and returns fire with a stunner.
The opponent's defeat is heralded by a crash as she's knocked down from where she'd been crouched in the shadows on top of one of the chairs people would sit in when they were waiting on a meeting with someone in the offices.
"They work in pairs." Tarantula reminds her, and Claire quickly has her shield back up, just in time to absorb an attempted disarming charm. She spins to face her new opponent - and immediately freezes.
"Tarantula." She says lowly, "Finish the patrol and go back to the others. I'll handle this."
Her partner frowns and glances at the man that Claire is locked in a staring contest with, looking torn.
"Go." Claire repeats sharply, and the blonde finally nods and sinks into the shadows, continuing down the hall and away from where Claire is still rooted to the spot behind her magic shield.
The man standing across from her lets Tarantula leave, though Claire isn't sure if it's kindness or shock that stays his hand.
After all, her brother had no idea what she was doing, so seeing her here is as startling for him as running into him is for her.
Max breaks the silence between them first. "Claire? What are you..." He trails off, eyes finally drifting to where Tarantula had been moments before. "You... who was that? What are you doing?"
"The right thing." She says, and pretends isn't trying to squeeze itself shut, that her eyes aren't burning. She knew this could happen, knew she might end up on the other side of a family member's wand. It still hurts now that it's actually happening, though. "I'm doing the right thing Max. Don't make me go through you to do it."
He looks lost, his wand still raised but the grip a bit slack. "I don't understand. You're... you're with them? The people who hurt dad? Who steal magic?"
Claire bristles, and her own grip tightens. "You know that isn't true Max, you have to." She says sharply (not desperate, she manages to keep that out of her tone, thankfully). "Didn't you tell me that Houses don't matter? Why is parentage any different?"
"Because it is Claire, how are you even comparing those two things?" Max asks, but his wand grip has tightened as well. "Where a Hat arbitrarily decides to send you and your biology are entirely different!"
"Well.... well witches and wizards had to come from somewhere, didn't they?" She says after a moment. "And since it's well known that Muggles came first, we must have evolved from them to start with. Which would me every one of us came from Muggles at some point! Muggleborns are just modern evolutions is all."
Max is making a face, but Claire is pretty sure she just convinced herself. Of course, imprisoning people with no proof never sat well with her, but right now she's more certain than ever that there's no way the accusations could be even the slightest bit true.
"They really brainwashed you in that House, didn't they?" He says after a moment, and Claire glares.
"And now you're backtracking on the House comment, very mature." She says flatly. "Clearly you changing your opinions in order to maintain your worldview instead of considering new information means I'm the one that's brainwashed."
"That isn't..." Max trails off, struggling to find his words, and Claire drops the Protego shield that she had continued to hold until this point. Max sighs. "That isn't fair Claire."
"Neither is putting innocent people in prison to rot and starve. Neither is forcing children to go on the run in the woods for months on end just so they don't end up rotting in those prison cells." Claire clenches her jaw. "Do you know the people I've seen while helping on this side? Because I promise you, your lot don't come out looking like the good guys when a fourteen year old has a massive, infected gash up his leg that one of your Unit put there."
Max grimaces. "We didn't... we were under orders not to hurt anyone unless they fought back." He protests, but it's weak.
"Sure, maybe under the younger Yaxley. I met Zara Wong a few times you know, and I somehow doubt she cares about kids' lives." Claire shoots back, and Max flinches, a clear confirmation of the accusation. "And besides, even if that was the case there were obviously people ignoring those orders. And you're working beside them, letting them do it."
Max looks slightly off balance now, but his wand holds steady in the air and Claire's does too. She feels sick at the sight, even though her mind knows she's in the right. Her heart just hasn't quite caught up to that yet.
"And you work beside the people who put dad in a coma." He finally counters, after several long seconds of silence have stretched out between them. "Tell me Claire, since you're so high and mighty, how much did they enjoy that? Did they celebrate it?"
It's her turn to wince, recalling all those months ago when she'd congratulated Panther on his successful, if unexpected, attack on a group of Deatheaters, not realizing one had been her own father.
"Panther fought to defend himself, but you're right." She says after a moment. "I was happy at first, until I learned who it was. But I stopped being happy about dead and injured Snatchers after that. Did you ever feel guilty about the dead and injured innocents you spent your time hunting down?"
Max glares. "Oh well I'm glad you feel bad." He growls sarcastically. "I guess that makes up for everything then."
"The system is broken Max!" Claire exclaims, and suddenly she feels like she's going to cry again. Whether it's from exhaustion, fury, or heartbreak she isn't quite sure. "The system is broken and at least on my side I do feel the moral weight of my choices. I stop and think and wish we didn't live in a world where people like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named run around and make us choose which lives are more important. But that is the world we live in. And at least the people I'm fighting against have a fair chance at fighting back."
Max doesn't say anything, but Claire is all at once feeling rather dizzy. She lowers her wand and takes a few steps back to lean against the wall. They stay there silently for a long time before Claire decides to speak again.
"And you were right, about the Houses. Before, I mean. The girl who started my group was a Hufflepuff, but the one who kept it going was a Slytherin. You actually made me a little more lenient towards her, when you said that stuff about the Houses. I was judging her for the colors she wore, not the person she was. And don't get me wrong, we still aren't friends, but we work well together, better than we used to. That's thanks to you." She smiles faintly. "Isn't that ironic? The comments of a Snatcher improved the leadership of the group opposing him."
"You've been doing this for a while." Max says softly into the ensuing quiet. "You talk like you're a leader."
Claire tilts her head in acknowledgement. "After the Founder died I became one. I've been with the group since September." She watches the rush of emotions that cross his face at that admission. She wonders if he'll throw up like she did when he'd joined the Snatchers.
He doesn't, but his wand lowers as well. "...The whole time, then?" He asks after a moment. "Were you ever really working on special projects or was it all just a cover?"
"I'd say it was pretty special, what I was doing." Claire offers with a wry smirk that Max doesn't return.
"How did you even manage to get that excuse? The Minister himself made the call." Her brother asks instead.
The information does startle Claire slightly, but she shrugs it off. "I only know what's pertinent to my role." She says, and she's not even lying. Still, she might talk to Python about that when all this is over - it seems like a bigger risk than they'd normally take, associating the Minister with the Underground, even tangentially.
Max lets out a low, hissing breath. "You realize I'd have to report all this, right? You're connected to that safehouse raid from March, aren't you? They've been quietly following up on that you know."
"Obviously not well." She smirks. Python always said that she got a lot more leeway and trust from the Deatheaters due to her House, and Claire is pretty sure that that's been a major factor in keeping the investigations pointing in the wrong directions.
That and the fact that Clary and Finn have definitely been tampering with any and all evidence that could suggest the suspected leak was linked to Saundra and her efforts from the year before.
Max sighs. "You've been with them from the start Claire. I'm pretty sure any information you have will be pretty damaging."
Claire tenses at that, wand lifting into the air slowly, cautiously. Is Max going to turn on her? Turn her in? Some part of her had hoped... no, some part of her had firmly believed he wouldn't. Despite everything she didn't think Max would actually turn on her, and it had loosened her tongue in ways that the group might have to pay for now.
But Max's wand stays lowered, his eyes locked on the floor between Claire's feet.
"I wouldn't tell them anything." She says after another long, tense moment of silence. "They could try, but I'd die before giving anything or anyone up."
It's a genuine conviction, but she recalls a comment Audrey had made once, early on in their acquaintanceship.
"I'd like to think I could do what she did, but honestly I don't know. You can't really know until you've actually been in a situation to know how you'd react to it."
Still, Claire is pretty sure she'd hold up. She's a Gryffindor, after all. And besides, she doesn't think she could live knowing she'd caved.
Of course, she isn't sure how comfortable living is going to be knowing her own brother is honestly considering turning her over to be tortured. Her mind trips over the word a few times and she feels bile rising up . She swallows hard.
Max lets out a shaky breath. His wand is still slack in his hand. "Just go." He finally grits out. "Go and don't get caught, for Merlin's sake."
Claire blinks, stares, and then gives a slightly strangled laugh.
"You too." She says after a moment. "Just..." She doesn't know what she was going to say, so she doesn't say anything, just stares at her brother for a few moments longer before her wand lowers and she takes a few steps back, towards the direction Tarantula had vanished.
Max's wand shifts in his hand, and he takes a few steps back as well. Claire starts to turn, starts to walk away but-
"Isn't this cute?" A high, playful voice echoes through the halls and something in Claire's gut drops like lead.
Everyone in the Ministry knows that voice. And if she's here, then it doesn't matter if Max is willing to look the other way - Claire is probably going to be dead or caught soon enough anyway.
Yurina Nakayashi seems to appear from nowhere, teeth bared in a feral grin and wand twirling cheerfully between her finger tips. She's directly between the two of them, but her focus is entirely on Claire. "I only heard the ending there, but it's not so hard to see what's happening here. Are you going soft Rosier? And to think, your sister here had such high praise for you when you first applied to the Unit."
Max glances at her but Claire keeps her focus on Yurina. The moment she looks away is the moment she loses.
"Are you really going to choose a traitor over justice?" Yurina continues, speaking to Max even as she continues her staring contest with Claire. "She gave you a glowing recommendation for the Unit, even knowing she was sending you out to fight against people she herself was coordinating?"
Claire thinks Yurina was probably lying about how much she'd overheard. Her stomach twists when she realizes that she probably just gave away the Underground to the one person they most desperately needed to keep it secret from.
Claire isn't looking at Max at all now, not even in her periphery. She doesn't want to know what his reaction will be, because Yurina isn't even lying right now. Claire had given Max a good recommendation to join the exact group she was fighting against. She hadn't felt good about it but what else could she have done?
"Here, since you're so conflicted let me handle this one." Yurina offers magnanimously, and Claire's wand is up in her hand, the other slipped up her sleeve for easy access if needed (and it will be, she knows that with a dull certainty). "I'll even let her fire first, just so you don't have to feel bad about all this."
Claire doesn't fire first, won't give Yurina that satisfaction. And besides, the Japanese woman is still standing in front of Max, who seems to be frozen to the spot. All she has to do is step aside and anything Claire throws at her will hit her brother instead.
Yurina definitely knows that, is playing this game like a chess master, and here Claire is entirely out of her depth with no idea what's going to come next.
"No? What, are you scared?" Yurina mocks, voice lilting, clearly reveling in her own control of the situation. "That's fair. Tell you what Rosier, I won't have to tell the Dark Lord about this little stumble of yours if you knock her out and then walk away. What do you say?"
She finally steps out from between the siblings, leaning against the side of the corridor casually, but Claire can see the taut lines of her form - she's ready to fight at the slightest provocation.
Claire still keeps her eyes on Yurina, but her wand is up and ready to deflect anything Max sends her way.
She finally looks at his expression from the corner of her eye though, and something heavy settles in her gut when she sees the look of grim determination that's settled over his features as he raises his wand towards her.
She tenses, a Protego ready at the tip of her tongue, and Max strikes.
But not at her.
Yurina looks disappointed but unsurprised when she flicks Max's stunner away from her. She sighs heavily and pushes up from the wall.
"Very well." She hums. "You can die and I'll still get your sister so it's no real problem for me." With that she fires off several slicing spells that Max barely has time to deflect.
"Claire get out of here!" He shouts, but she ignores him. He just fired on Yurina Nakayashi, she's not leaving him to that fate.
The two of them together manage to push her back slightly, but despite that Yurina remains frustratingly (and concerningly) calm, a light smirk decorating her features as she lazily deflects everything they throw at her.
Claire was nervous before, but honestly she hadn't fully realized exactly how powerful Yurina is. Seeing it firsthand now is terrifying.
She shouldn't have split up her team.
"Claire, go." Max hisses again, but she shakes her head.
"Family looks out for each other." She snaps back. "This is the least I can do."
"Adorable." Yurina yawns, and then her wand flies through so many spells at once that Claire is forced to put up a full shield to avoid being hit.
Max isn't fast enough.
He's flung backwards into the wall, but Yurina doesn't bother even checking if he's down before putting the full force of her wrath onto Claire.
She doesn't want to, but Claire knows when she's beat (even if Python would be surprised to hear that).
She throws up a smokescreen and retreats, blinking back tears.
I'll come back for you Max. She promises. So just hang in there. I won't lose you to this stupid war, not when I just got you back.
But she knows it doesn't matter how hard Max fights to survive his injury - if Yurina decides to follow up and finish him off there's nothing either of them can do to stop her.
Claire keeps running, and she hates that it feels like losing.
Author's Note: :( I mean, we all knew it was coming but :( ALSO I'm putting the warning here that next chapter is pretty gory? If that's something you want to avoid I'll be putting a chapter overview at the end of it so you can see what happens without having to read the gross bits!
Next Time: What matters is making sure everyone else is alright
So I'm thinking I might do a final 'afterwords' chapter to share my thoughts and feelings on writing this story, if that's something people would be interested in? I'm also open to answering any lingering questions people might have there as well!
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