CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

"HARRY POTTER, A DIADEM AND A LOCKET," LASZLO Kelemen mused as he flipped a coin in between his knuckles, the trait so fast that it seemed to Tatuli Giorgadze—who was watching him do it with keen interest—that the silver copper coin was a mere blur with the way that it formed into a fast spinning ball upon the play of Kelemen's knuckles.

"Do you ever just stop and wonder what we are doing, Tatuli?" The coin disappeared instantly in as he enveloped it into his palm and leaned forwards at the edge of the dark green sofa, his arms on his knees as he looked at her, gratified to trap a willing witch into his assorted encasement of reflective wallowing.

"We're chasing after a boy, a woman's diadem and a man's locket," The blonde haired Kelemen scoffed. "You'd think we resigned as The Red Shrikes to become brokers at a pawn shop, with a knack for pedophilia."

"Don't be disgusting," Tatuli scrunched up her face, brought out of her stupor. "We're chasing horcruxes. All those three things are horcruxes, Laszlo, let us try and judge past physical appearances for once in our life, shall we?"

"Easy for you to say," Laszlo reclined back onto the sofa.

The English night was damp outside as they conversed—or rather retorted—with each other. England had given the Shrikes a wet welcome, with streets glistening with the fruits of heavy rain, houses bent and subdued under the wrath of the weather and air and mostly under the wrath of Voldemort's regime itself.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was a chaotic, uncapacious space for Tatuli's liking. Having never been before, neither to this compact living quarter and neither in London before, she felt inclined to scrutinize every nook and cranny of this unsavory homely space left abandoned long before it could have been truly considered a home.

Outside the rain continued to pelt against the roads and the roof and walls of this place, while not a single car or pedestrian was heard traipsing outside. London truly had resorted to folding in on itself, while other places where Voldemort's regime prospered, resorted to bearing that flag with pride, London seemed to merely only hold it as though perhaps the weight of the thing was crushing the entire city down each second.

They had all only arrived ten hours ago, with The High Shrike choosing this place as their temporary recuperating spot, before she chose Svetlana Morozov and József Kelemen along with the bruised and battered Severus Snape, and sauntered off, leaving Laszlo and Tatuli with the instruction to only stay and wait for them.

It had been ten hours since they had been left alone, and Tatuli was beginning to realize that The High Shrike was—along with whatever else she was doing with Snape—was simultaneously testing if Number 12 Grimmauld place was being used by anyone else. Surely Tatuli and Laszlo would find out in a matter of ten hours if someone else came by to collect something or the other. But if that was the case, Tatuli was sure there was no such thing brewing of that sort, for neither had anybody even ventured to pass by the place outside, and nor did she think—after scrutinizing the mud laden carpets, broken lamps and the dusty furniture—that anybody in their right mind would resort to willfully living in this place, terrorists or not.

It was common knowledge though, that Number 12 Grimmauld place was the ancestral home of the Black family. In the Borough of Islington, London, it had long been under the throes of a Fidelius charm to hide it's location from muggles. Tatuli wasn't sure if the charm still remained on the place, though she knew it didn't matter, according to one of the decrees by Voldemort, any muggle found trespassing into a strictly wizard accessed area was to be killed on the spot.

There was no fixed list pertaining all the sacred wizard accessed areas in the world of course. Pure blooded wizards under Voldemort's jurisdiction could simply decide that as they went about.

"I hope they bring back something to eat, I'm starving," Laszlo let out then, groaning as he patted his stomach once, his composure having melted into the embrace of the sofa he was sitting on in this unorthodox and messy living loom.

Tatuli wondered how embarrassed she would be if any of the death eaters in The Dark Lord's court happened to see any of the Shrikes in their off duty selves off the scene. Or perhaps it was only she who was so concerned with appearances—so desperate so maintain that respect for herself and for the Shrikes, to maintain that fear for them in the other death eaters' eyes.

She shuddered as her thoughts ventured off to Antonin Dolohov being tortured by Laszlo in the dungeons under the Bucharest castle, the last she'd seen of him.

"I told them that you are a bunch of fucking whores who need to be thrust into the pure blood population program. You have no place fighting and taking over Lord Voldemort's regard from us."

He had been right in a way, hadn't he? He had been correct to assume that if she and Svetlana hadn't shown their worth and been chosen as part of the Red Shrikes, this was what they'd both be doing. They'd both be made to marry off to pure blood wizards, with their children being carried in surrogacy by a helpless muggle woman in captivity.

The High Shrike wouldn't share the same fate even if she wasn't a Shrike. Dominique Grindelwald bore heuristics in her veins, and The Dark Lord would be an utter fool to give her up to another pure blood wizard only to resign her to motherhood and to being a wife to a man in his court.

No, Dominique Grindelwald was too beautiful and powerful for that. Too beautiful and powerful to be wasted like that.

The Dark Lord was attached to her. Not in a way that was cognizant of mortal relationships—but in a sinister way that was laden with desperation. Tatuli could always sense that. At times The Dark Lord looked at the French witch like he wanted to consume her entirely, but only held himself back because he knew how important she was.

This was largely why Tatuli respected The High Shrike. Dominique had used her power to garner for herself an unshakable stage of self respect and worth, and even The Dark Lord could not bring himself to shatter that image—even he was utterly powerless against it. Even if the whole world burned down under the tip of Voldemort's wand, Dominique Grindelwald would be standing in an opposite direction, safe from his eliminating fury.

That was how Tatuli wanted to be. She wanted to be so precious—so full of worth that only her name was enough to spark her importance. Becoming part of The High Shrikes gave her a step up for that, which was why she was so concerned with her self image, and with those of her fellow Shrikes.

"Make something for yourself in the kitchen, maybe?" Tatuli offered, snapping out of her thoughts at Laszlo's incessant groaning as the latter held his stomach like it ailed him.

"Are you serious? I'd rather not set foot in there."

The kitchen was indeed somehow the worst spot in Number 12 Grimmauld place. Due to negligence, and disuse, it had grown moldy. The paint of the walls too had rotted in a delirious way, with still water in pots and pans covered in a layer of smelling algae, and leftover food in the refrigerator blackened with fungus that Tatuli's stomach churned to even decipher.

She knew the Blacks had been a prestigious family. They had once been the sole supporters of Voldemort's cause with a few rogues here and there, but they were merely a stepping stone in The Dark Lord's journey, and he had reached his throne now hadn't he? The stepping stones were always obliterated in the end. Perhaps that was why all the Blacks had died out, some killed by Voldemort himself while others succumbed to the battles fought with the resistances in the past two years.

But they used to be prestigious once, didn't they? So what was it with that utterly small and disgusting kitchen?

A strange clock chimed in the dingy living room, hung unevenly on the left wall. It read the digital time, 9:30pm, with a small figure detailing the year, 1998.

The figure struck Tatuli harshly then. She had joined the Shrikes towards the very end of the year 1995. She remembered it as clear as day. It was Rabastan Lestrange, who had come knocking on the door of her family's manor a few months after she'd turned eighteen, on the orders of Voldemort, to recruit her for her service to The Dark Lord.

Tatuli was the only child in her family, with a long deceased father and a privileged pure blood mother under the protection of The Dark Lord. A bargain had been made perhaps, and Tatuli was willfully given up from the destined life of becoming a pure blooded wizard's wife and mother, to fight and serve Voldemort as part of The Red Shrikes.

Everything afterwards was a haze then. She remembered training vigorously with Laszlo, József, and Svetlana, under the instruction and tutelage of Rabastan Lestrange and Amycus Carrow with frequent inspections and directions from The Dark Lord himself, who took time out when he could, being busy with another witch he was personally training ruthlessly in the dungeons below, away from any of his courtiers' eyes.

How fast the time passed since. Amidst her training, she had fought battles against many resistances, aiding in growing Voldemort's reign as more and more countries gave themselves up to his regime. Almost half of the whole entire world was now in his grasp, and Tatuli had been privileged enough to witness most of it.

The last she had checked what year it was, was in Albania on the Shrikes' last excursion to quell the rebellion there. A calendar had lain on the desk of the muggle who's house they had infiltrated to find a group of terrorists hiding there. How many days ago had that been? Only a mere week. Yet the year then had been 1997.

"It's a new year," She spoke then, her voice almost spectral in it's awe.

"What?" Laszlo raised a brow, before following her gaze to the clock hung a-skew on the wall.

"1998," He murmured. "It's January then. Strange climate we're having for this time in the year."

He turned away from the clock, reclining back into the sofa, holding a knuckle to his chin in thought. Tatuli could see the silver rings on his fingers glint under the scant candles she had earlier managed to light up in the living room, on accounted of the broken light bulbs, the shattered glass of which would crunch under her boots every time she walked around. So instead, she had just resorted to planting herself on the sofa opposite to Laszlo, if only to be spared of the glass embedding itself into the heels of her boots. Her fingers still had cuts from trying to pry stubborn pieces out an hour ago.

"It's not the climate, it's us. We just move around a lot," She offered with a shrug, a little melancholy threading itself into her words.

She found herself wishing they could just be for a while. Stay someplace nice, without being summoned by The Dark Lord for only just a while. In Albania, Tatuli had been sure they would get a little bit of a reprieve once the rebels were taken care of. The Shrikes' had all bedded town for a night in a tavern, helping themselves to butterbeer and warm breadcakes before sitting down in front of a warm fire-lit hearth, shaking exhaustion off of their limbs after getting rid of the rebels. But then they had been summoned to Bucharest, Romania, on account of Antonin Dolohov's negligence.

And now, on account of Severus Snape's negligence, they were in England.

The thought was infuriating that they were being made to clean up the mistakes and messes of other death eaters, when their sole purpose had been to serve Voldemort. But then again, this was all part of it, was it not?

"Do you think they noticed?" Tatuli asked then, glancing at Laszlo, who was now resting his head against the back of the sofa, his Adam's apple erect in the air as it bobbed when he swallowed.

"They?" He asked, without looking at her.

"Dominique, Svetlana and József."

"Alright, noticed what?" Laszlo exhaled.

"That the year changed," She reiterated, "That we're in a new year."

Laszlo looked at her then, a cool intrigue in his eyes. "I think not, but does that matter? We're still doing what we were doing last year. Figures on a date changing doesn't mean anything for us, Tatuli. And I like it that way."

Tatuli nodded thoughtfully. "It's less uncertainty."

"Exactly," He grinned then in the silence of the clustered living room.

Just then, as they dissolved into a stillness, the figures of Dominique, József and Svetlana erupted from out of thin air, appearing taut in the middle of the living room with the disgruntled form of Severus Snape behind them as the man fell to his knees and grunted from exertion—several of his bruises and wounds freshly opened as they bled profusely, with the keen addition of a few more that Tatuli knew hadn't been there before.

"High Shrike," Laszlo jumped to his feet and Tatuli followed him, alert as his eyes met Dominique Grindelwald's, before he acknowledged his elder brother and everyone else, throwing a glance at Snape's heaving form on his knees like he was but a roach part of the mud laden carpets of Number 12 Grimmauld place.

József Kelemen turned to look at the man, tucking his black-silver wand back on his person as he grabbed Severus Snape by his arm and yanked the man to his feet before dragging him out of the living room to some other corner of the place where he would be out of apparent sight of The High Shrike.

"Did you both eat?" Dominique Grindelwald asked then, her tone moderate as she took off and dropped to her back the hood of her cloak and raised a brow to inspect the living room a-new, having had no time to do so before when ten hours ago she had hastily taken two Shrikes and Severus Snape and had left.

"No," Tatuli answered for Laszlo, who looked at odds whether he wanted to burden Dominique with his growling stomach, not knowing her state of mind or mood at present, even though she looked remotely unaltered.

Svetlana Morozov met Dominique's eyes and nodded, throwing a fabric bag full of food towards Laszlo who expertly caught it. The latter peered inside to find a variety of hot buns and tavern made hastily buttered croissants, along with two bottles of warm liquid that he wasn't sure was beer of some kind or just tavern made fruit drinks. The High Shrike wouldn't in her right mind offer the Shrikes sources to get drunk when they were on an excursion of the present sort.

"Eat," Dominique glanced at both Tatuli and Laszlo, "The rest of us have already eaten. We can discuss our plan going forwards while you do so."

And so Tatuli found herself tucked back onto the sofa she had been seated on, with a steaming half eaten bun on her lap while she drank a sweet tavern made concoction that tasted entirely of milk and berries.

Laszlo sat himself on a chair while he ate, like Svetlana and József, leaving the sofa he had been seated on to Dominique, as they all waited to hear what The High Shrike had to say. Somewhere else in Number 12 Grimmauld place, in some other room, Severus Snape groaned and grunted, for József had subjected the man to a another round—though short—of some more torture, the reason of which Tatuli knew she was about to find out.

"We rechecked the places," Dominique Grindelwald began, "Both spots where the horcruxes were being kept. We checked Hogwarts from top to bottom for the diadem, and we checked the cave with inferi for the Salazar Slytherin's locket too. No trace to be found, nothing to even lead us to who took those horcruxes."

Frustration imbedded itself like a sly snake into Dominique's tone, catching her unawares regardless of how hard she had tried on the journey back to Grimmauld to keep her composure. József had senses it all. He had sensed her fists tightening, her veins jutting out in her jaw, her knuckles whitening. He had silently sensed it all and he had taken it all out for her on Severus Snape, and she was grateful for it. It had helped. It had lessened her fury somewhat.

Hogwarts had been a task to check, the death eaters on the school's board had been reluctant to let the Shrikes disturb the ongoing term for even a moment, their hard pressed regimes being in full progress each second of the day. They had caved in after József's threats and upon one look at the battered form of Severus Snape—one of their two Defense Against The Dark Arts professors. The students had been welcoming somewhat—most all of them pure blood—pinning the Shrikes down with their awed gazes as a thorough search was conducted by the latter unperturbed.

The cave search however, was the easiest, though equally disappointing.

"There was no clue to be found at the Malfoy Manor too," Dominique spoke, remembering the intense coolness of the manor.

It had been the place from whence Voldemort had saved her, hadn't it? It was where he had first gotten her out from her terrorist ways. She didn't remember the details of that day, with her memories unstructured, broken and locked inside her as they were. But still, she was grateful for the place. She was grateful to have come to it two years ago, even if she couldn't make herself enter the place two years later.

József and Svetlana had done the searching inside, while she had waited. They had both taken Severus Snape with them on her command, tracing back to where Harry Potter was being kept and monitoring his escape when he had made it, all through Severus' memories. The two Shrikes had found no clues, nothing to alter what they already knew of this living horcrux's escape.

So then they had all left the manor, now turned into an office space for the department of charm development under Voldemort's orders upon the unfortunate deaths of all those bearing the Malfoy name.

Dominique remembered Narcissa Malfoy vaguely, but wasn't aware of how exactly the woman had died, and didn't care enough to find out.

"So what now?" Laszlo Kelemen, the Hungarian wizard, spoke then, having had his fill of food as he downed his bottle and tossed it to a side, the glass shattered on the floor where he had thrown it. The carpet was too small to cover the entire living room floor and the glass bottle had found solid hard ground.

"Tell me what to do, High Shrike, where do I find any information? I'll have it ready."

"There's no information to be found, Laszlo," Dominique met his eyes, her words stern. "The resistance Snape has let flourish, has all the three horcruxes. So we find this resistance, and we find the horcruxes."

"Do we have leads on where they could be hiding?" Tatuli asked then, hoping for a favorable answer.

This had to be like all of their other past excursions, hadn't it? Find the rebelling resistance, do away with them and leave. A brief step process they had followed every time. But horcruxes were involved this time, Tatuli thought dismally, could their involvement make their task harder than it had been before?

"No leads," Svetlana answered, her voice firm. "No leads means we get to be thorough. We take into account everything and anything. We find the roots and tear them apart."

"We know that St Mungo's was infiltrated for medical supplies," József added in his hard voice. "The resistance is all set for a while, they won't be showing themselves for a moment yet. And we also know the location of the past safehouse they were inhabiting."

"Did you go to that location?" Laszlo looked at his brother, before glancing at Dominique.

József and Dominique's eyes met as they looked briefly at each other, a knowing glance passing in between them.

Something had happened, Dominique knew that, and so did József. Translocating by her own magic was painful and disorienting for her. Heuristics was failing her where that was concerned, much to The Dark Lord's fury and desperation over that fact. But after the Malfoy manor, when József had suggested they take a look at the abandoned safehouse and attempted to apparate them both, Dominique had felt the same symptoms incoming and she had stopped him midway.

Could apparation become a curse for her too? Had she been relying on József to take her everywhere so much that something was tearing her apart from this one reliance too? It was a terrifying thought, and Dominique Grindelwald had long since stopped being terrified. Continued exposure to Voldemort did that. Dominique had stood hours upon hours in front of her mirror watching blood stream out of her eyes and drip down her chin as part of the vigorous training of her magic and her body and the incisions and the marks skewered inside her mind by Voldemort. She had long since stopped being terrified of anything.

"No," József replied, "We wanted to be sure of the focus of our plan first."

Dominique knew that József may not entirely be aware of what exactly was happening to her, and why she had stopped him midway, but she knew that he could sense it. Her reliance on him had extended beyond just the matter of apparating her to places and bringing her back. He had somehow learned of all her patterns. He had somehow learned of how exactly to tell what she was skeptical of with only just a look in her eyes and the tilt of her jaw. He had somehow managed to revise her like she was a book and Dominique couldn't even understand when he had started and when he had stopped his revision.

"We are sure now, aren't we?" Tatuli prompted. "We find the resistance and we start by paying a visit to that location."

"And if it's a dead end?" Svetlana argued as she looked to Dominique, "Like Hogwarts and that cave was?"

"Dead end," Dominique exhaled, grinding her jaw. The pain she had felt from the returning apparation just now infuriated her. It made her want to rip her chest apart if only she could find what the fuck was the matter with her inside—if only she could find the answers to all her ailments written etched into the organs inside her, like the lines in a book she could read and understand.

"I will turn London apart to find this resistance," She let out then, glancing briefly at all of the Shrikes. "If they are not here, we lock the entire city up. No one goes in and no one comes out. No apparations, no translocation, no floo networks—we shut it all down. Then we move our search to another city. We continue this until we find them. I don't care if have to sift through the entirety of England, I don't care if we have to shut the entire economy of the UK down, I will find this resistance."

They all nodded, as Dominique turned to glance finally at József, a wary caution in his eyes. If what he suspected was true, he knew that she wouldn't be able to apparate in and out of cities to sift through England—let alone the entirety of UK, at all. But Dominique told him through her eyes that she wouldn't go back. Going back to Voldemort and telling him of this—this sudden failure and hindrance of the fact that apparation was beginning to torture her as well—would infuriate him. It would make his belief in her to crush this rebellion, waver.

He wouldn't force her to press on, both József and Dominique knew that. The Dark Lord wouldn't force her to do this. But still, he would be disappointed. Her worth would waver. And Dominique wasn't ready to risk that, whatever the cost.

"We start tomorrow," József nodded as he broke away from Dominique's eyes and cast a glance at the rest of the Shrikes.

"Get your rest. We head first to the abandoned safehouse tomorrow, and then we track those rebel terrorists down."