Magna est Veritas
“Innervate!”
Verena woke to the sounds of gulls and many aghast voices. She groaned and sat up, her head spinning. It was too bright to open her eyes all the way. Why was it bright? Azkaban was gloomy. When she finally forced her eyelids open, Verena gasped. The tower was gone. The clouds and dementors, also gone. Not a brick was left. The only thing that remained was the table she was lying on, and a whole lot of sand. A group of confused Aurors stood around, kicking over rocks in search of evidence.
“Verena.”
She looked sharply up to the nearest Auror who called her name.
“What happened here?” The investigator, a man Verena recognized from training, asked her. He was the teacher of the offensive flying course. “Can you remember?”
Yes, she could. Verena could remember everything. The graduation party. The months between then and now, where she was effectively a puppet with slack strings, a sleeper agent ready to be activated. Voldemort’s words in the interrogation room, how obvious they seemed to her now. And Harold, the mouse who retrieved her wand for his master. The puzzle came together perfectly.
She wanted to scream.
“Voldemort,” Verena croaked. “He let himself be captured. He planned this whole thing, and my coming here was the last step. I was sent here, I brought the only wand to the island. He has all of his followers back with him now. All those criminals...”
The Auror sighed and nodded gravely. “Let’s get you to a healer.” He helped Verena from the table and collected the papers which she had brought with her to the island. “Whoa, what’s this?”
“Just his file,” Verena answered, unconcerned.
“No, this.” The Auror turned over the page. Burnt into the paper were the words, ‘thank you for your honesty’.
Oh, she felt ready to throw up.
“Boss! Over here!” Another Auror shouted, far off near the rocks. He was holding up a single shattered brick to the Head of Magical Law Enforcement. “I think the tower was blasted into the water, sir!”
The head Auror turned to his other subordinates, who were crowding around the single brick piece like it was the last cup of water in the desert. “Alright, you heard the news. Jamieson, put together a group for repairing the tower. We need it back up quickly. Higgs!”
The teacher next to Verena stood at attention. “Yes, sir!”
“Get sky patrols going. We need to track down the escapees, they already got quite a head start. And where the bloody hell did those dementors fly off to??” The head Auror’s eyes drifted to Verena. She saw only hatred in them. “You. You are finished.”
Her teacher gaped. “But, Boss, she—”
“—No, Higgs. She’s done. When I sent her here, it wasn’t to free the bloody murderer!”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Verena exclaimed.
The head Auror’s face went red with rage. It was as if the hairs left on his nearly bald, and now very inflamed, head would singe up in a second, like a hundred, weak, wispy candle wicks. They all raised up with the steam of anger rolling off of him. “What do you mean it wasn’t your fault?! You let him escape, you daft, incompetent—!”
“—You gave me the order to come here! Without me, there is no wand, there is no escape! Voldemort was planning this all along, he knew I would be sent here. That means he knew you would send me here. Now, how do you think he guaranteed that?”
Her boss looked like he was choking on something, half-way to screaming but not knowing what words to scream.
“It means he got to you, too, sir,” Verena said coldly. “Who knows how many more of us have been compromised? Or, what else he could be planning with us?”
Things were very quiet after that. But, one brave soul broke the silence. A man with a fake eye, fake leg, and the presence of a Hippogryph stomped his staff on the ground and grumbled, “The girl’s right. We need to screen everyone.”
“Everyone?! Now, at a time like this, you suggest we take longer to get our forces moving, Moody??” The boss fumed.
“If we don’t, we’ll pay for it later,” the peg-legged man insisted.
“And how do you suggest we screen everyone in a reasonable manner?! Combing through their memories, one by one, will take ages!”
Verena realized Voldemort gave her the answer to the conundrum. Not verbally, but in his actions. “We have to knock everyone out.” She went to feel the bump on her head, a comforting sort of damage.
Her boss whirled around to her. “What?!”
“We have to knock everyone out,” she repeated firmly. “That’s what happened to me, that’s why I remember his scheme now. Voldemort rendered me unconscious. Such a delicate network of fake memories, of fake feelings, the spell and the shock must have shook something loose!”
“Aye, that may work,” Moody said, contemplative. His eye roamed erratically with his thoughts.
“You—You both are insane,” the boss sputtered. “I am placing you on lea—”
A white bolt of light hit him, mid-sentence, and he crumpled to the ground. The source of the knockout spell was Moody’s staff. The ‘mad’ man awkwardly cleared his throat as the rest of the Aurors stood in shock at the blatant attack on their superior.
“So…who wants to be here when he wakes up to test the young girl’s theory?” He questioned the Aurors.
There were no takers. The silence was comical.
"Then, you better let me crack some skulls." Moody's logic was sound. The team would much rather be nearly dying than face the wrath of their boss.