First Denial
Morning came bright and early and Justin was grateful to have submitted his request for an appointment, and he was moderately surprised to find it was accepted without a problem. Had he thought that Harry would turn down his old acquaintance? He said it was a serious matter, of course, but he wondered if he would be believed all of a sudden. It would sound so strange that it was possible for anyone to think that he had simply been dreaming the whole thing, or that he had been confunded, badly. It was a relief, then, when he met Zacharias precisely on schedule. Work and its requisite schedule had turned the lackadaisical young man into someone to be respected, and he smiled a little as they went in together, before remembering that it was, indeed, serious business.
He had been to different offices in the Ministry here and there in the past two years since his graduation; there was always a form to get signed or some request to file. The place, as it had ever since the gold statue was replaced, looked basically the same, and there was a worrying sense of comfort that came with that as they crossed the great atrium on the way to the elevator. The previous week, he would not so much have thought about it, but did he really dislike adventure after all? Was he the happiest when things were standard and predictable?
"Hi, there, Justin," Katie Bell said as soon as they were in the elevator. "What are you in for?"
"I haven't done anything," he said with a start.
"Oh, he's a regular jester," Zacharias said. "What are you here to do?"
"I'm getting a marriage license. You might think it's a bit soon, but after Hogwarts, well, I went to see how George was doing, and well, we decided that we had better do things properly. It's funny; he was always frivolous with witches when we were in school, but that's because he was joking around; he can get... serious when he likes. Maybe that's saying too much, though. Anyway, I didn't think of it, but you two can both come to the wedding if you want. We didn't all make it after the battle, and then some people went around the world, so we'll have anyone who was in Dumbledore's Army."
"Of course," he said almost immediately. It felt so good to be included, but then, why had she not thought of it before? Justin supposed he had never really spoken to her before outside of what was strictly necessary. The elevator dinged and she got off, giggling excitedly. He had to say, he had certainly never seen her like that.
"Pity," his friend said. "Sooner or later, she'll get around to sending those invitations, and she won't send one to me when she remembered I got out."
"Maybe she won't hold that against you. I don't."
"Well, it's no trouble really. I certainly don't blame her for forgetting everything that I did. She's a side character, after all. I'm reasonably sure she didn't do Quidditch professionally, but she found a job where she could stay close to the sport. That's not something a background character would do. There are times I even envy your sort; you're close enough to get a glimpse of what's really going on sometimes, but you can always retire into obscurity."
"Could you, though? If there's really some kind of narrative consistency, you would think all characters would get reused eventually, unless they get killed off."
The elevator dinged and they got off, not worried about anyone eavesdropping; it was sure to be dismissed as the utter nonsense it was. They carefully stepped around someone cleaning up spilled dragon's blood.
"Oh, well, sure, you would think that, but then, what ever happened to Ludo Bagman?"
"Bagman? I almost forgot he existed. There's no way he counts as a side character."
"I heard he had a one-on-one conversation with Harry Potter himself."
"There's no way that makes you a main character," he said as they got to the door, knocking. Padma Patil had become a secretary of sorts and allowed them ingress.
"I suppose not. Well, then, I suppose we'll find out."
The Auror only looked a little different from when last they spoke. He carried himself with a bit more dignity and he looked busy, but not too busy.
"There was an appointment?" he asked, prompting the conversation to actually start.
"Of course. The two of us are material witnesses to a... well, this is going to sound rather bizarre, but there is an underground sex dungeon where the victims seem to have been kidnapped. Zacharias here has been working for them against his will, and I've only just found out about this-"
"You haven't gone to the Hit Wizards? They would normally handle this kind of thing."
"Well, perhaps, normally, but it seems that they already know. It seems that some of them are involved, I dare say. Of course, someone could have used polyjuice to disguise themselves as members of our reputable Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but I thought it would be safest to go straight to an old friend."
"An old friend, yes." He looked back down at some papers and then back up again.
"Oh, well, I don't mean to imply that we talked all that often, but we certainly knew each other back in Hogwarts." He was almost loath to qualify himself with the statement 'I was in the group you started', but there it was. "I enjoyed my time in the Defense Association, all things considered, even with the ups and downs, and I have you to thank for it."
"Yes, I suppose so," he said after a moment. "I suppose you both were involved with that."
"Yes... yes, that's correct. Zacharias here has come to regret having left the Battle of Hogwarts at such a crucial moment."
"I don't believe that's entirely accurate. From the way that he's sweating, I would say that he very much enjoyed the fact that he saved his own skin, and now his only concern is how to save it once more."
"Oh, well, I... I don't know why I just said that; I suppose I should not try to pretend that he has in time past demonstrated any acts of heroism, but today he is entirely willing to corroborate my report about this case of kidnapping and false imprisonment."
"Yes, for all that his word is worth, I suppose. Well, I might as well hear it."
As his friend stammered out his testimony, Justin could see why he was caught off guard; he was absolutely flabbergasted at how poorly the conversation was going himself. Should they have rehearsed everything they had come to say ahead of time? Would that have looked suspicious?
"I don't believe you," he said at the end of it. "You're a fraud and you have no honor. Your word brings down that of anyone agreeing with you."
"Please, I recognize that he did plenty that was wrong, but this time he's telling the truth. I was there, and any act of fact-finding could determine that everything we said was accurate. I'm actually more afraid of someone acting like we didn't come forward when it all comes out that we knew about this place."
"Fact-finding, yes. I suppose we are, technically, obligated to investigate all reports of this nature. If you insist, then, I shall come up with the orders to look into this place." He was writing something down, but Justin could not imagine what. "If we find something suspicious, and there are arrests, we'll be sure to contact you to testify about it."
"I'm sorry, but you don't seem terribly concerned," he said after a moment of absolutely nothing.
"I admit that the whole thing seems remarkably far-fetched," the Auror said. "It's part of my job description not to be biased and to look into the fact of the matter at all times but this is certainly an example of a time when I am sure the whole afternoon is going to be wasted," he continued, shaking his head. "All the same, though, I have no choice but to investigate, so now that the report has been made, I shall have to assign people to look into it."
"I'm concerned. I hate to think that any of your men might be compromised, but we certainly can't eliminate the possibility, can we? Perhaps we should go ourselves, today, before they expect us. Are you occupied for the rest of the day?"
"I was, but I suppose I can reassign myself," he said, sighing. "I'm not allowed to tell you what I was investigating before this."
"I'm sure it was perfectly crucial, but I've come to you precisely because I can't trust anyone else. Again, nothing against your team, nothing against your coworkers, but I just don't know them like I know you."
"You know me."
"Right, I don't mean to be presumptuous, and I hope you don't think that I know you because of just how we associated in school, though I certainly associated with you more than some other people did, and I know you probably don't know much about me, but I really did look up to you, and I still do, and that might be a weird thing to say, but I really mean it."
It sounded like he was asking for a final favor, like asking to be buried or something. What else did he want, though? Was it proof that he wanted to resign into obscurity immediately after resolving the moral conundrum presented by his circumstances? Had he really been a jumped up background character the whole time, spurred to action by an existential threat? He was almost certain that the first thing he had ever said to Harry was that he was down for Eton right before he found out that he was a wizard.
Whatever the deeper meaning behind everything that was happening in his personal life, it was mere moments before they apparated out to the street where he found the club, where he knocked on the door. Zacharias tried a password, and sure enough the door opened. The Auror announced himself and they went inside, but there was none of the fanfare that he expected. It looked like the most boring place that had ever existed. Either someone was capable of some ridiculous illusion magic of which he had never heard, or someone had been pulling his leg the whole time. His friend looked nonplussed, and strangely, the same was true of the investigator they brought. An old man nursing a drink looked up and asked them what the hell they were doing there.
"Right."
"I'm dreadfully sorry," he said. "I'm not sure which time I messed up," he said. "I'm not sure whether I took you to the wrong place, or whether I was going through something when I was first here, and the place never existed." It was, quite possibly, the most embarrassing experience of his life. "Do you have any ideas?"
"I wish I did, mate," his guide said, shrugging. "I don't get it either. I was sure I didn't dream up the last six months, but I probably should have guessed that they wouldn't give it up so easily. Either it's a real place that's that good at hiding itself, or it's a nightmare determined not to be real."
"I've heard enough," the Auror said before leaving. Shortly after, the patrons of the boring bar surrounded him as he apologized for interrupting them. Fingers snapped and he was surrounded by people in fetish gear, the lights and the music coming right back after that. He found himself hastily stripped, each of his limbs floating freely as his flesh was first tenderized like a Thestral Wellington before being crudely healed. The entire time, he was not sure if he screamed.
Parts of his memory seemed to black out before he found himself being levitated again by Zacharias.
"Sorry about that," he said as they were in a room together again. "I really did my best to keep them from being too hard on you. I can only think that we were saved by the fact that nothing happened, nothing came of it. They were better prepared than I thought."
"So... that was all just an illusion?" he asked. "They knew that there was an Auror over here, so they disguised this place as something else?"
"That certainly could have been it. Technically, we could be in an illusion right now, for all I know." He sighed. "There are an infinite number of explanations. Maybe someone saw that you set up an appointment. It hardly changes our present situation."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I worked it out with them to where you get the same deal I did, and basically my own progress has been reset. That means I work for days on end, and when I collapse, it's my problem. You're about as bad off. Don't worry about that, though; we've got a good chance of having a slow week starting tomorrow morning."
"I... I just... how did that not work? I thought it would work."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Well, just what I said. I thought it had a chance of working, but I wasn't certain. I'll need you to express the question a little more specifically."
"I thought Harry Potter could do anything."
"I'm sure that he can; it's just that he was really thinking of the other case, probably involving some proper side character rather than people like ourselves. These things are by nature more worthy of his notice. I can appreciate, though, that you find yourself searching for a narrative reason, though, no longer content with simple cause and effect. It was actually somewhat annoying having to explain the way things worked when you seemed to commit to some other understanding."
"I hope I was no trouble," he said after a moment, trying to recontextualize things. There was nothing he wanted more than to just go back to the way things were, but it seemed like that option was not available to him. The job and the friends he knew were all in the past. Was he less of a side character, or had he faded into something other than the background? Was it the background for all those who refused to be in the background?
"It's no worse than I deserve, I suppose," Zacharias said. "I was the one who made the mistake. Fortunately, though, they trusted that I was keeping an eye on things rather than betraying them."
"They believed you?"
"Sort of. They're willing to give me a chance. I think I'm useful enough to where they want me to work for them another six months, and if I show any sign of disloyalty, well, they'll give me another six months. I don't think they're genuinely worried that any decent main character finds out about this place. For them be totally unafraid of it, well, I can only think they must have some reason for their confidence."
"What do we do now, then?" he asked. Justin was out of ideas as to how he could possibly report them, and if they knew who he was, and how to find his family, muggles, all of them, then he was without a recourse against them, especially because they seemed to be possessed of a sense of justice that seemed to have no sense of proportion. Anyone who went after them, to the last and most barely involved person, someone anyone else would just forget, would suffer for hindering their crusade. At least for the moment, there was no point in trying to go against them.
"Well, you're on club duty right now. That means checking up on Mafalda Hopkirk, and then Lucius Malfoy."
"Wait, the first one I could understand, but how did you get him in here? He's not a background character at all."
"We only got him last month when he finally faded from public conscious. There were all sorts of deals where he was put into a witness protection program after revealing everything he knew about Voldemort's operation, everyone who was associated with them. He narrowly avoided Azkaban, but due to our connections, he didn't avoid us."
They walked over to where the minor Ministry official was. Apparently, she sent Harry Potter a letter giving him an official warning for the use of the Levitation Charm in the Dursley residence, where, apparently, he lived for most of his life. Had she done any more investigation in her role in the Improper Use of Magic Office, she would have discovered it was really an elf. Presently, her punishment was relatively mild; she had to listen to someone reading erotica involving members of her own family, unable to fall asleep.
"I don't understand," he said after a moment. "Wouldn't it have been worse if she looked into it and found out it was Dobby? Wasn't he trying to help?"
"Oh, well, sure, but she still didn't find out who was improperly using magic, and caused an unnecessary headache. The issue was later raised during the sham hearing for using the Patronus Charm three years later," Zachrias explained as they sponged her down. Nothing had been done to her, but being restrained for long enough was not exactly hygienic.
"It just seems like a ridiculous non-issue," he said, feeding the captive the provided slop. It did not seem like she was even aware that they were there. "I never once heard Harry complain about her."
"Well, he didn't complain all that much about what was in the past, but I don't think we really use that as a basis for who deserves to suffer." He had turned to pay attention to the reader, a woman sitting in a black cloak.
"Your son, Herbert, is a young man of peculiar tastes, fancying himself a catboy, if you will believe it. From an indigo skirt, you can just see the tops of his pink thigh-highs, spotted with paw prints, and between them, there hangs a tail. It protrudes, of course, from a butt plug. He wears go-go boots for a touch of individuality, and his cat ears twitch every time someone grabs him by the hair. He has no facial hair; his whiskers are simply lines on his face."
"I've had about enough of this," he said after caring for the every need of the victim and bringing the tormentrix a drink. "Where's Malfoy?"
"Oh, he's deep in the secured section. Sooner or later, they'll give up looking for him, but not right away. Ten to one, that's what Potter's doing right now. It's not every day that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement loses track of a witness they were protecting."
They went down a narrow spiral staircase to an even lower basement where someone had to wave them through. He had predicted something similar to what Mafalda Hopkirk suffered, but it appeared the other captive was not so lucky. He was being fisted, rather forcefully, by a house elf, and what it lacked in the size of its hands it made up for in exuberance.
"Apparently, the elf that I mentioned earlier was his, and he was rather cruel to it."
Justin was stunned for a moment. Out of all the things that he had done, it was being mean to an elf that had done him in? The practice of keeping them seemed rather strange to him when he first arrived in the wizarding world, but he knew that it was not just bad people who owned them; the school had elves and it seemed like they had no problem with the arrangement. In a DA practice session, Ron Weasley had once told them to feel free to ignore it if Hermione ever came around asking them to sign a petition to free them. It was the strangest thing that the two of them ended up married, but he supposed there were not all that many main characters to go around; sooner or later they had to pair up.
"Are they all like this?" he asked.
"Oh, no, some of those who've been here the longest have learned to enjoy it. I'm not optimistic for old Lucius, though. Every so often, when we get something coherent out of him, it's just something absurd about how he should have abused the elf even more."
"What? Why?"
"I mean, I suppose he hasn't been here that long, but really, it hardly matters. You see, background characters hardly change when you leave them alone. You can pretty much assume that they'll be the same whenever you run into them next. I think in three years all that happened with Viktor Krum was that he grew a beard."
"I never saw him again."
"He wouldn't have been introduced to a borderline side character."
"Borderline?"
"Well, you could say you were a side character, but really you could also say you were a background character. Anyway, at this point, you're definitely one of us."
There was nothing terribly titillating about the job so far, and he could start to see the truth to the claims that his friend made that he had gotten stuck there. Justin had never really seen Zacharias as a terrible pervert before, or someone with a sick sense of justice, but when everything came out, he had a hard time trusting him. There seemed to be a probationary period where he would evaluate the young man's character once more.
"How did you end up here, anyway?" he asked. "Don't tell me you were a customer."
"I didn't even know that people could be customers in those days. I think that started about two months into my time here, or they ramped it up around then. They brought me in to suffer here, but I knew how to play the system and I ended up being able to double up on my own punishments and punishing other people. You'd think it was pretty unforgivable that I was a jerk to Potter back in the day, and I definitely didn't help him when it counted, but I got a reprieve when I helped them get Theodore Nott. That was my big break, literally."
"Wait, so they're not even done punishing you?"
"They'll never be done. Technically, I'm always the same, so there's no reason to stop, but I can keep getting it put off by continuing to act in service to their justice. It's actually pretty easy if you know what you're doing. Even though no years ever get knocked off my sentence, what's most important is what I'm currently doing, not what I've done before."
"So you could be Voldemort, but as long as you're turning Umbridge's rectum inside out, they'll let you keep doing it?"
"Oh, we don't have either of them. They're long term projects. Technically, Voldemort's dead and he'd be too much of a hassle to actually get him in here. I've never heard of anyone even trying something like that. Umbridge is more theoretically possible, and believe me, there's a lot of people who want to see her in here, and that would be a big fish story for a generation, but unfortunately we're locked up on that."
"How so? Where is she now?"
"Technically, there wasn't much that she did that was illegal, so when she confessed to everything and the court had a clear record of everything the administration did, and she filled in a lot of the gaps about various Death Eaters, like Yaxley, who were working with the government, but then got killed and couldn't testify, she got the witness protection deal. It's a raw deal, house arrest for Merlin knows how long in a place like Uganda or New Jersey, but I suppose there are worse things. There's actually a list of worse things that we have planned for her whenever someone gets her."
Justin sighed. He could accept something terrible happening to her, and it seemed likely that he could get his own punishment put off, and maybe he could even get Zacharias off for the rest of his life, which would be a way of repaying him after he had probably saved Justin's life. Really, he couldn't believe he'd been so stupid as to mishandle the situation, thinking that he could make everything perfect, when he was barely a side character.
"Then we should go get her. We'll get a break however we need to, we'll track her down, and we'll have the big fish story to finally get us out of here."
"Well, if you say so. I haven't the first clue of where to look for her, but I suppose I can ask around. Some of our clients are working with the witness protection program, after all."
"Then let's start there. Where are they now?"
"Oh, well, if I remember well enough, there should be one seeing some Death Eater's wife right about now."
"Really? Just like that?"
"Oh, yeah, Eliza Travers gets a lot of attention. Technically, he's dead, but we've summoned him as a spirit to keep him attentive."
Sure enough, in another room in the basement, there was a fifty something man railing a fifty something woman, not the worst thing he had seen that day by a long shot, but the late dark wizard, summoned in a pentacle on the ground, was ghoulishly howling. Justin wondered if the wife was there voluntarily, and whether that would make the punishment worse. He supposed that it would, if he was, in addition to being a murderer, someone who cared more for his own honor than the will of his widow.
"I don't think she used a contraceptive charm, Zacharias."
"I keep forgetting you muggleborns call them that. She didn't, we just turn the kids loose and let someone pick them up."
"That doesn't seem fair to them."
"It isn't, but they're nobodies like us. See, if I'm to advise you how to get by in this world, the single biggest trick is it's not what you know, it's whom you know. I wouldn't, therefore, recommend naming the dumpster babies."