Parade of the Dark Horse

"What does he have to do with it?" Justin asked.

"Well, I can be almost certain he never related this, because it would have been the most boring and irrelevant of all the stories that surround him, but during the Triwizard Tournament, I offered him help in hopes that he could at least allay my troubles with the goblins, but, of course, he never accepted it, as I was a tournament official and that would be rather blatantly cheating. I suppose if he ever told anyone this, it would sound rather self-aggrandizing, because he would only be highlighting his own honor, and his own celebrity, having impressed an old favorite like myself."

"Where are you going with this?"

"The following year, I realized that boy was the genuine article. He was the kind of likeable person that everyone else could only admire, and not even emulate. I wanted him to crush his enemies, and he wouldn't do it. I wanted him to take unfair advantages, and he wouldn't even do that. It was ridiculous, but I couldn't give it up. I realized what I needed to do to complete the picture. It's like the Grimm tales."

"What?"

"The brothers Grimm, they always had the villain get it in the end. The pure-hearted main character wouldn't be doing any of the punishing, though, no, his or her heart had to remain pure, or else what kind of lesson could it be? How were children meant to learn from it? Their solution was brilliant for the time. When you have the main character, who usually has a certain simplicity about him or her, making it easier for the child audience to understand the motivations, get rewarded for doing good, and then, separately, have the villain punished for doing evil, the picture is complete. The good are rewarded and the bad suffer, and the good are not troubled with having a hand in the punishment of the bad."

"What are you even... don't you realize that there's more than good and bad in the world?"

"Only a side character like yourself is capable of being neither good nor bad. That was a sign that pointed to someone like myself from the beginning, in case you didn't know. I really only pop in on your investigation every now and then. Really, I'm surprised you got this far, so I don't suppose that you might have even narrowed it down to a short list already." He shrugged. "Anyway, as I was saying, the point of the side characters is to provide that separation between the heroes and the punishment of the evil doers. It is also for the benefit of the side characters that all these awful people are killed, because as long as the innocent victor is rewarded, he is usually raised to a status where he no longer has reason to fear his original bully. It is for our benefit as side characters that-"

"Okay, fine, what's the point of the dark horse? You were never a dark horse. People just forgot about you."

"That's the same thing. Frequently, the dark horse is a character who was introduced, but his significance is never realized. Then-"

"You never had any significance. That's almost exactly what you said. You seemed like you would be important, because you were all excited when Harry was chosen as champion. Anyone who had been thinking of that series of events as a book would have at least added you to the list of suspects, even if it wasn't certain how you were capable of such a thing." He frowned. No one had ever explained to him how the Death Eater had managed to trick the goblet of fire and he was having a hard time just thinking about it.

"I was a distraction, a red herring- every mystery has at least a few of those."

"Harry never suspected you for a minute. He thought it was conspicuous when he found out that Karkaroff was a Death Eater, but you were the same kind of bumbler as Lockhart. You were fundamentally harmless; you couldn't have been a hero or a villain."

"I was better than Remus Lupin!" Bagman shouted back. "First, he frightened everyone by turning into a werewolf, and I suppose he couldn't be bothered to take his potion when it was important- then, years later, after a whole lot of nothing, he suggests leaving his wife and child-"

"Yes, to help Harry! Why, then, was that not a good thing? If Harry is and always has been the very center of the moral universe, then why wouldn't he be counted as some kind of hero for abandoning his wife and child? Why does no one look at that as a personal sacrifice rather than a horrible mixup of his obligations?"

"He didn't really abandon them," the former Quidditch player said. "That was the problem. He suggested it, and then he never did it. Suggesting it doesn't make up for years and years of leaving Harry alone rather than adopting him."

"There was no way he could have adopted Harry; he couldn't have been responsible for him if he turned even just one night a month; children need virtually constant care. Maybe he could have fooled the muggle authorities, but the Ministry never would have allowed it, not even if they just suspected that he might be a werewolf. Single men who aren't related don't usually have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a child, not against a family that is related, and that was all he knew; it was just that Harry was with his blood relatives. If he had looked into it, or if Dumbledore had told him anything, he would have realized that the only way for Harry to be safe was to remain in that house." He sighed. "Maybe, if they had acted sneakily enough, fraudulently appearing as a muggle government official, they would have a chance at reducing the level of abuse, but ultimately they probably thought that putting any amount of pressure on the Dursleys would have resulted in their casting him out entirely."

Justin took a breath after speaking. He knew that the Dursleys were kind of their own can of worms, for a lot of people, but one of the things that it seemed people had never understood was that the purpose was not to give Harry the happiest possible childhood. If anything, the purpose was to harden him, to keep him from the almost inevitable consequence of celebrity. It was a consequence that Ludo Bagman had not handled well, not in the slightest if he had already seen that he could not very well get out of minor offenses like he had in his younger days.

"Perhaps you should not be in prison," he continued before his new enemy could start on his measured response. He knew it was not the lot of side characters to lecture the enemy except as the lead-up to the more exciting hero showing up with nothing more than a clever one-liner. At the same time, he had trouble containing himself. "After all, you did not, most likely, know that Augustus Rookwood was a Death Eater. He was an Unspeakable. If anything, the Department of Mysteries should have known he was one. If they were going to show him their greatest secrets, then at the very least they could have looked into his. Did they ever suffer any kind of-"

"No! They never did. I was never able to find out about any investigation. They just insisted that everything was secret so that no one else could look into it."

"That seems unfair. Out of all the injustices that you could have corrected, why didn't you try to correct that one?"

"You fool. That was what made me realize that I was not the main character. It took many years of my life, you understand. There were certainly seasons when it seemed that I was the leading wizard, captain of my own Quidditch team-" He shook his head. "It was Harry Potter who showed me that there was more to life than Quidditch. Have you seen his school record? It's perfectly unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it- and yet, all that greatness, and he really came here to achieve something infinitely more consequential."

"I... okay, you may not have been in school with him, but you must understand that even with all of his significance, he was, at the same time, a normal young man. He complained about things, he was unfair at times, and he only put in about half the effort in school until it really started mattering. Well, I suppose I don't know all the details, but his grades from his first few years were nothing terribly remarkable."

There was a long silence. It was like the world could come to an end if they ceased for a moment from singing the praises of the great Harry Potter. He half-expected Bagman to go off and say that his humility made him all the greater, that he never wanted any vengeance on his behalf made him deserve it all the more, but, surprisingly, none of that came.

"Very well. Very well, I see how it is." He took a deep breath. "This is a new story. A sequel. The main character is still here, but the side characters are not all the same. It seems that in this new development, you may have even become a principle side character, or even, if I might be so bold, a perspective character, rather like Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series. I have noticed that the colors of the world have faded. This is the future, and not the past- we see not the muted tones of memory, and yet the focus must not be on me. Unlike my fears, I am not the prime antagonist, but rather a-"

"You're no one," Justin said, still annoyed. "You're only a common criminal. Clearly, this is a long, multi-chaptered series and you are but one of the villains, a monster of the week- this is a cop drama, the evolution of Harry's character from a revolutionary hero to the builder of a new system, one that does not depend on him and his celebrity. You're the first hurdle, the reminder of everything that's already happened, ready to hand him the very thing he must not accept."

"No." Bagman was aghast. "That's patently impossible. There is no way that- no, out of all the things, I simply could not be that variety of villain. It's-"

"It's perfectly in line with your character. You were the one who wanted Harry to accept things that he never wanted, after all. You wanted him to accept help in the Tournament, but he didn't, because it's fundamentally dishonest, when a lesser man would have said that he had gone in with a disadvantage by virtue of being younger than the competition! Damn! If I hadn't been a side character, I would have seen it before. I should have started with the motive rather than anything else. Who else would have tried to elevate him to a status that was anathema to him? That simply reeks of a washed-up-"

Perhaps he had gone too far. He was not unconscious, he knew, but he had been- it seemed he was still fighting off the sleep still. Most likely, the only reason he was still alive was because someone knew he had gone to the artificer's house. That was right. Harry had sent him himself, hadn't he? Was that the best guarantee of his safety while dealing with The Dark Horse? Where, then, was he?

He could not see or hear anything, but he knew he was restrained. It did not seem like he had been hurt, which was a plus. He did not feel hot, or cold, but it felt like there was a draft. That meant that he was being restrained in the middle of a somewhat large room rather than being in a closet or something, but that did not really tell him where he was on the island. That, however, would not really help.

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm awake now, in case someone wants to start monologuing."

No one said anything. Clearly, they never intended for him to wake up so soon. The best thing was to go back to sleep, but that was not possible; there was no way he could get his mind to stop racing. He had nothing to do but wait.

"Excuse me," someone said back, somewhat sarcastically. "I had thought that clearing up your memory would be enough to stop you. Color me impressed."

"Okay, well, you might as well remove my blindfold, Brook."

"I'm afraid it's a blindness blumbo."

"Blumbo?"

"Well, it's not a charm, it's not a hex, it's not a curse, it's not a jinx, and I don't know what the other categories are."

"Oh, so there must be a blumbo?" He sighed. "Tell me you know the counterblumbo."

"I'm afraid there's no such thing."

Justin waited in a general annoyance that persisted as long as the pause. It was hard to tell what they wanted of him, but he supposed the rudeness of just letting him sit there while some other task was completed was not beyond them, not if they already wiped his memory and then kidnapped him. He wondered if the strength of character that it took to just sit there and take it was beyond what side characters were supposed to possess, but really it was unimportant. The most pressing matter was dragging things out to extend his life. They had not erased more of his memory, not yet, so they probably intended to kill him; they were just waiting for the case to dry out at the department first, so he would lose his relevance as a witness and turn into just another missing person. Really, there was no way that the parts of the government that had nothing to do with criminal justice should be able to just bury the case, but he supposed whoever was in charge of funding could cut that, someone in charge of hiring could impose a hiring freeze, someone in charge of security could put pointless impositions on them, and so on.

"Mr. Finch-Fletchley. You'll notice that we haven't erased your memories yet."

"I already have, actually, so I'm afraid that your prediction is incorrect unless you want to erase them again so I can notice it all over." He frowned. "You didn't erase any of them, did you? I really hope not; I wouldn't be able to imagine why."

"We haven't. If you think it's because we're planning to kill you, though, that's not it. We really can't afford to kill someone with the potential to be so valuable. No, you're something more than a post-canon side character."

"Oh. Okay, well, at least you and Bagman weren't the same person the whole time," he said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I was going to have to look into shares in whatever company produces polyjuice."

"No, it's nothing as complicated as that. I felt sympathy. I thought I could be a different sort of dark horse."

"You weren't introduced in the canon, though."

"No, but what would you call it when a new character comes to significance later on?"

"You'd call it a new character." He frowned. "I really don't know why you would call it anything else."

"Well, what if the character was named according to the same types of naming conventions?" she asked.

"That's still a new character. You'd get props for having a consistent world, I suppose. That's not a bad thing. Maybe, some people would even think that you had been introduced before, but-"

"That's it. I'm a reverse dark horse. I'm someone that you only think you know, as opposed to someone you've seen before but don't really know."

"I'm positive there's no such convention. I'm positive that's just considered decent world-building."

"Is this a delaying tactic?"

"No, this is merely character development. I'm finding out about the real you, when before we've only seen a mask. It's a rare opportunity for direct characterization."

"I see," Brook said. "Yes, I suppose, that in this situation, if you're really some kind of perspective character, then it's important that you ask such questions... how could you avoid it, really..."

"Yes, now, tell me more."

As she was in the middle of a long explanation, there was a faint popping sound, and then another.

"Justin?" It was Harry's voice.

"How did you get me out of there?"

"Dobby helped. Remember how he apparated into the Room of Requirement to warn us that Umbridge was coming?"

"Oh... right... wait, I thought Dobby was dead."

"How did you hear about that?" the voice demanded. "How?!"

"Oh, well, I suppose as long as this was all a trick, maybe I should buy shares in the company that makes polyjuice after all."

"It's not a potion you fool; it's just a simple voice replication blumbo."

"I... are you sure it's not a charm? I would think that this sort of thing would be a charm, if anything-"

"No. I've checked. It's not in any books. There's nothing describing it as a charm."

He exhaled through his nostrils. That line of discussion wasn't getting anywhere.

"Well, why exactly would you assume that I wouldn't know about old Dobby's demise?" he asked after a moment. "He was more like Harry's friend than anyone else's, but Hermione was constantly bringing him up whenever she was trying to get us to go along with her club." He frowned. "I think I was informed of his death after the fact, but I can't quite remember where."

"That's the only way that you could possibly escape from here," Brook explained. "It is, almost certainly, the one that Harry will select to get you out of here."

"Does the elf not need to know where I am in order to get me out?"

"I don't think so. To be honest, it seems kind of ridiculous, but I suppose it's just different and we can only leave it at that."

Again, he was annoyed at the non-answer. If it was really the case that his only way out was house elf apparation, then he supposed that the enemy had a trap prepared. Could there be a house elf exclusion charm? Could there be a house elf trapping charm? At the rate things were going, he would not be surprised. It was like every day had been an emotional roller coaster for him, and he was really getting tired of it. More than anything, he wanted to retreat into his side character world and just go back to doing his job, living in his flat.

"If you're about to offer me a way out, I'm not taking it," he said to no one. "I'm not joining you. No matter what you-"

"We weren't going to offer you a chance to join us. At the very least, we're not so arrogant as to believe you would if only you had the chance."

Justin was not happy with the way that he was being neglected; even when he tried to start a conversation of his own, it was shut down quickly. It was like they were trying to aggravate him with his own lack of importance, which, he supposed, was not their fault. Did he want to be more important, though? He thought it was especially concerning if Brook was really convinced that there was no other way of rescuing him, especially since he was almost certain Harry had no other friends among house elves. Most likely, he was going to have to be an agent in his own rescue.

"There's one thing I don't understand," he said after a moment, thinking that his captor might actually like explaining something to him. "How did you get Marietta out of there? Even if you had a few people working for you in the department of magical law enforcement, what could they have achieved all by themselves?"

"That kind of thing would have been too risky. We used a Witness Disappearing Hex. Even I couldn't tell you where she went."

"Wait, if you had that up your sleeves, why didn't you use it all the time?"

"Why don't they use the Lawyer Exclusion Charm all the time?" She shrugged, or he guessed that she did. It was hard to say for sure. "Eventually, the criminal justice system would need to put something else in place. It's the same. The Witness Disappearing Hex gets more effective the less you use it. Few know how to cast it and even fewer have actually used it. You need to make sure that the authorities don't have a case without that witness, or you'll only expose it."

"Interesting... so you didn't use it on me, because then that would be too much of a coincidence. If enough witnesses escaped from the department's custody, unexplained, it would no longer be a strange thing, and it would no longer make it seem like the witnesses never existed in the first place. I never thought about that, to be honest." He frowned. "If Marietta could be anywhere, though, couldn't she end up in a place where she could get caught again? She won't have her wand, wherever she is?"

"Oh, almost certainly, but she won't look a gift horse in the mouth. She'll know that she's been handed the only opportunity to escape that she's going to get, so wherever she is, she'll avoid doing anything conspicuous. It's actually pretty easy if you don't mind sleeping in the woods."

"I... I see." He went ahead and assumed that all servants of the club, especially the more knowledgeable ones, went in knowing that their fate was sealed if they were captured; the Dark Horse would not break their backs trying to get them out. Probably quite a few of them would have to go down with the ship, but as long as enough of the evidence was eliminated, it would look like the investigators had been lying the whole time, and they would never again consider the possibility that the club existed. Justin had hoped that the question would lead to a whole conversation, but it seemed that simple answer was enough time for a knock at the door.

"Zacharias?" Brook said as she opened the door. "What are you doing here? I thought you were eliminating evidence."

"Well, there's a problem. My likeability tanks unless I do something for my friend here. You never told me that he was a perspective character."

"We didn't know. What did you want us to do?"

"I can't let it end like this. I can't go through with this without having the last laugh."

"What do you mean?" Brook sounded like she was taking a step back. "What are you implying?"

"Well, whatever happens, it has to at least be funny, or else my character is ruined."

"Can't you at least appear in the sequel or something?"

Somehow Justin knew that his former friend was holding up a wand. Perhaps it was the gasp of his host.

"The way things are going, there's not going to be a sequel."