Chapter 7

A/N: Thanks to the admins for making this a featured story!

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Fortunately for Polyxena and Moody, Tonks had been so gloomy and dejected that when she arrived in their room, knocking over a table and chair and tripping over the rug, she didn't even notice their collective state of dishabille. After she had gone away to deliver said scum to Azkaban, the pair remaining in the room found that being attacked, fighting a duel, interrogating their attacker, and having an Auror come in to arrest him had spoiled their lazy, post-coital mood. Alastor had merely cast a strong Intruder Charm on the building, checked his Sneakoscope, and righted the Foe Glass before they both went straight to bed.

The next morning, again without any wake-up sex ploys, they had Apparated once more to Diagon Alley to continue their investigation.

"Ah, Septimius, I've missed you," laughed Polyxena, eyes sweeping over Moody's Polyjuice-altered form. "How have you been since the duel?"

"Take this." Mad-Eye thrust a flask full of the potion into her hands, which were waiting beneath his Invisibility Cloak. "You can't stay under that cloak all day, and both the Death Eaters and Harz's lot know who you are."

"Septimius, you swinging dog," laughed Polyxena after taking a shuddering sip of Polyjuice. "What about poor Augusta? Though I must admit, these breasts are spectacular. Any way I can keep them?"

When she shrugged off the Invisibility Cloak, Moody's eyes roved over her new body, also borrowed from an unwary Muggle. "No," he said shortly.

Polyxena's Muggle features lit up. "Aww, you like my original form, don't you, Septimius? The tough Dark wizard catcher is just an old softie."

"I'm not a Dark wizard catcher," he reminded her, hovering close to her ear. "I'm in the cauldron business."

"Right you are," assented Polyxena cheerfully, strode on ahead singing 'A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love,' and did an admirable job of ignoring Moody's murderous looks.

"You're a bit young to know Celestina Warbeck," observed Septimius when he had finally caught up to her.

Arching an eyebrow, she replied, "My mum likes her. And you're not that much older than me, are you Septimius?" she added pointedly. "Constant vigilance, my friend, constant vigilance. Even though this is undoubtedly the point in the story where we would start dancing to Cole Porter while wearing clothes from the Peterman catalog, I never thought Alastor Moody would be so slack in his Aurorly duties."

"Alastor? Oh, you mean Mad-Eye Moody," said Septimius with a note of steel in his voice. "Yeah, I never thought that either. He's a good bloke, that Mad-Eye, but he's neither here nor there. He's certainly not here."

"Er, right. No, he's not here." Polyxena twisted one of her fluffy blonde ringlets around her stubby finger. "I wish he was, though. He's a very... "

"P'lyx'na!" Mundungus hurried over to them as fast as his bandy legs could carry him. "Mad-Eye! Polyjuice Potion, very clever, indeed," he called from the pavement before the Apothecary. I been askin' 'round t' Harz's blokes... well, blokes who know Harz's blokes, an' they were sayin' that Harz's got that old wandmaker."

"Harz has my father?" Polyxena said skeptically, while Moody seized Dung's tweed overcoat and shouted,

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE! You've ruined our cover, you... "

"Alastor! Dung's just told us what we wanted to know in the first place; now we needn't waste time walking about Diagon Alley in these stupid Muggles' bodies. So... " She turned to the nervous thief. "... Harz has him? Did anyone say why? And the Death Eaters, what's their role in all of this?"

"Do I look like a bleedin' library?" Dung replied in a croaking voice laced with irritation. "Harz's got 'im in... in... well, I dunno where."

"But he's being held against his will, then? I wonder why he locked up his shop so nicely and cleared out everything like that. You said before that Harz never uses the Imperius Curse."

"He doesn'," mumbled Mundungus, taking a swing from a bottle concealed in a paper bag that read 'Hog's Head Take-Away.' "An' stop askin' so much. I'm a simple bloke, P'lyx'na. I got hags t' fuck, couple of misplaced items t' sell, plenty of Ogden's, then I'm happy enough t' conjure a fuckin' Patronus." Hoisting a dirty, green sack over his shoulder, he turned to go. "I've gotta get these special Darks down t' Knockturn Alley 'fore old Wagstaff gets a jump on things."

Scrutinizing the bag with his magical eye, Moody growled, "Special Darks?"

"Wands," grunted Dung. "Nicked 'em from some little, rat-faced bloke in Great Hangleton. Nice ones, too. Made outta walnut an' black cat whisker cores. Don't know what that means exactly, but... "

Polyxena seized a wand and held it up to her squinting gaze. "It means that these wands perform Dark curses especially well. This combination in particular can raise extremely powerful Inferi, not to mention easily seal a Horcrux. Why would a member of the Order want such a thing to be sold to the public? Watch." She aimed one of the wands at a spider making its way along the cobblestones. "Crucio!"

The spider pulled its legs in against the agony until it was torn apart, legs flying in all directions and fat little body ending in a gooey heap on the street.

Moody and Dung stared at it, aghast. One of Moody's eyes remained fixed on the spider and one on Polyxena until he flicked his wand at the filthy sack and said firmly, "Incendio!"

Mundungus gave a yelp and dropped the bag, which burned out on the pavement. "Fuckin' Flobberworms, Mad-Eye, that was m' whole month's rent, that."

"That spider could have been you," he growled. "And Polyxena could have been Nott or Crabbe or Lestrange."

"Oh, that's flattering," she interjected crossly. "But Alastor's right, Dung." Surveying the remaining special Dark wand more closely, she muttered, almost to herself, "Smooth as chocolate, thirteen inches, somewhat elastic... but definitely not a Gregorovitch, although he's known to use this combination... though the styling around the handle is quite... no, it couldn't be." Face drawn, she turned to Moody. "My father made these wands."

"Are you certain?"

"Quite. The craftsmanship is undeniable, and it seems just the sort of intellectual challenge he wouldn't want to pass up. He'd never sell them in his shop, mind. Though he's not exactly a 'family man,' as they say, I hardly think he's a Dark wizard."

"Anyone could be a Dark wizard," returned Moody darkly. "Dark magic lurks at every turn, and the only way to be safe from it?"

"Oh, I could hazard a guess."

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roared. "Now, we'd better get up to Great Hangleton and fast. All three of us." He fixed his magical eye sternly upon Mundungus, who had begun to slink away. "You can help us find the bloke you nicked these from. 'Little' and 'rat-faced' isn't the most helpful description."

"He was wearin' a cloak," grumbled Dung uncomfortably.

"WE'RE WIZARDS, DAMN IT! WE ALL WEAR CLOAKS!"

Taking another swig from his hidden bottle, the other man said in a strained voice, "We can't all see through clothes, Mad-Eye. Though it'd be a hell of fine thing," he added with a leer at Polyxena, who had, along with Moody, regained her original form.

"Naff off," she snapped, drawing her arms protectively across her chest.

At Moody's scowl, a spark of understanding lit in Mundungus' bloodshot eyes, and so he leaned in to whisper discreetly, "'S you two... y' know... fuckin'?"

"Like Abe and a pen full of goats," Polyxena stated crisply. "But that's completely irrelevant to the evil wands and the Death Eaters and Harz and, you know, all those other things we're trying to accomplish."

"Does he leave th' wooden leg on?" queried Dung eagerly. "I'd have thought with splinters an' all... "

Polyxena didn't seem offended in the least. "No, he takes it off."

"'S it true he's got a Sneakoscope tattooed on his... "

"Enough!" interrupted Moody with a glower at both of them.

"Incidentally, it is true," Polyxena hissed at Dung just before they Apparated. "He's bewitched it so that it'll... " She was interrupted by the sharp cracks of Apparition, so she calmly focused on Great Hangleton and reappeared beside Moody on the outskirts of the town.

"He was on th' road up here," grunted Mundungus. "Walkin' towards Little Hangleton, an' I sneaked out of th' bushes an' nicked th' special Darks right outta his silver hand."

"Silver hand?" said Polyxena in confusion. "You stole wands from Michael Jackson?"

"'He had one silver hand' would've been a helpful description to add to 'rat-faced,' 'little,' and 'wearing a cloak,'" growled Moody as the trio set off down the road to the next village. "A wizard can't afford to be uninformed about his enemies." Flipping open his pocket Foe-Glass, he did a quick check of the area. "We're close. Very close. In fact... " He tossed his Invisibility Cloak back to Polyxena and Dung. "Put this on."

Wrinkling her nose, Polyxena spread the cloak over both of them, trapping the acrid smell of pipe and the noxious fumes of stale spirits in the airless tent of fabric. "Ugh, Dung. Haven't you got a Toothflossing Stringmint?" she hissed, sorely tempted to perform the Bubble Head Charm.

He drew his grimy old pipe from the pocket of his coat. "Never had one. Prefer m' pipe." Lighting it with the tip of his wand, he immediately filled the interior of the cloak with a poisonous green cloud.

With a violent cough, Polyxena leapt out from beneath Moody's cloak. "I ought to cast the Engorgement Charm on you! Didn't your Healer say that one more would finish you off? I kept the special Dark, mind you."

"M' privates!" yelped Dung, tripping over the hem of the Invisibility Cloak in his haste to shield his family jewels. "What'll I do without 'em? Every hag in Hogsmeade's countin' on these!"

Mad-Eye, whose magical eye had been watching them through the back of his head, whirled around. "Back under the cloak!" he barked. "What did I say about the Foe-Glass?"

"That the enemy was close. Very close," came the cold, drawling voice of Rodolphus Lestrange. "It seems that the paranoid, old Auror was correct for once. The enemy is close. Very close."

Fighting the absurd urge to laugh, Polyxena gazed at the three masked and hooded men who had just appeared from the forest. "That sounded like appallingly bad 'evil villain' dialogue from CSI: Diagon Alley. It's bad enough that the Dark Lord refers to himself in the third person, with all the 'Lord Voldemort is angry' and the 'Lord Voldemort needs another cup of Ribena,' but this is a new low. Can you think of nothing better to say to potential victims?"

"Now that you mention it," allowed Rodolphus with a slight shrug. "Crucio!"

"Protego!" Moody dived in front of her and blocked Lestrange's spell.

"Don't worry about me, Alastor," Polyxena said briskly. "I still have the special Dark wand." Taking aim at one of the hooded figures, she cried, "Sectumsempra!"

The unfortunate Death Eater's wand arm, far from being gashed by the curse, fell heavily to the ground in a bloody heap, followed quickly by the Death Eater himself.

"Rabastan!" Rodolphus started slightly. "My brother."

"Crucio!" She pointed the special Dark at the next figure, who screamed so loudly that Rodolphus had to put a Silencing Charm on him, lest the Muggles from the village come running.

Finally, the tortured Death Eater collapsed beside Rabastan, eyes glazed, jaw slack, and a hint of drool running down his chin.

At the sight of him, Rodolphus cried, "Not Nott!"

"I love this wand," commented Polyxena with an admiring glance toward the smooth walnut handle.

"ACCIO SPECIAL D-- " began Lestrange in fury, jabbing his own wand at Polyxena's hand.

"Incendio." She had taken her real wand from the folds of her robe and neatly reduced the special Dark to ash. "That's the last of the special Darks, I'm afraid. Though I'm sure you could just Imperius my father into making more of them."

Lestrange glared wrathfully at her and then, without warning, dashed forward, seized her by the wrist, and Apparated the both of them.

"Engorgio!"

"Petrificus Totalus!" cried Moody, but it was too late. Rodolphus and Polyxena had vanished. "Mundungus," he growled, "the Engorgement Charm isn't dangerous to everyone."

Dung raised his bloodshot eyes to Moody's disparate ones. "'S my 'chilles heel," he muttered. "Got carried away, 'cause of P'lyx'na."

"Polyxena." Alastor felt his limbs grow loose with chilly fear. "Come on, we've got to get the Dark Detectors out and... and... "

"We'll find 'em," said Mundungus awkwardly. "They're not gonna kill her right off, if she's useful. They can't've got far."

"They Apparated," snapped Moody in exasperation. "They could bloody well be in London by now. Or in Hogsmeade. Or in fucking Albania."

Shaking his ginger head emphatically, Dung replied, "No, I got th' feeling that rat-faced bloke was stayin' somewhere near here. An' th' Dark wands were for th' Death Eaters. C'mon, we'll try Little Hangleton. 'S only another couple miles down."

* * *

Lestrange and Polyxena had appeared in the back garden of the large manor house that dominated the hill above the village. Using his wand to tap an access code into the stones beside the kitchen door, Rodolphus led her into a cold, dark room with slimy walls and the sound of dripping water.

"Guests and prisoners have to sign in," he grunted, gesturing to a quill and a black, leather-bound guest book. "Name, date, time, wand type."

With a bemused expression, Polyxena took the quill and signed her name below 'Podmore, Sturgis' and 'Malfoy, Narcissa.' A quick scan of the pages told her that no 'Ollivander, Priamus' had ever visited Death Eater Headquarters. Then again, Death Eaters themselves don't have to sign the book.

Pressing yet another series of stones with his wand, Lestrange led her into a much warmer room that was sleek, well-appointed, and bustling with the activity of perhaps twenty-five or thirty Death Eaters.

"Lestrange!" one of them greeted the newcomer enthusiastically. "What happened to the others?"

"This one took them out with one of those special Darks." He jerked his thumb toward Polyxena, slid his mask over his face, and hung it up, along with his robe, on a peg underneath a plaque labeled 'Ro. Lestrange.'

It was then that Polyxena noticed that each and every Death Eater was attired in the same black, rather Muggle-esque uniform: black cargo pants, black trainers, and a black t-shirt with the words 'Death Eaters' stitched beneath an embroidered Dark Mark.

"So, what have we got?" Rodolphus leaned over one of the men, who was sitting before a large panel of Foe-Glasses.

"Haven't seen much from Dumbledore in a few days," he replied easily, "but we had a bit of a scare earlier; these Muggles on a historical tour. Avery took care of it, though. Standard 'Torture/Memory Wipe' procedure. The Dark Lord was well pleased."

"So... " Rodolphus leaned forward conspiratorially "... he's in a good mood, then?"

The Death Eater shrugged. "As good as can be expected. He's been on edge ever since he took the Malfoy boy out of coffee runs and Muggle baiting and put him on The Project."

"I should think. Well, have a nice evening, then, Dolohov." His eyes cut back to Polyxena. "Come along then, you. The Dark Lord is most anxious for your visit."