The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

The Hunter's Command

The Hunter's Command

Charlus Potter was asleep, his face bore deep scale-like sores from the dragon pox, red and blotchy. He had them all over. Dora was up, leaning over her husband's form in the bed, dotting the sores with a thick cream that the healers at St. Mungo's had sent home with Mr. Potter. She wore thick gloves and a sad expression as she stared down at her husband's sleeping form.

Most of the scale-like sores would turn to scars, the healers had warned, and Charlus would never look quite the same as he had before the Dragon Pox had settled into his bloodstream. Although the illness itself had ended - the terrible night sweats, the belching flames, the horrifying possibility of internal combustion from a flame in the throat... all symptoms of the disease - he still had these terrible pus-filled scales and, until those had gone, he was still contagious to those who had not been already been exposed.

Dora had caught the disease but, because of her husband, the Healers at St. Mungo's had caught it early enough that she only developed a couple of the terrible scales - one on her left forearm and one on her collar bone, by her right shoulder. She considered herself lucky for that. The pain that radiated from them was so great that she could not for a moment imagine what her husband, covered with them head to toe, must feel like.

No wonder he slept most of the time.

There was a clicking at the window and Dora looked up to see Fawkes. She put the cream down on the nightstand, pulling away the gloves from her hands, her heart in her throat. What would Fawkes be here for? Hurriedly, she threw open the window and the phoenix landed on the sill, clutching a scroll in his beak. He stared up at Dora with his beautiful, beady black eyes. The bird had cried enough tears for them to allow the healers to make the ointment that she now spread across Charlus's scales, and she would always hold a place dear to her heart for him because of it. She took the scroll and Fawkes watched with a tilting head as Dora opened it, unfurling it.

It was the shortest note Dumbledore had ever sent.

"Do not go?" she asked, confused, staring at the parchment. "Do not go where? What is he talking about?" Dora looked up at Fawkes, but the phoenix only cocked his head the other direction, studying her. Then, he flew off, his crimson wings beating into the sun's rays. "But - but where am I not supposed to go!?" she cried after him. She leaned against the sill. "Fawkes?" The bird, however, was gone.

She leaned back into the window - and it was then that she noticed them. Several hooded death eaters had gathered in the plot of land outback of the house, standing along the line where the Fidelus Charm began, the line they could not cross nor see, but they'd come as close as they could. Her heart beat quickened in her chest. One of the death eaters raised his wand to the darkness beneath his hood, where his throat would be, and performed the sonorus charm.

"Potters," he said, and his voice echoed through the house. Dora stared, horrified, down at the cluster of black-hooded figures. "The Dark Lord wishes to issue you an offer. Come and join him, and he will not kill you."

She shook her head, clutching the curtains.

"Not only will your transgressions be forgiven - your time with the Resistance overlooked - but accept the Dark Mark and become servants of the Lord and you will receive a gift to show Voldemort's mercy and kindness... Your son."

Dora's eyes widened. "James?" she whispered.

Charlus suddenly appeared at her side, the ointment glistening all over him, face pale besides where they were. He stared, dumbfounded at the cluster of hooded figures below.