Rose glanced around the pub to make sure no one in particular was listening to the conversation. She leaned forward. "We have the diary that Pettigrew used to open the Chamber," she whispered. "Did you know of its existence?"
Jane looked rather surprised. "I have heard of its existence," she admitted, reaching for her butterbeer and taking a sip. "Are you here to sell it to me?"
"We're open to some sort of bargain," Rose told Jane. "Specifically, we're in the market for information. We need to know more about the House of Black and about Lord Black especially."
Jane's face became rather dispassionate, and she set down her butterbeer without taking another sip. "I would prefer to trade gold for the diary. Ten thousand galleons."
Leo's eyes bugged out, but Rose was not about to trade her leverage against the mysterious mistress of the Black house elf for gold. "Information," she said firmly, "is our price. And lots of it."
"Twenty-five thousand galleons," Jane countered.
Rose shook her head as Leo gaped, his jaw hanging open.
"Fifty thousand galleons, final offer," Jane said.
"The identity, information, and an introduction to Lord Black is our price, minimum," Rose replied.
This did not make Jane very happy, but she pressed on. "What makes you think I'm not Lord Black?"
Rose laughed. "You're no wizard. Besides, you've dodged the specific details of the basilisk killing rather nimbly. You were there when the basilisk died, and you incinerated its corpse, but you did not open the Chamber, and you did not kill it. Moaning Myrtle was very sure that a wizard was involved. I assume he was Lord Black."
Jane sighed, both impressed and annoyed by Rose's insight, then removed a small timepiece from her pocket and glanced it. "I'm afraid that it is time for me to depart," she announced. "Perhaps we will meet again." She stood and made to leave the table, but stopped and turned back to speak quietly some parting words. "Keep the diary safe. There is essentially nothing the dark lord would not do to recover it." With that, she departed the pub by way of the back entrance to Diagon Alley.
.....
Severus Snape felt Narcissa Malfoy squeeze his arm while Lord Voldemort quietly paced back and forth in the upper assembly room of the reconstructed and heavily warded Malfoy Manor. Nearly a dozen Death Eaters stood in a loose circular formation around the room's perimeter. Each Death Eater wore the customary mask and hood.
The custom of disguising each Death Eater from another was as much for inspiring the mysterious aura that Voldemort desired among his followers as it was for protecting the identity of each Death Eater. Minister Prewitt's methods were extreme. The capture and interrogation of a single Death Eater could and had resulted in the violent decimation of Death Eater ranks and Death Eater families.
The Dark Lord's careful policy of keeping Death Eater identities secret had generally frustrated Snape's efforts on behalf of the Order. Particularly, Snape had neither been able to forewarn Professor Dumbledore that Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater, nor that Voldemort had given Pettigrew a special assignment to carry out at Hogwarts in the recent months.
Snape knew that Pettigrew had made a serious mistake and had not completed the primary objective of his assignment. In that instance, perhaps the Order had benefited from Snape being in the dark. Had Snape been informed, Pettigrew might have succeeded because Voldemort would have, at minimum, required Snape to pass reports of Pettigrew's progress to the Dark Lord. Miraculously, Voldemort had not realized, based on reports in the Daily Prophet about events at Hogwarts, that Pettigrew was failing miserably. Now that Pettigrew had been exposed as being a Death Eater and was missing, Voldemort was attempting to curtail the damage.
"I want Peter Pettigrew captured alive," Lord Voldemort told his assembled followers, pacing in their midst as if he was a predator stalking its prey-as if perhaps one of them actually knew Pettigrew's location but had not disclosed it. "There is no other priority that supersedes that of capturing Pettigrew and bringing him to me."
"Yes, milord," his various followers intoned, blatantly disguising their voices, speaking loudly enough to be heard, but quietly enough not to attract the Dark Lord's attention.
Voldemort seemed to accept their responses and continued to pace. Suddenly, he whirled and faced one of the cloaked figures. "What does the Ministry know about the death of the Walburga Black?" Voldemort demanded.
"Little, milord," the Death Eater gasped. "An intruder confronted her in her home after burning the infamous Black family tapestry. Madame Black committed suicide shortly after the intruder left, milord."
....
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