Ginny was quite pleased to see the the majority German section had regained their good humour. Several of the German League teams and their supporters were celebrating as well.

  They were extra pleased, it seemed, if one of their players had been selected for the National Team. One of the banners she could see depending from the ridiculously tall swaying poles was definitely that of Münchner Wolpertinger. Ginny smiled at seeing it. She had gotten a fine, if somewhat alarming, interview with Beater Daniel Weston. He was the Azkhaban ex-convict that had been recruited right out of prison...

  ***

  The Daily Prophet, July 23rd, 2014

  "I Did It. They Caught Me."

  An In-Depth Look at How Daniel Weston went from Convicted Felon to World-Class Beater - Part One.

  Interview by Ginevra Potter-Weasley, Senior Quidditch Correspondent

  Daniel Weston started out very high on the pile in our Magickal Society. Private schools, then Hogwarts, where he made a decent showing. He had a handsome, slightly ethereal look to him. Despite his slender frame, he was quite vigorous, and almost rudely strong. The only sport he was drawn to was Duelling, where he was thrice School Champion, and had won many Tournaments on the International Level.

  Upon finishing school, he made himself a quiet, comfortable life. His finances were in excellent shape, partially due to living rent-free in a Family-owned and maintained property. Quite happy as he was, he had no intention of doing a lick of work in his life.

  The Westons had a distant connection to the Greengrass Family. It was distant enough, unfortunately, that said Family felt no remorse for throwing him to the wolves when the massive misappropriations of The Family were uncovered. Upon questioning, he admitted freely that he was guilty of accepting housing and other benefits from people who had no right to give them. His actual words to the Chief Witch of the Wizengamot were, "I did it. You caught me."

  I, (Ginevra Weasley, as I was then), knew him slightly from Hogwarts, where he was two years behind me. Unusually for a scion of The Family, he had been sorted into Hufflepuff, which could have contributed to his choice as a sacrificial lamb. That may also have contributed to his popular nature. Never a bully, he liked people from all walks, and liked for them to like him. He never flaunted money or connections, and sought help as he needed it for schoolwork, being sure to reciprocate when asked, and even if he simply noticed he was needed. He practically taught the Duelling Classes during his last two years.

  He lived the life he chose for three years, before the Severing Charm landed with a vengeance.

  He was a convicted felon, sentenced to ten years in Azkhaban. His nice cushion of Galleons was mostly gone, due to fines and reparations. He was repudiated by The Family, tarred with the blackest of brushes in a futile attempt to whitewash their own deeds. His own family stood by him, as he knew they would, but they were hardly better off than he.

  As a former schoolmate, I found it difficult to reconcile the slender, languid, smiling boy of my memory with the scarred hulk of a man before me. Only when his disconcertingly cultured voice came from the almost unrecognisable face could I believe how much he had changed.

  One of his facial scars was so striking, I felt compelled to ask about it, as a starting point for our interview. It was actually a radial pattern of scarred lines coming toward a point. The central area was just to the outside of his left eye, and it looked like the wounds left by claws, or talons.

  (Note: The following are his own words. My additions or elucidations shall be in Italics. GPW)

  "Oh, that old thing," he said, referring to the scar with a bit of a laugh. "Got into a bit of a row, first day on The Rocks. (My Protean Printer capitalised these words without referring to me - GPW). All in a day's work on their side, one supposed, but it got one's jolly old Weston dander up. One laid two of the three out rather post-haste, but while parsing the third's Latin Verbs for him, some old lag stepped in. One barely spotted an incoming spell, and flinched enough to save one's eye. He kept hitting over and over with the same spell, which felt quite like being dive-bombed by some large bird. One ended curled up on the floor, shielding one's face and head with one's arms.

  The old lag seemed a bit on the blasé side. He advised one to lay still and take one's lumps. Upon consideration, one took the advice, and the three bright young lads took everything else, not that one had much. They left one's trousers, but not the pants, and shoes but not socks. Oh, and one vest. Not out of any human feeling, mind. It seems the guards got especially shirty when half-naked chaps stood to be called over.

  One wasn't chuffed, of course, but perfectly willing to bide the ruddy old time. In an odd way, it was quite like the boarding schools Pater had insisted on, before good old Hogwarts, don't you see? As the new chap, (or meat, as some of my cell-mates insisted), one quite naturally became 'George.' As in, 'Let George do it,' don't y'know? And one stayed 'George' until suitable new meat came along. 'Suitable' meaning puny and somewhat weedy, of course.

  This suited one to the ground, though. 'George' goes everywhere and sees everything, and if 'George' keeps his eyes and mouth shut, and his ears open, well, there's no end to what a chap can learn.

  The first thing one sought was the old skinny on the chappie with the magic, a right rotter who styled himself 'Mr. Bates.' One had been assured that such magical caperings were quite impossible on The Rocks. People were quite willing to talk about him, even if very few chose to talk to him.

  Word on the good old street was that he had apprenticed to a wand-maker in his youth, until the right-thinking old duffer had rose up and chucked the blighter out. Not supposed to be able to make or use a wand at ruddy old Azkhaban either. But this old crumpet had, as they say, 'delved into the hidden secrets of the craft.' By which, one assumes, he had spied on his master when that worthy was drunk and running his fat mouth.

  One of the eye-poppers he had ferreted out, (though one hates to so poor-mouth the noble ferret), was that there were little known effects granted to a wand in close proximity to the sources of its components. One can see how seldom this situation would arise in the modern world, with wand-crafters sourcing from all over.

  Augerys roost on The Rocks, and, though not the most magical, or even attractive of creatures, they are definitely magical. The blasé blighter was one of the first on the yard one day, and he spotted a decent example of an Augery feather blown up against the foot of the wall under one of the guard towers. The guards had their attention on the lot coming out behind him. He walked, most casually, one would assume, and sat against the wall in front of the feather. He waited, massaging a 'sore' knee, until he was sure he was clear. He worked the feather under his clothing in increments, doing his best not to bend it out of shape.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  That left the wood, of course, and what a pickle that was. Suborning a mundane broomstick handle might be possible, but probably futile, and entirely unsuited to further his plan.

  Azkaban is famous for being rocks where it isn't prison, and prison where it isn't rocks. Our plucky blighter knew there were no trees worthy of the name, nor were plants of any sort cultivated in or out of the walls. He knew there was only one job on the Rocks that might get him what he needed.

  So he bribed, and wheedled, and blackmailed until he was made one of the few beachcombers that the good old prison management allowed. There was no pay, of course, and they were allowed to keep nothing but edible plants and sea life. And, even then, only if the guards didn't fancy it.

  The selling point was the going outside, don't you see? One and one's compatriots were 'outside' for two hours each day, in a walled yard that only opened to the sky. Which was usually just pissing it down in a North Sea storm.

  Oh, the barracks had windows of a sort, one each side, for ventilation and such. They were of the wand slit type, narrow on the outside to give one's foeman very little to hit. The 'views' were a bit of sky and sea on one side, and a bit of sky and roof on t'other. On the inside, they tapered out in a wedge shape, ending up wide enough for the valiant defender to cast spells over a fairly wide field. Clever blighters, our forebears, eh, what? One might say something cutting about the need to defend a prison, but the War made fools of us all.

  Back to Old Bates, the cur. He could not have given less of a damn about clearing stormwrack, which was the actual job, or seafood with two veg, or even the ruddy fresh air and soul-inspiring panorama. What he wanted was usable wood, wood from a wand-quality tree, preferably fresh, or even living. There had been times when a living tree would wash up, pitiful survivor of a storm on the mainland.

  Time passed, and he had no such luck. One must give him credit for perseverance, though. A dogged Johnny, if ever there was one.

  One day, in high summer, which is a bit of a joke at that latitude, he noticed something new. Well, new-ish, say. There was a jolly old crack in one of the cliff faces which bordered many sections of the beach. He had seen that crack a thousand times, and passed without noticing it a thousand more. This time, however there was a weak, reflected-looking light coming through it. And more, the light was dimming and brightening in an odd way.

  He put his eye to it, cupping his hands to exclude light from his side. To be sure, there was light coming through. There had to be a gulch, or a hole, some sort of open space, beyond this wall of rock. He pulled back and glanced up. The sun was about as high as it ever got, and he realised, too, it was less than two days 'til the Summer Solstice.

  He went back to the crevice, letting his eye readjust. The rock wall was mostly obsidian, as he had learned from being cut by an edge so sharp that only the running blood tipped him off. The obsidian reflected the light well enough, but gave no hint of what it was reflecting.

  But the vagaries of the crevices walls gave him a point, the tiniest of points, where he could see all the way through the wall.

  And something flashed green. At least he thought something flashed green... It did it again.

  He cursed, and leapt back from the rock. He looked frantically for a way up, over, or around the rock cliff. It was not all obsidian, by any means. He found a slightly wider crevice in granite. It was as good as a ladder to his racing mind. And he was on a timer. He had just passed his two 'compatriots' going the other way. Since Day One, he had circled the Island one way, and they the other. It had never been discussed, or agreed. It just was.

  He had to be back to the iron-bound magickally sealed door, hopefully before the others were. It was a testament to his beautiful nature. The guards had no problem with him waiting on the others. But them having to wait on him? He had slept outside the door for two days once, until it was time for the next scheduled run. Overall he was lucky. The weather wasn't terrible, and the rains that did come filled hollows on top of rocks he had noted. And raw crab was honestly better than some of the food he was served inside.

  He scrambled across the top of the cliff, ignoring cuts, scrapes, and bruises. He arrived at the space. At one time, it had been a volcanic bubble, but time and rockslide, scouring wind and rain had pierced it, and smoothed the edges. It was now a battered hemisphere, half filled with wind-dropped sand and dirt. There were some hardy grasses, even hardier wild flowers...

  ...and a scrubby shrub of a yew tree, just doing what yew trees do. Surviving.

  And the central trunk was just barely long enough and thick enough for a wand.

  (At this point, Daniel looked at me and smiled for the first time. And there was the boy I had known, still whole, still happy - GPW).

  If you are wondering how one knows all this, Ginny, it's because good old 'George' had a bone to pick with our Mr. Bates. One got quite good at finding spots where one could hear and not be heard. Mr. Bates had possession of a cubbyhole in the wall, and it was where he held court.

  His courtiers were his muscle, his informers, his sycophants, and the few he had co-opted, will they, nil they. Such as the fellow who could make drinkable alcohol from almost anything. One was amused to later find that he was capable of making much better products than the drain cleaner he made under duress.

  But this swill suited Mr. Bates, right down to the ground. A man of eclectic tastes cultivated during his over twenty years in Azkaban... Oh? Didn't one mention? When the Death Eaters cleaned out the prison during the War, they left our Mr. Bates and some other useless types behind. Some of them had recognized him, and apparently even Death Eaters have their... limits. Apparently there was talk of killing him but when they looked up and found him gone, no one even bothered... well. Onward.

  When Bates had consumed enough of the swill, he sometimes became maudlin. That was when one of his limited number of stories would come out. And Gods Help the poor flunky that lost focus, or failed to maintain an expression of rapt wonder. Those poor sods were in Hel's Realm already, and probably envying the Trickster his dripping poison and acid. One only listened in a few times, but it still troubles one's dreams.

  So, Dear Old Bates had the makings for his wand. Huzzah. And, after it was made, there came the long, frustrating process of determining its capabilities and limitations. The former were few, the latter were many.

  Many of the limitations came from the wood. Yew is a wood for Great Men and Women. Note one does not say, 'Good Men & Women.' And while Mr. Bates was quite evil, in and of himself, he was... Not. Great.

  The Augery Feather certainly tried its best. The Punching/Slashing Claw spell was honestly quite fearful, especially if one was taken off guard, or held down by flunkies. There was a Fireball Spell that was quite nasty, and very painful, but it wouldn't kill one unless, perhaps, one were standing around with one's mouth open. An unfortunate habit of mine, or at least it used to be.

  (Your correspondent noted the scars Mr. Weston indicated. Most were circular with that shiny look a bad burn can produce. One however, started as a circle, and stretched the length of his forearm, showing ropy, ridged scarring. Daniel noticed the direction of my gaze. 'Burn one once...' he said, somewhat wryly - GPW).

  There were attempts to 'rat him out' to the guards, with mixed, but uniformly disappointing results.

  The 'bad' guards would inform old Bates immediately, often turning the rat over to Bates at the same time. One recalls a single rat that lived by instantly and fervently becoming Bates' top stooge and personal property.

  The 'decent' guards would shake Bates down, finding all sorts of contraband, but never a wand. He would get a stint in Solitary, and that was it. The problem with a place as bad as Azkaban, is that there are no worse things they can do to a prisoner. We all regarded Solitary as one would a spa weekend in the Berkshires, and we were genuinely sad to be kicked loose. The 'decent' guards would usually 'rehome' the rat, but it seemed to make little difference to those unfortunates' survival rate.

  The 'good' guards, you ask? There were no 'good' guards.