Night had fallen over an ancient castle in Wiltshire.
Dim yellow candles filled the spacious hall with layer upon layer of shadow.
The dozen or so robed wizards around the round table had been silent for a long time. Finally, someone sprang to his feet. "I'm done. I'm getting out."
"Stop!" the tall man in the main seat barked. "Where do you think you're going?!"
"Where? Running, of course! What, should I stay here and wait for the Aurors to come drag me off?!"
The one shouting was a man as thin as kindling, with two wisps of ratlike mustache at the corners of his mouth. "First the Carrow siblings, then Keban, and Avery too... If we don't leave now, every last one of us will end up in Azkaban!"
"They won't find this place," Albert Runcorn said.
"But they must have already given us up. How long can we hide?"
"Damn Barty Crouch!" Another man, with a fleshy tumor on his face, cursed viciously. "What the hell has gotten into him? Why would he suddenly move against us?!"
"Isn't it obvious?" said a handsome man with long golden hair. "He's gone over to Murphy!"
"What the hell are you scared of? On what grounds can he arrest us? Does he have proof? If he dares come arrest me, I'll sue him for abuse of power!" someone else said.
"Idiot!" another retorted. "When they arrested the Carrow siblings, when they arrested Yaxley, what proof did they have?!"
"Barty Crouch doesn't need proof at all! Murphy Darkholme can make people obediently say anything he wants to hear!"
"After seeing what Rasim has become, you still don't understand?!"
The hall fell silent for a moment. Only a few rolling peals of thunder could be heard from outside the windows. It seemed it