Chapter 8
“Harry this is really not a good time”
“ Are you alright Hermione? You look a little bit peaky”
“I’ll be alright once I’m out of a small space that smells very manly and of after shave”
“Feeling Randy ‘Mione ?” George wiggled his eyebrows “ I was going to ask Kate out but if you need a hand… ouch! Oi! stop that!” Bill and Harry were hitting George everywhere with really heavy books
“You stop that! she’s like my sister”
“Hermione I beg you to focus on the task at hand, I have a really strong sense of smell and won’t hesitate in leaving you to your devises”
“Ok, alright, I’ll behave, I just need a long bath, what's up?”
“So I was in WWW with Ron and George when Ron started telling Dean about your projects, George and I continued talking after they left, he made me realize that I have access to not only the Potter Grimoire but the Black’s as well and I already count you as a sister so, it’s only logic that I share this with you”
“ Oh Harry!” sighed with relief hugging her brother “ thank you! Luna convinced me to follow this trail, and having more references is going to help so much”
George coughs “Yes, Well , thanks to your favorite Weasley you not only have two but three Grimoires”
Hermione looks at the brother expectantly and Bill adds the Weasley Grimoire to the pile on her arms “ You are also family Hermione, we trust you intrinsically. I deeply apologize for not offering it from the beginning, It took a very loud visit from my brother for me to see reason”
“ also Fleur sends her excuses about having such a nigaud for a husband, whatever she means by that”
“ This is it. I think I’m gonna cry”
“We should get you a snack and a drink, or is it a shot kind of situation ?” her brother asked. She was definitely going to cry now.
“Hermione, before we leave, this is really important, don’t tell anyone you have these Grimoires, I don’t think Andromeda and Kingsley expressed how delicate are the norms around sharing Family’s magic with someone who doesn’t carry the name”.
“What, is it illegal or something?”
“Some time ago I’m certain it was, people take this very seriously and is best to act with caution”.
With that in mind they joined the group in the Library, not without taking a pit stop in the kitchen where Kreacher did make the snacks, sandwiches and tea but never delivered it.
Hermione took the half done job as a victory and that maybe the elf was warming up to her after all.
The week following this passed very fast but not fast at all. The floo was constantly green and the parlor full of soot with the constant coming and going of the Order and some of the D.A who were starting to get worried. Something was stirring on the streets , people were noticing that maybe getting what they asked for wasn't such a good thing, pages and pages of chargers were printed in the papers every morning.They came after everybody but they have yet to come after their closest circle,was it because they knew better than attacking local deity Harry Potter and his friends the war Heroes? or were they building their case?
In any case they were starting to question the Death sentences, even for the war prisoners, apparently if you asked Wixen to question their methods some would agree that these practices were outdated and dangerous, and taking the wizarding world out of the fifteenth century would be a good idea,maybe not all the way to the twenty first century but close enough.
Dean’s column of Muggle- borns being accused , detained or imprisoned was growing at an alarming pase, but the problem is that they didn’t follow a pattern at all, nothing blatantly grave to point towards genocide, some were in home arrest waiting for trial, some, allegedly did really nasty things and where detained in holding cells at the Ministry but no one has been moved to Azkaban and there were also some half- bloods and even pure bloods in the same situation.
They activated the DA coins since Justin’s arrest and created an open line of communication to keep an eye everywhere.
Kingsley didn’t succeed much on the attorney department, they were all taken by the death eaters and other big families, the answer came with an angel best known as Hannah Longbotton née Abbot who was now an attorney and agreed to take the cases for the minimal fee and her husband who also received reparations would be contributing to foot the bill.
With that taken care of, the best Dean could do next was trying to find a relation in between columns, the first line was a French man called Antoine Pruet, a thirty year old man that used to be a dueling instructor for all of the Pure bloods of their class, including Draco Malfoy, he was being accused for sedition and corruption of minors and they were asking for the death penalty.
“What do they mean with corruption of minors? did he assault them?” Hermione asked during her Break.
She was usually in a little room next to the Library that wasn’t there before, where she had all the Grimoires open and parchment all over the place,Ginny called it the nest , and only Ginny, Luna, Harry, Ron and Hermione could get in, the others couldn’t even see the door courtesy of a crafty notice-me-not adaptation she found in the Black’s Grimoire, apparently the Blacks were really good at concealment charms and she used them to reveal or hide the little room and The Veil scheme™ column to only the select few. Dean was sometimes invited in, in view of all the time he was spending there when he wasn’t at his tattoo shop in muggle London.
“I cannot be sure Hermione,” Hannah snapped, “they aren’t publishing the list of charges, and it is chaos in the courtrooms so they are taking advantage of it, and quite frankly he’s somebody else's problem, I already have a lot on my plate”.
“Do you want to sit, Hannah? There is some pizza left from lunch that I’m craving, would you like some?” asked Luna sweetly, expert on how to treat snappish, stressed hungry people from her last weeks with them. Dean, Ginny and Hermione shared a knowing look.
“If it doesn’t have peperoni don’t bother” answered Hannah, a breath “ sorry, thanks Luna , that's very sweet” she exhaled “ I’m on edge, they canceled all of the snatchers trials this morning so that moves all of my work forward, I’m running out of time with Justin’s and Dennis’s cases”.
“I’ll ask Kingsley if he can help you,” offered Hermione. “He can stop by and leave the information on his column if it’s important, but I think your task is more pressing. I’ll Floo him”
Dean asked from his side of the wall where he had a small corner for other cases like the snatchers, Antoine Pruet and Gregory Goyle, who was still missing since February. “ What happened to the snatcher cases?”
“The got bailed out” Hannah said half stuffed with pizza “apparently they were just doing their job and it was transporting people to the Ministry only, they are being very heavy on the not the violent snatchers line, they payed their bail and got sentenced to community service as guards at the Ministry, they’re like fifteen of them”
“They paid? With whose money?” Hermione asked, shocked.
Hannah just shrugged.
June 2001
The Veil Scheme team, or as Ginny called them the Tellys, were finding clues but nothing connecting them, they kept running into terms like anchors, totems, sacrifices, trials and bonds; some were terms in common between two and three books . The life debt was the only part of the ritual that was in all four books.
“Ughhhhhh” groaned loudly Hermione one day. “ I’ve spent hours translating the runes in the front pages of each of the books for it to be the families' mottos. That's it I’m taking a nap”
During her “naps” that they were imposing on her, and they knew she was absolutely not napping, she would continue on her work and correspond with Sofia who was still very understanding of her time out of office. Odd. She was a really nice boss but she would think she would be missed. She scheduled going to her office on monday, that way she can check on the changes herself.
Harry said the Ministry and the streets were chaotic, the holding cells, Azkaban and Lestrange Manor were full and everytime the Aurors mobilised they were attacked by civilians which would restart the process all over again. Hannah said not two days ago that the courtrooms were upside down, she should check they are not erasing the Elf welfare and the Centaurs liaison division in her absence.
She also discovered in the Malfoy Grimoire a nifty piece of magic and how Narcissa Malfoy did to distribute the pamphlets and make them disappear on a time stamp, she just needed to create an original and imbue it with what looked like an adapted Gemino charm, time and place runes and voilà, she had her tools of protest against the death penalty already on their way to businesses, Hogwarts, Magical Journals and Magazines.
Once you have reached a decision, contact my solicitor Mr Pucey.
She sent Mr Pucey an owl and got an answer shortly after, an appointment for Friday at ten in the morning, with a portkey, the day after Tomorrow.
After that extreme bout of magic, Hermione did take a nap and that night they went to muggle London. It had been a long time since they had a night out, Godric! Kingsley was still The Minister. The five of them went for cocktails and then they were going to a Greek restaurant they loved near Camden, but they never made it to the restaurant, Ginny and Hermione went a little too hard on the tequila and Ron on the baby Guinness.
“At least this way when they get sick from apparition it will be clear liquid ” said Harry to Luna taking Ginny and Hermione on side along and indeed when they got home Luna’s white converse where now coffee brown.
No quantity of hang-over and sober-up potion would get them ready for this day. Not when Pansy Parkinson was perusing The Wall.
“I’m confused,” said the Slytherin.
“You are confused ? I’m very fucking confused!” said Hermione looking around for an explanation.
“She swears, nice Granger!”
“Hermione, Ginny, Luna? Pansy works with me at the tattoo shop, we connected on eighth year and shared a lot, she had drawing and painting tutors and she’s really good, she’s responsible for the magical tattoos of the shop, she is also my girlfriend” Dean said this last statement staring knowingly at Hermione, Pansy Smirked.
Ohhh so Hermione felt and looked thirsty , gotcha
“Ok, cool , cool” Hermione looked at the other two girls, Luna looked elsewhere which normally meant she was comfortable and Ginny had narrowed eyes which meant she wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, same here sister. “So, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
Pansy hesitated, Dean took her hand and squeezed it gently.
“Goyle escaped, and he came to our home last night, I sent him to a secret apartment we have in ….. another city, they were moving him to Lestrange Manor and he got someone's help to escape”.
“Why haven't they released him?” asked Ginny “ he has been detained for months, I know I resent him but even I can understand that once they sentenced him innocent there was nothing else to do”
“Who helped him?” asked Luna
“Mrs Crabbe, apparently Mrs Malfoy is losing followers in her own entourage, they are not all of them ready to sacrifice everything to get revenge. Obviously my horrible mother is not one of them. But Mrs Crabbe wanted to save Gregory, she told him that’s what Vincent would have wanted. Mrs Malfoy has been speaking very ill of Vincent apparently, blaming Draco’s death on his incompetence, that’s why they were after Gregory”. The stoic witch didn’t cry, her eyes almost didn’t change but if you looked closely as her boyfriend was doing you would see her chin start to wobble so he continued for her :
“Mrs Crabbe told Goyle that Mrs Malfoy was just waiting for the right opportunity to get him killed and frame someone on the murder or if that didn’t work out, frame him for something else and have the excuse to send him to the Veil”
“So we were right, she’s absolutely deranged! She doesn’t need a platform for government because she doesn’t plan to be Minister after she got all of these people killed” Hermione didn’t know if feeling elated because she was right or acting accordingly with the very disturbing situation. Priorities Hermione
“Yes, and we’re going into hiding, they are coming after all of us, they will be especially angry with me for being witness of defence for Antoine next tuesday and Dean insists in being witness for Justin on Friday, after that we are leaving”
“You Knew Mr Pruet?” asked Luna
“He was our dueling instructor, all the students of our year in Slytherin went together to Malfoy Manor, we would meet twice a week during the summers from first to third year, we stopped in fourth year as you can imagine. He never touched us, never, we were all together all the time when he was there, he was like a big brother to all of us and was the few times we would enjoy being home. Our parents weren’t great, you see. I don't know what Narcissa has against him, but Mrs Flint who is now undersecretary blames Antoine for corrupting her son and turning him against her”.
“Antoine is Marcus' boyfriend, and the Pure Blood Agenda is not very inclusive of homosexuals” Ginny said.
“I’m gonna call for an official meeting of the Order and the DA, if they are going as far as framing people for murder and getting them executed for who they date this has gone too hard too fast and if all she wants is revenge and lost Goyle I don’t think she’s going to wait before starting enacting her plan”
“Do you know who they were thinking to frame for Goyle’s death?” Ginny Asked
“Me” Dean answered.