Chapter 11
Anya felt her trepidation about being surrounded by wizards melt away as she entered the Quidditch Stadium. She had to shut her mind off from the reading too many minds at once, but once she did she found the sheer excitement and energy of the stadium to be intoxicating.
“So there are three kinds of balls, seven players, two teams….” She chattered happily to Harry as they made their way into the top box. When the Minister of Magic stopped to chat with them, she tried her best to make a good first impression.
“So you are Miss Anya Forger.” Fudge said, giving her an intrigued look. “A muggle, are you?”
“Yes sir.” She said politely. “I won’t be able to vote for you!”
He looked taken aback for a second, and then laughed.
“You’re a funny one.” He said. “Harry, my boy, I hope you treat her well.”
“I will, sir.” He said.
Anya’s gaze drifted over the Top Box. Living with her parents for so long had given her a tendency to size up a room whenever she stepped inside. She knew from experience that the rich and powerful often left their deepest secrets out in the open for any curious mind reader to seize ahold of.
She stumbled across one almost immediately.
Sitting down, facing away from them, were two people. A House-Elf, and a person. The person was completely invisible: Anya only realized he was there because the Elf was anxiously thinking about how unfortunate it would be if he was discovered.
Harry turned to see where she was looking at let out a gasp of surprise.
“Dobby!”
The elf turned. It wasn’t Dobby, but a female Elf. They spoke for a bit, but then the subject of the empty seat next to her came up.
“Winky… is saving Master a seat.” Winky said, her voice nervous.
Anya caught on immediately. Barty Crouch was not coming. But his son, who was supposed to be dead, would be.
She didn’t know all of the details, but she understood enough. In one fluid motion she raised her hand, grabbed the invisibility cloak, and ripped it off.
The entire Top Box let out an audible gasp and turned their way, as Anya relinquished hold of the cloak, as if in very deep surprise. Winky screamed and got to her feet, trying desperately to think of a cover story.
“What is the meaning of this?” Fudge thundered, bearing down on them at once. “You’re Barty’s Son!”
The Top Box was in Chaos. The crowd below looked up at them as the House Elf, crying and wailing, through herself in front of the other wizards attempting to restrain Barty Crouch Jr. He sat there, smiling, blissfully unaware, as he was hauled away, likely to be interrogated by Ministry Wizards.
Anya wasn’t sure whether she had done a good thing or not. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were anxiously discussing the situation, but she said nothing. She clenched her legs with her hands and wondered why she couldn’t just keep to herself and enjoy Harry’s company.
Despite the hiccup of the arrest in the Top Box, the game was a lot of fun. Harry had to explain a lot of the rules to her as she watched men and women on broomsticks zoom around the stadium at Cheetah speeds.
The game itself was overwhelming to begin with, but the sheer size and excitement of the crowd was making her head hurt from all of the thoughts forcing themselves into her head. She found herself feeling grateful when the match ended at the group made their way back down to the tent, chatting excitedly about the match.
She sat quietly listening to them happily talk, and she had a strong, sudden feeling that she didn’t belong here. She didn’t know anything about wizards or quidditch, and Harry looked so happy, even though she was feeling so miserable. She excused herself early, and went to bed.
Hermione seemed to have noticed, but when she tried to speak to Anya in their tent alone Anya pretended to simply be asleep.
It wasn’t until the screaming started that Anya awoke.
She barely registered what she was doing. She reached up, grabbed her bag, and had almost pulled out the gun she had hidden within when Mr. Weasley came barreling in.
“We need to leave.” He said. “Now!”
Hermione was sitting up, bleary eyed, and Ginny let out a deep yawn as Mr. Weasley grabbed them both and dragged them out of bed.
“What’s the matter?” Anya asked urgently.
“No time, just run!”
She stepped out into the campsite and let out a surprised noise. Cloaked, hooded men were holding their wands aloft, seemingly hoisting an entire family in mid-air.
Anya stood staring, transfixed. The panicked screams of panic in everyone’s minds had thrown her completely for a look.
“There’s nothing you can do for them!” Mr. Weasley urged, as he pushed her. “Go on!”
Harry grabbed her hand and yanked her ahead. She let out a yelp as she was dragged along with the others. She turned back around to see Mr. Weasley turn back to the ground, wand raised. She gripped her gun tightly under her nightgown. It wasn’t in her nature to run away from conflict. But with Harry and the others watching her, there was nothing they could do.
They ran and ran into the forest. She, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and soon enough they were completely alone.
“Where did the others go?” Ron asked nervously.
Anya said nothing. She could her their panicked thoughts, so they weren’t far. Her real worry was on how best to ditch her boyfriend and his friends so she could go back and help.
“Anya…” Harry said softly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Anya said shortly. She turned away from him and stepped past the trees. “Oh!”
Standing leaning up against the tree was Draco Malfoy.
“Well look who it is.” He sneered. “The Mudblood and the Muggle. God, I can’t believe filth like you were even allowed in the stadium. I wouldn’t even let you be a mascot.”
“Buzz off, Malfoy.” Harry said angrily, as he stepped in front of her. Anya felt a strong surge of affection for him.
“Father is right.” Malfoy said disparagingly, as he cast a look over his shoulder. “Things are getting worse and worse all the time. First mudbloods… and the squibs… and now Muggles. What’s next? Are we going to have a Muggle Minister of Magic?”
Anya took in a deep breath. She had had too much experience with rich brats to really be intimidated by these tactics.
“The weaker dog barks more.” She said, her voice icy cold. Draco’s eyes flashed towards her.
“I would watch what you say, muggle.” He said. “I’m-“
“The son of Lucius Malfoy, patriarch of the Malfoy family.” Anya said, her voice bored. “Your father was part of Voldemort’s inner circle until his downfall at the hands of a baby. Ever since then he’s been using his wealth to pass discriminatory laws against muggles in order to preserve his family dynasty, and to fuel his own sense of superiority. Despite that, however, the worst he can get away with is gathering a few of his death eater buddies… Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, and a handful of others… and levitating a muggle family like fifty feet off the ground during a sporting event.”
She stared at his shocked expression, and then added, almost as an afterthought.
“Oh, and you’re jealous that Harry Potter has such a cute girlfriend.”
Malfoy was at a complete loss for words as the group walked off, Harry and Ron chortling good naturedly, but Hermione was frowning deeply.
“Anya…?” She said. “How did you KNOW any of that…?”
When she turned to look for her, however, she was gone.
Malfoy had walked off into the trees, alone, sulking, and Anya had seen her chance. She split off from the group, cornered him, beat him up, stripped him bare, stole his wand, and then used her Father’s facemask technique to rip a perfect likeness of his face onto her own. By the time she was done, a perfect, albeit a little short, doppleganger of Draco Malfoy stood over his unconscious body.
She checked her gun one last time and then made her way back to the campsite.
She had managed to procure the Malfoy tent’s location from his mind when she beat him up, and slipped inside while the energy and chaos around them began to die down. She was taken aback by the sheer size of the tent… it was more like a castle… but she slipped inside, made her way up to where she knew Malfoy’s room was, and began to paw through his things.
She found some homework that was due over the summer that she immediately set fire to and destroyed. She found a diary that seemed to detail the inner workings of the Malfoy’s family finances and the shady dealings they had, which she pocketed, with the full intent of leaking to the press. She was beginning to rustle through his clothes, wondering whether or not she should destroy those as well, when the door opened.
Anya’s mind reading ability was very useful in order to adapt to new, unexpected situations on the fly. She stood up, completely straight and smiled widely.
“That was impressive, Father!” She said, hoping she was able to perfectly imitate Malfoy’s voice. “Those muggles look terrified!”
“Oh, they were.” Lucius Malfoy said smugly, as he stepped into the room. “But why did you come back here? I thought I told you to wait out in the forest.”
“Harry Potter.” She answered. “He and his ugly muggle girlfriend accosted me.” She had to stop herself from snickering.
“Is that so?” Lucius Malfoy said. His mind was whirling with all kinds of things. Anya was disgusted to see just how much pleasure he had taken in hurting innocent people. Rarely had she encountered anyone so vile. “What did you make of her, then?”
Anya had to choke back her laughter.
“Well, she had stubby little legs and a vacant expression.” She said. “I don’t see what he sees in her, personally.”
“Doubtless the Headmaster put him up to it.” Malfoy said, his voice disgusted. “The man would have us all marrying muggles.” To her horror, he cast a look downward at her legs, and frowned. The thought crossed his mind that he thought his son was quite a bit taller than that, but it was discounted just as quickly. He never paid much attention to his son.
Malfoy gave him strict instructions to prepare for departure to the Manor, and then left just as abruptly as he came. Anya gave one last look around the room, and deciding that she had no real interest in being carted off to Malfoy Manor, thought it best to leave the operation on how to best ruin Malfoy’s family for another day.
She left the tent, ripped off the mask and cloak, and ran off back to the forest. Her telepathy made finding Harry and the others easily, and by the time the fighting had stopped they returned… no one the wiser as to what she had just done.
They spent the entire evening discussing what had just happened. She pretended to be afraid, but inside she was feeling a little smug. She may not have been able to uncover the Malfoy’s family secrets today, but she was already well on the right track. In the next couple of years, once she had a better grasp on wizarding culture and their laws, she was sure that she would be able to topple their entire family dynasty and protect wizards and muggles alike.
“I’m sorry about all this.” Harry said, as they made their way back to the burrow. Anya gave him a confused look as he elaborated. “This wasn’t what I hoped it would be. So much happened this weekend.”
“Oh, it was wonderful.” Anya said. “Please. Don’t worry about it.”
Perhaps a little bit too wonderful, she thought bitterly, as Mrs. Weasley hugged all of her children, and Harry. She doubted that she had anything of value to offer to Harry as a partner. Seeing a normal family interact with him made her wonder just how her own parents compared. Not for the first time, she found herself worried that once she was out of school and living on her own, her parents would split up.
She was actually thinking about that when Harry hugged her goodbye and their others bade her farewell. She found herself traveling back to Privet Drive, alone and contemplative. Wondering just where her life would be in the last couple of years. If her parents did split up… would Harry still care about her? Did he even really care about her now?
If they split up… would they even care about her?
She opened the door to their house and was surprised to see her Mother and Father waiting for her.
“I’m pregnant!” Yor said.
Anya had to stop herself from fainting.