Chapter 15
"You want to what!?!" Minerva demanded to know. She was in her office during one of the few times that the Heirs were not at Hogwarts. Today was the day that Augusta usually took Neville to see his parents and Petunia, Harry and Dudley had been invited along, mostly because Neville had insisted. The boy was not ashamed of his parents, Merlin bless him. After the visit the boys were planning on meeting up with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger for a study session at Fortescue's. Personally, with the sort of headache that these two wizards were trying to drop on her head, she rather thought that an ice cream was just what the healer ordered. Too bad she'd have to have hers in her office.
Barty Crouch Sr. and Ludo Bagman, (of the Ministry departments - International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports respectively), looked at Minerva in surprise. "This has been in the works for the last three years, Professor McGonagall. I was certain that you knew about it," Crouch said.
"Well apparently, Dumbass didn't think any of the staff here needed to know about it," Minerva said smartly, then she sighed. "Well, if you've been working on it for the last three years, I don't want to have to throw a dung bomb in the potion. Tell me exactly what you have planned for the tournament."
Ludo laid it all out - three tasks, taking a golden egg from a mother dragon, rescuing a close person of the champions from the merpeople in the lake, and traversing a magical maze with the triwizarding cup at the center, with points scored for each task. There would be no quidditch for the year. The other two schools would bring their group of students to Hogwarts accompanied by their Headmaster and Headmistress. The Daily Prophet would be covering the tasks.
That was it. That was all. Minerva wanted to groan. "This is what you have accomplished in three years?" she said, admittedly with a great deal of scorn. "Ludo, you never were the brightest of students, but for Merlin's sake I would have thought that you would have put more effort into this! And you, Barty, should have at least seen to it that there was more coverage of the tournament." Both men stiffened, but before they could protest Minerva looked at them over the rims of her glasses. "You had better not be basing your responses on the fact that the man who tried to take over Magical Brittan liked it."
Both men blushed and shuffled in their seats like students who had been caught in a prank. "Very well, you two are not going to embarrass Magical Brittan with this half arsed plan. The maze is a good idea. The other two tasks are most definitely not. The tasks are to be dangerous yes, but not suicidal, and there is no way that you are canceling quidditch!" she said.
"We've already got the Romanian dragon preserve to bring us the dragons," Crouch said. "The paperwork has already gone through."
Minerva sighed, but she understood. That sort of paperwork was a swamp of crossing t's and dotting i's and no one once the paperwork had been completed would allow that effort to be wasted. "Very well, but we need to come up with something other than stealing a false dragon egg from a nesting mother. Using them as an obstacle to get past perhaps, but the second task will have to be completely different. Having people sit in front of the Black Lake in the middle of winter staring at the water is not something that will be happening. It will be February. People will be sitting in the stands, staring at the surface of the lake, and getting either soaked from melting snow or spray from the lake if they are unlucky enough to not know warming and drying charms - which means at the very least all of the younger students. Do you have any idea of how many of them will be getting sick? All while everyone is being bored out of their skulls because they can't see anything? No, we need to come up with something else."
"But the champions are supposed to face great danger!" Ludo protested. "If they don't have something to overcome, the whole thing is meaningless." Crouch just shook his head.
"What we need is an exciting way for the students to show their skills and their ability to strategize," Minerva retorted. She thought a moment. "Diplomacy. Showing their skills at solving problems. The centaurs are the hardest people we have at Hogwarts to make deals with. I'll have our Care of Magical Creatures teacher talk to them about having the champions go to their village and get some potion ingredients or something."
"They won't be able to see that either!" Ludo protested.
"I wouldn't be too certain of that," Minerva said. "Nolby!" The head elf popped into the room. "Please tell Professor Flitwick that I'd like to see him in my office when he has a chance. Also, let the other teachers know that we need to have a meeting this evening at dinner."
"Yes, Professor Kitty," Nolby said, and popped away.
A few minutes later Professor Flitwick entered the office. "You needed to see me, Minerva?" he asked.
"Has Grace Cooper managed to finish her Charms NEWT project, Filius?" she asked.
Filius waggled his right hand. "Sort of," he said. "She's finished what she calls the first stage, but she's not entirely happy with the final product. She wants to be able to send the scrying picture farther away than from Hogwarts to Hogsmead. She had plans for showing the Quidditch World Cup later this summer to all of the magical communities, but there are still a few bugs to work out both on the sound quality and how far she can send the image so she shelved that idea. We plan on working on those aspects this coming year."
"Good, because she'll be covering the triwizard tournament the year after that," Minerva said.
"WHAT!!!!??!?!!!" Filius roared. Minerva nodded glumly. "Is this going to be quiet? Just the schools?" he asked with faint hope. Minerva shook her head. Filius swore in Goblin. "I refuse to let any of the under age students participate, Minerva. I'll be placing an age line around the Goblet myself."
Minerva smiled. "That takes care of one problem, but there are quite a few more. We'll be expanding the quidditch season to include the other schools."
"We will?" Ludo asked, and Minerva shot him a glare.
"I told you we will not be cancelling quidditch!" she snapped. "If we're not cancelling it, we must include the other schools. Let them know to bring their best as a single team, or even four teams if they can manage it. That would be better as four teams for each school would at least give each school an equal chance."
"Set it up like a professional league tournament, with each loss knocking a team out of the running," Filius suggested.
"That's going to be a lot of quidditch!" Ludo said, a bit dazed at the number of games that would be.
"All the better," Minerva insisted. "That will be eleven games, plus the three tasks. We'll have to figure out something for guests to do the rest of the weekends the school is open."
"Guests?" Crouch asked.
"Yes, Barty," Minerva sighed. "Because we will not embarrass ourselves by not inviting the rest of those who are interested in the tournaments - such as wireless reporters and different newspaper's reporters from all of the nations involved, quidditch recruiters, people who buy tickets for the games, families which will include small children and heads of houses. Are you beginning to understand? We will not be doing a half arsed job of this!"
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Petunia felt quite solemn as she followed Augusta into the Janus Thickey Ward for permanent spell damage. The fate of Frank and Alice Longbottom could very well have been the fate of her beloved little sister and that boy she married. Today the patients were out in a sun filled common room. There were people sitting at tables and wandering the room, and several were sitting by the windows looking outside.
Petunia noticed Harry glaring at one of the patients, a rather handsome blond man with a completely vacant look on his face who was trying to chat up a witch sitting at the table next to him. The witch however was very carefully placing a child's wood puzzle together and taking it apart, over and over again by hand and didn't even seem to notice that the wizard was talking to her. That puzzle was one that Petunia very well knew was supposed to be done with a toy wand.
It didn't matter though. They weren't there to see him, her, or any of the other patients with strange magical maladies. They were there to see Frank and Alice. Frank was one of those sitting watching the gardens outside. His hands were shaking and he was mumbling to himself. Alice was pacing nearby, rather badly as she tended to stumble a bit. Petunia felt a great deal of sorrow for Neville as he took his mother's hand and introduced Harry and Dudley to her.
As she watched the boys interact with Alice and then Frank, Petunia began to have a rather horrifying suspicion. "Augusta," she whispered. "Although I am absolutely certain that Frank and Alice's injuries are from that horrible curse, I'm not so certain that they are insane."
"What do you mean?" Augusta whispered harshly.
"Frank is acting like my grandfather did," Petunia said simply. "The shaking would be from damaged nerves of course, but the way he's speaking - that looks like aphasia. My grandfather had it. What it is, is that the mind and the mouth have a connection like a set of train tracks, and somewhere between the two the train, that is the words, switch from the correct track to another one - from one word to another word. The condition makes the person completely unintelligible - even though what is happening in the brain is completely fine."
"You, you think he's sane in there?" Augusta asked, with a hopeful dread.
Petunia nodded, although not firmly. "It looks like it. If he's trying to say something but it comes out differently than what he thinks he's saying, well he could very well have been saying things that were perfectly normal like 'Neville, you're looking good today' and it comes out, 'Pine trees swallow snakes.'"
"Really?" Augusta said, stunned.
"Yes, my grandfather had a type of aphasia where he could write perfectly well, but not speak. He said things like that all the time but he would also write what he was trying to say. He and I were quite close," Petunia said nostalgically. "I do know that there are many different types of aphasia, different ways that the words come out wrong, but there are treatments in the muggle world. It's a common side effect of strokes."
"What are strokes?" Augusta asked. Years ago she would have brushed off muggle health treatments, but after helping Petunia to find a muggle-born surgeon who could remove Harry's famous scar, she'd discovered that they were quite competent in their ways of healing - and that they treated far more illnesses than wix healers did.
"A stroke is when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked or ruptures. A large rupture is instant death, but a small one or a small blockage can cause all sorts of problems. Honestly, from what I can see, it looks like Alice may have had one," Petunia said. "Common symptoms are weakness on one side of the body, loss of speech, and loss of balance or unstable walking."
Augusta reeled. Alice had all of those, as did Frank although Petunia didn't know that. "Can someone be treated for these strokes?"
"Oh yes, although the sooner the better for muggles. I have no idea if the length of time would effect any treatment for Frank or Alice because of the cause of their injuries and the treatments that they've had here. You'd be far better off asking Dr. Dawson if he could recommend a physician to take a look. He'd know who is competent and in the know," Petunia recommended.
Augusta nodded sharply. "I'll do that. It's a sad state of affairs, but most muggleborn healers aren't really allowed to practice here. I'm embarrassed to say that even here the biased pureblood families have far too much influence."
"I really shouldn't think that two war heroes that fought against Moldy should be in the care of those who espouse pureblood superiority," Petunia exclaimed, startled at the information.
"I'd never thought about it that way," Augusta said. "They are here because St Mungo's is the best magical hospital in England."
"Well, it's something to consider now," Petunia insisted. "You never know what possible sympathizers might be doing behind your back." Augusta nodded, looking grim.
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Hermione Granger, her mother Jean Granger and Ron Weasley were on another outing in the muggle world. Hermione had asked her mother for permission to explore some feminine options that she had rejected before under Dumbledore's influence. Today, she was getting her ears pierced. "Are you certain that you want to do this, Hermione?" Jean Granger asked, as they pulled up to the store that they had picked out.
"Yes, Mum," Hermione said firmly. "I'm almost fourteen. I want to be the sort of professor that all of the boys drool over so, it's time to get girly! Or at least, find out what kind of girly I want to be."
Jean smiled at her daughter. "Ron, be sure to tell us what popular opinion is about whatever Hermione picks out, alright?"
"Sure, Dr. Granger, but I'll tell you right now, earrings are considered slightly iffy territory for our age. The only third year girls that I know of that have pierced ears are the Patail twins, and they're from India," Ron said with a shrug. "That being said, some of the upper year girls do have them."
"What sort of jewelry is normal for girls then?" Jean asked.
"Rings if they're the heirs of their house, broaches and cloak pins, that sort of thing," Ron answered. "A lot of girls start putting their hair up when they turn fifteen or sixteen and they get hair jewelry then, not before. Um, that's about it that I can think of."
"What about bracelets? Or necklaces?" Hermione asked as they headed into the jewelry store.
Ron just shrugged. "I've got nothing. I just remember Mum telling Ginny that she can wear a broach or a cloak pin, but that she can't wear earrings until she's fifteen and can put her hair up. Now, Mum knows that because she grew up posh, but she doesn't do it herself because she says her curls are a curse and not even Sleekeazy can fix them."
Hermione giggled. "Good thing that you all got your dad's hair then. You'd probably be giving Harry a run for his money on unruly hair otherwise."
Laughing, Ron agreed. Looking over the jewelry, Hermione picked out a pair of diamond starter studs, and five more sets - ruby, gold ball, pearl, gold star, and gold heart. None of them were very big, as Hermione wanted to ease into the girly thing now that she knew that it was the old goat's fault that she hadn't wanted to learn before. The clerk took her around the counter to a seat and put the diamond studs in, and then gave her a short lecture on how to clean and care for the piercing. Hermione just nodded along as she planned on using dittany to heal up her ears.
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Amelia Bones stood in front of a large group of aurors. "Sirius Black was thrown into Azkaban without trial," she said. She paced back and forth, her hands clenched behind her back. "He was never questioned, no evidence was gathered, no witnesses were interviewed, nor was Black or his wand examined. All any of the records show is one hysterical wix, twelve dead muggles, and one finger belonging to Peter Pettigrew. The arresting aurors dragged Black to a holding cell and someone portkeyed him straight into the worst part of Azkaban. "
A voice piped up, "But didn't he confess?"
Amelia pulled a parchment out and waved it angrily. "He was hysterical and kept saying it was all his fault they were dead. He never said who was dead or why he was at fault! Morgana's Vow, he and Pettigrew could have been chasing deatheaters and Black could have been blaming himself that Pettigrew and the muggles were dead! We'll never know because those who were there didn't do their damned jobs, and someone threw him in Azkaban, probably on Dumbledore's orders!"
"How sure are you about that one, Amelia?" Shacklebolt asked.
Amelia bit out the words, "Sirius Black is Harry Potter's oathsworn godfather and his blood-adopted father." A gasp came from the assembled group. Amelia nodded. "As Black is obviously still alive, and we know that Dumbledore tried to turn little Harry Potter into one of his obscurus experiments, I'm pretty damned sure about it.
"Now, while Black has escaped from Azkaban, we have no cause to send him back there. The only thing that we can do is to question him. While it would be in his best interests for him to stand trial, it would have to be voluntarily. We have a pretty good idea of where he's headed. No real parent having been kept away from his child is going to do anything but do his damnedest to get back to that child.
"We will NOT be keeping Black from entering Hogwarts to see his son. What we will be doing, is to alert the teaching staff that Black is likely to go to Hogwarts to see young Harry and that he has every right to do so. We will ask that any teacher who comes across Black to ASK HIM to allow us to interview him on what happened during the time in question. Remember all of you. Sirius Orion Black was one of ours. We will do right by our brother at arms, no matter that the previous administration didn't. Dismissed."
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The three year old boy held out his ice cream to the ragged dog, who carefully licked the treat. The boy then pulled it back and licked it himself. Back and forth the two shared the cold treat until his mother realized it, shooed the dog off and chastised the boy while throwing what was left of the ice cream away. The shaggy black dog licked his chops and pointed his nose to the north. He still had a long way to go.