Preparation
I spend the remainder of my Sunday (mostly) in my lab making a new glamor charm for Tonks and readying a few potions for the Ministry visit tomorrow. While I’m not willing (yet) to use any of them on Fudge or his people, I’ve got no problem potion-spelling myself if it means getting a few answers of my own while encouraging the Ministry visitors to stop visiting. Still, I’ve got the niggling feeling tomorrow won’t be quite so cut and dry.
Knowing I’ll soon be curse-breaking, I join my fellow Hufflepuffs for dinner, but tweak my makeover charm to have me looking a little more drawn and sickly, then endure Annie’s fussing all over again. Sweetheart that she is, she even tucks me into bed and I’m beginning to suspect I’ll owe her a serious apology once my fatemaker status becomes known and I won’t question the future-instinct I’ve now got that it will eventually become widely known.
At last, Monday arrives and I let my ‘sickly’ makeover charm do it’s work and get stopped by nearly every teacher I pass to have my health checked in on and yes, that’s the last time I’ll be using an additive without warning anyone first. Still, Snape manages to stealthily snag me into an empty classroom just after breakfast, glowering like it will scare the sickness out of me while I just roll my eyes.
“I’m fine, worry wart,” I huff, shaking the sickness portion of my glamor off so he can see for himself and his glower downgrades to a frown.
“I’ll assume there’s a point to this farce?” He sighs unhappily.
Now it’s my turn to frown. “Dumbledore didn’t tell you? He fixed the wand and checked it’s history. There’s more ‘Penumbras’ around here somewhere, so I’ll be trance-working a counter curse the quick and dirty way while Tonks pretends to be me for a few days. Sick people don't always seem quite themselves, hence the sickly glamor.”
Snape’s eyes narrow to near-slits. “No,” he snaps. “He hadn’t mentioned it.”
I know he’s not snapping at me, so I don’t get defensive so much as sigh and shrug. “It needs to be done—“
“There are others—“ he tries to cut in.
“—faster than anyone that Dumbledore, and I’m assuming Moody too, knows can work a reverse before one of the fourteen people, likely still on school grounds and therefore likely children, can be helped before too much damage has been done,” I finish quietly. He paused his glowering at the number, but still looks unhappy, which is fair. I’m not happy about it either.
“Trance-work?” He repeats, because of course he’d latch onto that and I try not to wince.
“Yes. You haven’t seen my full one-track mentality until I’ve got a puzzle like a curse to reverse engineer because finding a good point to pause when I’m mentally juggling thirty twist-points at once is difficult.”
I do wince when nearly all his teeth all grind at once (likely when he puzzles out the effect that’ll have on me).
“So eating, sleeping—“
“Will be rapid and only occasional,” I finish bluntly with a short nod. “And I know all this because it’s something I’ve done many, many times before and come through just fine.”
He chokes out a frustrated noise, head jerking with the force of it. “I don’t like it,” he says flatly.
“I don’t either.”
We stare unhappily at each other for a long nine seconds before his shoulders slump a little in concession.
“There’s no other way to do it?” He demands, but the vaguely (so, so vague it takes me a minute to even place it) pleading tone in his voice says he knows there’s no talking me out of it.
“Fourteen,” I repeat quietly. “And Penumbra— his soul didn’t just depart afterward. It fled. It ran away scared and-- Jesus, that doesn’t happen. Ever,” I choke out, still distressed even months later.
Snape’s shoulders slump even more. “Will you be allowing anyone to check on you or should we all just assume you’re perfectly fine?” He huffs, jaw flexing like he’s actively working on saving his molars further trauma.
“You’re welcome to check,” I agree, nodding. “But if you’re looking for conversation while you’re there, you’ll be disappointed. Unless I’m on a rare break, I won’t even hear you,” I sigh, wincing again. “Sorry in advance.”
“And if there’s an emergency?” He grits out.
“If it’s dire, the castle will let me know,” I assure. “If the castle can’t, for some bizarre reason, bring the Sorting Hat down. It can read me pretty well if we’re in the same room. If even then, there’s no telling, then something's really wrong,” I sigh, wincing again with genuine apology, “but if that's the case, you and Lupin will probably know already.”
His eyes narrow again. “…Because?”
“Beeeecause… my-wolf-decided-you’re-pack-and-my-dragon-decided-you’re-flock,” I blurt out in a rush, then wait.
“………….Say again?” He demands quietly.
This time I full-on flinch. “Sorry?” I meep out, my own shoulders slumping along with the rest of me and I childishly study the floor to avoid whatever enraged or disturbed expression is hiding under his current level of cold anger. “I’ll fix it… somehow,” I mutter with absolutely no clue how to go about that, so why the hell did I even tell him until I’d figured out a fix for it?
“—fine,” filters back in through my guilt-ridden self-consciousness and I blink back up at him to see there’s mostly just puzzlement on his face. “It’s fine,” he repeats and actually sounds like he means it. I nod back, far too glad he’s not burning me to death with the power of his glare to question it in detail. “And this trance begins… when?”
“Tomorrow morning, after a full night’s sleep and sizable breakfast in the kitchens and also to pass on a few recipes for liquid food I’ll likely drink even in a trance. The elves will send a new glass down every four or five hours until I’m aware enough again to dismiss the request.”
That seems to reassure him, somewhat, and has his agitatedly crossed arms loosening again. “Three days?”
I make a debatable little noise and waggle my hand in a so-so gesture. “Two or three days til I’ll give in to sleep, though it'll likely be only three or four hours at a time before my brain wakes me and demands I keep going.”
He huffs out a very wolf-like growl of frustration, half-stomping away a dozen paces and back to glower some more, mouth opening to likely start a list of arguments that won’t help anything. I cut him off in advance.
“Fourteen… children,” I say softly and his lips reshut and thin. “In my collective lives, I’ve seen thousands of dead children,” I continue and he pales a little. “Seeing children dead, regardless of the number, just because I wasn’t willing to put my all in… that will break me in ways I won’t be able to repair... and if the fudge man and his pink toady weren’t coming today, I’d be at it already.”
Now his eyes lighten a little. “The fudge man?” He repeats, lips twitching.
“His first visit,” I shrug, smirking a little. “It was either make fun of him in my head or forcibly remove him from the premises. ‘Minister’ sounds intimidating but ‘squashy pin-striped fudge-man’? Not so much."
His lips twitch again, then he head-nods to the door. “You’re late for class—"
"I wonder who's fault that is," I grump.
"Yours," he grumps back, "for not keeping everyone in the loop. Do you need a note?”
“Nah, it’s Flitwick. I’ll just tell him you had questions about my homework; he’ll get it.”
“Homework?” He repeats, following me into the hall.
“This is my home,” I point out, walking backward towards Charms and waving a hand around for emphasis. “All the work I do here is homework.” I smile brightly and he rolls his eyes to cover his amusement.
“Don’t forget to look sick,” he sighs, already turning back for the stairs, pausing while I flip the charmed extra back on.
“Better?” I ask.
“You look pathetic,” he agrees, deadpan and I snicker all the way to class.
***
I’m not surprised when the Minister, Umbridge, and Kingsley all arrive an hour early because Fudge is the type of person who’d pull a minor stunt like this so he can feel he’s got some measure of control over the situation (because his first visit alone was pretty telling) and Umbridge is absolutely the type to do the same, if not worse - like a week early, if she thinks she'll get away with it. (Kingsley remains innocent in my book because he's just following orders.)
Today, I don’t mind much, and only half of that is the sip of liquid luck I downed when Dumbledore arrived to pull me from Potions class, his expression unhappy (much like Snape's) that pulling me from class early is even necessary. But I’d sipped a bit of liquid luck and a bit of ‘everybody’s friend’ down while retrieving the ingredient phials I’d ‘oops!’ dropped with my nerves as I fake-scurried after the Headmaster.
Dumbledore looks amused, patient and knowing as we stride for the stairs, like he genuinely knows exactly what I’d just drunk and is cautiously approving, but says nothing about it. (He does frown a little when I have to stop halfway up the stairs and guzzle down one of my dragon aspirin potions, but doesn't question it.) By the time the potions have fully kicked in, Dumbledore and I are talking animatedly about my potentially publishable book on magical engineering with emphasis on safety devices to be built and used before/while venturing into major experiments or inventions.
“Its a fine idea," Dumbledore concludes, "as safety and magical secrecy are too often overlooked; if you'd like a second set of eyes to look at it, I'll do what I can," he offers and then he finally and officially introduces me to the Minister. “Ah, and here, Miss Devons, allow me to introduce Cornelius Fudge, the Prime Minister of Magic and Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, Delores Umbridge." (Kingsley isn't introduced but we trade professional nods of respect and the meeting begins.)
The meeting begins a bit rough and with me having dodged Fudge's toad (and therefore Fudge himself) for so long, it’s not a surprise.
“Finally deemed us worthy of your attention then, eh?” Fudge demands straight off and for a second, even Umbridge looks surprised at his vitriol and now seems the kinder of the two. (Or she would, were I not sure Lupin's right about the pink being some sort of camouflage to hide a weapon under, not to mention the nails on chalkboard feeling in my brain when our eyes briefly meet.)
“Cornelius,” Dumbledore murmurs, a tilt to his head that’s all understated warning and Fudge freezes for half a second before deflating, disgruntled expression falling a bit.
“No, no, you’re right, Albus,” the man sighs and now Umbridge’s worry melts into something uglier, though no one comments on it. Fudge turns back to me, with an expression something closer to neutral. “So… er, Miss Devons?” I offer a small smile and a nod and his expression warms almost instantly. “You are a… fatemaker? You seem a bit young for such a thing.”
“Oh!” I huff, my own smile warming enough for my eyes to crinkle and it’s only now that I remember that ‘everybody’s friend’ is a two way street. Oops? (Or maybe not oops? Maybe it'll help get through this interview a bit quicker.) “Thank you, Mr. Fudge, but please, don’t be fooled. Fate has apparently decided my task will be best found if I’m a student, but if it hadn’t, I’d easily look my natural thirty-seven,” I assure, and on Fudge’s other side, the toad raises her not-even-remotely delicate fist to her mouth and titters a soft, squeaking cough, but I’ve already leaned in toward the man, my own expression hopeful. “And maybe you can help me with the other bit— finding a better moniker than ‘fatemaker’ because it’s terribly misleading.”
“It is?” Fudge huffs, surprised enough by my apparent candidness to ignore the toad’s second attempt ('ahem!') at interrupting.
“It really, really is,” I sigh, slumping to show my own continued frustration. “We’re more… fate assisters or fate fixers but the first term doesn’t really roll off the tongue and the second sounds almost threatening, like: I am here, of course, to fix…. your… fate.” I intone as seriously as I can (not much, since I can't quite keep myself from grinning) and Fudge grins back, agreeable.
“That does sound a bit off,” he nods. “So… beyond your title, what is your job description then? It all sounds, not that it is," he hurries to assure, "but sounds… a bit fishy.”
“Oh no," I counter, "it speeds right past fishy and settles in the lands of preposterous," I conclude candidly, nodding heartily and letting my smile fade into professional-friendly. “What my job entails is simply seeking out the cause of what will be an eventual wide scale disaster and finding a way, if not to correct whatever is meant to cause it, to minimize the damage and loss of life as best I can.”
“A disaster?” Fudge breathes out, both amazed and horrified. “What kind of disaster?” He demands nervously, eyes ticking around from me to Dumbledore to the toad to Kingsley and back, fully attentive now. Even the toad seems a bit entranced, her wide mouth a little ‘o’ of surprise.
“That’s what I’m meant to discover,” I sigh unhappily. “And I’ve got the feeling that Dorian Penumbra’s death is the worst possible clue. But since fate has bound me to the school grounds, I can only assume there are more clues here I’m meant to find and nearly all my waking hours have been dedicated to doing just that.”
Fudge’s face falls with realization. “And here we’ve been — oh dear. We’ve interrupted quite a bit, haven’t we?”
This time, when Umbridge coughs, loudly and nearly croaking, we all turn to look at her expectantly and she seems to lose whatever train of thought she’d meant to throw at me. Sadly, it doesn't last.
“Oh!” She titters after a few seconds of everyone’s expectant stares. “I’m so sorry, but— it does truly seem more as if you’d meant to avoid us!” She lifts her hands and smiles wide in a way that practically screams ‘but how is that possibly the case?’ And it’s now that I wonder how the friend potion doesn’t seem to be working on her because there’s a sharpness in her eye that says exactly that.
“But, dear, no one avoids the Minister. It’s simply… well, not done! I know you may be new to this… em, reality,” she breathes out sweetly, all condescension, “if you truly are," she adds in a mutter, "but—“
“Nonsense Delores!” Fudge huffs, straightening in his seat and pinning her with a small frown of distaste, waving her blatantly rude opinion away. “And it was you who said we have recorded knowledge of fatemakers! You doubt it now when she’s simply been busy doing her job?!”
Umbridge’s whole face freezes with surprise. “Well, no! Of course not, Cor—er, Mr. Fudge. But you’ve been so insistent on finding proof…”
Fudge shuffles in his seat uncomfortably, like he’s just been called out on being rude. As a friend, I try to throw him a verbal lifeline.
“Substantiated proof would make everything simpler, I don’t doubt,” I sigh agreeably and that seems to have Umbridge's toad-mouth frowning with surprise and suspicion. “Sadly, it’s the one thing fate can’t truly offer. It would be like trying to prove a genuine god exists.”
“So… you can’t prove you’re actually here to assist the fates?” Umbridge demands almost smugly, like she’s just gotten her way.
“Only as much as anyone could prove or disprove God,” I sigh, disappointed. “And only as much as any person of any age can prove fate exists at all.”
Her frown is almost comical. Almost. (Not that it matters, since my words weren't really meant for her beyond shutting her down with basic logic.)
“That’s true,” Fudge murmurs contemplatively, hand on his chin. “It’s a bit like disproving everything one might ever have faith in, isn’t it?”
Now Dumbledore sits up, nodding wisely, eyes carefully not aimed my way but I can feel his surprise at my neat work around. “It is, Cornelius,” he murmurs with a serious sigh.
“But—“ Umbridge protests, trying to regain her argumentative momentum. “But Penumbra!” She blurts emphatically. “You— you let the man die!” She accuses.
I blink at her, my own expression slipping back to my usual unhappy state when I think of the man and finally shake my head.
“There’s a difference between assisting fate by stopping disasters and saving lives. No matter the disaster, lives are nearly always lost. That cannot be changed. Not by me, nor the Ministry, nor the whole of Britain or even the whole of Europe, I’m afraid. What will come will come and my job is to save the most lives possible.”
“So you don’t care that he’s dead?” She demands, looking scandalized on the surface but maniacally gleeful just under it.
“Of course I care,” I counter gently. “Every life is precious. And had I realized he’d been genuinely ill, or genuinely cursed, I’d have done what I could the second I realized.”
"Considering how ill he apparently was and you still failed to help him—"
"Delores--" Fudge warns quietly, but the toad doesn't seem to hear him, rolling right over his words and emphatically gesturing with every other word.
"How are you even qualified?" She demands, exasperated (and privately thrilled to be Naysayer Diva from on high). "One would think after such a failure you'd step aside and assist the Ministry. Honestly, your refusal to cooperate--"
"I've only refused to assault people," I offer mildly, but the longer she goes on, the harder it is not to laugh at her because everything about her dramatics screams fakery and it's a little bit sad how much effort she's putting in and, based off of Fudge's aura darkening more and more red, she's about to get smacked off her high horse. "And I'll continue to refuse because that, as a sentient being in this universe, is my right to do so. I'd have thought you, of all people, would be happy I'm not ripping into people's psyches, considering how much you're hiding--"
Now, finally, she shuts up, eyes huge and wide and possibly building up steam for another go, but looks spooked by my words.
"You scanned her?!" Fudge blurts, surprised.
"What? Of course not," I huff. "Which is sort of the point. But auras tell a lot about a person, and that's something one in fifty people not only can see without effort, but can't not see without help. And my ability never turns off, unfortunately, though I've tweaked it to only show me the bare minimum, when possible. But seeing auras doesn't make me a villain, thankfully, any more than seeing that someone is hiding something can tell me if they're hiding having hexed their obnoxious neighbor when he mistakenly tore out the wrong rose bush or hiding that they're currently wearing two day old, unwashed socks."
Everyone pauses to blink at me and mentally digest that little tidbit (Kingsley is fighting not to smile), but I've already turned my attention back to Fudge. "I won't apologize for refusing to allow someone to invade such a private, fragile part of myself, which is exactly why I don't do it to others unless I feel their life is in immediate danger. Professor Penumbra wouldn't have allowed me anywhere near his psyche, and we both knew it, which is why I didn't press the issue. I was very glad when Mr. Moody showed, though, because as far as Professor Penumbra was concerned, Mr. Moody was someone he could trust with enough time, when he finally chose to trust anyone. So, if not assaulting someone earns me the mantle of 'failure', it's one I'll wear with pride."
"Completely understandable," Fudge agrees, nodding seriously and the toad seems to shrink in her seat, her frown having reached Grumpy Cat levels of frowny. "But I do have to wonder, how is it that fate didn't give you the means to save even the first victim, though?” Fudge asks softly, radiating a gentle confusion as he leans toward me again. “I’m only trying to understand, dear,” he offers earnestly.
And this is tricky, because I’m pretty sure the truth (in that Penumbra was likely a necessary example to prove a far worse problem) will sound just as bad out loud as in my head and let my liquid luck guide my words.
“It’s rare that fate shows me the whole of what disaster might be stopped,” I confess. “The most memorable time it did, it was to emphasize just how horrible it would be without help.” I lean in again and must look positively haunted because everyone else copies the motion. “I saw it from a rooftop on the shore in New Jersey, only ten miles from New York City. It was a nearly perfect summer Saturday with families on the beaches, ladies out shopping and everyone washing their cars and enjoying the sun… it was a blink, like a camera flash and then it was like being slapped with a mattress, maybe, stunning and surprising and knocked everyone off their feet.
“This man I viewed it from, Evan Travis, was a first responder with the local terrorist guard and in under an hour, they’d flown he and hundreds of others in by helicopter, to test the air, the ground, to discover if there was more destruction on the way, to help anyone who’d survived. But he knew— they all knew a minute off the ground they’d need far, far more help because the New York City skyline was just... gone,” I rasp, queasy with the memory, even thousands of years later.
“Oh my,” Fudge breathes out, nearly silent with eyes like saucers and suddenly so quiet, one would hear a pin drop.
“When… they landed, what—.” I stop and swallow and hope to all the gods I can re-bury this memory before I sleep tonight. “Nearly every building had collapsed, either by the blast or due to sizable alterations to structural integrity. The people though-- What they found were survivors… but to muggles, it made no sense.
"People hadn’t been blown apart so much as… mutated. A dead woman’s leg was now melded to her face and her face to her hip where her leg should’ve been. She’d suffocated because, obviously, a leg can't breathe. Children on playgrounds had mutated to each other and the slides and swing sets and playsets in the most horrifying, freakish ways you can imagine. A dog-walker had melded to the seven dogs he’d been walking, most of who were alive still, just stuck—“
I stop again, swallowing compulsively and shake my head, viciously rubbing tears from my face while Dumbledore, looking ill himself, presses a handkerchief into my hand. The toad is staring at me with a look of deep sadness and I don’t question it, but do hope this is the 'wake up-shut up-(wo)man-up and accept that this isn’t a situation she’ll ever have control over' moment she ought to be having.
“And then fate plucked me up again, then turned back the clock to a month prior. It took nearly three weeks to find those responsible, to neutralize them, bind their abilities and save the fourteen million people in the city and the four million in the surrounding areas. That’s honestly one of the most disturbing jobs fate has ever assigned me. Even having stopped it, as a so-called fatemaker, I don’t have the luxury of forgetting. And I won’t forget Dorian Penumbra’s death either, for close to the same reason. He died, terrified to the very last… and while I couldn’t see it until later, someone mutilated his soul,” I croak. “And that-- that shouldn’t even be possible. His soul didn’t just leave his body, it actually fled, like it was genuinely afraid it’d be dragged back and that—“
I stop there because yeah. There’s no words, even now.
“If I’m meant to stop what happened to him on a large scale, because fatemakers aren’t called in for anything less than the worst case scenarios, then working this job, no matter the nightmares I'll have to carry, no matter how drawn out or frustrating… it's worth it, because I'm in no hurry to see people I care for and work with-- to see anyone, anywhere, ever have to deal with their own versions of a missing New York skyline and the kind of atrocities that would cause it.”
Kingsley straightens with a slow blink, like he’s somehow surprised but newly understanding and maybe he is, but it’s Dumbledore who straightens next with a similar expression and Fudge a half second later. Umbridge is pale, but expressionless. She believes, but doesn't want to.
“The Ministry would like to help,” Fudge says bluntly, all business now. “Tell us what we can do.”