All right, hello there everyone who decided to read this. Just a little
beginning note, this is the first fanfic I've written for people to read.
So there are likely to be screw ups, so just tell me about them. Anyway,
enjoy!
Oh, and by the way, the name Persephone is pronounced Per-sif-oh-nee
Disclaimer: no matter how much I wish it, not one little bit of Harry Potter belongs to me, all to J.K. Rowling
Ok, continue!
A Time to Remember
Chapter 1
A Surprise Assignment
A girl with striking blond hair was sitting beneath a tree in the middle of a huge park with a huge book in her lap that she had no intention of opening. She was looking around at the people passing by with tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. Everything she had come to know in her life was changing. She wiped a hand to her eyes and began to study the scenery for she knew that it was unlikely that she'd ever see the area again.
"Pers?" a voice called from a baseball field bleacher seat. "Come on! We've got a half hour before we leave!"
The girl stood and wiped her pants free of leaves and dirt, letting the book slip from her lap. Pushing a stray lock of hair from her pale round face, she smiled down at it. The words Hogwarts, A History gleamed back up at her in bright, new golden letters. She lifted it carefully and ran to catch up with the woman who had called, her mother, over beside the baseball field.
A middle aged Japanese woman (or rather, half Japanese) was standing next to a set of bleachers wearing strange flowing robes that were reminiscent of a Stevie Nicks fashion craze. She was waiting for the girl anxiously. Her hands were stretched out in her daughter's direction and a small baggie of fine powder was visible from within her robes' inner pocket.
"Hurry up, hon; I've got an appointment in London in 45 minutes! The Minister himself is to meet me in person and we still need to pack up all of your school things. Your father's about to pop a brain vessel or something, your grandmother's making that weird disapproving clicking noise, your brother is frantic, and even your sister can't keep quiet. I'm telling you, Pers, if we don't get out of the house in the next twenty minutes I fear for the entire family's well-being." Her voice was light- hearted and joking, but her eyes were uncertain as to whether she had just jinxed her family unwittingly.
The girl, or Pers, rolled her eyes good-naturedly and fell into step beside her mother. "Mom, do we really have to go all the way to England? Can't we stay here? It's going to be so different there and I won't have any friends. What if this new school is even worse than the one I'm at now? It would probably be safer just to stay here." She babbled her pleas to her mother who was having trouble stifling her smile.
"I'm sorry, hon, but we can't leave you here alone." Her mother's eyes twinkled merrily at her. "You're not even of Wizarding age, let alone Muggle age."
Pers stuttered over her words as she fumbled for an answer. "B-but - I-I could, you know, I could--" an idea hit her. "I could stay with my sister and her husband!"
Now her mother's good humor was ending and her tone was sharper. "Persephone McCain! You can't stay with them! Your sister's having a hard enough time with her own child; she doesn't need the double burden of a kid sister. Besides, the Ministry asked me to make sure you came." She continued before letting her daughter question. "Why, I don't know, but orders are orders."
The girl sighed and resigned herself to the answer, not because she wanted to, but because her mother gave her one of those "drop it" looks. So, instead of talking, she focused her energy into burning the image of the Lincoln Park sign into her brain. Parks on Puget Sound were undoubtedly rare in England.
Their house was very close to the park, so the two hardly had a walk in front of them and within the half hour the whole family was ready to go. All of the luggage was stacked around an unnaturally large fireplace beside the departing family. Persephone's father, Miles, was painstakingly starting a fire the Muggle way as his family said their goodbyes.
"Oh, goodbye, Pers," Persephone's elder sister, Io, said in her quiet voice as she hugged the girl. "Don't forget to send an owl by every now and again."
"And by me, too," her grandmother said tearfully. Persephone couldn't help but think about how her grandmother always ended up crying the minute anyone even thought of saying good bye.
"Oh, you two," she said to them in fake disdain. "You talk as though I'm not coming back! Well, you'll see, in a couple weeks Mom and Dad will be begging the London Ministry to send them back here, to good old Seattle." But in her heart of hearts, Persephone had the sinking feeling that the next time she saw Seattle (that is, if she ever did) wouldn't be for many, many years.
The two women smiled shakily, but Persephone could see in their eyes that they knew the same as she did.
"HA!" The sound brought them all out of their silent farewells.
"Oh, Miles!" Persephone's mother cried, glaring at her triumphant husband who now sat beside a roaring fire. "You really are a mystery!"
He looked up at his tearful family in confusion, as though his outburst could have in no way disrupted the highly sentimental moment they had been sharing. "What?"
Mrs. McCain rolled her eyes dramatically. Despite her sadness, Persephone found it difficult to suppress her giggles.
"Well," her mother said after about five more minutes of tears and goodbyes, "I suppose the time has come. Come along, Archie, you first."
Persephone's young brother Archie, short for Narcissus (of all things) approached his mother. The woman took the packet of powder from her pocket and put a fair amount of it into the boy's open palm. He smiled, stepped into the fireplace, threw down the powder, yelled in a loud voice "London- Ministry of Magic!" and disappeared in an eruption of green flames. Next went Persephone's father with the luggage. Then her mother turned to her.
"Your turn, Pers," she said coldly, almost daring her daughter to start up a new plea to stay home in Seattle, but the girl kept quiet. She took the offered powder and followed the same steps as both her brother and father, but took a moment to look at the sad and smiling faces of her family in the room that had once been her home's sitting room. She sighed one last time in defeat, threw down the powder, cried out her destination, and was engulfed by towering neon green flames.
She whooshed out of the fireplace on the other side. After cracking her head hard on the floor, she stopped sliding. She stood shakily with a hand tentatively feeling the back of her head. She cursed softly under her breath as she felt a bump beginning to form. Slowly, she began to walk over to her brother and father, who were laughing so hard that their faces were red.
"Ha ha. Very funny," she said to them sarcastically. "It's not like you've never made a less than graceful entrance out of Floo." She looked to her father. "I remember the time you Flooed to the wrong grate and ended up getting conked on the head with an iron poker by some poor old witch who you nearly scared to death." Her father stopped mid-laugh. She looked at him triumphantly. "Take that."
Just then, before Persephone could terrorize her brother with his "getting stuck in the firewood" story, her mother stepped from the fireplace looking remarkable clean and absolutely none the worse for wear. It irked Persephone that her mother could get caught in a Tornado and come out of it looking as though she had just come from the salon.
So, to counteract her mother's annoyingly fresh appearance after the dirty ordeal, Persephone closed her eyes and created the image of a face in her mind. It took a lot of concentration to make the Change, but she diligently focused on each feature: the high sloping forehead, the pale blemish free skin, the soft and shining chestnut curls, the wide deep brown, almost black eyes. It was the face of a Spanish beauty. Then, in the split second that her mind was totally and completely focused, she felt the Change. She opened her eyes and smiled a new smile that opened up her entire face and shook her head to make her soft, new curls bounce becomingly. You see, Persephone was a. Metamorphagus.
Her mother looked at her for a moment, didn't recognize her, and then scowled as the realization struck her. "Really, Persephone, must you do that at every conceivable opportunity?"
Persephone turned to her mother, smiling impishly. "Really, I don't have the faintest idea what you mean, Mother dearest." Her voice was dripping with amusement and she pretended she didn't know what her mother meant. This caused her brother and father to begin laughing again and her mother to roll her eyes.
"Please, Persephone," she said in defeat, "no phoniness right now, OK? We really must be on our way."
Without waiting for a reply, she pulled out her wand from within her robes and levitated the luggage before her with an impatient "Wingardium Leviosa." Then, with another swift incantation, she had them follow her through a door which the rest of the family had yet to notice. But they quickly followed her without hesitation.
The door led out into a huge hall with a fountain in the middle of it. The fountain contained golden statues of a wizard, a witch, a centaur, and a house elf. If her mother hadn't been rushing them all, Persephone would have stopped to watch it in fascination, but as it was, she could barely catch a passing glance. People were walking all over the hall talking to each other amiably, only stopping to curiously glance at Persephone and her family. 'These must be London Ministry officials,' Persephone thought to herself as she watched them continue on their way. While they went straight through a large set of golden double doors, Persephone's mother led them to a much smaller set of doors that had a desk beside it. Behind the desk sat a portly, balding man reading a newspaper and eating something that resembled a cinnamon bun without all the sticky stuff. He hardly looked up at them as they approached. 'This must be an everyday occurrence for him,' Persephone supposed.
"Wands, please," he said in an obviously bored voice. Persephone's mother and father immediately handed their wands over, and after a bit of encouragement, so did her brother. They all looked at Persephone in exasperation as she desperately searched her robes for her own wand.
"Now, really, I know I had it here," she mumbled as she searched. She could feel her face heat up and knew she was blushing. "I remember I had it back at home. I know it because I used it to pack. I must have-" Then she remembered what she had done with it. "It's in my trunk," she whispered sheepishly. She hadn't expected to need it until she had gotten to their new residence and had packed it up along with the rest of her school things.
"Honestly, Persephone, if it were up to me I would have left you for your grandmother to deal with," her mother said to her as she helped her look through her trunk. Persephone risked a small grin and pulled her wand out of the trunk.
"Here you are." She handed the bored man her wand. He had yet to take his nose out of his newspaper.
One at a time he set each wand on a device that somewhat resembled a scale and grabbed the piece of parchment that came out of the other end. "All right," he said, still completely bored. "This wand came from the boy. 9 inches, ebony, containing dragon heartstring, in use for three years. That right?" Archie nodded vigorously. The man handed him back his wand and stabbed the paper down on a spike that held many other bits of paper. He put another wand on the scale. "This is your wand, ma'am. 10 ½ inches, holly, containing dragon heartstring, been in use for 41 years, right?" Mrs. McCain nodded absently and grabbed her wand from his outstretched hand as he put her little bit of parchment over her son's with his other hand. "All right, sir, this here's yours. 12 inches, dogwood, dragon heartstring, been in use 43 years." Persephone's father nodded the affirmative as the man handed him his wand and pushed down the parchment. "And lastly, little miss, here's yours. 11 inches, willow, containing a - huh, I was expecting dragon heartstring -- a unicorn hair, been in use seven years?" She nodded quickly and snatched her wand back from him, glad to have it where she could see it. "Well, that's all, you lot. You keep your wands and I'll keep the parchment. Off with you now."
They all left with Persephone's mother still levitating the luggage in front of her. After Persephone was sure that they were no longer within earshot of the strange wand man, she turned to her mother. "Well, Mom, I must say that that was definitely weird. What was the point of that?"
"British law," her mother answered absently. "They have to check your wand before letting you by. It is a bit weird, now that you mention it, but you had better get used to it. It's something you'll probably go through for a while unless you become a member of the Ministry. Now, stop asking silly questions and come along. If we don't hurry, we'll be late."
Persephone grumbled a bit at her mother's "silly questions" remark, but seeing as how she had no desire to start a fight with her mother at the time, she kept her mouth shut. She followed her mother down a rather long and plain corridor to strange double doors that resembled the elevator doors that Persephone had seen in old fancy hotels. Her mother pushed a button beside them and impatiently began tapping her foot as she waited for the doors to open. Even Persephone's father knew better than to disturb his wife at this stressful moment. After a few minutes had passed, the doors opened and they all piled in as a few happily chatting witches filed out. The doors closed and her mother said to no one in particular, "This had better go by quickly."
The elevator began to move and even Persephone found herself looking about anxiously. Soon, though, a lofty female voice seemed to appear out of nowhere stating, "Level seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club, and Ludicrous Patents Office." The doors swiftly opened and a few disgruntled looking wizards stepped in, forcing Persephone and her family to be pushed further back. When the doors closed again, Persephone tried to catch bits of their conversation.
"Really, that Bagman fellow sure has some nerve," one terribly intimidating fellow said to his companions sourly. "What right does he have to blame us for the Britain Quidditch team losing?"
"I know, Ben, but he says that if we managed the Floo better, it wouldn't be so 'hard on the poor fellows' health.' Those are his exact words, they are," said a less intimidating, but certainly surly fellow.
The third one, perhaps the most frightening of them all, spoke up. "You're both right, you know. But I hear he had a bet on the game and lost a fair amount of money when the team didn't win. You know what a gambler Bagman is." His voice was surprisingly light-hearted.
The lift doors opened ("Level six, Department of Magical Transport, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office, and Apparition Test Center") and they all walked out, still complaining about that "Bagman fellow." Taking their place was a very old and frail witch who looked as though a stray breeze could have made her fall to pieces.
Unfortunately for Persephone, she didn't talk at all, and therefore the girl couldn't learn anything at all about these British wizards. She had been most interested in the Bagman fellow and had been hoping to hear more about him.
The lift slowed and the voice announced the destination once more. "Level five, Department of International Magical Cooperation, incorporating the International Magical Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law, and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats." The doors opened and Persephone's mother reached forward to hold them open.
"This is us!"
The family made their way past the frail old witch, who smiled at them all with slightly yellowing and crooked teeth as the door closed.
"Come on, now. All of you."
Persephone and her father and brother hurried to catch up with their mother who seemed to have suddenly had the seat of her pants set on fire. She was determinedly passing each and every office that was in the corridor. As they passed, Persephone caught glimpses of huge piles of papers and sounds of frantically scratching quills. It reminded her of a workhouse she had seen in a Muggle movie once.
Finally, after what seemed like 20 minutes of flat-out race walking, Persephone's mother finally stopped. She stopped so abruptly that the rest of her family collided into her and knocked her forward into the levitating luggage. She pitched forward, but somehow managed to keep her balance. She turned around and glared at them. "Really!" she huffed in fury, still staring daggers at them. After a few quick touches on her hair, she knocked on the door that they stood in front of. An anxious and eager voice called out, "Just a moment, please," and the sound of straightening papers and shutting drawers came from behind the door. A few seconds later the door was opened and the whole family found themselves looking into the face of a smiling, young, redheaded man. Mrs. McCain looked at him in surprise for a minute, and then put on a huge smile.
"Minister!" she exclaimed happily and grabbing his hand to shake it forcefully. "It really is a pleasure to meet you after all this time. Although I must say that I am surprised you are so young. I had expected someone older."
The young man looked at the small woman in shock as he tried to take his hand out of hers. "Ah, no, no, I'm not the Minister," he said, as his face turned nearly as red as his hair. "I'm his assistant." Persephone's mother's face fell considerably and she looked a bit embarrassed. "Mr. Fudge is out at the moment, but he should be returning shortly. He is expecting you, I think. You are, um, Mrs." he reached into his pocket for a bit and pulled out a scrap of parchment. "Mrs.Yuriko McCain, are you not?" She nodded. "Ah, then, well, take a seat." He ushered her in.
It was around this time he noticed the rest of the family. He looked up at them in surprise. "And who might you be?" he asked, as he looked over the three family members still standing. Persephone opened her mouth to answer, but her mother got there first.
"They are my family."
The man looked at her. "Oh, yes, well. I suppose you can have a seat, too, then. This way, please." Persephone did her best not to laugh at his ridiculous behavior. He reminded her of a waiter at a restaurant, a bit absent-minded, but a waiter nonetheless.
They all sat down and Mrs. McCain let the luggage down beside the door. The young man had just started to return to his desk when Persephone's mother addressed him. "I'm sorry, but what is your name?"
The young man turned around, instantly red again and began to apologize fiercely. "Oh dear, I'm terribly sorry, I hadn't realized I'd forgotten. Please, do forgive me. I'm Percy Weasley."
"Of course," Persephone's mother said in her dignified work voice. "And if I may introduce my family?" She didn't wait for an answer. "This is my husband, Miles McCain, my son Narcissus-" said son interrupted with a quick "Archie!" Mrs. McCain glared at him, but continued. "Archie, then, and my daughter Persephone."
Young Mr. Weasley shook each of their hands in turn and instead of returning to his desk, took another chair and sat across from them. "Most interesting names your children have, Mrs. McCain," he stated matter-of- factly. "Wherever did you find those?" Mrs. McCain had been about to answer, when Persephone stepped in.
"It was Mom and Dad's love for Grecian myths. All of my siblings have Grecian or Roman names. There's Helen, Paris, Perseus, Europa, Io, Andromeda, and me and Narcissus here." Her brother glared at her and said, "Archie!" once more. Persephone shoved him playfully. "I mean Archie." Her mother sighed from beside her and Persephone almost immediately felt remorse for telling this stranger about her other brothers and sisters.
"Really?" Percy said in awe with wide eyes. "I never thought I'd find a family to rival my own in size. There are nine of us, but there are 10 of you." His eyes showed his confusion. "But where are the rest of your children?"
A simple question. That's what he thought he had asked. Apparently he was wrong. Mrs. McCain took a sharp intake of breath and Mr. McCain put his arm about her shoulders. Archie looked saddened, but Persephone looked deadened. The young man instantly regretted his question. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I hadn't meant to offend."
Persephone stopped his rambling apologies. "It's all right. You see, they were all killed, except for the two of us and my sister Io. She stayed at home because she's married and has a family." His face cringed immediately as he realized what he'd asked earlier but before he could begin his apologies, the door to the office was slammed open. The people inside jumped.
A large heavy set man entered pulled off his lime green bowler from his head and flung it across the room. "Damn Americans!" he yelled as he took off his coat. The family scowled and Percy jumped up. Persephone knew that she was going to have a hard time liking the man after that last outburst.
"S-Sir! You're back! And so soon! What happened?" Percy took the man's coat and hung it on a hook before retrieving the man's hat and doing the same with it. Persephone watched as the heavy man sat at Percy's desk and put his muddy boots up on it, splattering the entire surface. Percy winced, but otherwise did nothing.
"Those damn Americans happened, that's what happened," the man grumbled. "I said I'd meet them out at the Muggle International Airport where they were supposed to get off their flight, but they didn't show. I should've known better than to trust bloody Americans. Flighty little buggers, I'm telling ya. Don't trust 'em as far as you can throw them. Remember that, Weasley."
Mrs. McCain cleared her throat just then, before Percy could answer. The man looked at them in surprise, just noticing they were there. "Minister?" she asked, as she stood.
He looked at her and the rest of the family through narrow eyes. "Yes. Who the devil are you?"
Mrs. McCain smirked and rolled her eyes, much as she would to her husband when he said something amazingly dense. Then, in a calm and dignified voice, she said, "Those 'Damn Americans.'"
He scrambled up surprisingly quickly despite his girth and looked at her in surprise. "Yuriko McCain? Is it you, then?" he asked in disbelief. She glared at him. He quickly regained his composure. "What in bloody hell are you doing here?! You were supposed to meet me at the airport. What do you mean by showing up here and making me wait in a place infested with so many damn Muggles that I could hardly breathe? The plan was to meet there, don't you remember?" Persephone, her brother, and her father watched the exchange with interest, but had no intention of joining in.
"I believe, sir, that you are mistaken," Persephone's mother stated calmly. "The plan was to meet here."
Now the Minister's face was as red as Percy's had been less than five minutes earlier. "IT BLOODY WELL WASN'T!" he cried at the top of his voice. The vein throbbing in his temple looked about to pop.
"It was," Mrs. McCain said, just as calmly as before. "The original plan was to meet in the airport, but you canceled that last minute, as you had a meeting to attend, so you said to just Floo in and meet you in your office." The Minister looked at her with his mouth agape and was about to begin shouting again, when the woman continued. "If you do not believe me, then I can prove it." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment. "Here's the letter you sent to me yesterday. It reads: 'Mrs. Yuriko McCain, the Minister is most sorry to inform you that he must cancel aforementioned meeting at the aforementioned Muggle airport, for he must attend a very important meeting at that time. He wishes that you might meet him in his office on August the 21st at exactly 6 o'clock in the evening (British time). Arrangements can be made from there. Sincerely, Cornelius Fudge Minister of Magic.'" As though she suspected that he had his doubts, she handed him the letter with his own signature on it. He spluttered for a moment, but could find nothing to say. Persephone had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. Of course, Mrs. McCain was not yet done. She looked at her watch, turned to the Minister, smiled at him sweetly and said, "It seems, sir, that you are late." That time, Persephone couldn't hold it in anymore. She laughed out loud at the look on the Minister's face and immediately covered her mouth once more. The Minister glared at her, but didn't say anything.
"Well, then, Mrs. McCain and family, you have my apologies," he grumbled. His face was still red, but now it was from embarrassment instead of anger. "That other meeting had been canceled and I forgot that I told you to come by my office. It seems, ma'am, that perhaps I was a bit, shall we say, over the line in my statement." This time, instead of just Mrs. McCain, the whole family smirked. He changed gears quickly. 'It seems that the Minister is not one used to apologizing,' Persephone thought. "Now about this meeting, I think we had better go inside my office." He indicated a door behind Percy's desk. "I'll call up a security official to escort your family to your new residence." He turned to Percy. "Weasley, get an escort." The young man complied, and with hardly 20 seconds gone, a middle- aged wizard came in through the office door.
"Now if you'll come with me, Mrs. McCain," the Minister said, opening the door for the woman. Persephone and the rest of her family were about to leave with the security wizard and the luggage when Fudge turned around quickly as though he were forgetting something. "Oh, and you did bring your daughter, didn't you, Mrs. McCain? And is this her? Persephone was her name, correct?"
"Yes, Minister, Persephone is my daughter."
The Minister nodded and gestured to Persephone. "Perhaps it would be better if you joined us now, rather than schedule another meeting. We wouldn't want another misunderstanding as we did today."
Persephone was surprised, to say the least. After an allowing nod from her mother, she left her brother and father and followed Fudge and Percy into his office. As soon as the door was closed, Fudge motioned for them to sit down in a chair as he took his own behind his desk.
"Now," he began, his hands folded over his desk. "I suppose you are wondering why I should like to talk to you, but you see; you are entering your seventh year of school and will be attending Hogwarts, correct?" Persephone nodded carefully. "Yes, good. And you'll be seventeen soon, right? On the seventh of September, unless I am much mistaken." Again, she nodded. "Well, I'm assuming that you know of You-Know-Who? Of course you do. Everyone does." She shook her head. 'Who is You-Know-Who?' she thought to herself. "You don't? Damn. This does mean I'll have to explain a bit more. Well, you see, You-Know-Who is this, well, Dark wizard. He believes that the only wizards worth being around are those of pureblood descent. He believes that all those of Muggle descent are inferior and should be, well, for lack of a better word, disposed of. For years he has terrorized Muggleborns and those who befriend and protect Muggleborns. He has killed numerous men, women, and innocent children. In the past few years he has been rising to power once again. His focus of late has been on this one boy, a boy by the name of Harry Potter. You do know who Harry Potter is, don't you?" She vaguely remembered the name from a Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson she had had at her old school. She tried to remember exactly what he had done.
"He's the boy who lived, isn't he? The one who this wizard couldn't kill, right? I forget what the wizard's name was, though. It started with a 'V' I think. Sort of like Vold -" Fudge cut her off.
"Yes, yes, that's him. You-Know-Who couldn't kill him that one time, but now he's almost entirely powerful again and he wants to be rid of the boy once and for all. Well, over the past, what, six years, Potter's had to face You-Know-Who six times in some form or other. And every time the boy has somehow escaped, but each year it was almost as though he were trying harder and harder to find You-Know-Who. And, well, he's beginning his seventh year this year as well, and we, the Ministry, would really appreciate knowing what he was up to, and, well,--" Persephone interrupted him.
"You want me to be your spy, don't you? You want me to keep an eye on him and inform you of his doings. Sort of keep him in line, right?"
Fudge sighed in relief. Persephone had a fleeting suspicion that he had not really wanted to ask her outright to do that. "Yes, yes, that's right. I'd like you to befriend him and just watch him for us all. So he doesn't get into any unwanted trouble, you know. What do you say?" The Minister had taken on a companionable tone, thinking he had just tricked her into doing what he wanted.
"No." Her reply was blunt and frank.
"No?" Fudge questioned.
"Is there an echo in here? Don't you understand the word?" She was starting to get irritated with him.
His eyes narrowed. "Oh, I understand it, all right. But why do you say no? The Ministry is willing to pay you for it, not much, mind you, but enough. You see, the Ministry really doesn't want to have to deal with any surprises this year."
Now Persephone was really starting to get mad. "The Ministry doesn't want to deal with it or you don't want to deal with it? Come on, Fudge, who do you think you're kidding?" He was about to speak, but she started up again. "It's a despicable idea, you know. You want me to make nice with someone I don't know so that I can keep you in the light and on top of things. You do know that that means that one day he'll find out and then I'll be in trouble, don't you? Or were you just planning on not mentioning that little bit of information? Really, I'd like to make my own friends for my own reasons, thank you."
Persephone could see the color drain from his face and then come back in full force. "Why you little - Here I try to be nice and offer you a job. Well, like it or not, you'll do it. I have persuasive ways. Your mother's job isn't really a necessary one here, you know. We could always send you back to where you came from. Seattle, Washington, wasn't it? I'm sure they'd welcome your mother back with open arms, right?"
Persephone thought about this. It wasn't true that they'd take her back, and both she and Fudge knew it. Her mother had been on the verge of being laid off due to budget cuts and that would have cut off the family's income. No matter how much Persephone would have loved to go home, she knew it would ruin her family life. She looked around to see if her mother had heard Fudge threaten her job, but she was chatting animatedly with Percy over by the door and was oblivious to all that had passed between her daughter and the Minister of the London Ministry of Magic. Persephone sighed in defeat and turned back to Fudge. "You win, I'll do it. But I'd like you to know - You really are snake-like, did you know?"
Then, surprisingly, he smiled at her. "I know. I was in Slytherin during my school years."
She had no idea what a Slytherin was, but she stood immediately and stormed out of the office. She heard Percy excuse himself and follow her out. He caught her by the wrist before she could open the door out into the corridor.
"Wait, will you?" he said anxiously. "I'm supposed to take you home, seeing as you don't know where it is."
She sighed. These Ministry people were really starting to get on her nerves. "So take me already."
"All right, just a moment, though. I've got to grab my cloak." After grabbing aforementioned cloak, he took her out into the corridors.
He looked at her for a moment before deciding to speak to her. Taking a deep breath, he said warily, "So, what was all that about?"
She sneered in a most Snape-like way. At least, that's what she would have thought if she had known who Snape was. "Oh, absolutely nothing. Just a surprise assignment."
All right, so how was that for a first try? Well, hoped you liked it. I'm going to try and get at least one chapter up a week and they will probably not all be this long. Well, you know what to do! Review!
Oh, and by the way, the name Persephone is pronounced Per-sif-oh-nee
Disclaimer: no matter how much I wish it, not one little bit of Harry Potter belongs to me, all to J.K. Rowling
Ok, continue!
A Time to Remember
Chapter 1
A Surprise Assignment
A girl with striking blond hair was sitting beneath a tree in the middle of a huge park with a huge book in her lap that she had no intention of opening. She was looking around at the people passing by with tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. Everything she had come to know in her life was changing. She wiped a hand to her eyes and began to study the scenery for she knew that it was unlikely that she'd ever see the area again.
"Pers?" a voice called from a baseball field bleacher seat. "Come on! We've got a half hour before we leave!"
The girl stood and wiped her pants free of leaves and dirt, letting the book slip from her lap. Pushing a stray lock of hair from her pale round face, she smiled down at it. The words Hogwarts, A History gleamed back up at her in bright, new golden letters. She lifted it carefully and ran to catch up with the woman who had called, her mother, over beside the baseball field.
A middle aged Japanese woman (or rather, half Japanese) was standing next to a set of bleachers wearing strange flowing robes that were reminiscent of a Stevie Nicks fashion craze. She was waiting for the girl anxiously. Her hands were stretched out in her daughter's direction and a small baggie of fine powder was visible from within her robes' inner pocket.
"Hurry up, hon; I've got an appointment in London in 45 minutes! The Minister himself is to meet me in person and we still need to pack up all of your school things. Your father's about to pop a brain vessel or something, your grandmother's making that weird disapproving clicking noise, your brother is frantic, and even your sister can't keep quiet. I'm telling you, Pers, if we don't get out of the house in the next twenty minutes I fear for the entire family's well-being." Her voice was light- hearted and joking, but her eyes were uncertain as to whether she had just jinxed her family unwittingly.
The girl, or Pers, rolled her eyes good-naturedly and fell into step beside her mother. "Mom, do we really have to go all the way to England? Can't we stay here? It's going to be so different there and I won't have any friends. What if this new school is even worse than the one I'm at now? It would probably be safer just to stay here." She babbled her pleas to her mother who was having trouble stifling her smile.
"I'm sorry, hon, but we can't leave you here alone." Her mother's eyes twinkled merrily at her. "You're not even of Wizarding age, let alone Muggle age."
Pers stuttered over her words as she fumbled for an answer. "B-but - I-I could, you know, I could--" an idea hit her. "I could stay with my sister and her husband!"
Now her mother's good humor was ending and her tone was sharper. "Persephone McCain! You can't stay with them! Your sister's having a hard enough time with her own child; she doesn't need the double burden of a kid sister. Besides, the Ministry asked me to make sure you came." She continued before letting her daughter question. "Why, I don't know, but orders are orders."
The girl sighed and resigned herself to the answer, not because she wanted to, but because her mother gave her one of those "drop it" looks. So, instead of talking, she focused her energy into burning the image of the Lincoln Park sign into her brain. Parks on Puget Sound were undoubtedly rare in England.
Their house was very close to the park, so the two hardly had a walk in front of them and within the half hour the whole family was ready to go. All of the luggage was stacked around an unnaturally large fireplace beside the departing family. Persephone's father, Miles, was painstakingly starting a fire the Muggle way as his family said their goodbyes.
"Oh, goodbye, Pers," Persephone's elder sister, Io, said in her quiet voice as she hugged the girl. "Don't forget to send an owl by every now and again."
"And by me, too," her grandmother said tearfully. Persephone couldn't help but think about how her grandmother always ended up crying the minute anyone even thought of saying good bye.
"Oh, you two," she said to them in fake disdain. "You talk as though I'm not coming back! Well, you'll see, in a couple weeks Mom and Dad will be begging the London Ministry to send them back here, to good old Seattle." But in her heart of hearts, Persephone had the sinking feeling that the next time she saw Seattle (that is, if she ever did) wouldn't be for many, many years.
The two women smiled shakily, but Persephone could see in their eyes that they knew the same as she did.
"HA!" The sound brought them all out of their silent farewells.
"Oh, Miles!" Persephone's mother cried, glaring at her triumphant husband who now sat beside a roaring fire. "You really are a mystery!"
He looked up at his tearful family in confusion, as though his outburst could have in no way disrupted the highly sentimental moment they had been sharing. "What?"
Mrs. McCain rolled her eyes dramatically. Despite her sadness, Persephone found it difficult to suppress her giggles.
"Well," her mother said after about five more minutes of tears and goodbyes, "I suppose the time has come. Come along, Archie, you first."
Persephone's young brother Archie, short for Narcissus (of all things) approached his mother. The woman took the packet of powder from her pocket and put a fair amount of it into the boy's open palm. He smiled, stepped into the fireplace, threw down the powder, yelled in a loud voice "London- Ministry of Magic!" and disappeared in an eruption of green flames. Next went Persephone's father with the luggage. Then her mother turned to her.
"Your turn, Pers," she said coldly, almost daring her daughter to start up a new plea to stay home in Seattle, but the girl kept quiet. She took the offered powder and followed the same steps as both her brother and father, but took a moment to look at the sad and smiling faces of her family in the room that had once been her home's sitting room. She sighed one last time in defeat, threw down the powder, cried out her destination, and was engulfed by towering neon green flames.
She whooshed out of the fireplace on the other side. After cracking her head hard on the floor, she stopped sliding. She stood shakily with a hand tentatively feeling the back of her head. She cursed softly under her breath as she felt a bump beginning to form. Slowly, she began to walk over to her brother and father, who were laughing so hard that their faces were red.
"Ha ha. Very funny," she said to them sarcastically. "It's not like you've never made a less than graceful entrance out of Floo." She looked to her father. "I remember the time you Flooed to the wrong grate and ended up getting conked on the head with an iron poker by some poor old witch who you nearly scared to death." Her father stopped mid-laugh. She looked at him triumphantly. "Take that."
Just then, before Persephone could terrorize her brother with his "getting stuck in the firewood" story, her mother stepped from the fireplace looking remarkable clean and absolutely none the worse for wear. It irked Persephone that her mother could get caught in a Tornado and come out of it looking as though she had just come from the salon.
So, to counteract her mother's annoyingly fresh appearance after the dirty ordeal, Persephone closed her eyes and created the image of a face in her mind. It took a lot of concentration to make the Change, but she diligently focused on each feature: the high sloping forehead, the pale blemish free skin, the soft and shining chestnut curls, the wide deep brown, almost black eyes. It was the face of a Spanish beauty. Then, in the split second that her mind was totally and completely focused, she felt the Change. She opened her eyes and smiled a new smile that opened up her entire face and shook her head to make her soft, new curls bounce becomingly. You see, Persephone was a. Metamorphagus.
Her mother looked at her for a moment, didn't recognize her, and then scowled as the realization struck her. "Really, Persephone, must you do that at every conceivable opportunity?"
Persephone turned to her mother, smiling impishly. "Really, I don't have the faintest idea what you mean, Mother dearest." Her voice was dripping with amusement and she pretended she didn't know what her mother meant. This caused her brother and father to begin laughing again and her mother to roll her eyes.
"Please, Persephone," she said in defeat, "no phoniness right now, OK? We really must be on our way."
Without waiting for a reply, she pulled out her wand from within her robes and levitated the luggage before her with an impatient "Wingardium Leviosa." Then, with another swift incantation, she had them follow her through a door which the rest of the family had yet to notice. But they quickly followed her without hesitation.
The door led out into a huge hall with a fountain in the middle of it. The fountain contained golden statues of a wizard, a witch, a centaur, and a house elf. If her mother hadn't been rushing them all, Persephone would have stopped to watch it in fascination, but as it was, she could barely catch a passing glance. People were walking all over the hall talking to each other amiably, only stopping to curiously glance at Persephone and her family. 'These must be London Ministry officials,' Persephone thought to herself as she watched them continue on their way. While they went straight through a large set of golden double doors, Persephone's mother led them to a much smaller set of doors that had a desk beside it. Behind the desk sat a portly, balding man reading a newspaper and eating something that resembled a cinnamon bun without all the sticky stuff. He hardly looked up at them as they approached. 'This must be an everyday occurrence for him,' Persephone supposed.
"Wands, please," he said in an obviously bored voice. Persephone's mother and father immediately handed their wands over, and after a bit of encouragement, so did her brother. They all looked at Persephone in exasperation as she desperately searched her robes for her own wand.
"Now, really, I know I had it here," she mumbled as she searched. She could feel her face heat up and knew she was blushing. "I remember I had it back at home. I know it because I used it to pack. I must have-" Then she remembered what she had done with it. "It's in my trunk," she whispered sheepishly. She hadn't expected to need it until she had gotten to their new residence and had packed it up along with the rest of her school things.
"Honestly, Persephone, if it were up to me I would have left you for your grandmother to deal with," her mother said to her as she helped her look through her trunk. Persephone risked a small grin and pulled her wand out of the trunk.
"Here you are." She handed the bored man her wand. He had yet to take his nose out of his newspaper.
One at a time he set each wand on a device that somewhat resembled a scale and grabbed the piece of parchment that came out of the other end. "All right," he said, still completely bored. "This wand came from the boy. 9 inches, ebony, containing dragon heartstring, in use for three years. That right?" Archie nodded vigorously. The man handed him back his wand and stabbed the paper down on a spike that held many other bits of paper. He put another wand on the scale. "This is your wand, ma'am. 10 ½ inches, holly, containing dragon heartstring, been in use for 41 years, right?" Mrs. McCain nodded absently and grabbed her wand from his outstretched hand as he put her little bit of parchment over her son's with his other hand. "All right, sir, this here's yours. 12 inches, dogwood, dragon heartstring, been in use 43 years." Persephone's father nodded the affirmative as the man handed him his wand and pushed down the parchment. "And lastly, little miss, here's yours. 11 inches, willow, containing a - huh, I was expecting dragon heartstring -- a unicorn hair, been in use seven years?" She nodded quickly and snatched her wand back from him, glad to have it where she could see it. "Well, that's all, you lot. You keep your wands and I'll keep the parchment. Off with you now."
They all left with Persephone's mother still levitating the luggage in front of her. After Persephone was sure that they were no longer within earshot of the strange wand man, she turned to her mother. "Well, Mom, I must say that that was definitely weird. What was the point of that?"
"British law," her mother answered absently. "They have to check your wand before letting you by. It is a bit weird, now that you mention it, but you had better get used to it. It's something you'll probably go through for a while unless you become a member of the Ministry. Now, stop asking silly questions and come along. If we don't hurry, we'll be late."
Persephone grumbled a bit at her mother's "silly questions" remark, but seeing as how she had no desire to start a fight with her mother at the time, she kept her mouth shut. She followed her mother down a rather long and plain corridor to strange double doors that resembled the elevator doors that Persephone had seen in old fancy hotels. Her mother pushed a button beside them and impatiently began tapping her foot as she waited for the doors to open. Even Persephone's father knew better than to disturb his wife at this stressful moment. After a few minutes had passed, the doors opened and they all piled in as a few happily chatting witches filed out. The doors closed and her mother said to no one in particular, "This had better go by quickly."
The elevator began to move and even Persephone found herself looking about anxiously. Soon, though, a lofty female voice seemed to appear out of nowhere stating, "Level seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club, and Ludicrous Patents Office." The doors swiftly opened and a few disgruntled looking wizards stepped in, forcing Persephone and her family to be pushed further back. When the doors closed again, Persephone tried to catch bits of their conversation.
"Really, that Bagman fellow sure has some nerve," one terribly intimidating fellow said to his companions sourly. "What right does he have to blame us for the Britain Quidditch team losing?"
"I know, Ben, but he says that if we managed the Floo better, it wouldn't be so 'hard on the poor fellows' health.' Those are his exact words, they are," said a less intimidating, but certainly surly fellow.
The third one, perhaps the most frightening of them all, spoke up. "You're both right, you know. But I hear he had a bet on the game and lost a fair amount of money when the team didn't win. You know what a gambler Bagman is." His voice was surprisingly light-hearted.
The lift doors opened ("Level six, Department of Magical Transport, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office, and Apparition Test Center") and they all walked out, still complaining about that "Bagman fellow." Taking their place was a very old and frail witch who looked as though a stray breeze could have made her fall to pieces.
Unfortunately for Persephone, she didn't talk at all, and therefore the girl couldn't learn anything at all about these British wizards. She had been most interested in the Bagman fellow and had been hoping to hear more about him.
The lift slowed and the voice announced the destination once more. "Level five, Department of International Magical Cooperation, incorporating the International Magical Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law, and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats." The doors opened and Persephone's mother reached forward to hold them open.
"This is us!"
The family made their way past the frail old witch, who smiled at them all with slightly yellowing and crooked teeth as the door closed.
"Come on, now. All of you."
Persephone and her father and brother hurried to catch up with their mother who seemed to have suddenly had the seat of her pants set on fire. She was determinedly passing each and every office that was in the corridor. As they passed, Persephone caught glimpses of huge piles of papers and sounds of frantically scratching quills. It reminded her of a workhouse she had seen in a Muggle movie once.
Finally, after what seemed like 20 minutes of flat-out race walking, Persephone's mother finally stopped. She stopped so abruptly that the rest of her family collided into her and knocked her forward into the levitating luggage. She pitched forward, but somehow managed to keep her balance. She turned around and glared at them. "Really!" she huffed in fury, still staring daggers at them. After a few quick touches on her hair, she knocked on the door that they stood in front of. An anxious and eager voice called out, "Just a moment, please," and the sound of straightening papers and shutting drawers came from behind the door. A few seconds later the door was opened and the whole family found themselves looking into the face of a smiling, young, redheaded man. Mrs. McCain looked at him in surprise for a minute, and then put on a huge smile.
"Minister!" she exclaimed happily and grabbing his hand to shake it forcefully. "It really is a pleasure to meet you after all this time. Although I must say that I am surprised you are so young. I had expected someone older."
The young man looked at the small woman in shock as he tried to take his hand out of hers. "Ah, no, no, I'm not the Minister," he said, as his face turned nearly as red as his hair. "I'm his assistant." Persephone's mother's face fell considerably and she looked a bit embarrassed. "Mr. Fudge is out at the moment, but he should be returning shortly. He is expecting you, I think. You are, um, Mrs." he reached into his pocket for a bit and pulled out a scrap of parchment. "Mrs.Yuriko McCain, are you not?" She nodded. "Ah, then, well, take a seat." He ushered her in.
It was around this time he noticed the rest of the family. He looked up at them in surprise. "And who might you be?" he asked, as he looked over the three family members still standing. Persephone opened her mouth to answer, but her mother got there first.
"They are my family."
The man looked at her. "Oh, yes, well. I suppose you can have a seat, too, then. This way, please." Persephone did her best not to laugh at his ridiculous behavior. He reminded her of a waiter at a restaurant, a bit absent-minded, but a waiter nonetheless.
They all sat down and Mrs. McCain let the luggage down beside the door. The young man had just started to return to his desk when Persephone's mother addressed him. "I'm sorry, but what is your name?"
The young man turned around, instantly red again and began to apologize fiercely. "Oh dear, I'm terribly sorry, I hadn't realized I'd forgotten. Please, do forgive me. I'm Percy Weasley."
"Of course," Persephone's mother said in her dignified work voice. "And if I may introduce my family?" She didn't wait for an answer. "This is my husband, Miles McCain, my son Narcissus-" said son interrupted with a quick "Archie!" Mrs. McCain glared at him, but continued. "Archie, then, and my daughter Persephone."
Young Mr. Weasley shook each of their hands in turn and instead of returning to his desk, took another chair and sat across from them. "Most interesting names your children have, Mrs. McCain," he stated matter-of- factly. "Wherever did you find those?" Mrs. McCain had been about to answer, when Persephone stepped in.
"It was Mom and Dad's love for Grecian myths. All of my siblings have Grecian or Roman names. There's Helen, Paris, Perseus, Europa, Io, Andromeda, and me and Narcissus here." Her brother glared at her and said, "Archie!" once more. Persephone shoved him playfully. "I mean Archie." Her mother sighed from beside her and Persephone almost immediately felt remorse for telling this stranger about her other brothers and sisters.
"Really?" Percy said in awe with wide eyes. "I never thought I'd find a family to rival my own in size. There are nine of us, but there are 10 of you." His eyes showed his confusion. "But where are the rest of your children?"
A simple question. That's what he thought he had asked. Apparently he was wrong. Mrs. McCain took a sharp intake of breath and Mr. McCain put his arm about her shoulders. Archie looked saddened, but Persephone looked deadened. The young man instantly regretted his question. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I hadn't meant to offend."
Persephone stopped his rambling apologies. "It's all right. You see, they were all killed, except for the two of us and my sister Io. She stayed at home because she's married and has a family." His face cringed immediately as he realized what he'd asked earlier but before he could begin his apologies, the door to the office was slammed open. The people inside jumped.
A large heavy set man entered pulled off his lime green bowler from his head and flung it across the room. "Damn Americans!" he yelled as he took off his coat. The family scowled and Percy jumped up. Persephone knew that she was going to have a hard time liking the man after that last outburst.
"S-Sir! You're back! And so soon! What happened?" Percy took the man's coat and hung it on a hook before retrieving the man's hat and doing the same with it. Persephone watched as the heavy man sat at Percy's desk and put his muddy boots up on it, splattering the entire surface. Percy winced, but otherwise did nothing.
"Those damn Americans happened, that's what happened," the man grumbled. "I said I'd meet them out at the Muggle International Airport where they were supposed to get off their flight, but they didn't show. I should've known better than to trust bloody Americans. Flighty little buggers, I'm telling ya. Don't trust 'em as far as you can throw them. Remember that, Weasley."
Mrs. McCain cleared her throat just then, before Percy could answer. The man looked at them in surprise, just noticing they were there. "Minister?" she asked, as she stood.
He looked at her and the rest of the family through narrow eyes. "Yes. Who the devil are you?"
Mrs. McCain smirked and rolled her eyes, much as she would to her husband when he said something amazingly dense. Then, in a calm and dignified voice, she said, "Those 'Damn Americans.'"
He scrambled up surprisingly quickly despite his girth and looked at her in surprise. "Yuriko McCain? Is it you, then?" he asked in disbelief. She glared at him. He quickly regained his composure. "What in bloody hell are you doing here?! You were supposed to meet me at the airport. What do you mean by showing up here and making me wait in a place infested with so many damn Muggles that I could hardly breathe? The plan was to meet there, don't you remember?" Persephone, her brother, and her father watched the exchange with interest, but had no intention of joining in.
"I believe, sir, that you are mistaken," Persephone's mother stated calmly. "The plan was to meet here."
Now the Minister's face was as red as Percy's had been less than five minutes earlier. "IT BLOODY WELL WASN'T!" he cried at the top of his voice. The vein throbbing in his temple looked about to pop.
"It was," Mrs. McCain said, just as calmly as before. "The original plan was to meet in the airport, but you canceled that last minute, as you had a meeting to attend, so you said to just Floo in and meet you in your office." The Minister looked at her with his mouth agape and was about to begin shouting again, when the woman continued. "If you do not believe me, then I can prove it." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment. "Here's the letter you sent to me yesterday. It reads: 'Mrs. Yuriko McCain, the Minister is most sorry to inform you that he must cancel aforementioned meeting at the aforementioned Muggle airport, for he must attend a very important meeting at that time. He wishes that you might meet him in his office on August the 21st at exactly 6 o'clock in the evening (British time). Arrangements can be made from there. Sincerely, Cornelius Fudge Minister of Magic.'" As though she suspected that he had his doubts, she handed him the letter with his own signature on it. He spluttered for a moment, but could find nothing to say. Persephone had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. Of course, Mrs. McCain was not yet done. She looked at her watch, turned to the Minister, smiled at him sweetly and said, "It seems, sir, that you are late." That time, Persephone couldn't hold it in anymore. She laughed out loud at the look on the Minister's face and immediately covered her mouth once more. The Minister glared at her, but didn't say anything.
"Well, then, Mrs. McCain and family, you have my apologies," he grumbled. His face was still red, but now it was from embarrassment instead of anger. "That other meeting had been canceled and I forgot that I told you to come by my office. It seems, ma'am, that perhaps I was a bit, shall we say, over the line in my statement." This time, instead of just Mrs. McCain, the whole family smirked. He changed gears quickly. 'It seems that the Minister is not one used to apologizing,' Persephone thought. "Now about this meeting, I think we had better go inside my office." He indicated a door behind Percy's desk. "I'll call up a security official to escort your family to your new residence." He turned to Percy. "Weasley, get an escort." The young man complied, and with hardly 20 seconds gone, a middle- aged wizard came in through the office door.
"Now if you'll come with me, Mrs. McCain," the Minister said, opening the door for the woman. Persephone and the rest of her family were about to leave with the security wizard and the luggage when Fudge turned around quickly as though he were forgetting something. "Oh, and you did bring your daughter, didn't you, Mrs. McCain? And is this her? Persephone was her name, correct?"
"Yes, Minister, Persephone is my daughter."
The Minister nodded and gestured to Persephone. "Perhaps it would be better if you joined us now, rather than schedule another meeting. We wouldn't want another misunderstanding as we did today."
Persephone was surprised, to say the least. After an allowing nod from her mother, she left her brother and father and followed Fudge and Percy into his office. As soon as the door was closed, Fudge motioned for them to sit down in a chair as he took his own behind his desk.
"Now," he began, his hands folded over his desk. "I suppose you are wondering why I should like to talk to you, but you see; you are entering your seventh year of school and will be attending Hogwarts, correct?" Persephone nodded carefully. "Yes, good. And you'll be seventeen soon, right? On the seventh of September, unless I am much mistaken." Again, she nodded. "Well, I'm assuming that you know of You-Know-Who? Of course you do. Everyone does." She shook her head. 'Who is You-Know-Who?' she thought to herself. "You don't? Damn. This does mean I'll have to explain a bit more. Well, you see, You-Know-Who is this, well, Dark wizard. He believes that the only wizards worth being around are those of pureblood descent. He believes that all those of Muggle descent are inferior and should be, well, for lack of a better word, disposed of. For years he has terrorized Muggleborns and those who befriend and protect Muggleborns. He has killed numerous men, women, and innocent children. In the past few years he has been rising to power once again. His focus of late has been on this one boy, a boy by the name of Harry Potter. You do know who Harry Potter is, don't you?" She vaguely remembered the name from a Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson she had had at her old school. She tried to remember exactly what he had done.
"He's the boy who lived, isn't he? The one who this wizard couldn't kill, right? I forget what the wizard's name was, though. It started with a 'V' I think. Sort of like Vold -" Fudge cut her off.
"Yes, yes, that's him. You-Know-Who couldn't kill him that one time, but now he's almost entirely powerful again and he wants to be rid of the boy once and for all. Well, over the past, what, six years, Potter's had to face You-Know-Who six times in some form or other. And every time the boy has somehow escaped, but each year it was almost as though he were trying harder and harder to find You-Know-Who. And, well, he's beginning his seventh year this year as well, and we, the Ministry, would really appreciate knowing what he was up to, and, well,--" Persephone interrupted him.
"You want me to be your spy, don't you? You want me to keep an eye on him and inform you of his doings. Sort of keep him in line, right?"
Fudge sighed in relief. Persephone had a fleeting suspicion that he had not really wanted to ask her outright to do that. "Yes, yes, that's right. I'd like you to befriend him and just watch him for us all. So he doesn't get into any unwanted trouble, you know. What do you say?" The Minister had taken on a companionable tone, thinking he had just tricked her into doing what he wanted.
"No." Her reply was blunt and frank.
"No?" Fudge questioned.
"Is there an echo in here? Don't you understand the word?" She was starting to get irritated with him.
His eyes narrowed. "Oh, I understand it, all right. But why do you say no? The Ministry is willing to pay you for it, not much, mind you, but enough. You see, the Ministry really doesn't want to have to deal with any surprises this year."
Now Persephone was really starting to get mad. "The Ministry doesn't want to deal with it or you don't want to deal with it? Come on, Fudge, who do you think you're kidding?" He was about to speak, but she started up again. "It's a despicable idea, you know. You want me to make nice with someone I don't know so that I can keep you in the light and on top of things. You do know that that means that one day he'll find out and then I'll be in trouble, don't you? Or were you just planning on not mentioning that little bit of information? Really, I'd like to make my own friends for my own reasons, thank you."
Persephone could see the color drain from his face and then come back in full force. "Why you little - Here I try to be nice and offer you a job. Well, like it or not, you'll do it. I have persuasive ways. Your mother's job isn't really a necessary one here, you know. We could always send you back to where you came from. Seattle, Washington, wasn't it? I'm sure they'd welcome your mother back with open arms, right?"
Persephone thought about this. It wasn't true that they'd take her back, and both she and Fudge knew it. Her mother had been on the verge of being laid off due to budget cuts and that would have cut off the family's income. No matter how much Persephone would have loved to go home, she knew it would ruin her family life. She looked around to see if her mother had heard Fudge threaten her job, but she was chatting animatedly with Percy over by the door and was oblivious to all that had passed between her daughter and the Minister of the London Ministry of Magic. Persephone sighed in defeat and turned back to Fudge. "You win, I'll do it. But I'd like you to know - You really are snake-like, did you know?"
Then, surprisingly, he smiled at her. "I know. I was in Slytherin during my school years."
She had no idea what a Slytherin was, but she stood immediately and stormed out of the office. She heard Percy excuse himself and follow her out. He caught her by the wrist before she could open the door out into the corridor.
"Wait, will you?" he said anxiously. "I'm supposed to take you home, seeing as you don't know where it is."
She sighed. These Ministry people were really starting to get on her nerves. "So take me already."
"All right, just a moment, though. I've got to grab my cloak." After grabbing aforementioned cloak, he took her out into the corridors.
He looked at her for a moment before deciding to speak to her. Taking a deep breath, he said warily, "So, what was all that about?"
She sneered in a most Snape-like way. At least, that's what she would have thought if she had known who Snape was. "Oh, absolutely nothing. Just a surprise assignment."
All right, so how was that for a first try? Well, hoped you liked it. I'm going to try and get at least one chapter up a week and they will probably not all be this long. Well, you know what to do! Review!