HPOV
He's sitting in the guest chair across from my desk, looking fabulously cool and calm.
"Hermione -"
"Nothing on this earth gives you the right to call me Hermione. It's Ma'am, to you."
"We're the same rank."
"It's Ma'am. Now either state your business, or get the hell out of my office. And while you're telling me what you want, you can explain why my secretary may need to be bailed out of Azkaban if she ever sees you again." While I'm talking, I take my own seat, and start organising papers. I get a fresh parchment and quill, and make some notes.
"What's that you're writing?"
"A memo to me, reminding myself to draw up the plans for a law against racial insults, Zabini. Now, as I said, what can I do for you?"
"You have some things that belong to my Department. I merely wanted to know if you could tell me when I would get them back."
"When I'm finished with them. It may be days, it may be weeks. And that is bullshit. That sort of thing, you Message to me. In fact, that sort of thing, your secretary would Message to my secretary. So, unless you came up here simply to insult my secretary, which you will apologise for, or I will have you fired, and please don't think I wouldn't. Do remember that the Head of Human Resources is a very old friend, and I would only have to say the word Mudblood to have you removed. So, I will ask you again, why are you in my office?"
"I wanted to say hello."
"I am not in the mood for Slytherin games, Zabini."
"It's true. I wanted to say hello, and sorry."
"Sorry? What for, Zabini? What for?"
"For everything I ever said to you in school."
"Which is a null and void apology, as you've said the same thing today. For which you still have to explain to me."
"She got up in my face. Said I had to stand outside and wait for you."
"She had a valid point."
"I don't have to answer to secretary's."
"She's my secretary, acting on my orders. When I am out of my office, she is me, in effect. And telling you to stay the hell out of my office doesn't warrant being called a Mudblood."
"She acted like she owned the fucking Ministry. It just slipped out."
"I don't care. You will apologise to her, you will say it sincerely. And get out of my office, before I have you ejected from it."
"I'd like to see you try."
"Don't tempt me. We both know I'd win a duel. I could beat you second year, I can definitely beat you now. I will remove you either bodily, or by magic, or you can remove yourself. Our conversation is over. Do try and keep out of my way."
He gave Anna a charming little apology, which she accepted, just barely. She gave me some Pick and Mix, and it brought a genuine smile to my face.
"I haven't had these for years." I peek, and my eyes widen. They're Muggle sweets.
"There's a WH Smith's just around the corner. They had a counter, I thought you'd like the gesture. Nothing used to cheer me up like Pick'n'Mix when I was younger. My mum hated me getting them, but once a month, she gave me two pounds to spend there. I always got gummy bears, cola bottles, jelly buttons, jelly beans, and barley sugar. I got you the same, I don't know what you like."
"I like all of them, but I'll trade you my jelly buttons for your barley sugar."
"Done deal. And here's your tea. I made it myself, the tea they serve in the canteen is disgusting. I've got myself a charmed teapot and some PG Tips in my desk drawers," she says, conspiratorially, smiling at me.
"Well, I have got an open fire and I brought bread, butter and Marmite, so I could have lunchtime toast. It's bit of a ritual. Would you care to join me?"
"I would love to, Ms -"
"Hell, call me Hermione."
We pass a pleasant half an hour, before Anna announces she has work to do. I agree that I too, have work that must be done, and continue to wade through all the old Laws, finding some that are so long outdated, the parchment that abolition was written on is probably worth something. I'm happily chewing on a jelly bean when Seamus appears. I have divided my office into five stacks of paper. The Laws that I want to keep, and are still active. The Laws I want to reinstate. The Laws I don't want. The Laws I have to make inactive. The maybe pile.
"Jesus, Hermione, what are you doing?"
"Sorting through five hundred years of Wizarding Law. I could go further back, but my therapist at St Mungo's has told me I should get out more."
"You wanted to see me?"
"Yes, I -" Hmm. No chair. My chair has boxes on it.
"Don't worry, I'll stand."
"Yes. Obviously, our departments are going to have to be working closely together. And I need favour."
"What have you got?"
"Gummy bears," I say, waving the bag.
"Done. What can I do for you?"
"Your Department ran the trials. I need the files for all Death Eater trials conducted after the War."
"Hermione -"
"Seamus, I need them. I have every reason to believe that some, if not all, of those trials were wrong."
"So what are you going to do, release them?"
"No, don't be ridiculous. But I need to know that those trials were conducted within the bounds of the Law. Now, I have uncovered a very interesting Law here. As you know, there has been some questioning of the trials. They were held in secret, with no jury. And as you know, technically -"
"It's illegal. The rule-book went out the window, people were angry, wanted revenge."
"It might not have been illegal. Three hundred years ago, the Ministry passed a Law declaring any witch or wizard charged with sufficient evidence with crimes against humanity could be tried without a jury. Unless the paperwork has got lost in the system, that Law was never revoked. It technically still stands. All I have to do is sign a form, and have you and the Minister counter-sign it, and it will be reintroduced."
"You said it was never revoked."
"It wasn't, but as it has been inactive for over one hundred years, it must be formally reintroduced into the legal system. However, they would have to be re-tried, because the Law was technically inactive. I filled those forms out the minute I realised what I was holding. All you have to do is sign them, and get me the case files, and we will make legal history. No Law has ever been reintroduced, in all the years of recorded history."
"And we will be seen as minor celebrities."
"I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in justice."
He signs them, as I knew he would. The case files will be on my desk by morning, and I will begin the lists of trials to be recalled. The press are going to have a lot to publish, come Friday.
When I get in the next morning, I am informed by the pale and trembling Anna that I have to see the papers. I don't read the papers any more, having seen myself on the cover's one time too many. When Ron and I broke up, when I was accused, wrongly, of trying to sabotage the Ministry, when I spoke publicly in Severus Snape's defence, when I was called a Death Eater sympathiser. And finally, two years ago, my public descent into a mental breakdown. When Harry came to my house and found me in my bath tub with my wrist's slit and a Blood-Thinning Potion next to me. I came round in St Mungo's, drugged and restrained, and raving about the war and the hell I was in. I don't read any paper's now.
GRANGER TO INTRODUCE MARRIAGE LAW
A Ministry plot was today revealed by an inside source. It implicates Ms Hermione Granger, former member of the Golden Trio, and newly appointed Head of the Department for Educational and Legal Reformation, Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt and Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, Seamus Finnegan. It is rumoured that the three plan to introduce a marriage law, that will see wizards formally chosen a partner for marriage and forced into matrimony. Our source could not reveal any details, but warned us that Granger was close to signing the documents that would make it legal. It is another mark against the Ministry in the growing loss of confidence in their competence.
I slam into Kingsley's office, ignoring his frantic assistant who tries to stop me.
"This is bullshit."
"I know, Ms Granger. This is the Editor of the Daily Prophet, Charles Hawtree, I do believe you have met, and obviously, Luna."
"Mr Hawtree, I do wish I could say it was good to see you again, but as you are aware that my dearest wish is to hex you into the next century, why don't we skip the formalities. What the hell did you think you were playing at?"
"Ms Granger, this article was run without my knowledge or approval -"
"So you aren't in control of your own paper? For Merlin's sake, Hawtree, it was on the goddamn front page. There is no way you could have overlooked it."
"This was meant to be the front page. It's a piece to welcome you to your new job, and celebrating your complete recovery. When I approved this last night, this wasn't the front page I OK'd."
"Who wrote it? Whichever one of your reporter's wrote it, I want their head on a silver platter, and I want the name of their "source". Are we clear, Hawtree?"
"Crystal, Ms Granger."
"Excellent." I slam back out of his office and storm past Anna, who gets up from her chair.
"Hermione, it wasn't me. I never said a word."
"Don't worry, Anna. When I do find out who knew, and who talked, head's will roll."
BPOV
I contemplate today's paper over my coffee. My assistant knocks, and brings in my post. There's a message from Hermione's secretary, telling me that Hermione should be done with some of the files by the end of today. I sit back and think about our meeting. I hadn't expected it to go well, and it hadn't. She'd been angry, and bitter, and hard. I got a shock when I saw her scars for the first time. The burn on her arm paled in comparison to the four identical claw marks on her face, that disappeared down into her blouse. Of course, it had been well known that Hermione had been severely injured by Fenir Greyback during the Final Battle, and pictures of her scars had been published, both during the aftermath, and the trial of the Death Eater's. Of course, she'd had to release a careful statement to the press, when the rumours about bites had started. She said she hadn't been bitten, and she was not a werewolf.
I was shocked at her candour and ice-queen demeanour. Hermione Granger was never cold. She could be removed and aloof, but she was never cold. Yesterday, I saw what war, loss and hopelessness had done to a brilliant and caring witch, and I didn't like the picture it had painted.
But the last note, hand-written and only two lines long, shocked me.
Zabini
I've got to go over all the files from the trials, and I have discovered something I must discuss with you. If you could come and see me? And if you so much as look at Anna wrong, I'll hex your balls off.
H. Granger
Head of the Department for Educational and Legal Reformation.
Short, to the point, and restricted. It projects professionalism, and the ice-queen persona she's perfecting. I'm not busy, so I go up immediately.
Anna tells me Ms Granger is in her office, and shows me in. Hermione looks up and I notice tiny fine lines around her eyes. She's old before her time, looking ten years older than her twenty-four years. Twenty-four, I realise, and she's already lived a lifetime. Her eyes are dead and flat. I realise that part of Hermione Granger died in the War, and that she will never fully recover. Just like her scars, she will never heal. And looking at her, I know that she hates me.
"You asked to see me?"
"We are recalling the Death-Eater trials."
"What?"
"We are recalling the trials. They must be done legally."
"They'll get a jury?"
"No. There will be no jury, but this time there will be no jury legally. They will be private, not the circus they were last time. The Wizengamot will not preside. Instead, the court will be made up of the Minister, and the Head's of all Ministry departments. I am telling you first because Draco Malfoy's trial is one of the one's we are recalling. So I, off the record, am giving you a choice. I will not insist you are there for his trial. I know you used to be friends."
"You are going to flout the law so I am more comfortable." She is silent, the only sound in her office the scratching of her quill. "Why would you do that? I made your life hell, and you are going to let me out of his trial because we were friends. I would have thought you would have wanted me to suffer."
"I do, Zabini, I really do. My head is screaming at me to put you through hell. But my heart, what is left of it, won't let me do that. It's up to you. His trial will be the first. Feel free to put in for sick leave."
"No, Ma'am. I want - I need to be there."
"Suit yourself. That was all, thank you."
"Ma'am, just so you know, he was never really my friend."
"Zabini, just so you know, I don't care anymore. I don't care about any of it. I don't care if you were friends, lovers, or deadly enemies. I don't care anymore."
