Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Poter.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited and/or followed this story.
It was very late evening on the day of Amelia's inspection of Azkaban and the DMLE director couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard she tried. Her thoughts kept returning to Barty Crouch and the transformation he underwent during the Voldemort war.
When she joined the DMLE as an Auror trainee, Crouch had been considered a serious, strict man who didn't tolerate sloppy work and fooling around – it was a description which would also fit other members of the DMLE, such as Alastor Moody or Rufus Scrimgeour, and nobody had a problem with it. In fact, during those times it was reassuring that the DMLE director is a man who takes his duties seriously and demands the same from his subordinates.
But as the war went on and things kept getting worse, Crouch got the idea that nobody did their job properly if their boss wasn't standing behind them and breathing down their neck. Then came the very loud, sometimes quite humiliating, and very public reprimands and with them the first stirrings of displeasure. Amelia got her share of them, too. She clearly remembered that some trainees and even a few Junior Aurors were on the edge of crying when Crouch was finished with them.
This was followed by two decisions, first of which was universally welcomed and earned Bartemius Crouch a lot of praise, while the second caused a lot of controversy. The permission to kill or maim the Death Eaters if necessary was considered a reasonable thing, but the authorization to use the Unforgivables caused a divide in the Auror Office – and not only there.
First warnings had been heard that some Aurors behaved just as cruelly as the Death Eaters and the DMLE director not only let it slide, but supported it. Bartemius Crouch of the late seventies and early eighties was an entirely different man from the one who led the DMLE a decade before. The Crouch of the early seventies would never just toss a man in Azkaban without a trial, but when it came to the Crouch of the early eighties, quite a lot of things were possible.
Amelia's musings were interrupted by the sound of breaking glass, which was followed by a thud and some high-pitched squeals. The DMLE director grabbed her wand from her bedside table and padded out into the hallway. She saw that Susan was out of bed, too. When the girl opened her mouth to speak, Amelia motioned for her to be quiet and then pointed at the door behind the teen in a gesture that clearly said "go back to your room".
Susan did as she was asked and Amelia continued in the direction from which the squealing came. It was soon clear that the noise came from Amelia's study. The DMLE director opened the door a crack and peered inside. Her eyes widened in disbelief when she saw what, or who, had caused all the racket.
Muffy and another house elf were rolling on the floor exchanging punches, scratches and bites. The glass of the bookcase where Amelia kept copies of valid laws and regulations had been smashed to pieces, which were now glittering on the floor, and there were some sheets of parchment and photographs strewn over the carpet near her desk.
Amelia pushed the door open with enough force for it to slam to the wall. The noise distracted the two brawling house elves and for a moment they stopped fighting and shrieking. The strange elf made use of the few seconds and disappeared with a crack. Muffy stood up, started pulling at her ears and apologized:
"Muffy is sorry for making mess and not stopping bad elf from getting to Mistress' things and waking up the Mistress."
"Don't worry, Muffy," said Amelia in what she hoped to be a calming tone of voice. "It actually looks like you did stop the other elf from getting to my things and made the mess while you tried to get rid of our unwelcome visitor – not just for your amusement. As for waking me up – if there is an intruder in the house, I'd wish to be informed immediately, no matter the hour. You did well, Muffy. There is no need to punish yourself."
The house elf nodded and then snapped her fingers. The broken glass front of the bookcase repaired itself. When Muffy lifted her hand to tidy up around her mistress' desk, Amelia stopped her and picked up the parchments and photographs herself.
Sure enough, it was the content of Sirius Black's file. The DMLE director checked if there was anything missing. To her relief, nothing had been taken or damaged. She put the documents back in their folder and locked them all in a desk drawer, which she then locked and warded.
Amelia didn't have to think hard to get an idea where the other elf came from. There were two men who could wish that Black's case was never reopened. First of them was Lucius Malfoy. If Black died in Azkaban, the family fortune and the Wizengamot seat would go to Malfoy's son, but Amelia didn't think that the intruding house elf was his. Malfoy preferred death threats and blackmail – and he also regarded house elves as something with about as much intelligence as a flobberworm, and therefore incapable of helping with his grand plans. Which left Barty Crouch.
I'll kill the dust-loving slob of an archivist, Amelia thought and exited the study, locking the door. She then stopped by Susan's room and reassured her niece that the intruder had been dealt with.
As soon as Amelia got to the Ministry the following day, she visited professor Penrose from the Magical Research Committee to ask about their progress with the anti-house elf ward. Penrose started working on it two years ago, when an envious rival sent his house elf to raid the professor's study. Penrose thought he got the ward right and asked Amelia, the daughter of his late friend, to borrow Muffy to test the ward. To the old wizard's chagrin, Muffy got through the ward in ten minutes. Unfortunately, Penrose had put the project on hiatus and devoted his time to his other research.
Amelia's mood improved when she visited Griselda Marchbanks at the Wizarding Examination Authority offices. The ancient witch was just instructing a subordinate about the OWL and NEWT tests for home-schooled witches and wizards which would take place in a few days. The DMLE director waited for Madame Marchbanks to finish giving out instructions before she greeted her.
"Good morning, professor."
The elderly witch looked up with a slightly annoyed expression on her face, but when she saw Amelia, it was replaced by a smile.
"Good morning, Amelia. Are you here to ask about any talented Hogwarts graduates which would fit well in your department?"
"Unfortunately, no. I need to talk to you about an unpleasant business which just came up. Privately," answered the DMLE director.
"Is it going to be a long talk?" asked the older woman.
"Yes, definitely," was the answer.
"In that case it would be best if you came to dinner this evening – that is, if you are free. Bring your niece, too. I have somewhere on my shelves a collection of books which Nobby Leach (1) gave me back in the sixties for my anniversary in function. I think the girl will like them and she's going to be occupied while we talk."
Amelia accepted the invitation, but she wasn't entirely sure about the books. Madame Marchbanks noticed and commented:
"Don't worry. While the books do belong to the romantic genre, there are neither half-naked heroes who are actually idiots, nor villains who are really only down-to-earth men. Nothing to give a teenage girl some silly notions. In fact, I believe that reading those stories can improve a teenager's mind."
"We'll see. I think that you never really know what a teen or pre-teen will like. Just last summer I thought that Susan would probably develop a crush on Amos Diggory's son, but she went crazy over a vapid, overly perfumed and overly dolled up older man."
"Your niece had a crush on Lucius Malfoy?" asked Madame Marchbanks disbelievingly.
"Merlin, no!" said Amelia quickly. "Luckily she still had a bit of common sense despite the teenage craziness. I'll leave you to your preparations, professor."
"Very well. I'll see you in the evening, then. And Amelia?"
"Yes?"
"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Griselda?"
As she was waiting for an elevator to the upper floors, Amelia noticed two witches from her department coming closer. At first she wondered what they were doing on the sixth floor, which housed the Wizarding Examination Authority and the Department for Magical Transportation, but then she saw one of them, a petite brunette, holding two sheets of parchment, first of which was quite short, while the other was rolled up into a scroll. This, coupled with the fact that these two women were hit-witches, made Amelia realize that they were most likely still collecting signatures for the letter to Macnair's boss.
The two women greeted their boss and remained standing nearby in an awkward silence. After a few moments one of them, the brunette, interrupted it:
"Ma'am?"
"Yes, Miss Davies?"
"We wrote out a complaint to the head of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and we wondered if you would add your signature. It is about Walden Macnair and his …"
"Disgusting behaviour, which nonetheless isn't awful enough to justify his arrest?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll sign it. Did you get any other department or office heads to sign?"
"We did. Even Madame Edgecombe from the Floo Office agreed with the complaint," said Davies.
They didn't say anything more, as at that moment the elevator arrived. There was only one person inside, Bertha Jorkins, a frowning plump woman only a few years younger than Amelia. There was a chorus of "good mornings" as the three women got into the cabin.
After another few moments of awkward silence Davies asked:
"What brings you to the upper floors, Miss Jorkins?"
"I work on the fifth floor, of course," said Jorkins in a highly offended tone.
The two hit witches and their boss exchanged looks as Bertha determinedly stared at the wall of the elevator shaft, obviously unwilling to say anything else. It wasn't long before they arrived on the fifth floor and she marched off with her nose high up in the air. The golden safety grille in the fifth floor corridor closed with a rattling sound and the cabin started moving again. This time the silence was interrupted by the other hit witch, a curvy redhead.
"Wasn't Bertha Jorkins recently transferred to Mr. Bagman's department down on the seventh floor?"
"She was. I think the woman really needs to see a healer. She seemed a little too forgetful to my taste," remarked Davies.
Those were the last words anybody in the elevator said. When they arrived on the second floor, they found the closest unoccupied desk in the Auror Office and Amelia read the letter of complaint and signed her name at the bottom of an impressively long column of signatures. After that, the hit witches went to their own desks and their boss headed for her office.
When Amelia got there, her secretary handed her a report from the Law Enforcement Patrol and an interdepartmental memo. Before the DMLE director looked at either document, she asked the younger witch:
"Ruby, do you know exactly how forgetful has Bertha Jorkins lately been?"
"Well, I saw her the other day walking down the atrium without shoes and stockings, and according to the restroom gossip she several times forgot what Mr. Bagman wanted her to do no later than fifteen minutes after he'd spoken with her."
This, together with the behaviour Bertha Jorkins exhibited in the elevator, set off Amelia's inner alarms. Jorkins had never been especially bright, but she hadn't been forgetful, either. In fact, her memory had always been quite good, and when it came to gossip, it could even be called excellent.
One thing that was particularly disquieting was the fact that before her recent transfer to the Department of Magical Games and sports, which seemed to coincide with the beginning of the woman's forgetfulness, Bertha Jorkins used to work in the Department for International Magical Cooperation – as Barty Crouch's secretary.
Amelia wholeheartedly agreed with the redheaded hit witch's words – such forgetfulness wasn't normal. It would require either a look through some books on mind magic or a consultation with a healer to be completely sure, but Jorkins' behaviour was suspiciously similar to that of a person hit with a confundus charm, sloppily done Imperius curse or inexpert memory charm.
The DMLE director wondered what would the healers find, if Bertha Jorkins was dragged to St. Mungo's and thoroughly checked for any tampering with her mind – and also how far was Crouch willing to go, how much he really changed from the stern, no-nonsense man he'd been when Amelia joined the Auror program back in the early seventies.
When Amelia got home and told Susan about the plans for the evening, her niece didn't look particularly enthusiastic, but it was either a dinner with her aunt and a witch who was in all probability an older and scarier version of professor McGonagall, or no company at all. In the end Susan didn't protest and went to put on some nice robes before leaving for Madame Marchbanks' home.
When they stepped out of the floo in Griselda Marchbanks' sitting room, the old witch welcomed them and offered some tea. The offer was accepted and they sat down to drink the beverage and have some polite conversation before Madame Marchbanks' house elf had dinner ready.
The hostess initiated the conversation with a question for Susan:
"Miss Bones, tell me about Hogwarts. It's a long time since I've been a student there and a short yearly visit to administer the OWLs and NEWTs doesn't really give one a proper picture. How is a student's life there like nowadays?"
Susan didn't answer right away. Amelia suspected that her niece was a bit intimidated by the ancient witch sitting in an armchair across from her, and gave Susan an encouraging smile. It helped and the teen answered:
"It is mostly a routine with some fun moments here and there – apart from the time right before the Slytherin – Gryffindor quidditch match, then it can be dangerous to walk through the corridors."
"Dangerous?" repeated Madame Marchbanks. "There used to be some good natured teasing and colour-changing charms flying through the air, but there wasn't any great danger during my time at Hogwarts. What is your experience, Amelia?" asked the old witch.
"I'm afraid that things got much worse by the time I was a student, prof-, sorry, Griselda. Gryffindors hexed Slytherins and vice versa all the time and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had often been caught in the crossfire."
Madame Marchbanks frowned as she saw Susan nodding in agreement with Amelia's words, but before she could ask for a more detailed description of the happening at Hogwarts, her house elf appeared in the sitting room and announced that dinner was ready.
The dinner conversation had a lighter tone to it. The two adult witches knew that they would discuss unpleasant things soon enough and didn't want to spoil their, or Susan's appetite with talk about sour-faced former DMLE directors. After they finished their meal, Susan was settled in the sitting room with the books Madame Marchbanks talked about earlier. The girl had a sceptical expression on her face when the old witch claimed she would enjoy them, but she didn't vocalize her doubts and thanked the old professor for lending her the books.
Amelia and Madame Marchbanks retired to the latter's study. The older witch went straight to the business ahead:
"So, Amelia, what did you want to talk about?"
"Barty Crouch, Sirius Black and a possible lack of proper trial," said Amelia without skirting around the subject. She then recounted her conversation with Black to the professor.
"Wait a minute. Are you saying that a man had been just tossed into a high security cell in Azkaban without a trial?" said Madame Marchbanks incredulously after she heard Sirius Black's possible story.
"That's exactly what I'm saying. I don't have Black's, or anybody else's memories or veritaserum testimony yet, but I do have a copy of Black's file. There were only some photographs and some witness statements. No reports about an investigation, no trial transcript, nothing. If you add to it last night's incident when a strange house elf broke into my study and rifled through my desk drawers before Muffy appeared and dealt with the intruder…"
"That sounds suspect, to be sure. But how can I help you?"
"If I remember correctly, you have connections to some of the more sensible neutrals. I was hoping that there is somebody among them who could hide Black in a secure place for a while. I want to get as much information as possible from him, but that requires his mind to be in the best possible shape, and you know that Azkaban has the opposite effect."
Madame Marchbanks was quiet for a while and thought about Amelia's words. After a few moments she spoke:
"I see that you expect Black would come to harm if you kept him in the holding cells on the tenth floor…"
"Exactly. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I can clearly see an Auror guard under a strong compulsion, or even the Imperius, giving Black food laced with a poison which would cause a heart failure. Or there could be a clumsy" – here Amelia made air quotes with her fingers – "maintenance worker who accidentally activates some of the last-resort fire supressing wards – such as the air-removing one, commonly known as choking ward."
"I hate to admit it, but you aren't paranoid. I've heard of several suspicious accidents at the Ministry during my time at the Examination Authority. In fact, there was an incident similar to what you've just described in the sixties during Nobby Leach's time. And of course, Nobby's mysterious illness and death, too," mused the elderly professor.
These words were followed by a short silence, during which Madame Marchbanks stood up, walked over to a small table holding a tray with a crystal decanter and a few glasses. She poured herself a glass of sherry, offering her guest some, too, but the offer was politely refused. Then the elderly witch returned to her armchair and continued speaking, taking an occasional sip from her glass:
"Out of my acquaintance, the Ogden's would probably be the most willing to help. I'll contact Tiberius and let you know the result."
"Thank you, Griselda."
"You're welcome, Amelia," said the old witch and continued: "Speaking of the Ogdens, who will step in for the Fudges at the annual summer ball? Dolores and Pius, or you and some strapping young Auror?"
"Probably Dolores and Pius," answered Amelia.
"Oh? I didn't think that Dolores would like to spend an evening in the company of Augusta Longbottom, Muriel Prewett, myself and several other old and not-so-old crones who would rub her face in the fact that she's the half-blood daughter of an averagely talented maintenance man. I thought that when she could wiggle out of the Azkaban inspection by sending you instead, she could wiggle out of a social function also." (2)
"I think it would take a legillimens to find out how her mind works," Amelia sighed. Then she checked the time and turned back to her hostess:
"Susan and I should be heading home."
"Very well," said Madame Marchbanks.
The two witches got up, exited the study and went back to the sitting room, where they found Amelia's niece thoroughly engrossed in one of the books loaned to her by the old professor.
"Susan?"
The girl didn't react when her aunt tried to get her attention. Amelia approached the sofa where her niece sat, completely lost in whatever story she'd been reading, and shook Susan's shoulder. Startled, the girl jumped and squeaked. Madame Marchbanks chuckled when she saw it.
"The exact same thing happened to me when I first read those books, only in my case the person who disturbed me assumed that I was going deaf," said the professor.
Susan blushed, reluctantly closed the book and placed it on a table nearby. The old witch smiled when she saw it and said with a smile:
"If you liked it so much, Miss Bones, you can borrow the book, but I expect you to return it in the exact same condition as it is now."
Turning to Susan's aunt, she said:
"I'll contact you soon about the matter we've discussed. It's a shame you won't be at the Ogdens' ball, I'd much rather see you there instead of Dolores, but one can't have everything, I suppose."
They said their goodbyes and the two Bones women flooed home. Amelia was satisfied with the way the evening had gone. She hoped that Tiberius Ogden would be willing to help. The DMLE director would go through with the questioning even if she did have to put Black into a holding cell and give her Aurors an extra portion of nagging and harping about safety and constant vigilance, but she'd still prefer to have a safer place for the prisoner than the Ministry.
As she was slowly falling asleep that night, Amelia remembered her earlier encounter with Bertha Jorkins – and the fact that she forgot to speak with Ludo Bagman, or at least send him a memo. She made a mental note do so as soon as possible. Jorkins definitely had some problems which should be solved before they led to something truly bad.
(1) According to harrypotter . wikia . com, Nobby Leach was the first and only muggleborn British Minister for Magic, who was in function during the sixties.
(2) As the Senior Undersecretary, Umbridge was basically Fudge's second-in-command, who outranked the department heads, and could therefore afford to boss them around (same source as (1)).