CONNECTED BY BLOOD
Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.
Warning: HBP-spoilers. Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle.
Hermione had spent the long slow day of waiting for Harry in deep thought – and not just about how cute Ron was and how desperately she needed to consult Professor Snape – so as soon as they'd waved Ron off for his Apparition test, she asked Harry to summon Kreacher and inquire further into Regulus's death. Why waste days at Grimmauld Place going through the books Sirius hadn't bothered to throw away, when his brother had probably picked out the relevant ones seventeen years ago?
Sure enough, Kreacher confirmed her suspicions. Sirius had been wrong. Regulus hadn't been killed for attempted desertion; he'd died in his attempt to disarm the locket, a piece of information that abruptly ended yesterday's argument in Hermione's favour.
"Say it, Harry. You made me say it yesterday," Hermione challenged, her eyes gleaming triumphantly.
"No, that was Ron," Harry argued, trying to outstare her and failing. "Oh all right, fine, you were right and we were wrong. Half right, anyway. The locket's more dangerous than it looks and we won't try to destroy it till we know more about it. Satisfied?" He turned on the elf, who was still loudly muttering about filthy little Mudbloods, as bold as brass, telling their betters what to do. "And you, shut up!"
"Harry!"
"Don't say it, Hermione. I don't have to be polite if he doesn't." This time she looked away first. "Listen, you!" he told the surly elf. "We're going to Headquarters now. If there's no one else in the book-room when Hermione goes there, then immediately bring her any and all books, parchments, scrolls and other written or diagrammatic material belonging to, read by, borrowed or otherwise in Regulus Black's use or possession in the last year before he died. If not the book-room, then whatever room she tells you. Got that?"
"Kreacher is doing whatever Master says. Nasty unnatural boy, how the poor mistress would have cried to see him letting Mudbloods in the house to dirty it with their filthy habits."
"That was clever," Harry told her, after Kreacher winked out.
"Not really," she said. "Apart from Voldemort, or maybe Lucius Malfoy, who'd be more likely to know about Horcruxes than the first person to find one? I just hope I can discover whatever it is he missed."
She did. By the time Ron joined them at Headquarters, babbling about ruddy Malfoy and Aurors and an apparent planned Death Eater attack in Diagon Alley, she'd found the scroll she needed and, by the time they returned to the Dursleys, she knew why Regulus had died and why Harry probably wouldn't. Probably. The Horcrux itself wouldn't kill someone connected by blood to its creator, but there might be other protections surrounding it that would. If so, she'd bet at least one of them was in Parselmouth.
A s soon as they were back in Privet Drive, she messaged Snape, escaping from the boys with the simple excuse of a bathroom break. She hadn't wanted to do it from Headquarters, not after both he and Harry had separately suggested that there might still be a spy, but it just didn't seem right to be communicating from such a private space, even standing as far from the facilities as possible. She hoped uneasily that he couldn't sense her embarrassment in her Patronus, 'Same place, 10pm,' the way she always sensed his personality in his.
While Harry and Ron were rehashing for the fifty-seventh time what nefarious plan might be prompting their erstwhile classmate to give himself up to a probable life-sentence in Azkaban, she was pondering what to say when she saw the professor.
Surely he knows all about it, she thought, if only I can persuade him to tell me. Otherwise why would he warn me about staying out of Diagon Alley for a few days or say that telling the right people was already taken care of? But why do it through Malfoy? It doesn't make sense that he'd sacrifice someone he was willing to die for, just to stop one attack.
"What do you say, Hermione?" Ron appealed to her. "I think it makes a lot of sense!"
"Oh, come on!" Harry retorted. "An inside plant to help his dad break out of Azkaban? Malfoy? Are you loony? What on earth do you think he could do that his dad couldn't?"
Hermione's brow furrowed.
"It's as likely as any other suggestion you've come up with." Which is to say, not likely at all. "He's going in voluntarily, not unprepared like Mr Malfoy. But I don't see how he could get anything past the guards without getting caught." She shrugged. "We'll probably find out more at the Ministry investigation, now that they have a new star witness. That's probably good for you, Harry." For all of us.
"If he's not trying to put all the blame on you," Ron said gloomily. "You were there when Dumbledore died and no one else on our side was."
"Yes, but no one's going to believe a Death Eater's son over Harry, not now he's been convicted. Besides, there are three of you to testify that he was the one who let the Death Eaters in."
"Fat lot of the good that will do if Umbridge is there. I almost had my wand snapped two years ago!" Harry snorted. "Or even if she isn't. Did Sirius get justice? Did Stan?" Poor Stan Shunpike was still in Azkaban. "Or that nine-year-old who got Imperiused?"
"Yeah, between Umbridge and Malfoy's money, I wonder if we wouldn't be safer to make a run for it," Ron said.
Hermione bit her lip. Another question to ask Snape, but surely they were panicking for nothing.
"It's three to one who saw him help them and even more who saw him run. If he'd been innocent, he'd've stayed," she pointed out. "What did Remus say?" It was a pity Ron's dad hadn't been there to consult. They should have remembered it was a workday.
"Said I should concentrate on deciding what to say about where Dumbledore and I went that night and what we did. He offered to help me come up with a story, but that would mean telling him at least part of the truth and I promised Dumbledore I wouldn't tell anyone but you two."
"I'm sure you could trust Remus," Ron said. "He wouldn't ever betray you."
Hermione bit her lip, remembering what Snape had said on that subject. And she couldn't refute him. If it wasn't necessarily deliberate betrayal to pretend you didn't know how someone you thought was a murderer was getting near his next victim, it was, at the least, untrustworthy weakness. But as long as Harry continued to follow Dumbledore's advice there was no need to argue the point.
"Dumbledore said just us and you know how trusting he was." His mouth firmed. "I'm certainly not going to be more trusting than him." Hermione could read his thought in his eyes. Trust had gotten Dumbledore killed. It was a luxury they couldn't afford.
"The best lie is one's that's partly true," she offered. "So, what part of the truth is safe for you to reveal?"
"You could say he'd heard of a nest of Inferi and was going to look for them," Ron said. "And that he took you to help train you."
"No good. They'll bring up the Chosen One rubbish again and I'm not risking being quizzed about the Prophecy."
"Good point," Ron said. "Er, you could say Dumbledore took you because he liked you. That would be true enough."
"Except they'd probably say nasty things about him then. Say he was biased and losing his marbles."
"It never bothered him what they said, though."
"No, you were right the first time, Ron," Hermione said. "If they bring up the Chosen One business, all Harry has to say is that he doesn't know about that, but Voldemort's come after him before, so Dumbledore figured it was odds-on he'd come after him again."
They thought about it.
"That could work," Harry said. "But not the nest of Inferi because it might make Voldemort think of the cave, and the last thing we want is for him to take it into his head to check if his Horcrux is still there."
"What, then?"
They dickered about it for hours, till Ron suddenly changed the subject, saying, "What about this Horcrux then, Hermione? Did you find a way to destroy it?"
"Maybe. I think so. We were both right yesterday, Ron. It's dangerous, that's for sure. It killed Regulus when he tried to destroy it, the blast backfired onto him, so we have to be careful, but the Horcrux part might be safe for Harry. Only we need to be sure that there aren't any other protections on it and, if we can't ask Bill or Mad-Eye, we need to buy some really good Dark Detectors."
"Do we have to show them? Couldn't we just ask for a loan of Mad-Eye's eyeball?"
"Ew, Ron." If she'd been closer, she'd have swatted his arm. "It wouldn't do any good anyway. He'd still want to know why. So it's either tell one of them a plausible story that doesn't even hint at Horcruxes or go shopping. Preferably tomorrow."
"Up to you, Harry," Ron said. "What do you say?"
Harry thought.
"I'd say go shopping, but with the Aurors all over Diagon Alley like they will be, I don't think that's safe either. If it's a question of talking to an Auror we don't know or talking to Bill, I say Bill. But we won't tell him the truth. Just that we caught Kreacher stealing it and we wanted to check if it was dangerous." He grinned. "Tell you what. We'll say Ron wants to give it to you as a present, Hermione, now you're his girlfriend. Don't try to deny it, because I saw you yesterday and all I can say is it's about time."
Hermione looked at Ron and they both blushed scarlet.
A few hours later, she was blushing even brighter as she explained their plans to Snape, but he made no comment, which was much better than she'd dared hope. A curl of the lip or an upward twitch of the nose was easy enough to pretend to ignore.
"Did you call me here for a progress report?" he said at the end. "As gratifying as we all must find it that the Chosen One is finally demonstrating the beginnings of a functioning mind, it's hardly worth risking our lives for. I told you to call me only in desperate need."
"Or when I needed your counsel," she said stubbornly. "You said I wasn't in Professor Dumbledore's league and I'd need your counsel."
He glared down his large nose at her and she glared back, her fists clenched in her pockets where he couldn't see.
"Ask your question," he said.
"You know how Draco Malfoy gave himself up today?" she started.
"Successfully. If that's all?" He turned to leave.
"Wait, wait, wait! Give me a chance to ask, okay? I'm not as practised as you at this! We'd all already been summoned to appear at the Ministry investigation into that night – you know –"
"And?"
"Do you know what his plans are? What he's likely to tell them?"
"He has no plans. He's a tool in surer hands."
"Vol, er, the Dark Lord's?" It was hard remembering to say Voldemort all day and the Dark Lord at night. "Or yours? You warned me about the raid in Diagon Alley and you said telling the Ministry was all taken care of, but I never thought it would be Draco Malfoy telling them!"
"Your point?"
It was clear he had no intention of explaining. She tried again.
"Do you know what he's planning to tell the Wizengamot at the investigation? He's not going to try to throw the blame on Harry, is he? Because even though we have witnesses, we're not sure we can trust them, they've made wrong decisions about Malfoys before, and we don't have time to waste if he tries to get free by blaming Harry, because –" She wound down, abashed and breathless. "I mean, is it safe for us to stay and face the questions or should we be making plans to go on the run?"
"Perhaps. No. Yes. No. Do try not to needlessly antagonise the Ministry. It may not be a good friend, but it's certainly capable of being a bad enemy and you three have enemies enough. Any other silly questions?"
"Well, um, er, yes. The Horcruxes; where do we start looking for the next one?"
"None of you have any idea?"
"How should we know if Dumbledore didn't?"
"He may not have known, but he certainly had ideas and I understood he'd conveyed them to the leader of your little gang over the last year. What did he show Potter in his Pensieve?"
She rubbed her forefinger over her chin and pushed her mouth to one side.
"V – the Dark Lord's past."
He scowled blacker than ever through his curtains of greasy hair.
"Exactly. Look for clues in his past; places he's lived, people he's associated with – or those he's wronged personally. You know some of them already. Hagrid, for instance, or that wailing ghost-girl he went to school with. Any more silly questions?"
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Under the gaze of a full Wizengamot for the second time in his life, Harry squirmed in the chair, knocking its loose chains to the floor, and jumped at the sudden clatter.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that, Minister?" he said.
"Where did Professor Dumbledore take you on the night in question?"
"I don't know the name of the place or where it was. We went to an empty stretch of beach."
"You went to the beach?"
There were scattered titters. Harry tried to ignore them and look only at Scrimgeour.
"Yes. He um, wanted to give me a practical demonstration of the um, defensive magic that he'd been teaching me the theory of all year."
"A practical demonstration? In the middle of the night?" Scrimgeour thundered.
"It wasn't the middle. It was quite soon after curfew, actually."
That was the point at which the Chair recognised Umbridge and allowed her to take over.
"Why would Professor Dumbledore have chosen you out of an entire school for special lessons? Teacher's pet, eh? Or is there any truth to these rumours that have been appearing in The Prophet?" she insinuated.
Harry stuck to his script regardless. Hermione had made him practise answers to every question they could think of, every waking moment of the last week, except for the brief interlude when he and Ron had shown Bill the locket. After a thorough examination, he'd declared it clean and, as soon as they'd escaped his teasing about "Ronnie's girl, pretty little kid and clever too", they'd returned to Hermione and Harry had followed her instructions: the "Open" command in Parseltongue, then an Incendio to burn the portrait of a youngish Riddle he found inside, and that was that. The Dursleys were still complaining about the purple smoke.
"I wouldn't know about any of that. He said that since Voldemort –" (There was a rumble of horror around the room. He repeated himself for good measure.) "Since Voldemort had come after me more than once, he wouldn't give two Knuts for my chances of it not happening again and I'd better be prepared. So he was preparing me."
"I see. Now, your co-conspirators –"
"My what?" Harry asked.
"Your co-conspirators have testified that, before leaving with Dumbledore that night, you returned to them briefly and asked them to keep an eye on certain people."
"Oh, you mean my friends. Some of the students who'd joined Dumbledore's Army the previous year," he said, deliberately reminding the Wizengamot whose death this was about.
"Members of an illegal group, in other words?" she asked, in a voice like sugared arsenic.
"No, not illegal. We formed under the auspices of Professor Dumbledore and he took full responsibility for our group. You must remember, Madam Umbridge. You were there." Dumbledore had saved them then and it looked like he was still saving them. Harry swallowed down a heavy lump in his throat.
"You admit that you told your friends to expect trouble?" she probed.
"I told them I believed Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy might make an attempt to do something. I didn't know what, but I expected them to make a move that night."
"You told your co-conspirators only? Why did you not notify the staff?"
"I did. I told Professor Dumbledore that Malfoy had been heard rejoicing and that I was sure he was planning something for that night."
Her toadface creased into a broad smirk.
"Ah, of course, you told Professor Dumbledore. Such a pity he can't be here to corroborate your story, isn't it?"
Harry nearly choked on the words he wanted to scream.
"And you expect us to believe that, despite your warning, he left the school with you that night? Would that not have been so foolish as to be incredible?"
"I don't see your problem. You've been accusing him of being incredibly foolish for years!" Harry snapped.
"Restrain yourself or we will have to restrain you, Mr Potter. This is a court of law, not a circus."
Could have fooled me, thought Harry rebelliously, but he forced his voice to calm.
"He told me that it was under control and that the school was not being left unguarded. And that second bit at least was true. He had extra guards stationed all over. But no one expected Malfoy to be able to bring Death Eaters into the school."
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The chair was hard and chill. Every time Draco moved, the chains pulled a little tighter. He gulped and listened to the charges being read out against him.
"... that you did feloniously and with malicious intent, convey criminals into the school for the purpose of a most bloody and shocking murder… that you connived with a notorious Death Eater to overthrow the properly-constituted authority of your school and to murder …"
When they finished, he didn't wait for the silence to end.
"He wasn't a notorious Death Eater, sir. He was a teacher at the school."
"But you knew him to be a Death Eater, didn't you?" Scrimgeour said.
Draco sat up straighter, licking his lips.
"It seemed a pretty obvious assumption when he placed me under Imperius on the last day of fifth year, if you want to call that knowing. But since I was under Imperius for most of the last year, I couldn't do anything about it, could I?"
Every plum-clad figure turned simultaneously to its nearest neighbour in what seemed like a whispering competition. Draco chewed on the inside of his cheek, where they couldn't see.
"You claim the Imperius defence, do you? Your family has used that before, have they not?"
"You would know better than me, sir, I was a baby at the time. But I believe my father pleaded it after the first war. And I have no reason to believe that it was false."
Scrimgeour leaned forward and shook his leonine head.
"Indeed? And yet your father is in Azkaban at this very moment for a daring and egregious raid on this very building a mere thirteen months ago. What have you to say to that?"
Draco would have spread his hands, if they hadn't been chained too tightly to move.
"Whatever he did last year doesn't prove he was guilty fifteen years ago, sir. If he was put under Imperius in the first war, he could just as easily have been put under again. The Lestranges escaped over a year ago and Sirius Black two and a half years before that. Any of them could have hexed him for all I know or it could have been Snape, like it was with me. I was at school most of that year; how would I know?"
"And so you are following in the family footsteps, are you not? Father a Death Eater, Imperius defence, aunt a death Eater, uncle a Death Eater…"
"I'm not on trial for my family's mistakes, am I, sir? Or am I? Have I been convicted in absentia for the crimes of my relatives and my teacher?"
"Do you claim the Imperius curse was also used against your co-conspirators, Vincent Thaddeus Crabbe and Gregory William Goyle?"
Draco paused, wishing he could wipe his brow. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes.
"No. But they weren't co-conspirators either. They didn't know they were involved in anything shady. They did it because they're my friends and they trusted me. I never told them what I was up to, only that it was a way to clear our names after the mess we got into last year trying to support the Ministry by joining Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, and they trusted my word. How were they supposed to know I was under an Imperius to kill the headmaster?" he pleaded.
"You claim that they stood guard for you all year without knowing what you were up to? That sounds rather far-fetched."
"Ask Potter. He knows. He followed me around all year and I know he heard us arguing at least once. He can tell you they didn't know. Ask him."
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"Listen to this! 'An emotional scene erupted in the courtroom yesterday as the accused, Draco Malfoy, broke down in tears when his accomplices, Vincent Thaddeus Crabbe and Gregory William Goyle, were each sentenced to two months of Azkaban for having feloniously assisted in a crime through use of a restricted potion, in this case Polyjuice. Malfoy himself was acquitted –' " Ron crumpled the newspaper in his hand and thre it on the table. "Acquitted! They believed that git was under Imperius! How could they? After his dad and everything!"
"Keep reading," Hermione advised. She'd read the newspaper first while he'd been shovelling sausages into his mouth. "He wasn't acquitted of everything, only the big charges of letting the Death Eaters in and bringing about Dumbledore's death."
"You said it yourself," Harry said simultaneously. "Malfoy money again."
"But he was lying through his teeth!" Ron complained.
Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder. He put his hand up to clasp it.
"I know it seems ridiculous," she said, "but I can understand why. He didn't kill Dumbledore, after all. When it came to the crunch he couldn't and he not only surrendered himself, he warned the Ministry in time for those other three Death Eaters to be stopped and caught before they could do more than break a few windows. But look, he didn't get off scot-free." She picked up the paper to show him. "He got two months in Azkaban for the Polyjuice too and he's on probation for the next five years. One wrong move and he's back there."
"If he can't buy his way out again," Ron said.
Harry shrugged.
"As long as he stays out of our way, what do we care? I'm almost glad he didn't get a longer sentence. I couldn't help feeling kind of sorry for him."
"Sorry? He broke your nose last year and left you under your Cloak so no one would rescue you! How can you feel sorry for him?"
"He was trying to save his parents' lives. I guess I can understand wanting to do that." His first year at Hogwarts, Voldemort had offered to bring his parents back and he'd been tempted, so tempted to agree. Only the thought that it was probably impossible and, even if it wasn't, Voldemort was a liar whose promises couldn't be trusted, had stopped him.
"Besides," Hermione added practically. "It was his testimony that put away Umbridge. For that, I can almost forgive him myself."
If he hadn't brought up "the mess with Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad", no one would have thought to ask about the previous year, but after he'd recounted hearing the old toad admit to injurious misuse of Dementors against a Muggle and a minor and trying to Crucio that same minor, there'd been an uproar. After a few other witnesses had been recalled and had confirmed it, Umbridge had been removed from the bench and carted off to stand trial herself and good riddance too! Hermione wished she'd seen it, but material witnesses were barred from hearing each other's testimony. She'd just have to make do with the memory of Centaurs.
Ron snaked an arm around her and tickled her other side till she giggled.
"Mm," he said. "At least she won't have a say in the final recommendations that are coming out tomorrow and that's lucky for my brothers after that git Malfoy put them right in it. If there was anyone she hated more than you, it was Fred and George." He scowled. "Why did he have to say he bought the Darkness Powder from them?"
Hermione sighed. The revelation that one of their imports had been used in the "Great Hogwarts Break-in", as Rita had nicknamed it, was probably going to hurt them. The only question was how much. They couldn't have foreseen how Malfoy would use it, but the vital part it had played in his plans, and the coincidence that one of their love-potions had exposed Ron to Malfoy's poisoned mead, had brought their business methods under scrutiny.
"Werewolves too," added Harry. "She hated werewolves. With her gone, do you think maybe they'll loosen up the laws a bit and Remus will be able to actually get a job?"
Hermione leaned into Ron and said nothing. She didn't want to burst any rare bubble of optimism from Harry, but now that Greyback had proved that werewolves could bite and infect, at least partly, at any time of the month, she was sure Remus's situation could only get worse.
A/N Ch 6, OotP, puts Regulus's date of death "some fifteen years previously". This story is two years later.
The Lestranges escaped Azkaban in January, 1996 (fifth year). Sirius escaped the summer before third year began.
Middle names for Crabbe and Goyle are not canon.