No Good Deed

A Harry Potter thing

By

EvilFuzzy9


Rating: K+

Genre: Friendship

Characters/Pairings: Ron W., Harry P., Hermione G.; [canon ships where applicable]

Summary: Actions have consequences. Between provocation and punishment lies an impulse decision and a stroke of luck, whether good or bad, that will lead to results which few would have dreamed of and fewer still would have hoped for. Whether it is fair and whether it is right is entirely subjective.


Malfoy Maledictions: Dirty Words and Dirty Deeds
Rita Skeeter

This coming Halloween marks the eleventh anniversary of the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It has been a long journey, but the good people of the wizarding world have worked hard to rebuild over the course of this past decade, and now we can look back and appreciate the fruits of our labor.

Or can we?

Wizard Britain is seeing record levels of prosperity with high wages and low unemployment, and Hogwarts has welcomed into the ranks of its students some of the first children to have been born after You-Know-Who's defeat. This is a momentous occasion, and an important milestone for everyone who has worked to make this peace a reality, with no small credit to the Boy-Who-Lived. For most people, this anniversary is something to celebrate, and this reporter does not doubt that Halloween festivities throughout the wizarding world will be more extravagant than ever.

And yet, it would be well to remember that not everyone sees the thirty-first of October as a night to rejoice. Indeed, even eleven years after the end of the war, it is doubtless that there are still witches and wizards who bemoan the fall of the Dark Lord and curse the name of Potter. The Ministry might tell you that everyone who sympathized with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is dead or in Azkaban, but wizards on the street will say otherwise.

"Oh, there are loads of Death Eaters who got away," says an anonymous source. "Doesn't everyone know that? If every person who claims to have been bewitched actually was, there wouldn't be hardly anyone in Azkaban. And it's mighty convenient how so many of those who DID get let off promptly turned around and gave loads of donations to the Ministry, don't you think? Bribes, more like."

This is a surprisingly common belief among the average laywizard, particularly those with cause to mistrust the Ministry. But even if you question the credibility of the people who make these assertions, it cannot be denied that there continue to be pockets of dissent in the wizarding world. There are still people walking free who would have chosen He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named over Bagnold, Dumbledore, or Fudge.

These people think You-Know-Who had the right of things (although most who have lasted this long have the sense not to say so out loud) and among their numbers there are maybe even witches and wizards who have before been accused of consorting with the Death Eaters. And even if they were cleared of those charges or renounced the Dark Lord's beliefs, perhaps in the safety of their own homes these people still echo the virulent rhetoric of Blood Purity extremists.

You might think I am being an alarmist when I say this, but it certainly raises suspicions to hear of young children throwing around the M-word without shame or restraint.

And I do not mean "Moron", "Muggle", or even "Macaroon".

But in the early morning of September twelfth, Draco Malfoy—son and sole heir of wealthy philanthropist and formerly-accused Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy—was heard by several members of both Gryffindor and Slytherin quidditch teams to call second year top student Hermione Granger, quote: "[a] filthy little mudblood." This, in response to allegations that his recent appointment to seeker for the Slytherin house team had been motivated less by Draco's skill with a broomstick than by the set of brand new Nimbus 2001's donated to Slytherin by his father.

The ensuing mass-duel provoked by Draco's words resulted in one expulsion and several visits to the hospital wing for members of both teams, as well as detention for Draco himself. Lucius Malfoy was unavailable for comment on this matter, but Draco's head of house, Severus Snape (Hogwarts potions master and former follower of You-Know-Who, kept out of Azkaban by testimony from Albus Dumbledore) was allegedly quick to place sole blame for the incident on the Boy-Who-Lived, who had in fact been the only member of either quidditch team NOT to participate in the brawl. It has likewise been said that Professor Snape was largely responsible for the expulsion of the boy who hexed Draco in response to calling young Ms. Granger the M-word, and he is also believed to have pressured the headmaster to reduce Draco's own punishment to detention rather than something more appropriate.

Some would find it interesting that Albus Dumbledore, who is well-known as one of the most ardent proponents of muggle, muggleborn, and non-wizard rights alive, would allow a former Death Eater to so blatantly undermine Hogwarts rules with disproportionate favoritism and a violently pro-pureblood bias. Indeed, that Dumbledore should have accepted a known Death Eater as a teacher AT ALL may perhaps speak to what many have claimed for a long time: that the celebrated supercentenarian sorceror has been losing his grip for many years.

(for more details, see page 7)

Under other circumstances, the publication of this article might have caused quite a stir. Minerva McGonagall doubtless would have been galled by the aspersions on the headmaster, and Severus Snape would likely be surlier and more sour than ever at the mentions of himself. Other teachers would mutter about respecting privacy, or grumble about Skeeter looking for any reason to cause trouble.

Among students, reactions would have been more mixed. Most Gryffindors would have been grimly satisfied at the treatment of Snape and Draco, although the rude mentions of Dumbledore would have soured some moods. Many Hufflepuffs would shoot dirty looks at the Slytherin table, or express solidarity with the Gryffindors, a number of them being second only to the house of the lions in their distaste for Draco Malfoy and his lot.

Ravenclaws would have acted aloof for the most part, and at least pretended to be uninterested. They had reputations to uphold,after all, and closer affinity to Slytherin house than Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, besides. A few genuinely clever Ravenclaws might have questioned the veracity of the claims in the article, but the rest would have taken it for granted as true.

As far as the Slytherins, there was less need to imagine how they might react, for the Slytherins were least preoccupied with certain other recent events. Those of the green and silver who paid greater mind to the contents of the paper than the whispers and rumors flitting through the hall shared knowing looks.

Some were sympathetic to Draco, or at least acted like they were, and those closest to the boy commiserated loudly about how far downhill the Prophet had gone. Others with less fondness for Draco, particularly students in the upper years whose toes he had trodden on with his entitled attitude, privately sniggered with their friends.

Still, at least half of Slytherin house had greater concern for events significantly more recent. Even Draco and his circle of friends had taken the time at least to share some unpleasant jokes among themselves. The nastiness of their talk was enhanced perhaps by indignation over Skeeter's article, and more than a few variously dirty or pleased looks were tossed toward the Gryffindor table.

Ginny Weasley was not present. Nor were her brothers Percy, Fred, and George. McGonagall was also missing from the staff table, and Dumbledore was not to be seen in his usual seat. Many of those professors who remained looked worried or perplexed, although they tried to hide it. Only Gilderoy Lockhart seemed wholly unbothered.

Harry Potter stared disconsolately at his plate. It was clean and empty, for he had not grabbed any food from the serving platters. Hermione, beside him, poked anxiously at her scrambled eggs. All around them there were whispers of disbelief and replies of attestation, emphatic but low.

They did not try to listen, but still they caught snatches of conversation.

"...an animagus...?"

"...I heard it too..."

"...they called in aurors..."

"...was it, again, anyway...?"

"...think they said something like..."

"...supposed to be really advanced..."

Hermione pushed her plate away, looking uncomfortable. She met Harry's eyes, and he looked at her with a feeling he could not entirely describe. Trepidation, almost, and like anxiety also. Her face was a shade paler than its wont, and her lips were thinly drawn.

Overhead, the ceiling of the Great Hall shone with the light of a rare naked autumn sun. The rays of it were bright as they fell over the tables in golden waves, yet it laid no warmth on their skin, seeming chill and remote. It was a brisk day despite the light, and if one peered northward they would see the gray fingers of clouds reaching out over the mountains.

Gloom would veil the sky over Hogwarts soon enough, but to Harry and Hermione its coming would seem no great change. Already they felt shrouded in a cool, bitter mist. Their minds were clouded by care and fear.

"Let's go," said Hermione, looking around. "I'm not hungry."

Harry nodded his agreement with this. His stomach felt too twisted and knotted to abide the presence of anything but its own bile.

Quietly, the two of them stood and left.

Their initial departure was marked by a number of eyes, most of them on Harry, but already a few people were trailing out of the hall to wherever they would before the start of the day's lessons. Mostly they were older students desiring some time in the library or their common rooms to cram in some final minutes of study or work. Only a few people watched Harry go for long, once they saw that his path would carry him out of the hall with the rest.

He and Hermione wended their way through the castle, aimlessly wandering. They shared few words, but each knew whence the other's thought bent, for it was to the same destination for both, and the same subjects also.


Peter Pettigrew is alive.

Like a song's refrain, these words echoed in the mind of Rufus Scrimgeour. He held his wand hand uneasily at bay, crossing his arms and affecting a stern demeanor as best he could. But his mind was troubled, and doubtless it showed through his grim facade.

"I have a few questions I would like to ask you, Weasley."

His words were clear and clipped. Confident. Professional. This was the impression he gave.

Arthur Weasley looked from Scrimgeour to Dumbledore. He sat beside his wife in the headmaster's office, Rufus standing to the side between them and Albus. Arthur looked years older than he had the last time Rufus had seen him. Was it a product of the stress of the past few months, or was this impression only from how deeply worry and anxiety lined his face at present?

"Of course, Scrimgeour," Arthur said, interrupting Rufus's pondering. He looked sidelong at Molly. "We understand."

Rufus nodded and cleared his throat.

Peter Pettigrew is alive.

"How long has your family had..." He checked his notes. "...'Scabbers?'"

Briefly, Scrimgeour's thoughts wandered. The children were outside the office with Shacklebolt and Tonks. This was Nymphadora's first assignment without Alastor's supervision. Mad-Eye was considering retirement, with much encouragement from Amelia Bones, who had wearied significantly of the constant complaints she got regarding the paranoid old auror.

Molly squeezed her husband's hand.

"A long time," Arthur said. "It must have been... around ten years, now?"

"Eleven, dear," Molly corrected. "Don't you remember when Percy first brought it in? He was dripping all over the kitchen floor, but he looked so pleased with himself..."

"Ah, yes. I remember, now. It's been eleven, nearly twelve years," said Arthur.

He spoke as one who would have sunk into fond reminiscence, but the recollection was tainted like something rotten had been dropped into a simmering potion, and now his face grew faintly pained as the cauldron bubbled over in a reeking, nauseating mess, spoiled and foul and irreparably ruined.

Scrimgeour pursed his lips. He wasn't happy to do this, but in his line of work you needed to suspect everyone.

Peter Pettigrew is alive.

"How, exactly, did Scabbers first come into your possession?"

"Percy found him," said Arthur. "That's our third son, the oldest one still in Hogwarts. It had just started to rain—a sudden shower, you know, though it was only a light drizzle at first—and he'd gone to fetch something from outside. Very conscientious, that boy. He always tried to take good care of his things."

"Five minutes later, I'd been just about to head outside after him," Molly continued. "The rain was getting heavier, and I was worried it might become a thunderstorm. I could see him from the kitchen window, of course, but he'd stopped in the middle of the yard and been stooping over for a good while. I called out the window, but I don't think he heard me. The wind was picking up, you see. Anyway, I had decided to fetch him and was halfway to the door when he finally came in, sopping wet and holding... holding..."

She trailed off uncomfortably.

"Holding a rat," Arthur concluded. "Scabbers, as it were. He looked very pleased with himself when he held it up to show us."

"I see," said Scrimgeour. "Did you notice anything unusual about Percy's behavior? Did he seem confused? Unfocused?"

Molly shook her head.

"No, he was as sharp as ever," she said. "Percy's a smart, sensitive boy. He saw a rat out in the rain and I imagine he felt sorry for it. Nothing more."

"And what about Scabbers? Was there anything unusual about him?"

"Merlin, no!" said Arthur. "For all we could see, it was just a plain old rat. Wet, scruffy, half-drowned, and miserable. We never would have let Percy keep it if we'd suspected... if we'd had any reason to think it could be anything but an ordinary, garden variety rat."

Scrimgeour nodded and looked furtively at Dumbledore, who had been quiet this whole time. The old wizard was unreadable, save that his face held none of its usual gaiety. He was grim and hoary, and his eyes were like the shuttered windows of a high tower, impenetrable and remote.

He thought back to the discussion they'd had an hour previous.

"Peter Pettigrew is alive. He is an unregistered animagus—an animagus, Scrimgeour. That is complex and dangerous magic such as ought to have been far beyond the reach of his merely average talents."

"It's suspicious, I will not deny that. Why has he been in hiding all these years? If he was living with a wizard family, he should have known that You-Know-Who's power was broken, and Sirius Black in prison. There's more to this business than there seems, I guess."

"And I think you guess shrewdly. Pettigrew's behavior was not that of an innocent man. As Filius tells me, he looked panicked and nearly wild when he was forced into his true form. Pettigrew was terrified, despite being confronted with only an aging charms professor and an eleven year old girl, neither of whom he should have had any reason to fear as either dark or dangerous."

"Dumbledore, surely you don't think Pettigrew was...?"

"I've had suspicions for many years that something more than we knew was going on that night, and that day he and Sirius had their final confrontation. Never more than a small unease, and I have felt that way about many other things which proved just as they seemed in the end. A burden, I fear, of greater than average intellect. I am always second-guessing even the plainest of matters."

"But you testified against Sirius. You said that he had been the secret keeper, and that his record was against him."

"I thought Sirius was the secret keeper. And his record was against him. There is no denying that he showed a frightening disregard for life and decency at least once in his time here at Hogwarts, as Severus would gladly tell you. But still I have wondered, at times... it all seemed to wrap itself up just a little too neatly."

"So do you think differently, now, than you did when Sirius was first brought in?"

"No. I think the same as I ever did. But now there is more reason to heed those old doubts. James was a cunning man, after his own fashion... Sirius, also. Perhaps, perhaps... they might have thought it a fine strategy to say the secret keeper was Sirius, when in truth it was otherwise. So close were the two of them that none would have doubted it."

"Yet you doubted still. And the more you talk, the more I find myself doubting, as well. I was there when Sirius was brought in. He didn't resist, he didn't curse at us, and he didn't shout his allegiance to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He only laughed. At the time, I thought it sure proof of his madness and depravity... but now that I hear all of this, the sound of it seems sadder and more bitter in my memory."

"Memory is easily influenced, even without the use of magic."

"But I remember what I do, nonetheless. Pettigrew's accusations were the crux of the case, second only to your testimony. With Pettigrew alive and in hiding when he ought to have been dead, and you yourself second-guessing what you once believed the certain guilt of Sirius Black, most of what I took for granted as true in this matter now seems murky. Pettigrew will be questioned. The circumstances are too suspicious for him not to be. And now, I think... that the questioning will reveal things we never expected."

"It may. And yet it may also be that we are simply seeing plots and webs of deceit where there is only cowardice and foolishness."

"That's remains to be seen. But Pettigrew is alive, and that's enough to cast suspicion in many odd places."

Frowning thoughtfully, Scrimgeour looked once more at Arthur and Molly.

It seemed absurd to suspect them of anything untoward, but ever his thoughts wandered back to how absurd it also would have seemed to suspect Pettigrew. Yet Pettigrew was alive when he should have been dead, an animagus when he should have been hopelessly untalented, and all of this was cause enough to doubt many other things besides.

So he hardened himself and sharpened his wits, and continued the questioning. It was only courtesy to Arthur that had him carry out the interview here, in the privacy of Albus Dumbledore's office. If cause was raised for further suspicions he would take the man to the Ministry for an official questioning, but if their answers continued as they had so far, Arthur and Molly would be free to go.

He was a good enough legilimens to tell when somebody was lying to his face, and up to now they had been as honest as could be hoped.

Yet if he could hope, Scrimgeour privately wondered, would he rather them be innocent or guilty? If they were guilty, that would be a lead. If they were innocent, then this would have all been a waste of his time. He would be no closer to...

...well, to what, he was not certain.

But something in his gut told him that they had only just scratched the surface of matters deep and perilous past reckoning. Briefly, Rufus's thoughts went to the warrant he had gotten from Amelia to search the possessions of the Weasley children. Even now, Moody was likely sifting through the kids' effects for anything remotely dark.

He was not sure if he would rather nothing incriminating be found there. Pettigrew lived, and much was in doubt. The public would want results, a trial, a conviction. They wanted plain answers and clear delineation between good and evil, innocent and guilty.

But such things belonged only to fiction and poor investigative work. It was a blurry line between lawful and otherwise, and most people straddled it whether they knew so or not.

Peter Pettigrew was alive, and now it seemed that no one—no one—could be wholly above or below suspicion.


A/N: A lot of fics portray Draco as a poor, sensitive, misunderstood soul. This is not exactly one of those stories, haha. Really, the best that can be said about the kid is that he is not a killer, and that as an adult he abandons the views of pureblood supremacy. As far as the books, though, he only really gets sympathetic toward the end of HBP.

I suppose some could ascribe my polite dislike of him to my dislike of Dramione. On the other hand, I like Harry even though I dislike Harmony to a similar degree, having been a Romione shipper of some description for as long as I can recall.

I suppose the best comparison would be Sasuke from Naruto. Both he and Draco are... polarizing characters, at least among certain segments of their respective fandoms. Yet while I did have a period of Sasuke dislike, I'm ultimately able to find him a more likable and redeemable character than Draco. In a way, that's kind of funny, because at his worst Draco is really just a petty bigot who gets in over his head pretty quick, while Sasuke goes a good ways down the slippery slope.

The best I can figure, Sasuke is from the start a relatively sympathetic character (even if the protag's designated rival) who gets a load of development over the course of Naruto, while Draco is for the first five-and-a-half books of Harry Potter just a one dimensional bully with negligible importance to the plot.

So even though Sasuke flies much closer to the sun, so to speak, he is a significantly more rounded and pivotal character with a clear developmental arc, no less than the deuteragonist of his series, while Draco is honestly flat for most of his series, and even in Deathly Hallows really only shows up to be ineffectual, whether he's trying to aid or hinder the real heroes.

And let's not discount the fact that like half of Draco's entry on Pottermore, to the best of my recollection, is basically just Rowling expressing amazement and a bit of concern at how popular the guy is with certain segments of the fandom.

A long A/N for the longest chapter of this fic so far.

Updated: 3-30-16

TTFN and R&R!

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