The Golden Age

Disclaimer: Obviously, I own nothing but my own thoughts.Harry Potter and his world are the property of J.K.Rowling.

14. Heirlooms: Hermione and her Father

There were days when she regretted her impulsive generosity. This was one of them.

Harry had gone to meet Neville for the evening, and Hermione found herself very much at loose ends. She could not blame Harry for wanting to spend time with his other friends—not exactly—but his absence brought home to her how few human ties she had to the wizarding world. It wasn't as if she could say in return: "Oh, that's fine. I'll owl Lavender/Parvati/Ginny/Luna/anybody. We'll have a Girl's Night Out. You don't mind, do you?"

Sometimes it made her sad. Wasn't school the time to build friendships? She hadn't succeeded particularly well, and it was so unfair. There had been the War, which had made normal life impossible. She had devoted herself to helping Harry, and she had spent nearly all her free time with him and—Ron—and here she was on a Friday night with little to show for it.

Ties to the wizarding world? She snorted back a bitter laugh. Ties to anyone! Her parents were in Australia, and unless she called them, they remained blissfully ignorant of her existence. There was not a single soul in the muggle world that she could describe as a friend. In effect, she had vanished into thin air and no one had ever come looking for her. She had always been an outsider, even in the exclusive primary school for the gifted her parents had paid for. An outsider, trying to force her way in with her books and her cleverness and her views about how people ought to get on, if only they had the proper attitude. She was gone from them now, and utterly forgotten, her name existing there only in glowing school reports that would probably be purged in a few years. She had hoped for more from the hidden world of witches and wizards.

Witches and wizards, she had found, were just like muggles, only more so. They were just as prejudiced and blinkered and parochial and unimaginative as the muggliest muggle slumped slack-jawed in front of a telly. They were worse, of course, because they were all armed. Even the most pathetic excuse for a wizard knew a few ugly jinxes to cast when irritated. At school, children had the power to hurt and harm and disfigure, far more easily than their muggle counterparts, and everything in their culture urged them to experiment with and refine these powers. She had done her share of it, after all. Dead Marietta's marked face would never leave her memory. She had been wrong, perhaps, to have not removed the hex at the end of the summer, but she had forgotten. Besides, it was not her fault! Why hadn't any of the adults in on the secret done anything? All right, she understood that Marietta had been obliviated and had not been able to ask Hermione to remove that brilliantly persistent hex. Her mother, though, who seemed to have known who had been behind Marietta's just punishment --she could have come to her and begged for forgiveness, instead of wasting time with those hidebound "Healers" at Saint Mungo's!

She moved about the house restlessly, unable to settle down to anything. If only her situation with Ron hadn't made an evening with the Weasleys an impossibility! She was painfully lonely. She missed the Weasleys, for all that she said otherwise to Harry. She missed Ron, for uncouth and impossible as he was, he had been a very exciting lover, which Harry, alas, was not. Harry—oh, Harry. Harry was nice. Perhaps too nice. And in some ways, he was too much her brother for this--whatever kind of relationship it was--to last.

I must get out of this house, but where to go?

In the end, she went to the Albus Dumbledore School. It was hers, after all, and people ought to remember it. She had the free access of a school governor, even at nine o'clock at night. She stepped out of the floo and admired the satiny gleam of the dark woodwork. It was a splendid building, and Hermione felt the familiar pang of regret, imagining what it would have been like to reign as mistress here. She should have waited, and considered, and looked about before she had given it all away. If put to it, the Malfoys could have coughed up an adequate school facility. She had not yet seen Croughthiwichicombe Hall in the spring, and suspected it would be enchanting in every sense of the word.

Dumbledore's giant portrait was dozing above her head. A light shone out from under the door of the Headmistress' Office. Hermione passed by, not caring to chat with Jane Rochester, but she heard voices, and paused. One of the voices was deep and velvety, and engaged in very earnest conversation.

So. Headmistress Rochester was in her office of an evening to talk to Professor Snape's portrait? She must be as hard up for company as I am!

Curious about what they might have to say to one another when alone, Hermione pressed her ear to the door.

Which swung open, soundlessly. "Come in, Miss Crouch-Granger," the Headmistress called.

The room was lit only with soft witch-light. It cast odd shadows on Jane Rochester's thin face and reflected off the surface of Snape's portrait, making his face paler than ever, his dark eyes more cavernous. Some might call the light romantic, but Hermione thought it was rather eerie.

Very embarrassed at being discovered, she pulled herself erect, knowing she should have anticipated simple portal wards. "I heard voices. I was not sure you wanted to be disturbed."

"We don't," Snape told her, sounding very bored. "But I would not want your latest adventures in eavesdropping to be in vain. Shall we provide a penseive, so that you may observe our entire private conversation?"

"I'm sorry," said Hermione, feeling no one had the right to challenge her presence in her own house. Trying to find some reason to be there, she told the Headmistress, "I've just come to sort through some of the Crouch heirlooms. I didn't want to bother anyone while they were at work. I didn't know you were here."

"Quite all right," Headmistress Rochester assured her, brow contracted skeptically. "Go right ahead. Would you like some tea first? I was just about to make myself a cup."

"No, thank you," Hermione refused, with a glance at Portrait Snape. He was staring at her with a black and bitter gaze, obviously wanting her gone. She scowled back at him, and he snorted, rolling his eyes at the Headmistress. "I'll just be going, then," Hermione said in farewell. "Don't mind me."

"I won't."

"Well, I mind her--" Snape told the Headmistress as the door closed. "She's not what she appears to be, you know—"

The voices abruptly stilled. Hermione realized that a privacy ward had been cast, and felt very offended. They were probably talking about her!

Defiantly, she stalked to the grand staircase and decided she really would take another look at the Crouch collection. It was stored in Mrs. Crouch's bedroom: family souvenirs and magical artifacts and grimoires and genealogies. Hermione had gone through the Gringotts vault and found little other than heaps of money and some old-fashioned jewels. Apparently, the Crouches had been proud of having nothing they need hide from the eyes of other wizards. That did not mean that some of their possessions had not been used for very dodgy ends. Hermione still had not located the invisibility cloak that Crouch had used to sneak his son into the World Cup. Hermione very much wanted such a cloak of her own. It opened a world of possibilities. She could indeed use Harry's whenever she liked, but somehow she would always have to tell him what she wanted it for. She needed her own, if she was to find out what was being said about her at the Ministry.

The room was to her left, further down the hall. The darkness closed in around her, and Hermione called out, "Lumos!"

Eyes followed her. The whispers began.

"--she's one of us, they say—"

"—dear Albus told me. A Halfblood—"

"—yes, yes, but better than nothing. She known for fighting that latest dark wizard, what's-his-name—"

"—I thought that was the Potter heir—"

"—yes, but she's very much the power behind the throne—"

Head held high, she flung open the door. A soft rattling and murmur stirred in the room. It was musty and close, and much more crowded than she remembered. Others had been here, dutifully setting aside everything pertaining to the last two generations of Crouches. Hermione would need her wand for searching through the room, and so lit a pair of beautiful little lamps, whose fairy arms each held a candle. Perhaps she should take them home...

"That's her, Mamma," hissed the voice of young man. "She's the one I told you about."

"Oh, is it really?"

Hermione turned and found herself facing a wide portrait set on the floor. Part of it was concealed by the corner of the bed, but Hermione had no trouble distinguishing the subjects of the painting. It was a fine family group of the Crouches: mother and father, and young Barty. Her half-brother was fresh out of Hogwarts, dressed much like his father for his first job at the Ministry.

Her father was looking at her. Hermione clutched at her wand, willing herself not to run away. This was perfectly awful. He was looking at her, very gravely, and saying nothing. Barty Junior was still whispering furiously to his mother.

Mrs. Crouch was a delicate-looking woman, with neatly groomed fair hair and robes as impeccable as her husband's. "How do you do, Hermione?" she greeted the girl in a soft, lady-like voice. "I am Thalia Crouch." To the man beside her she said, "Speak to her, dearest. You know you ought to."

Bartemius Crouch, Senior, cleared his throat and spoke. "Hello, Hermione. How are you?'

"How am I?" Hermione wondered. This was positively surreal. "I'm quite well, thank you. I'm just going through some some of the magical items. You wouldn't know what's become of the invisibility cloak, would you?

"Sorry, no," answered Mrs. Crouch.

Her husband said, almost simultaneously, "What do you want it for?"

Hermione drew herself up, and replied, "That is none of your business. You have no right to question me, since you took such care never to play a role in my life. You never even spoke to me or looked at me at the World Cup or at Hogwarts. It's a little late to be all paternal now."

"I told you," sneered Barty Junior. "Nasty Halfblood bastard. No breeding, no decency. Just here to grab what she can. I should have killed her when I had the chance."

"Barty, darling!" his mother expostulated. "Halfblood she may be, but she's the last of the Crouches. I know that means a great deal to your father."

"It does," Crouch agreed, his eyes studying Hermione. "Your brows are very like my mother's. You may think I never looked at you at Hogwarts, but I did. I took care, though, that you not see me looking. You might have thought me some dirty old man. I found out a great deal about you. A brilliant student—the best of your year. I was wrong not to acknowledge you and bring you forward. I would have, if not for Barty. It was all mixed up with having to look after Barty. I always meant to do something for you when that was settled."

His son barked a contemptuous laugh. "That's not what you said when I confronted you with the papers from the Department of Unintended Consequences! You know what he told me then, Halfblood? That you were nothing to him—a mistake—an error in judgement! You should never have been born."

"I did not put it that way, Barty," Crouch said heavily. "I know you were disappointed in me—"

"Disappointed?" Barty sneered at Hermione. "Do you know what is like for your world to end, Halfblood? Do you know what it's like to find out that your life is a lie? That your own father betrayed your mother, and lowered himself to rut with a Muggle? You should have been wiped off the face of the earth. The very next night I pledged myself to the Dark Lord."

"Then why didn't you kill me?" Hermione asked in a whisper. "You had nearly a whole year to do it."

He sniggered. "Couldn't do that. Had bigger fish to fry. Had to get to Potter first. Oh, I was loyal to my Master. He needed Potter, and I daren't tip my hand and ruin everything. I had plans for you, of course, oh yes. Later, when everyone was busy moaning over the corpse of the Boy-Who-Blundered-into-a-Killing Curse-again."

Hermione sneered back at him. "Well, Harry destroyed your precious Master. By the way, speaking of blunders, how is that Halfblood Dark Lord thing working out for you, anyway? Did you know? It's very interesting, because either you knew and you're a hypocrite, or you didn't know, and you're a fool!"

Barty shrieked and pointed his painted wand at her. "Avada Kevadra." The painting briefly glowed a pretty apple green. The young man swore horribly, and vanished off to the side of the picture. Hermione burst out laughing.

"He's your brother, my dear," Mrs. Crouch reproved her gently. "You ought not to provoke him so."

"Well, he shouldn't try to curse me! Be fair!"

"Why should I be fair, Hermione?" the woman in the portrait asked, astonished. "He's my child, and you aren't. One must always stand up for one's own child." Her eyes rested reproachfully on Crouch. "That's where you went wrong, Bartemius."

"True. I confess it. Sending Barty to Azkaban was a great mistake, but it was the honorable thing."

"You're such an idealist, dearest," Mrs. Crouch informed her husband with hesitant tenderness. "People do hate that, you know."

Hermione protested. "I don't think that's true—"

Crouch shook his head. "It only proves Thalia's superior understanding of human nature, for it is undoubtedly true. I see it now. I see how I could have managed it all so much more cleverly, had I not been bent on impressing everyone with how much more clever and high-minded I was than anyone else. Pictures do talk among themselves, you see. I've learned quite a bit about how your nasty little war played out. Dumbledore always liked to give the impression that he was an idealist himself— someone who always thought the best of everybody. What he actually thought, of course, was that we were all children—some naughty, some nice—but all ultimately longing for a kindly grandfather to tell them how to think and what to feel. Obviously, he was as great a fool as I. Riddle, too, tried to recreate wizarding kind in some bizarre manner he fancied superior, but of course he was such a lunatic most of us wouldn't have dreamed of following him. As for myself, I thought that if the wizarding world could see that I would treat my own son no differently than any other criminal—"

"Oh, Bartemius!" his wife mourned softly

He frowned. "—than any other criminal—it would inspire the rest of the slugs to put the law and civic duty first. What it actually did was make me appear inhuman and appalling."

"He was your son, dearest. It's only natural to favor your son. If you don't, people don't feel they have any common ground with you, and they become frightened—"

"So you see, my dear—Miss—er, Hermione," Crouch concluded, debonair brow knit in thought. "That where it went to pieces. I was dealing with people as they ought to be, not as they are. I dislike saying it, but I daresay that where's Tom Riddle and Dumbledore came a-cropper, too."

"People ought to be better than they are," Hermione interrupted, rather fiercely. "Or at least witches and wizards ought to be. We have no excuse. All this power, and it's wasted on mean and petty hexes and stupid Quidditch games and joke shops and ridiculous imitations of lower-middle class muggle life. Where's the great wizarding literature and music? Where are our great buildings and achievements? Why did muggles get to the Moon ahead of us?"

Crouch looked at her with some satisfaction. "Those are excellent questions, Hermione. Questions that I have often asked myself. I suppose the answer lies first in our very small population. If you examine the muggle world—as I have—you will find that truly creative people are unusual, and genius quite rare. There simply aren't enough of us—and besides we have already won the Birth Lottery, so to speak, by being gifted with our magical abilities. It would seem rather greedy to expect musical or artistic or scientific genius in addition to that! Most witches and wizards are very ordinary people with the extraordinary gift of magic."

"But Mozart—"

"A muggle, my dear. I know the stories and the silly things in the popular histories, but the fact is, it's absolute piffle about Mozart and Shakespeare and Leonardo and Isaac Newton. All muggles, through and through. The closest the English wizarding world has come to a genius in something other than magic was the poet Christopher Smart, and the conflict between magic and his religion drove him mad."

"I don't know who Christopher Smart is. Sorry."

Crouch winced and looked very disappointed. "Do go to the library and look him up. Mid-eighteenth century. Half-blood. Mother was related to the Abbotts, and thus he was our cousin many times removed. Wouldn't go to Hogwarts. Thought we were evil. Ended in a madhouse. Are you fond of cats, Hermione?"

Startled at the change of subject, she said, "Well—yes, I am. Very fond of them."

Crouch smiled faintly, and began to recite:

"For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe…"

He broke off, with a little self-conscious laugh. "—And so forth, at great length."

"Bartemius can recite books and books of poetry. It's part of his Gift of Languages," Mrs. Crouch informed Hermione. "You don't have the Gift, I understand."

"No," Hermione said stiffly. "I wish I did." She sat down on the bench by the dressing table, and played with the silver brush. "If I understand you correctly, you are saying that to change the British wizarding world, we first need more witches and wizards."

"Well, not necessarily, first, but yes, I do think our population needs to be larger—"

"—and that it's important to seem normal and One of the People, and be a doting parent—"

"Oh, yes," Crouch agreed. "The public always goes for that. Pictures of the fond parents and the little kiddies. Dumbledore did remarkably well for a politician without a family. Usually it's the kiss of death. No one thinks you have a stake in the future. That was one of Voldemort's chief weaknesses as a public figure, too, though of course he was too balmy to recognize it." He recollected that his own family had been his Kiss of Death, so to speak, and harrumphed. "Of course, it doesn't do not to keep an eye on the children—make sure they don't do anything to embarrass you. I shouldn't have left it all to Thalia here, while I was building my career."

"I didn't mind, dearest," Mrs. Crouch assured him fondly. "You were doing very important work."

"Yes, yes," he replied testily, "but don't you see? Barty managed to completely undermine it all, with his idiotic teen-age rebellion. If I were to set out to the rule the world all over again I should nip all that nonsense in the bud, and the best way is to start when they're young."

Hermione was very interested. "A proper, unexceptionable home life, well-behaved children with a carefully directed education. What else?"

"Quidditch," he answered succinctly. "Either manage to be interested in Quidditch, or have someone about you who is. Shows the common touch."

"I think Quidditch is ridiculous," Hermione objected. "What a waste of resources, time—everything. How can such a tiny population have all these Quidditch leagues?"

"The opiate of the people. If Riddle had presented himself as a rabid Quidditch fan, he might have succeeded. Creates a great illusion of normalcy, and people love that. I was always very visible at the World Cup. It's a very important event internationally, and a very good place to get one's face and name known."

Hermione felt she should be taking notes. He was very plausible, but he was not being entirely honest with her.. She rose from the bench, and leaned closer to the picture.

"You can't claim you're hands are clean, you know," she objected. "What about Sirius Black? He wasn't even given a trial!"

Crouch sniffed. "And the rest of the wizarding world was simply outraged and appalled, of course. My dear Hermione, I don't deny that mistakes were made, but Black did his own case no good by not denying guilt at the scene. Surely by now you have learned enough of wizarding law to know how it differs from Muggle criminal statutes."

"It's pretty primitive," Hermione agreed, not caring to be diplomatic about it.

"Perhaps so, but the public wanted action, and I was within the letter of our law. You will find that when people are frightened they will do anything to feel safe. They will offer up their rights and liberties and sell out their friends and neighbors. Tell me, was there an outcry for trials later? Did some concerned citizen or some public-spirited journalist campaign for Black to have his day in court? Did Dumbledore?

"No. I've never understood why."

"Hermione, the answer before you is that he also believed Black to be guilty, and that he had no more regard for Muggle legal forms than any other wizard. Our customs our different, our law is different, and until you accept that, you will never be fully a part of the wizarding world."

"Oh, yes—different customs. Like the custom you followed when you raped my mother?"

"Hermione!" Mrs. Crouch gasped.

Crouch glared at her. "You know nothing about it. I never harmed your mother."

"What a lie! You raped her and got her pregnant and obliviated her, and you have the gall—"

"I did not harm your mother!"

A deep, wounding silence. After a moment, Crouch continued, in a low, angry voice, "I have already made my apologies and explanations to my wife. Whatever wrong I did, I did to her as well, and she has forgiven me. If you actually want to know what happened, instead of braying out your stupid assumptions, I will tell you. Can you be silent and listen?"

Hermione huffed a deep, indignant breath.

"Yes," she said, and sat down on the floor in front of the picture.

Crouch quotes from Christopher Smart's Jubilate Deo—the section beginning "For I will consider my Cat, Jeoffrey…"

Thank you, thank you to all my brilliant, perceptive, stimulating reviewers.

Next: Remembrance of Things Past