CHAPTER 25 – The Press Isn't Being Kind to Us

I think Harry caught McGonagall's arrival out of the corner of his eye. With quick thanks to Narcissa, he led us back to the Gryffindor table, before McGonagall could get close enough to call out for Harry's attention. Back at the table, Harry studiously directed his eyes toward his plate. I was pleased to see that he dispatched a large quantity of eggs, bacon, and scone with jam. I was feeling too queasy from all the port to even consider the bacon, but forced myself to eat most of a scone, with lots of strawberry jam. I was considering leading Harry in a hasty strategic withdrawal, before McGonagall decided to come and visit us, when the owls arrived with our papers. It always amazed me that the owls knew when we were at Hogwarts and when we weren't. Harry and I had our papers, while there was no owl for the missing Hermione.

I tore open the Daily Prophet and let out an audible gasp as the headlines struck me with as much force as a physical blow.

POTTER MURDERS INNOCENT LEGITIMATE MINISTER

POTTER RISKS ALL IN FAKED REPAIR OF GRINGOTTS CIRCLE – ALL TO MAKE GOOD ON ARROGANT BOAST TO THIS REPORTER

WHO IMPERIUSED THICKNESSE? WAS DISCOVERY OF HIS HIDEOUT ALL TOO CONVENIENT FOR A MINISTRY AWASH IN BAD PRESS?

OUR APOLOGIES TO HEADMASTER MCGONAGALL – WE PICKED THE WRONG MISTRESS

I'm not sure much of anything in the stories was true, but much of it was 'factual'. The Daily Prophet somehow knew that the quartz cylinder and two sections of the silver mesh connectors were 'faulty' when we began work yesterday morning. They knew the quartz couldn't possibly be fixed in less than three days. They knew that operation at full power, with the damaged quartz, could be quite dangerous and could make the magical force in some parts of England quite unstable. They didn't know, or chose not to report, that the problems to the circle were the result of sabotage, or that we really had fixed them.

Likewise, the Prophet knew that the information about Thicknesse being Imperiused had come from Barty, and that both Shacklebolt and Dad had heard it from Barty's lips. They knew that Dad had informed Harry at the 'celebratory dinner to honour Potter's pretend fix of the circle'. They knew that Shacklebolt had rushed over, uninvited, to give Harry his take on the matter. They knew that Harry and I had 'fled back to the sanctuary that Hogwarts has provided to all sorts of bad actors'.

The Prophet deadpanned, "we regret our error in accusing Headmaster McGonagall of carrying on a long and wholly improper relationship with Professor Celine, when Adrienne, as she still prefers to be addressed by students as well as adults, was herself a third-year student. To set the record straight: Narcissa Malfoy is the student with whom Headmaster McGonagall conducted an improper relationship. Adrienne, on the other hand, is the mistress of Madam Bones. I humbly apologise for the error, but it is truly difficult to keep an accurate accounting of the couplings of the Witches with whom Minister Weasley chooses to surround himself."

{{You've got to read the whole of the Daily Prophet. You've got a bad leak.}}

Harry took the paper from me and began reading. He was still making unhappy noises as McGonagall appeared at our table and curtly ordered, "My office, Potter."

I was not about to leave Harry alone with McGonagall, in his present condition, so I grabbed a blueberry muffin, wrapped it in a napkin and, with a half full mug of coffee in my other hand, followed Harry out of the Great Hall.

I had just cleared the last step into McGonagall's office when she addressed me, "I don't recall inviting you Miss Weasley."

"I'm sorry," I replied, "but I have no intention of leaving my husband alone with you in his present condition."

"You seem in worse condition than he does, Miss Weasley. You both look like you spent the night drinking. Well, you may stay if I arouse your jealous instincts. Just don't drop any crumbs in my office. I've had an ant problem the past two days.

"I called you here to object to your choice of Hogwarts as the site for your two press conferences today, I don't like to mix Hogwarts with politics, at least publicly. Many parents don't share your outlook on our government. However, I sense that you have far bigger problems. Do you want to tell me about them? You have been drinking all night, haven't you?"

"No, unfortunately we only had the one bottle," mumbled Harry.

"And we finished it," I admitted. "Harry is upset that he killed Thicknesse, and that Thicknesse may have been a reasonably good guy who had the misfortune to get Imperiused by a Death Eater and has been Imperiused ever since. Harry has convinced himself that it should have been possible to take Thicknesse alive and have Doctor White restore him to upstanding good citizenship. You can read about all of us, in the worst possible light, in this morning's Daily Prophet."

"That's remarkably naïve, Mr. Potter," McGonagall asserted, accepting the paper from me. "If I had encountered Thicknesse, you may rest assured I would have killed him. I doubt very much that it was possible to capture him alive. I also doubt he was a good guy. Oh, my dear Light Guardian, I see I have my own problems to deal with. The Prophet does seem to have the whole story, don't they? Is it true what they say about you only pretending to fix the circle? That would be a very silly thing to do. So much worse when it inevitably breaks down again and the Prophet gets to crow about how right they were."

Harry assured McGonagall that he was not holding press conferences, merely talking over dinner with reporter friends whom he owed a meeting. He assured her that the meetings had been scheduled at the Ministry, but that Prudence had rescheduled them when we had to spend all day restoring the magic. "It is not as though meeting with Ernie over a meal is anything new, or something that you haven't already approved. You're even being reimbursed for what he eats." He reluctantly told her the tale of the sabotage, after first making her promise not to pass the information on to anyone else in the Sisterhood.

"Of course, Harry," she replied. "I can see that you still have a terrible leak. I trust that you can see that I've been skewered by your leaker worse than any of us. This will be embarrassing for quite a few people, whom I must talk to as soon as I finish with you. If you have any say in the matter, please don't let Amelia or Adrienne resign. I have no intention of resigning.

"I'm assuming you've already deduced the obvious conclusions from these articles. First, it was not Yaxley who Imperiused Thicknesse. It's obvious to me that it was Umbridge, and that this is further proof of her continued existence. There were rumours that she was his lover, weren't there? I think she felt a physical attraction to Thicknesse and seized the opportunity to turn him into her ideal Wizard. Terribly icky from our perspective, but likely not from hers. Second, you have a leaker and that leaker is most definitely not part of my organisation. That person and your saboteur may well be one and the same.

"Third, please realise that regarding Thicknesse, you can't undo what you did, and you did what you thought was right at the time. You acted bravely and in a manner that I certainly can admire. If you keep beating yourself up, you only reduce your personal effectiveness and make it less likely that Umbridge will be caught before she causes more trouble. If anyone possibly killed an innocent Thicknesse, which I still can't believe ever existed past about age ten, then that person was Umbridge. If you are recoiling at the remote possibility that you have harmed an innocent, then I suggest that Pansy is far likelier to have been a manipulated innocent than Thicknesse. If you want to stop beating yourself up and do penance, then try an extremely merciful approach to a young Witch, whom I think can still be saved.

"I'm certain this is the discussion that your wife wanted to protect you from, so I'll stop there and leave it to you and Hermione to decide how forgiving you can be. I suggest you pay a quick visit to Mrs. Granger and then duck back to the Ministry. Ginny has classes to attend and I have damage control to get on with, but first I'd like a few words with her."

Harry left us and McGonagall gave me what I took to be a sympathetic look. "I can tell that you are very worried about Harry. I think Harry is proof that it is possible to be too good. He doesn't forgive himself for anything. Still, I'm not sure that getting him drunk was the smartest thing to do. You look like you should get some sort of Hogwarts achievement award, just for being able to make it to my office in a vertical posture."

"I felt that I needed to reboot his brain and nothing else was working. It was obvious that neither of us was going to get any sleep. He just lay in bed stiff as a board, and I'm not talking the good kind of stiff…"

"I assure you that I caught your meaning the first time, Miss Weasley, elaboration is unnecessary."

"You really are the last Victorian, which is why it is so strange to find you at the centre of what the Muggle press would call a 'government sex scandal."

"You don't seem overly scandalised, yourself."

"No, I assume it's only natural for everyone to have a sexual side. I am surprised that, unlike Durmstrang, Hogwarts doesn't have any married professors."

"I assure you; I have no desire to limit my faculty to those of any particular sexual preference. Back in the day, the school's Board of Governors felt that celibate professors could devote themselves more exclusively to the students' education and betterment. In their extreme innocence, they assumed that by prohibiting marriage, they ruled out all the possibilities. I am, by the way, hopeful that Neville will decide both to marry and to remain at Hogwarts. I think he took a liking to Luna over the summer, but George was bolder and moved quicker than he did."

"I hadn't noticed that."

"It's probably for the best. I expect Neville will be happier with a slightly younger Witch. To get back to our previous discussion, I trust I didn't push Harry too hard on the Pansy issue. I spoke to Madam Bones and she says Harry views my suggestion of several months of confinement as a bad joke. I know part of that is Harry's fear that I'll invite Pansy back to Hogwarts, and you'll all be forced to mingle with her. I know another part is that Harry has visions of how that plot could have led to your death. He is very protective of you. Finally, I know that Harry thinks Pansy betrayed Draco, and wishes to help Draco secure an easy divorce.

"What if Pansy agreed to the easy divorce? What if she wasn't released until the end of the Hogwarts term? What if she wasn't planning to harm you and was surprised that Silas and Lucius intended Hermione to die? Would all that change your minds? Would it at least raise enough doubt to conduct a joint interview of Pansy with all of Harry's truth tellers and Doctor White, so that you could all form your own impression as to how much she was manipulated, how much of a future threat she represents, and whether she is salvageable? Madam Bones says the arrangements could include parole conditions that send her back to jail if she acts badly over the next decade. It can also include hers and her mother's help to jail more dangerous characters, and to jail Mrs. Parkinson for an extended time on a guilty plea. Madam Bones says that the case against Mrs. Parkinson isn't as strong as the case against Pansy, but that Mrs. Parkinson is the guiltier party. I know I sound as soft as Harry at his worst, but I have killed Death Eaters and not given the matter a second thought. I just hate to write off a child for whom there is still some hope."

"I certainly don't see anything to be lost by exploring the possibility that you suggest. I know you've killed and gotten over it, but Harry is different. It also hurts that Thicknesse didn't just nicely fall dead at the end of the duel. He was literally blown into about a half dozen bloody pieces. Oh! I'm so stupid. When we Apparated back from Thicknesses' hideout to Harry's office, the biggest piece of Thicknesse bled all over the carpet in Harry's reception area. I'm not sure the stain has been entirely removed and that will be a constant reminder to Harry of what he did. I need to sneak back to the Ministry and see what I can do to repair the carpet."

"I think you should do that. When you come back, please visit Professor Celine. I think the two of you may be able to provide some mutual support to each other. Now, I really do have things to do."

I took the hint and headed back to Gryffindor to Apparate to the Ministry. I was hailed by a bunch of fourth- and fifth-year Witches. I told them that what was in The Daily Prophet was very slanted, but largely true, except for Harry faking the repairs. I said I was sorry to have to excuse myself so quickly, but I had to rush off to clean up Harry's office.

I saw Callista in the office and asked her where Harry was. "He's in the Minister's office. Shall I tell him you're here? I don't believe he was expecting you, in fact didn't you see him like just twenty minutes ago."

I explained why I had come and together we tackled the still visible stain in the carpet. The efforts to remove the blood had left a circle nearly a foot across and quite visible to anyone who transited the office. We worked for fifteen minutes, using any spell either of us could think of and even soap and water. As we dried the rug and were taunted by the reappearance of a somewhat fainter, but also somewhat wider stain, we each had brilliant ideas.

"Why don't we just cut out the piece of carpet with the stain, swap it for another piece of carpet off in that corner, and magically reweave the carpet?" Callista suggested.

"I like that idea," I told Callista. "I was thinking that we could also quickly dye the carpet a little darker, although the only dye I could get quickly is what Mr. Granger dumps down the toilets to check the plumbing."

Cotto came out of Harry's office and inquired what we were up to 'so furtively'. When I explained, he said he would fetch proper dye and then help us. By the time Callista and I had magically cut out twenty-inch squares of carpet, Cotto was back to help us reweave those portions of the carpet.

"I know many old House Elf tricks," he told us, directing the two of us to the repair in the corner. He finished his piece before we completed ours, working together, and his piece blended in perfectly, while you could sort of see where ours had been mended. Cotto made a slight modification to our repairs and worked on the areas where the pieces joined, so that they blended together very smoothly. As Callista and I levitated the furniture, Cotto dyed and then quickly re-dried the carpeting. When he had finished, it looked almost new. Cotto was in a repair mood, so he also fixed the stain and scratches on the section of Harry's door, where Harry had repeatedly kicked it closed during our Thicknesse farce. As I turned to leave, I thanked both Cotto and Callista for their help, and asked them to both pretend that I had never visited the Ministry.

Back at Hogwarts, I found Adrienne taking advantage of a nice sunny day to paint in her studio. "Professor McGonagall thought we might console each other," I told her by way of explaining my presence. "If you read the morning paper, you know why I'm very worried about Harry, and Professor McGonagall is very worried about you."

"You are right to be worried about Harry, but wrong to be worried about me. I have a thicker skin than Minerva suspects. If I didn't, I never would have survived months of Bruce.

"I am worried about Amelia. She has been hit by a lot lately, from how she performs her job to suspicions she was an agent for the other side. She's taken it hard. I'm sure this will send her into another round of self-recrimination and a desire to resign. I don't think she should do that. I'd be at the Ministry trying to talk sense to her, except I have a class in fifteen minutes. A class that you, Hermione, and Cissy are all part of. I was wondering if the three of you would be willing to join me in a trip to the Ministry after my class. Erin told me there is a sweet shop on Diagon Alley, where you take despondent Witches to cheer them up. As you know, I like Harry and Ron, but I must request that we restrict this get-together to Witches young and old."

"I'd be happy to do anything I can, and I'm sure the others would as well. Oh, and in case you needed cheering, I had planned to tell you that I used what you taught me about Witch Sculpting to fix the quartz cylinder in the Cavern of the Goblins. That's how we managed to complete three days of repairs in eight hours and permit Harry to deliver on his promise at the press conference."

"I'm very pleased that you've discovered such a practical use for my teaching. Did I give you any other useful ideas?"

"You and the Light Guardian. I'm going to start making my own silver Keeper ring. I have a chip of granite and some sand from the Circle of the Goblins that I'm going to incorporate into the ring, along with some super-unicorn charged Yantra sand, which is connected to the whole of the universe. At least that's what Professor Firenze says. I'm not sure I totally believe him. I'm still thinking about the overall design."

"I'm sure you'll make a fine ring, and it is certainly a great compliment for you to pair me with the Light Guardian as the inspiration for your work."

We both saw the other students beginning to arrive and moved to our separate positions. I was quickly flanked by Cissy and Hermione, both of whom wanted to know how Harry was doing and what I was discussing with Professor Celine. I told them Harry was still not so good, and that our presence was requested for a cheer-up lunch for Madam Bones. They both looked slightly surprised by the invitation but agreed to join the party.

Professor Celine's formal classes up to this point had all been plain vanilla teaching of art concepts, following the chapters in the art textbook which she had selected for us. She infused the lectures with the liveliness of her unique personality but was still rather subdued in comparison to her persona and the exercises that she set for us in her art club.

Today, however, although her mood was subdued, even for this formal lower-levels class, she surprised us by the assignment that she prescribed as soon as the last student was seated.

"Get the thick rag drawing paper and the charcoal pencils. I want each of you to draw for me your concept of evil. It may be human, or not." With that she turned her back on the class and resumed working on her painting. A hundred minutes later, she turned to us and instructed, "time's up, sign your work and post it on the front wall, so that we can each get an appreciation of true evil."

There was a scurrying to the front of the room as we all tacked our drawings to the cork panelling. I saw many drawings, or at least attempted drawings, of Voldemort or his snake, Nagini. I noticed that Hermione had done a very accurate rendering of Silas. He was wearing a demented grin and holding two wires in front of them, with a great spark arcing between them. An unfinished, rather indistinct shape, which I still knew to be Hermione herself, was huddling in fear at his feet. I saw that Cissy had drawn her brother, Bruce. I had drawn Delores Umbridge.

There was only one other drawing that didn't represent Voldemort or his snake. Jimmy Peakes had drawn a younger Adrienne, standing with her back to a precipice and being pulled backward by a very old Witch, of the same age as McGonagall's priestess friends. The drawing was unnerving and an obviously nasty taunting of Adrienne, given the content of the morning paper. Nevertheless, the drawing showed the most technical skill of any of those tacked to the wall. I was turning away from his drawing, when the signature pierced my heart. I elbowed Hermione and practically dragged the point of her nose against the signature – 'the acolyte'. Hermione let out such a gasp, that Professor Celine walked over to join us. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Jimmy strutting out of the room with a broad, but slightly mad grin spread across his face.

"I've shown the art museum to my students, but I'm certain that Minerva removed my self-portrait prior to any student setting foot in that museum. Jimmy has a truly great eye but seems to be a little more troubled than I had thought. That is most definitely a good representation of the much younger me from the self-portrait. This is an amazing drawing for an hour and a half of work."

"Where is your self-portrait?" I asked. "If Jimmy didn't see it in the museum, he must have seen in some other place. He didn't choose that signature at random."

"No, he most certainly did not. I stashed the painting in the back of one of the wardrobes in my apartment. Come, I'll show you. Bring Jimmy's drawing for comparison."

It was a very short walk to Adrienne's apartment. She led us into her bedroom, which was a picture of disarray, with previously worn Muggle, Witch, and night clothes strewn on the floor. "I assure you that I did not leave the room like this," she told us, with a self-assurance that belied any sense of embarrassment, even if she had left the room like that. My truth teller sense told me that this, indeed, was exactly how she had left the room. She went to the larger of the wardrobes, pushed aside several sets of school robes on wire hangers, and hauled an unframed oil painting from the rear of the wardrobe. As she turned it toward us, I instantly recognised it as Jimmy's drawing of young Adrienne, with a much younger girl, up against a cliff by the sea.

"This certainly can't be a good thing," Cissy voiced what each of us was thinking.

I was concerned enough that I hauled the cell phone out of my robes and phoned Harry at the Ministry. I told him that he needed to have his aurors arrest Jimmy Peakes and explained what had happened. Harry said he preferred not to arrest Jimmy just yet but would start an investigation. He said he would send an auror to protect Professor Celine and that Barb could hang out in the Gryffindor common room. When I told Harry of our plan to cheer up Madam Bones, he said to apparate to his office and he would send Barb to the sweet shop with us. Ellen would loiter in Gryffindor. I told Harry we'd stop by McGonagall's office to give her a quick update, before coming to the Ministry. He instructed me to wait where we were and a pair of aurors would join us.

We sat back to wait, exchanging words of worry and concern for Adrienne. I knew that I must still be feeling some of the port's effects when I blurted out, "I should have known there was something wrong with Jimmy when he made his little brother Keeper and didn't add a single backup Keeper to the team." As the others stared at me, I continued blurting "You know, the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Jimmy cost us the season with that obviously bad decision."

I was spared further embarrassment by the appearance of three aurors accompanied by a furious Professor McGonagall, who demanded to know why Harry was going to have one of her students arrested.

I hurriedly told her that the aurors weren't going to arrest Jimmy, prompting Ellen to state "I told her that, myself. We are just here to protect Professor Celine and the other students."

We showed Jimmy's drawing and painting to the headmaster and she certainly did not miss their significance.

"I see the problem, although I don't see how he could have known where your apartment was, let alone gotten into it. He certainly seems to both hate you and know quite a lot about you."

Professor Celine explained that she had once invited Jimmy to her apartment, as she had several other students. Professor McGonagall's look said this was a practice which would not be repeated.

"I think he was angered by the report in the Daily Prophet," Professor Celine explained. "I'm not at all sure he's dangerous. I think this is an adolescent crush on the part of a boy who's a little too timid to approach girls his own age, now coupled with a certain amount of loathing. I'm apparently not the person he wants or demands that I be."

"Be that as it may, we're going to search his room for your self-portrait." Our whole group trooped over to Gryffindor and up the stairs to the boys' dorm, McGonagall shouting ahead of us "Headmaster on the floor." A first year in a towel scurried back into the lower level's bathroom as Professor McGonagall tried to determine which was the appropriate dorm room. Neville came out of the seventh years' room and asked what all the commotion was about. Getting the briefest of summaries, he pointed the headmaster to the room shared by Jimmy, telling us that he would search the upper levels' bathroom, himself.

A careful search of Jimmy's effects, and in fact the entirety of the room, did not reveal the self-portrait in question. We saw several canvases, but they were all finished or partly completed paintings done by Jimmy and properly signed with his actual name. Unfortunately for Jimmy's roommates, the search did turn up several good-sized stashes of the more strongly prohibited of the curiosities sold by Lee and my brother. There were a couple truly stupendous-sized fireworks.

McGonagall harrumphed and instructed the male auror "bag those and make them disappear, if you would be so kind."

As we were turning to leave, Neville returned holding a few small scraps of painted canvas, which had apparently missed the toilet when Jimmy was flushing the cut-up pieces of the self-portrait.

"I guess that pretty well settles that," Professor McGonagall concluded. "Leave me Ellen. Neville and I will find and deal with Mr. Peakes. I agree with Professor Celine that he's more dangerous to himself than to others."