It has been done. Kingsley is now Minister for Magic, just as I had planned. Slughorn was of invaluable help and combined with neglible opposition (mainly consisting of those who thought they could do a better job themselves- hardly credible) his rise to power is startlingly swift. Few wizards I know would be able to cope with such a great change in their fortunes so quickly, but Kingsley is exceptional.
Also he was somewhat expecting it.
Neville forgives me of my attempted murder and he says nothing of it. Conviniently enough, nobody suspects anything about his deputy's bloody demise, which is filed under the generic title of simply: "bad luck on the battlefield".
I return home on the third day of May and remain at home for the rest of the week. Several times I attempt to leave the house, but even simply touching the handle of the front door reminds me of the last time I left the house. It feels like a very long time, even if it is only a few days, until I can pluck up the courage to leave Kent and return to London.
There is work to do.
Kingsley tactfully brushes over my absence and puts me to work- though my load is significantly lighter than what his predecessors heaped on me. My wages are even smaller but that is only fair. The Ministry's treasury is run dry, ransacked by Thicknesse's cronies and he has already made a point of paying me every Knut of my due in overtime. He has never liked debts and is determined that in time, the Ministry will be subject to the public and not goblin creditors.
He sees no shame in requesting for my opinion or even asking for my advice- though he listens to everyone with equal measure. He does not shoo me out of the room with the patronising words "Run along little girl while we grown-ups talk shop." I attend his meetings- though I discreetly slip out the back entrance should he be entertaining representatives of the vampire community, who as a whole have never liked me. Even the vampires who fought alongside the Battle of Hogwarts with me wholeheartedly despise me, so my absence is tactful, Kingsley being ever the diplomat.
To my surprise, I find myself growing quicker to obey him. But my respect for him grows the more I see how able he is in the role which I have chosen him for. He puts on no airs or graces- he needs none of them. He is not here to flaunt power or wealth. He never deems to put himself on a pedestal, on display to the world. Nor is he one who speaks great speeches that are mainly poetic waffle. He is not one to proclaim himself a shining beacon for our age only to prove himself as a feeble lightbulb. He is not here to do nothing and make it look like he is doing something. He is here to work; and that is that.
True, he is still too much bound in red tape, there is still too much longwinded procedure and paperwork and bureaucracy in the Ministry for me to be completely satisfied, but I quibble. His thoroughness is commendable- nobody dares accept a bribe under his watchful gaze. The Ministry might never be a truly Utopian organisation, but I hope that perhaps at last it could call itself a noble one.
Hogwarts does not require much change. For Headmistress, the first choice of Kingsley and I (and I do not doubt anyone else) is of course Minerva McGonagall. As she has defended a castle under siege, turned the course of a war and duelled Voldemort himself, I doubt her students will give her much trouble from now on.
But at the Ministry, everything is turned upside down and put back into shape. There is a massive reshuffle in the offices. All those who have done poorly or worse, known to be corrupt have all been laid off unapologetically, pureblood and halfblood alike.
Those who have been given a second chance work furiously to prove themselves- they have competition now. Werewolves, muggle-borns, all the traditional outcasts pile into the Atrium every morning, dressed in Sunday best and clutching resumes, awaiting interviews for careers they had never dreamed of. A day does not go by at the Ministry when I do not see at least one new face.
I also pass queues in the opposite direction. Child worker after child worker queues for outgoing fireplaces, waving sacks of compensation Galleons in their hands with joyous cries of: "Off to buy school books!"
Children in employment is not yet illegal in the wizarding world, as most have been ignorant to its existence, but Kingsley has denounced it as "an inefficient and illogical system" which has been reason enough for him to let them all go. But making it fully illegal is still a long way off, so for now I am still in employment.
However, I do have the satisfaction of watching the Magic is Might statue being blasted to smithereens and its powder swept up and Vanished. Good riddance too.
It is yet undecided as to the monument that will replace it, though I do not think my proposal (a big statue of Harry) will be accepted, since the Boy Who Lived is far too modest for his own good. I am determined though, that we should not have a Ministry that does not have his involvement, however minor. Kingsley agrees, somewhat. Harry should not be a puppet but a partner, almost a patron. He of all people knows how important it is that we do a good job; and not simply that we say we do.
Permanent reform requires not just a change in law, but a change in attitude. That will take time and I do not wish yet to make truly definite legal change without Hermione Granger's input. But the change that has been made is a sign. It is the first step to our future which I welcome with open arms.
29th May
The summer sun glints like honey on the river and its familiar rushing sound prompts further what I have to do, what I swore I would do, on Dobby's soul and in his memory. I uncover the tea tray that I carry, the silver blades of my knives winking up at me. Lying there so innocently in the sun, gracefully smooth, they seem so pure, laid out in a line like surgical instruments.
The tray rattles as I edge closer to the water. The blades shake as if in fear of what I am about to do. But they shall fear, not I. Never more will fear dictate my life.
With a heave that sends sighs through the reeds, I flick the tray upwards. For a moment they hang in the air, like a flock of silver birds, before diving down into the depths of the river, scattering the light before being consumed by the eternal tide.
They are gone, my knives. I cannot even see them on the river bed. They can lie there, unknown to all but the weeds, buried in the past under all the new life around them.
Rowle Manor
Of all the ways I imagined myself returning to this place, I did not think of this. Yet here I am. My father has been walled up in Azkaban and since he is not expected to ever leave, everything passes to his next blood relative.
That is to say, me. Which is why I now stand in the long gallery of the palace I own which was once my prison. It is just as I left it eight long years ago, everything is just the way I remembered it to be. It is I who is the stranger here. I have come a long way since the days of tears and whimpers and fits. I walk the boards of my property, when I look out of the windows it is my own grounds which I survey. Yet I have no use for this house. I certainly do not wish to live here, not with all it means to me.
But it is a shame to see such a fine house go to waste (for I could speak of it as a fine house once the small matter of its previous inhabitats has been ignored) so I have no intention of destroying it. But if it is to survive, it must evolve.
The scratches of frenzy are filled in and polished over. The mildewed linen is washed, ironed and stored. The Dark objects packed off to the Ministry. There are still screams and wails in the house, but not of its tormented inhabitants: no, it is the paintings of my ancestors who cause the caterwauling as they watch me, deaf to their pleas, breaking up the heavy, old furniture that bore carved monstrosities of a similar canker to the Magic is Might statue and converting the wood into coffins. Coffins for house elves, whose heads are removed from their plaques on the wall (my first act in the house) reattached to their relevant corpses (easier said than done- requiring trawling around in the grounds searching for unmarked graves and then a morbid game of Snap) and buried with proper ceremony in marked graves in a garden designed for the purpose.
Like any artist, I leave my own signature on my work. I carve poetic couplets on window panes, paint ceilings and bully the incensed portraits of my family into submission. They can protest all they like, but they can do nothing to stop me. That said, La Duchesse de la Bourgeoise looks very pleased to be rehoused in similarly aristocratic surroundings.
Nobody will ever buy this house when it still bears the taint of the Rowle name, so I spend an afternoon's worth heaving around heavy books searching for a new name with which to re-christen it. Not a Welsh name, as we are in north Yorkshire, but one that still bears significance with me. Eventually I decide on Verum Memoriam.
The memory of truth.
No sooner have I buried my past, it seems that the future heads that way too.
I pour myself a cup of tea, steam dancing up into the breeze from the kitchen window. A steady drumming begins at the back of my head, reeling it around like a struggling fish. I tense, expecting a vision.
But none comes. My chest tightens and I grip the sink. Something wells up in the back of my throat and I cough. Long, choking, panting coughs that seem to drain everything out of me.
Blood spatters the sink.
I stare at the spray, trying to find words to describe it. But no words spring to mind. Apprehensively I reach out and touch it, almost as if I cannot believe it is real. But it is very real, clinging to my fingertips. Quickly I turn on the tap and watch as it is slowly pulled off the basin and down the drain, smears of it refusing to fade until I scratch at the enamel with my nails and scrub away the stains.
It is gone. But I know it will come back.
I put the moment from my mind and drown out the fears and imaginings with my work.
Kingsley summons me to his office in private and from his tone it can only be about Umbridge. To most of the people I know, she is no longer viewed as a threat since she was arrested. But she is as slippery as the toad she resembles and there is no way that she hasn't tried to worm her way out of this. She knows she can't worm her way back into the winning side, so she must retaliate.
He hands me a copy of a letter sent from her.
"We shot down her owl somewhere over Hyde Park- it had been identified as the property of one of Voldemort's supporters. Goodness knows how she managed to sneak it out without us noticing immediately."
I only catch a few sentences of the letter before anger crushes it, ripping it into pieces. She has called for Kingsley's removal from office for reasons which make my hands ball aggressively into fists. She has called for the reinstatement of her power on grounds of "unfair dismissal." She has implied in all subtle ways of how much she wants me dead.
She wants to make inquiries into the death of Thicknesse's deputy, insisting that he take Kingsley's place.
"I will bring her down" I swear to Kingsley. "I cannot let her pass into Azkaban until I am finished with her. I will break her and I will never forgive her, ever. All others but her. I will break her and I will watch her burn."
"Marion, what you suggest is dangerous. You say you will destroy her but you could just as easily destroy yourself."
It is too late. I already have.
"Prepare a feast. Tomorrow, I shall dine with her."
Kingsley is taken aback by my request, but does not object.
"If you dine with the devil, bring a long spoon," he says thoughtfully. "The question is not whether a long spoon is required, but which of you will need it."
All is ready. Kingsley has give me permission to host the meal in one of the Ministry's finest private dining rooms and the long table is set with the finest silverware which glow in the light of steady candles.
In the tall mirror of an antechamber, I present an image of cosmetic perfection. I appear to any eye a well-bred, well raised pureblooded witch, refined to the core. But my appearance is just as deceiving as hers was; and to add insult to injury, tonight I wear floaty robes of the daintiest shade of- pink. I have had to bear witness to her triumph dressed only in dour black, now she must bear witness to mine in similar apparel.
Dishevelled and disappointed, she still beams me the same patronising smile, which I return with equal sickliness. At the same time, we draw our chairs and sit down at opposite ends of the table, like duellers facing off against each other, in the War of Small Talk, where insinuations are the ammunition and courtesy the traitor. We sit down, alone in the room together and begin to eat.
She takes the first shot. "It is so nice to see you are able to celebrate your little achievements, my dear."
"Little? I would not define them so. You are gracious indeed, but you need not thank me. I would not have wanted to celebrate the victories of our courageous Minister without you."
She is still smiling. "How thoughtful. I am so glad to have been included in your calculations"
I am still smiling. "Madam Umbridge, you never were absent from them." I help myself to a piece of meat and dip it into some orange sauce. Having tasted it, I exclaim in delight. "Dear Dolores, you must try some of the poultry! It is absolutely divine! There is some to your left."
She is wary at first to accept my recommendation, but she tries some of the meat and thankfully finds it to her liking, helping herself to more throughout the evening. I myself have some more of it and we clear the platter of the animal.
We discuss further in measured tones the reforms of the Ministry and other dinner table topics and I find that I take a strange delight in reminding her subtly of my newfound power at any opportunity that is presented me.
Finally at the end of the meal, as guards arrive to escort her back to custody, I have my moment. My moment of revenge, that I have wept bitterly for the past eight years since I first felt the woman's poisonous sting. I have my moment to punish her, to put her down for everything she has done.
Finally, we reach the climax of our battle and reveal our hand of cards, our true colours.
"I have won, Dolores. You cannot think to beat me now. I am un- untouchable." I feel the beginnings of another bout and urgently cough into a handkerchief, holding it tight to my face even as the blood coats my chin. I see the flicker of triumph in her face at my pain. She thinks herself the cause of it, though I cannot think to remember why.
"I do not need to," she says silkily. "I have finished with you- and you."
"You are defeated," I reply stubbornly.
"It isn't over until the dame sings"
Now is the moment. Now is my chance.
"Do you refer to your last-ditch attempt to get me? To salvage your plans from the ruins of the battlefield?"
Her face blanches, revealing every line in its flab. "What are you talking about?"
"Your letter. The letter which has been shot down and read by everyone whom you called a colleague or a puppet."
She grips her spoon, almost bending it in her thinly veiled panic.
"And my owl?"
"The owl? Your last hope? You want to know what has become of your last hope?" I lean forward, relishing this.
"You've just eaten it."