Hermione was eager to hear what progress was being made by the Ministry in regards to Sirius and Ginny, and it was torture waiting for news. She was sorely tempted to send Lucius to the Ministry for an update, especially when several days passed with no word, but everyone advised against it. Lucius was confident that Fudge would deliver justice and he rightly pointed out that there could be no claims of coercion on the Malfoys part if Lucius stayed away from the Ministry. After all, the last thing Hermione wanted was for Ginny to escape justice because she could argue that Lucius had pushed for her prosecution and the Ministry were in his pocket. So instead she was forced to wait for news.
When news did come it was several days after her run-in with Ginny and Sirius. One morning Lucius suddenly received a message from Fudge asking for a meeting with the family, including Severus. The meeting was hastily arranged and Lucius chose to use one of the lesser used living rooms for the meeting rather than the main living room. The reason for using the room was due to a large portrait on the wall which housed a secret spy panel, meaning that Voldemort could be in the next room listening and viewing the entire meeting with the Minister.
By the time Fudge arrived at the manor, everyone was settled in the room they were going to use for the meeting. Narcissa had even rearranged the furniture so that Severus could sit in a position so that everyone was on his right hand side, meaning he wouldn't miss a word. Plus the rearrangement of the furniture offered Voldemort a better view from his secret hiding place in the room next door.
"Thank you for seeing me at such short notice," Fudge said as he shook everyone's hand before taking the only empty seat.
"We're all hoping you're bringing good news," Lucius replied.
"I can confirm we've charged a witch with the sending of the letter bomb," Fudge announced. "All the charges are still being sorted, but they will include sending dangerous post, causing bodily harm and I'm hoping attempted murder."
"Attempted murder sounds good to me," Severus grumbled. "Let's not forget I survived because I'd turned my head at the last moment. I was lucky. If Hermione had opened that letter, she might not have been as lucky. Even turning her head likely wouldn't have saved her. I'm a lot larger than her, so more than likely she would have died if she'd opened that letter. That sounds like attempted murder to me."
"Given the confession we've got, I can't see the charge of attempted murder being turned down," Fudge assured Severus.
"We are talking about Ginny Weasley here, aren't we?" Hermione checked, noticing that Fudge had yet to confirm who was under arrest.
"Yes, we are," Fudge confirmed with a nod. "As I'm sure Lucius informed you, the investigation started to point to her a few days ago. I took over the case as the evidence began mounting up. Once we had a strong circumstantial case, I summoned Miss Weasley into the Ministry for an official interview."
"And she confessed?" Draco questioned with a disbelieving arch of his eyebrow. He had nothing against Fudge, but he didn't for one minute think the man was intimidating enough to get anyone to confess to attempted murder.
"She denied everything," Fudge replied. "We interviewed her for hours, and she didn't admit a thing. So then I charged her and we were able to interview her under Veriteserum."
"That doesn't sound very legal to me," Narcissa remarked with a confused frown. "Won't any decent lawyer argue she was only charged to be given Veriteserum?"
"It doesn't quite work like that," Fudge answered with a slight chuckle. "It is true that we can't question anyone under Veriteserum unless they've been officially charged. But we can't officially charge anyone unless we have a case we think we can win even without a confession. You can't just think someone is guilty and charge them to get them to drink Veriteserum. We had a strong circumstantial case against Ginny, and even without her confession, I was confident of a conviction. Her confession just helped things along."
"What was the case you had against her?" Hermione asked, interested to hear how Ginny had messed up and been found out by the authorities.
"As you know we found no evidence of who had sent the letter bomb, so we took a closer look at the powder which caused the explosion," Fudge explained. "We found a couple of hard to get ingredients, one of which was a registered substance. We traced everyone who had bought the substance in the last year and tracked down their supplies. Only one buyer failed to account for all of their supply."
"The Weasley twins," Lucius remarked.
"The twins swore they kept the spark powder safely locked away, and they hadn't used all of their supply," Fudge continued. "Theirs was the only missing powder, so it stood to reason that someone with access to their supply made the explosive powder in the letter bomb. We then found evidence that Ginny had bought several of the other ingredients needed to make the powder."
"That is very coincidental," Hermione mused. "Would that really have been enough to charge her?"
"It was, together with a witness we found that claimed they saw Ginny sending a brown envelope from the owl post office in Diagon Alley the day we believe the letter bomb was mailed," Fudge replied. "And of course we had motive given that her brother was recently killed in his botched kidnapping scheme. Even her own brothers couldn't deny she blamed you for Ronald's death. It would have taken a hell of a lawyer to have won her an aquittal when you added everything up together. I was confident of a conviction, so I pressed ahead with charging her and got a full confession."
"So she did try and kill me?" Hermione checked as Draco took hold of her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.
"She said the intention was merely to wound you, but given the volatile nature of the powder, she had to have known that death was a possibility," Fudge said. "The truth is, she was out to get you, Hermione, and the letter bomb was only the beginning."
"The beginning?" Draco queried. "Are you saying she was planning more attempts on Athena's life?"
"While the Aurors were at The Burrow, a neighbour alerted them to a body on his premises," Fudge said. "The body belonged to Sirius Black."
"Are you saying Black is dead?" Severus questioned, unable to keep his dark eyes from glittering victoriously at the mere thought of his old enemy being out of his life for good.
"Yes, Sirius Black is dead," Fudge confirmed with a sharp nod of his head. "He'd been hiding out in an old playhouse on the edge of the Lovegood property."
"How did he die?" Hermione asked.
"He took his own life," Fudge replied. "We believe he hung himself."
"Believe?" Lucius questioned, feigning confusion even though he knew exactly what had happened with Sirius as he'd been there in the final moments, and the ones leading up to it.
"I'm afraid some animals had found their way into the playhouse and had rather made a mess of him," Fudge admitted with an uncomfortable wince, clearly recalling the not so pretty sight that had been Sirius Black in the end. "But we had his suicide note."
"He left a note?" Hermione asked. "What did it say?"
"He confessed to the fact Ginny had helped him escape at the funeral, and admitted that she'd been hiding him every since," Fudge said. "The plan was for the pair of them to join forces and bring you down. Ginny admitted it all in her final interview, and she confirmed that even thought it was their intention to hurt you, they hadn't made any plans. They were going for a long term plan and letting you think the danger had passed."
"And what, Black just got bored of waiting and decided to top himself?" Draco scoffed.
"It seems that unbeknown to Ginny, he was having second thoughts in the time she wasn't with him. He couldn't get over the loss of his best friend and godson and in the end decided that he had nothing to live for," Fudge explained.
"And is Ginny being charged in regards to Sirius?" Hermione asked. "After all, if she hadn't helped him escape, he would have still been in Azkaban."
"Yes, she'll also be charged with aiding and abetting a felon," Fudge confirmed. "Given all the charges against her, I can't see her escaping a long prison sentence."
"So there will be a trial?" Hermione checked.
"Yes, there will be a trial," Fudge confirmed. "And given her confession, it should be a fairly straightforward one. At the moment her lawyer is trying to put together a deal for her, but even a generous deal on our part will still result in her spending several years in Azkaban."
"Which is no more than she deserves," Hermione hissed. "I don't care what she was planning to do to me, I care about what she did to Severus. She deserves to be locked up for that alone."
"And I can assure you that I will personally make sure it happens," Fudge vowed.
"Good, and then we can continue with our earlier discussions," Lucius said.
"So you're accepting my offer then?" Fudge asked.
"I am," Lucius confirmed with a nod. "I've talked it through with my family and we all agree it's too good an opportunity to miss out on. Once you've secured the conviction of Ginny Weasley, you can resign and I will happily accept your endorsement as a candidate for the next Minister of Magic."
"You won't regret this Lucius," Fudge said, happily shaking Lucius's hand. "You'll be a really strong Minister. Just the sort of wizard our world needs right now. I just know that with you at the helm, Wizarding Britain will be stronger than ever."
"Let's hope so," Lucius said. "And thank you for taking the time to personally deliver us such good news."
"It's important that people know the Ministry is there to protect the public, no matter who they are, or who their parents happen to be," Fudge said, directing his comment to Hermione. "And I do hope it's something that will continue in the future," he added to Lucius.
"Of course," Lucius replied with a solemn nod. "There will be no discrimination on my part once I'm in charge."
"Only to vermin who continue to oppose us," Draco whispered under his breath as his father showed the Minister out and once again thanked him for his visit.
"I don't think we're going to get any more opposition," Hermione said, just as Lucius returned to the room with Voldemort right behind him, having heard everything.
"How sure are you about that, Athena?" Voldemort asked. "Because with Lucius about to take charge at the Ministry, now is the time to decide if you wish to change things in Wizarding Britain."
"No," Hermione said with a shake of her head as all eyes turned to her. "I will play no part in Lucius's tenure as Minister. The next few years are for him to decide how to proceed. I'm going to focus on my own business, and on getting married. And then when the time is right, I can take over from Lucius and anything I don't agree with then, I can change. But for now, I'm content to keep out of the limelight."
"But you think the threat is over?" Lucius checked with his soon to be daughter-in-law. "We thought that before, but then Potter and Weasley struck and then that moronic girl stirred the pot. What's to say the rest of the family won't continue their fight once she'd locked up in Azkaban?"
"None of them agree with what Harry and Ron did, so I doubt they agree with what Ginny did either," Hermione said. "And don't forget that yet again, we are the victims. These are unprovoked attacks. As long as we let justice take it's course and don't retaliate, we'll be just fine and peace will eventually reign."
"Do you think that's the wisdom the prophecy mentioned?" Voldemort asked with a proud smirk.
"Speaking of prophecies, I do have one request of the new Minister," Hermione said, giving Lucius a quick grin. "Can you find out if the prophecy is genuine? I would love to know the truth."
"Consider it my first official act when I get the job," Lucius promised. "But for now, I say we celebrate. Two more threats have been eliminated and if Athena is right, this will be the end."
"I am right," Hermione replied with confidence.
And sure enough, the following months proved that Hermione had indeed been right to predict that peace would fall over Wizarding Britain. After Ginny had been sentenced to twenty years in Azkaban, there was no come back from her family. The twins, who Hermione still had business dealings with, let her know there were no hard feeling from anyone in the family and no-one blamed her for what had happened with Ginny. Nor was there any wider retaliation from anyone else and by the time Ginny had been in Azkaban for several months the only people who really remembered her was her family.
As it turned out, despite their best efforts, Harry, Ron and Ginny failed in their efforts to get revenge for what Hermione had put them through the year previously. Hermione had been superb in getting her own vengeance, and when it came down to it, she once again emerged victorious when pitted against her former friends. And the lesson she learnt was that she was very much Hermione Granger and Athena Riddle. When it called for it, she was every bit as dark and ruthless as her father, but she also had more compassion than her father and she knew when to back off and be content with what she had. And that was exactly what she did as she settled down with Draco, and they finally got to look forward to their future together.