The plot begins to come clear.
Mafalda reveals some answers. Slytherin and Gryffindor gear up for pitch time Harry offers Scabior a friendly warning. Full moon week has arrived. Kingsley makes a discovery.
Amelia made a point of walking into the Ministry right behind Malfalda the next morning. As they stood in line waiting for a free Floo, Amelia glanced over and asked, "How are you today, Mafalda?"
"I,,I'm fine, how are you today?" Mafalda asked uncertainly. She knew Amelia was matched to the Minister. Amelia could see that Mafalda was clearly nervous, speaking to her. She kept glancing around, as if watching for someone. If Amelia was a betting woman, she'd have bet her last sickle that Mafalda had been cautioned against speaking to the Minister, if not her.
"Have you made any plans yet? I haven't even thought about them yet. But I'm an awful procrastinator so no surprise there. My own mum has told me time and again, when the time comes, I'll probably be late for my own funeral," she laughed, trying to joke around and get Mafalda to relax a bit.
To her delight, her little joke surprised a laugh out of Mafalda. "My mum tells me that, too. She and dad have taken over my plans. They want to take their time and make it perfect. They say, 'I'll only have one husband, one perfect first wedding, so it's got to be special." Mafalda ducked her head as a sad look came over her face.
Amelia was quick to notice it. "Mafalda, what's wrong? Please, I didn't mean to upset you!" even as Amelia apologized, Mafalda was shaking her head.
Mafalda took another look around before leaning close to Amelia. "Tell the Minister to warn them. Potter, Granger and those two Snatcher boys. Tell them to watch out for Dolores." She shuddered as she looked at Amelia.
"Dolores? What does she have to do with this?" Amelia wondered. Mafalda gasped and backed away. She turned and practically ran into the Floo. By the time Amelia made it through, she was nowhere to be seen. Something had spooked Mafalda, Amelia had no doubt about that. Maybe she hadn't meant to say anything out loud. Amelia, herself, had more than once slipped up and said more than she intended to, at various times.
Amelia reached her desk and noticed a note. She reached out and flipped it over. "Cafeteria, ten o'clock." Was all that it said. Just like that, she knew it was from Mafalda, though there was no signature. Maybe she wanted to be somewhere open, where she wouldn't be able to say much at all.
At Hogwarts, the Slytherins were celebrating having two of their best former players back. Harry looked at Mikey. "Listen, she might or might not have the power to do this anymore, but be careful if you rack up anymore detentions with Umbridge. One of the worst things she did to me back in fifth year was banning me from the Quidditch team. I'm surprised she hasn't already insisted that I step down as Captain, to keep me from playing this year.
Mikey nodded. "I'll keep that in mind." He had no intention of doing anything that would reduce his time with Hermione or his chance to play Quidditch again.
Of course, that didn't mean no more pranks at all. No, no, no, for all the damage she had done with the 'Muggleborn Registration Law' and snapping as many wands as she could, Dolores had to pay! He shuddered to think how power mad she would have been and what destruction she would have caused had Voldemort prevailed.
Hermione was, once again, in the library. She was searching through the school records to make sense of WHY Dolores had felt the need to add a Squib onto the marriage law. She thought possibly Dolores might think that because Filch had helped her before, he might be willing to again. Filch, however, had made his peace with the students and staff at the Battle. He hadn't been able to take an active role in the fighting but he had taken what younger students he could gather, that hadn't been evacuated in time, into an empty classroom, barricaded the door and kept them safe for the entirety of the fight.
After the fighting was over, he was the first one to begin cleaning up in preparation of the school being repaired and reopened. He had proven himself to be a worthy caretaker of the school and intended to stay with the school as long as he was able to.
As usual, both Slytherin and Gryffindor were fighting for pitch time. Partly because they both had a lot of members who needed to get familiar with one another and partly because, well hell, that's just what Slytherin and Gryffindor did best, was fight!
The decision of pitch time was actually made easy for Slytherin due to the full moon. They decided the first week of practice would be for familiarizing both Marcus and Draco with the current Quidditch players and keeping their reserve players game ready. The next week would be soon enough to introduce Scabior and McKeon back into the fold.
Mikey was worried about full moon week. Hermione would be without him there to protect her. He knew that his Aunt and Uncle, having completed Auror training before becoming barristers, would be there to guard her but it didn't mean he was going to stop worrying about it. He wished he could take Hermione with him but there was only a small rickety cabin there for them to keep clothes to change into after their transformation and he knew it wouldn't stand up to a beating, should he or anyone else happen to catch her scent. She'd be torn to shreds and they'd never realize it until they transformed back to human form. He wasn't about to take THAT chance with his girl. Better that she stay here under the watchful eyes of his family than take that risk, especially now that he knew he was going to be a dad.
Just to keep himself from worrying so much, he let his family in on his concern, regarding Hermione. They all promised to keep a close eye on her, especially around Umbridge. His dad would do a walk by while she was in Umbridge's class. And the rest of them would keep watch over her the rest of the time.
Amelia wondered all morning what Mafalda would tell her. At ten minutes till ten, she began preparing to go to the cafeteria. She glanced over and Mafalda was doing the same. The woman glanced at her, flipped a look at Runcorn's closed door and then headed towards the cafeteria. Realizing she wanted to escape before Runcorn realized who she was meeting, Amelia waited until she was out of sight before leaving herself.
Amelia walked into the cafeteria. Mafalda was already seated near the back of the room. After getting a tea and sweet cake, she walked over and sat down. She didn't intend to jump straight into the marriage law question but was going to make general small talk and then steer the conversation towards weddings and plans. Mafalda had different ideas.
Mafalda looked up at her. "Are you trying to get the marriage law overturned?"
Well, so much for subtlety. "Yes, Kingsley and I are looking into the possibility of it." Amelia answered carefully.
"How soon will it be?" Mafalda asked.
"I'm not sure. It will depend on how many people are opposed to it being dropped." Amelia answered. "Why do you ask?"
"I don't want to marry HIM! I can't stand the sight of him and if I have to marry him, I might just end it all! I wouldn't mind getting married, as long as it was to ANYONE but him!" Mafalda declared firmly.
'Well, that certainly cleared up any confusion on her part!' thought Amelia, amused. "You're right, Kingsley is trying his best to get this law overturned and I've been trying to help him. We're looking into the possibility that two of the signatures were forged or signed without being informed of what they were signing."
"Whose signatures?" Mafalda asked.
"Travers and Alden. We think they might not realize what their signatures were used for."
"Travers thought he was signing another anti werewolf bill. Alden thought he was signing a petition to vote Kingsley out of office in favor of Umbridge." Mafalda looked right at her. "I was there the day she and he tricked them into giving over their signatures. They used the Imperio so they wouldn't actually LOOK at what they were signing."
Amelia made a note of that and sent it to Kingsley so he could take copies of the documents when he went to question the two men. "Is there anything else you know about this? Anything at all? Has Umbridge ever mentioned any plans regarding Hogwarts?"
"She once mentioned she'd like to have kept the school under her thumb so the students could ALL be trained the way SHE wanted them trained. In other words, kept in the dark as far as actual training went. She also said she'd like to be rid of Potter and Granger as they were a serious kink in her plans. She wanted to put those two Snatcher boys into Azkaban so badly, she couldn't stand it and she railed continuously at me through the Floo over the fact that Greyback had been released. She was the one who signed his incarceration papers, you know."
Amelia was taking notes as fast as she could. Now all she had to do was connect some more dots and the plot would be laid bare. "How does Runcorn fit into this scheme, though? And Filch, at the school?"
Mafalda burst out laughing. "She threw Filch's name into the pot, hoping to discredit the Minister. He wasn't the only Squib to land up on that list, just the only one at the school. She and Runcorn were already planning to be matched. But then, she landed Filch and he landed ME!" her laughter turned to sobs. Amelia got up and rushed around the table to her side.
"Listen to me, Mafalda. You will NOT have to marry him! Not if Kingsley and I have anything to do with it. We WILL get that law overturned, you'll see!" she hugged and reassured her.
As the week of the full moon began, Fenrir, Alex and Mikey prepared to Apparate their new pack members to the hunting grounds. The four older boys were divided between Alex and Mikey. Fen took Seamus, Lavender and the little first year girl through. Hermione was almost in tears at the thought of not seeing Mikey for a whole week but comforted herself with the remembrance that he would be back, it was only a temporary separation. She determined that she would have the mystery behind Umbridge's actions solved by the time he got back. Then maybe they could work on saving Mr. Filch from her and getting her thrown BACK out of the school, for good this time!
Kingsley walked toward the front door of Travers Manor. As he reached it, the door opened without him having to knock. He entered and a house elf, without blinking, took him straight to Travers' study. The man himself was sitting behind his desk, reading the Daily Prophet with a look of confusion. "Kingsley, old friend, this law! How did they ever get this law into existence? It's positively archaic!"
That was all the confirmation Kingsley needed. Travers had NO CLUE how his signature had been used. He sat the documents down and pushed them across to him. Travers picked them up and gasped, horrified to see his own name boldly staring back at him. "What? How? Kingsley, what the hell is this? How is my name here? Surely you know I'd never approve this kind of foolishness! What? Alden? Alden signed this? What the devil was he thinking?! We need to get him here, right away!" Travers turned to his fireplace and threw in some Floo powder. "Alden, damn it man, get your bloody arse over here! You have some explaining to do!"
Less than five minutes passed before Alden stepped through the Floo. "The hell are you on about, man! What the devil have I done?!" when shown the document for the marriage law, his jaw dropped. "The devil you say! No way I'd signoff on something that preposterous! What the bloody hell was that woman thinking?!"
"You were both Imperioed into signing this document. Therefore, this law can be declared null and void and overturned BUT only if the two of you are willing to stand up and declare, under oath, that neither of you realized what you were signing. Otherwise, the law will stand."
"Let me know the day and time and I'll be there, Kingsley. This law is ridiculous, outdated and unnecessary." Declared Travers. Alden agreed with him. Kingsley thanked them for their time and left the two gentleman, discussing their next hunting trip.
He got back to the Ministry in record time and went straight in search of Amelia. She had just finished talking to Mafalda. They had walked back to the secretarial pool, giggling about wedding dresses. Kingsley smiled. The young woman hadn't had much to smile about in a while. Runcorn came out of his office and frowned sternly at Mafalda, who glared defiantly back at him. "Mafalda, I need to speak to you! Privately!" he barked. She put her purse into the drawer of her desk and took her time picking up her notebook and quill. "Yes, sir." She snapped smartly back at him.
Kingsley held a hand in front of his mouth as he stifled a snort of laughter. Amelia's lips were twitching as she walked over to meet him. "Are we being a bad influence on Miss Hopkirk, Miss Thompson?" Kingsley teased softly, to prevent Runcorn from overhearing him.
"Just a little bit, Mr. Shacklebolt." She joked back.
They walked up to the lobby as they were about to go to Hogwarts. They knew Hermione would want to know their latest findings and appraise them of anything new she had discovered.