Chapter 17
Harry, Hermione, Fleur, Professor McGonagall and Rita Skeeter were all squashed into the office of the head of the D.M.L.E, and seated behind the office desk was Director Bones. Floating around the room was an enchanted tea set, offering everyone a cup, before Director Bones immediately cut to the chase. "OK, now that we are all sitting down, why are you here? The investigation is not even 24 hours old, I don't have any information for you yet. I would also like to know why you brought a… journalist, with you" no one failed to notice the way director bones paused before calling Rita a journalist.
Professor McGonagall spoke up. "Actually Amelia, we are mostly here with information for you. Mr Potter has decided that he also wants to share this information with the press, hence Ms. Skeeter's presence."
"You have more information on the case? Excellent! Let's have it."
"It's not on that case," Harry replied. "Although in regards to that case, I would appreciate it if you would confirm to Ms. Skeeter that we gave Unbreakable Vows of truth to you before we said that we hadn't been behind our names coming from the damned fire cup. After last night's…"
"Debacle," suggested Hermione when Harry couldn't think of a word.
"Nightmare," Professor McGonagall chipped in with her own.
"Shitstorm." That one came from Fleur, and despite how uncharitable Harry was feeling towards the French witch over her trying to get between him and Hermione, he felt a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
"Whatever you call it. Because of that, we had to go to Gringotts today to check some documents. I found my parents' will, and you should take a look at this specifically the guardian section." Harry handed out the copies of the will that he had gotten from Gleamshard.
The two women quickly started going over the document, while Harry watched the two for their reactions. To Harry's surprise it was Rita who reacted first. In hindsight it shouldn't have been a surprise; as a journalist Rita must have to read a lot. Her own articles, checking them before submission, as well as articles from her colleagues looking for the next story for her to chase.
"Bloody hell, Sirius Black is innocent!" Rita shouted as she stared at the parchment.
Director Bones looked at Rita, surprised and annoyed by the outburst. However, as soon as it registered what the woman had said, she returned to reading the copy of the will with determination. Once the Director had verified for herself what the document said, she fixed Harry with a stare that promised a world of trouble. After whipping out a quill and parchment, she started asking him Questions.
"Where did you find this will?"
"My family's safety deposit box at Gringotts." Harry answered slightly confusedly. His answer seemed to be acceptable to Director Bones, though, as a little of the tension left her gaze and she wrote down what he was saying.
"Why didn't you bring this to my attention before?"
"I only discovered it a few hours ago."
"Why did you only discover it today if it was in your safety deposit box?"
"I only found out about the box today."
"Gringotts sends out annual statements with a full accounting of a customer's holdings. How did you not know about the deposit box?" This time there was a touch of non-judgmental curiosity in her voice.
"I have never received any mail from Gringotts. Manager Gleamshard said that statements were sent but I never received them." Harry told the director, setting off another round of quill on parchment. Not only from the director this time, Rita had pulled out her own stuff to take notes and was frantically scribbling away.
"Does anyone else have access to your safety deposit box?"
"Not according to Gringotts. No one had accessed the box since my parents."
"Excellent."
"Why is that excellent?" Harry asked his own question this time.
"It means that the documents in your safety deposit box are likely to be untampered with and authentic. In an investigation you need to be aware of the possibility of corrupted or doctored evidence." Director Bones walked over to the fire that was in her office, grabbed a pinch of floo powder before throwing it into the flames, said an address, and stuck her head in the fire. Both Harry and Hermione shuddered. They knew that the green flames were safe but after last Halloween neither of them would be really comfortable with fire for a long time
"Hey are you busy."
…..
"Well I think I just found what we have been looking for."
…..
"No I'm completely serious."
…...
"Walked right into my office about 20 minutes ago."
…..
"You'll see. why don't you step through and see for yourself."
Director Bones reached into the fire, and after a few seconds of fumbling she pulled a person from the fire into the room. Remus Lupin stood up, and after helping Director Bones up as well, drew his wand and started to clean the ash from his robes.
Harry, Hermione, and Professor Mcgonagall all spoke at the same time.
"Uncle Moony?"
"Professor Lupin?"
"Remus?"
The man who had taught Defence Against the Dark Arts last year turned in surprise to look at the group of people in the office. "Harry, Hermione, Minerva, what are you all doing here?" They spent the next 10 minutes explaining to Remus what had happened in the last 24 hours. About how Harry, Hermione's and Fleur's names had come out of the Goblet of Fire, about discovering that Harry had a betrothal contract with Fleur, about how confirming the existence of the contract led to them finding his parents' will, and how it explained that Sirius Black was Harry's vow-sworn godfather.
"But why are you here, professor? I mean, you're not a member of the DMLE, are you? So why would Director Bones bring you in on this?" Hermione asked
"First, call me Remus, or Uncle Moony like Harry does. I'm no longer your professor anymore. I have spent the time since leaving Hogwarts looking into Sirius's incarceration. Before you had to fight Bellatrix LeStrange at the end of last year," Fleur gasped at that bit of news to her "I, like the majority of Magical Britain, believed one of my old friends to be a traitor well-deserving of his residence in the deepest darkest cell in Azkaban, and the other a tragic hero who, in his grief, took on a fight he could never win and was murdered."
Remus paused long enough to pour himself a cup of tea from the tea service. "Then, you told me about the wizard who was helping that crazy bitch last year. The scruffy, fat, wizard who could turn himself into a rat. You know how the Marauders got their names. I told you about your father's animagus form, a stag, but I never told you about Padfoot and Wormtail. Sirius is Padfoot, when he transforms he takes the form of a big black dog. Peter Pettigrew was of course Wormtail, his form was a brown rat."
Remus drank some of his tea, obviously buying himself a couple seconds of time to order his thoughts. "Your description of LeStrange's companion was too much to ignore; it could only be Peter. And if Peter was helping LeStrange, then that cast a different light on the fight they had after the deaths of Lily and James. If Sirius had betrayed your parents, then why was he trying to capture a Death Eater?
"Something didn't smell right, so I started digging. First, I tried to find out what happened to Peter's remains. I thought I would prove he was dead and pay my respects and right the whole thing off as a coincidence, only to find that there was only a finger found. When I read about the incident at the time, I assumed that Peter's body parts were unidentifiable and were mixed in with the muggle remains. But that wasn't the case. The muggle remains were passed off to the muggle authorities, who put each body back together as best they could. It is apparently something that they do so families can lay as much of their loved ones to rest as possible. That, and something called forensics that was way over my head.
"I tracked down the muggle doctors who sorted through that mess and asked about Peter's remains, only to find they weren't there. I don't mean that they had been shipped off and destroyed as unidentifiable remains, like I expected. The doctor told me that there weren't enough unidentifiable remains left over to account for a small child, let alone a full grown man that was more than a bit overweight. The only conclusion that I could get at that point was that Peter didn't die that night.
"After that, I started looking into Sirius, and my first stop was here at the Ministry's Department of Records, I wanted to look up the trial notes; seemed like a good place to start if I was looking into everything. Only, there was no record of a trial. Simply an arrest record and a transfer to Azkaban. So I came to Director Bones."
"I used to be Sirius's partner during the war," Director Bones added when all eyes turned to her.
"You were together?" Hermione asked.
"No, Auror partners. We worked together, watched each other's backs, kept each other alive. I was on compassionate leave when everything happened. My brother and his wife were killed by Death Eaters, I was suddenly a surrogate mother to my niece and the acting head of the House of Bones until Susan turns 17. While I was sorting out my life and helping my niece cope with the loss of her parents, Voldemort attacked the Potters and Sirius was arrested. I tried to find out what was happening at the time, but our boss said that there was concrete evidence against Sirius and that I was hardly an impartial investigator in regards to my partner. He also said that if I persisted in investigating he would cancel my leave because I obviously wouldn't still need it. I had to prioritise little Susan. By the time I returned to work, I had just accepted that Sirius was a convicted Death Eater and that he had been fooling us for all those years."
"It's not your fault, Amy, at least you tried to look into it. I just accepted it and drowned myself in alcohol for the next year." Remus tried to comfort her. "So, I was looking for enough evidence to reopen Sirius's case. What's this evidence you have found?"
Harry, for the 2nd time since arriving at the office, explained about finding his parents' will in the safety deposit box at Gringotts. Director Bones handed her copy to Remus to read, and read it though he did, although he was frowning at the end.
"It's good, but I don't think it will be enough to move Fudge. You know how obsessed he is with his public image. Giving Sirius a trial will roll the dice with public opinion, and that will be after the Ministry takes a hit when the public hears that a pureblood was imprisoned without a trial in the first place."
"I believe that is why I am here," Rita said, standing up to face Remus.
Remus turned to look at Rita, a slight look of confusion on his face as he tried to remember if he had met the woman before. "I don't believe I have had the pleasure. Just how can you help, Ms...?"
"Rita, Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly." She took Remus's offered hand and shook it. Remus's eyes widened in recognition of the name. "I believe that Harry wants me to put the story in the public eye."
They spent the next hour talking about how they were going to do things. It was decided that Rita would take a few days to write the story, and Madame Bones would approach Minister Fudge in that time. If he didn't allow Sirius to have a trial, then Rita would publish her story and force his hand.
-ϟϟϟ-
Fleur, Harry, Hermione, and Professor McGonagall hurried back to the school as soon as they finished their interview with Rita. Harry had asked to visit his house in Hogsmeade, but the professor's willingness to accommodate them was apparently over for the day. Harry could understand that, even if he was disappointed. She had already taken them
all around magical London today.
Hermione had withdrawn into herself. Harry had tried to comfort her but she had just shrugged him off and said she needed some time to herself. Before Hermione left Fleur spoke up. "I understand you needing some time but we need to talk later." Hermione shot Fleur a glare, clearly stating the last thing she wanted to do was to talk. But Fleur didn't back down. "We need to talk about preparing for the tournament. How about after dinner?" Hermione nodded and walked out leaving Harry and Fleur together.
Hermione rushed up to Gryffindor Tower and collected her cat before leaving the tower just as quickly as she had arrived. She wandered around the school with no set idea of where she wanted to go, except that she wanted somewhere to be alone. She eventually came across a small disused room. It looked like it had once been a professor's office or a private study room. It was barely big enough to comfortably fit a large desk and a few chairs, but now the room was empty apart from a thin layer of dust. Hermione shut herself in the room with Crookshanks, tucked herself into a corner, and sank to the floor. Her memories of the last twenty-four hours flooding her head she buried her face in her cat's fur and let the tears loose.
Fleur was everything that she wasn't: beautiful, outgoing, sexy. She had a connection to Harry's family, and if Harry's parents had lived he would have grown up knowing she was his family. How could Hermione hope to compete with that? There was no way Harry would choose a buck-toothed hairy monster who loved books over people. She didn't know how long she sat there wallowing in her self pity, but eventually the door opened. Someone came in and sat next to her, put an arm around her, and pulled Hermione into a hug and comforted her as she cried herself out.
When Hermione finally put herself back together, she looked and saw that it was Daphne who had come to sit with her. "Are you feeling a little better now?" Daphne asked as she handed Hermione a handkerchief so that she could wipe her eyes and clean herself up a little.
"A little. " Hermione answered, accepting the handkerchief and drying her eyes.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Hermione told her friend everything that had happened since the choosing ceremony the night before. She told her about Fleur, about the betrothal contract, the trip to Gringotts, finding all of the house Potter documents. "Then, she has us all do a bond test, just to show off that she and Harry have some kind of soul bond. She had me do one as well, just to rub it in, but apparently Harry and I have a soul bond as well. So Harry is my soul mate and she is still going to take him from me." Hermione was crying again at this point. "Now Harry, my Harry, is off spending time with her."
Daphne pulled Hermione into another hug and made comforting sounds to help Hermione calm. "I don't know the future, Hermione, but I can tell you that Harry isn't with the French tart right now. He is with Tracy ranting about how its 'his life and he will marry who ever the fuck he likes'."
"Really?"
"Really. And he is worried about you." Hermione looked at Daphne questioningly. "How do you think that I found you in a random disused office space, in a castle this size? Harry lent me this really cool map that he said his father helped make." She showed Hermione the Marauders' Map.
That helped Hermione calm down more than anything else. The map was one of Harry's only connections to his father, and Harry wouldn't lend it out like this over something trivial. She was still important enough for Harry to lend out his map, she hadn't lost to Fleur. At least not yet.
-ϟϟϟ-
The three of them were now sitting in an empty classroom waiting for someone to say something. Harry had spent a good portion of his time before dinner ranting to Tracy about everything that had happened. He owed his friend a big thank you for that, as she had had to put up with his ranting and bad attitude for over an hour before he had started to calm down. By dinner, though, he had calmed down and had joined Hermione at the Gryffindor table. It had been obvious to him that Hermione had been crying and he tried to comfort her, but before he could Fleur had joined them, and after that dinner was just awkward.
It was Fleur who spoke first. "OK, if we are going to do well in this tournament, where at least one person wants us to die, we are going to need to work as a team. The two of you can probably work together well already, but we need all three of us to work together, so I know this is a little late but…" she cleared her throat and then faced the two of them. "Hi, I am Fleur Isabelle Delacour. I'm 16, I was born and live in the Nice area of France, I attended Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, and I am a veela."
That surprised both Harry and Hermione. Hermione hadn't heard of veela until Harry had told her of the ones at the Quidditch World Cup. Once they were on the Express on the first of September, she had asked Daphne and Tracy, and the two girls hadn't painted a nice picture of the veela and their ability to practically enslave people who are attracted to women, that they gave off an aura that was pretty much the same as a cheeper end love potion.
"But I haven't felt the effect of any love potion aura." Hermione blurted out, inadvertently admiting to Fleur that she also liked the fairer sex.
"First, it's called the allure, not 'love potion aura', and, well, I don't exactly like being followed by drooling idiots, so I keep it as toned down as I can. But the two of you have a soul bond, Harry has two, and anyone with such a bond is immune to the allure. It's why such bonds are almost sacred to veela, we want to form them with our partners so bad just so we can have a real relationship. Someone who can be our equal." Fleur explained, looking a little melancholy as she did. "It's why maman agreed to the contract between me and Harry so quickly. By pure chance I had found my equal so young."
Harry was a little taken aback by Fleur's explanation; it sounded like the allure was no picnic for the veela either if it got in the way of real relationships. Harry actually felt a little sorry for Fleur, considering he was planning on finding a way to break the contract as soon as he could. It wasn't fair to Fleur, but he had made his choice. He was already starting to build his life with Hermione and he refused to give her up. After all, the bond test had indicated that his bond with Hermione was just as strong, but Hermione had the entire strength of their relationship backing her up. What did Fleur have? A piece of paper, hardly a foundation to build a relationship on.
"Hermione Jean Granger. I was born and raised in London. I'm an avid reader, and I'm a muggleborn." Hermione interrupted the silence and moved the contact away from relationships.
Fleur corrected Hermione to call herself a first generation witch. "The term muggle is insulting, don't help the bigots by insulting yourself." Hermione agreed, but admitted it would take time for the habit to fade. Harry suspected that if Ali hadn't been telling Hermione the same thing, Hermione would have ignored Fleur.
"Harry James Potter. After my parents died I was raised in Surrey until I moved in with Hermione."
"You two live together? Already?" Fleur asked a little shocked, but also oddly calm about it. Harry had said that to reinforce to Fleur that he and Hermione were serious, yet for some reason she looked calm, almost a little happy.
"It's complicated. But yes, Harry lives with me and my parents now." Hermione wasn't able to completely suppress her smile as she said it.
"What happened?" Fleur asked, concern evident in her voice.
"I don't want to talk about it right now. As I was saying, Hi, I am Harry. I like flying and my best subjects are Defence Against the Dark Arts and Ancient Runes." Harry pulled the discussion back to the point.
"OK, so we need to know what we can expect the others to be able to deal with. Have either of you had dueling training or ever gotten into a real fight?" Fleur asked, but it was obvious from the way she said it that she expected the answer to be no.
"Well we did have that one lesson in dueling." Harry answered.
"That lesson was worthless and you know it." Hermione corrected Harry.
"True...but we have gotten into plenty of real scrapes."
"Trolls." Hermione agreed.
"A Dark Lord possessing a teacher." Harry added.
"A Cerberus named Fluffy." Hermione just started adding to the list.
"I still can't believe Hagrid named it Fluffy...giant spiders."
"They are called Acromantula Harry. We fought the Death Eater Bellatrix LeStrange."
"Three bloody times." Harry added. "And that pack of Dementors that tried to eat our souls. Are we forgetting anything?"
"Don't forget the 1000 year old basilisk you killed with a sword." Hermione added. They were being nonchalant about it now, but each remembered how terrified they had been at the time. However, they were watching Fleur as they spoke, and they could see the shock growing with everything they added.
"Well I didn't like the way it looked at you." Harry replied.
"Please tell me the two of you are having the piss take?" Fleur asked, almost desperate trying to cling to a world view that made sense.
"Nope. I wish I could say something trying to kill me at school was a first, but it's more a way of life now. How many attempts on my life have there been now Hermione?"
"Depends how you count them, direct attempts or everything that tried to kill you?"
"Both?"
Hermione sighed "Ten attempts on your life, thirteen if you include things where you were in the wrong place at the right time. Whereas for me it is six."
"What the hell is happening at this school that the two of you can be calm about death threats?!" Fleur was outraged by what she was hearing.
"It's the aftermath of the blood war and Hermione is a muggleborn - sorry, first generation witch - and I am 'The Boy Who Lived'." Harry told Fleur. "You need to understand, not all the followers of Voldemort were arrested, most of them are still out there and they don't exactly like me." He considered telling her that Voldemort was still alive, but he didn't think she would believe him.
"So you have people trying to kill you every year?" Fleur was speaking more to herself than actually asking a question. But Harry and Hermione both nodded anyway. "How can I help?"
That question almost floored Harry and Hermione; of the responses they had pictured, everything from disbelief to running and keeping as much distance as she could to keep herself safe from the craziness that was their life, the offer to help the last they expected.
"Not really much you can do. Unless you have the evidence necessary for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to lock them up, it's just the way it is." Harry shrugged, but secretly impressed. It seemed that Miss Delacour wouldn't be put off so easily.
They returned to the topic they were supposed to be talking about. Fleur was surprised to learn that the most advanced spell each of them knew was the Patronus charm, as she hadn't expected anything quite that powerful. But, as she pointed out, while it was a good indicator of what the two Hogwarts students were capable of learning, the spell itself wasn't likely to be very useful in the tournament, as she doubted the organisers would use Dementors (or worse, Lethifolds) as part of a trial.
There was some soul searching of their potential weaknesses each of them possessed. Hermione hadn't liked to admit that she would freeze while she tried to think of the perfect spell for the situation, but she saw the wisdom when Fleur had pointed out that "often even the worst spell is better than no spell, while your opponent is dealing with that it is not attacking you." Hermione agreed that it was something that needed to be trained out of her before the first task.
Harry's weakness was almost the opposite; he would use the same spell again and again until it worked. Hermione pointed out how Harry had used the same spell on Bellatrix LeStrange, repeatedly only pouring more and more magic into the spell to try and overcome her instead of trying something new, despite knowing that she had a strong counter to his fire magic. Harry had also agreed to work on it before the first task.
Getting a weakness out of Fleur had been like pulling teeth. In part, it wasn't her fault; Harry and Hermione had each other and were able to critically look over each other and help point out the flaws. Fleur did not have that and had to examine herself, which was not exactly easy. But eventually she came up with something for them to work on. She was too used to doing everything for herself that she wasn't good at communicating.
She explained that it was because she was one of the only veela at Beauxbatons, and being friends with boys was difficult when most of them became a driveling dimwit around her if her control slipped, and girls mostly didn't like how their boyfriends would pay attention to Fleur if she was around. She had a few friends, but they were mostly gay wizards who were immune to her allure. However, because being a male friend of hers was a way to be instantly outed, even most of them avoided her.
The three of them came up with the training schedule. Hermione (being Hermione) had drawn them each up a timetable. For the rest of the week they would take advantage of the half term and train through most of the day, splitting each day into three. First part was physical conditioning, Harry would be running that by going over some of Wood's fitness training with them. Then it was spell learning/practice, Fleur being the most experienced of the three said she would teach Harry and Hermione some useful spells. Hermione would then try and see what she could come up with to help them with their weaknesses, and that would be the afternoon. They would then have their evenings to relax a little. This schedule would last until the end of half term, as they would need a new schedule once classes started back up.
-ϟϟϟ-
Fleur watched the two younger teens walk away from her once they had finished their meeting. She liked the two of them and only wished the feelings were mutual. She could understand it, she wouldn't exactly like it if some...third wheel? (she thought that was the English expression)...had butted into her relationship. Fleur did, however, wish that the two of them weren't quite so hostile to the idea.
It will just take time, she reassured herself. At least she now understood why she suddenly started finding girls attractive almost a year ago. It had been a little off-putting to suddenly find herself wanting to do those things with other girls, but the double soul bond would explain it, her magic was giving her a way for this to work. And it looked like Hermione was in the same boat, judging by the few looks she had caught the English catgirl giving her before Hermione corrected herself. Keeping two partners happy would still be a lot of work, and it wasn't like her magic was controlling her to do this, it was just like hormones. They gave you the opportunity for a relationship, but you still had to build that relationship together.
Fleur walked back down to the Beauxbatons carriage for the evening, thinking of her warm bed. The English - no, the Scottish weather was too cold. Maybe she could convince Alison to tell her more about Hermione, something that would help her endear herself to the sexy cat girl. Damn, I have it bad.
-ϟϟϟ-
Rita was currently helping a new hire to the Daily Prophet, a muggle-raised half blood witch by the name of Penelope Clearwater, search through something called the Yellow Pages, looking for a dental practice in London that went by the name Granger. Normally, she wouldn't bother with such a new member of staff, but she knew if you were looking for a muggle, then someone who was raised in the Muggle world was your best way to find them. Miss Clearwater had explained the Yellow Pages and how it was a list of businesses with contact information, so that muggles who were searching for a business to buy services from could find them and talk to them with something she called a phone, whatever that was.
She would find these Grangers, and hopefully they would know where Harry lived and just why The Boy Who Lived was stuck paying for his own education and not being taken care of like a minor should be.
A/N
OK firstly you guys rock, I don't know what happened but the metrics for the last chapter were huge. The best I can figure is that one of you lovely readers promoted my fic somewhere and I would like to say thank you if that's the case. As I write this (Saturday) we are close to breaking the 1000 subscriber mark on fanfiction which is just...wow.
(Congratulations to Tightgnome262 who was follower #1000 just today. You win a lifetime supply of being able to reward yourself with a cookie whenever you like.)
So I finally found a place to say it in the fic, Hermione and Fleur are not naturally bisexual. Instead their own magic is giving them an opportunity for a triad relationship. It won't be easy, things like this never should be, but I think they can pull it off in the end. At least when Harry and Hermione find out that that is an option, hehe.
Oh look at that, Rita is pulling at a plot thread, I wonder what she can unravel. Hehehe. This is how I'm going to write Rita, a lot of people have her play a villain, destroying people for entertainment and profit. I instead see her being more like a force of nature. She is not on Harry's side, she is not on the Ministry's side, nor is she a blood purity bigot. She will, however, chase an interesting story.
I will say Fleur hasn't revealed her biggest weakness, but not because she is lying, simply because she just can't see it. I also want to point out again here I have aged Fleur down a little, making her a sixth year instead of a seventh, just to bring her a little closer to Harry and Hermione.
I hope you are all still enjoying this fic and as always I love to read your reviews, see you all next time