I Love(d) You (Once)
Chapter Thirteen: Who's Who
Balance of probability is used in civil suits:
Suppose A is making a claim against B in a civil suit (not a criminal one!) against each other... They will both bring as much evidence/facts to convince the judge/mediator/adjudicator their claim (version of the story) is true. The judge looks at everything and decides what is the "truth", ie either A is or B's side of the story actually happened.
So for A to win, A needs to show with his evidence, on the balance of probability – that it is more likely than not (50%), his side of the story actually occurred.
** SO there is always a chance judge rules for A (bc he's 51% sure it's true), but then B's side (49%) of the story is actually the thing that took place?
…
(Draco Malfoy's notes, unedited, GENRL 102, Salem University, 2000)
"Sir, are you sure?" The dealer looked at the chips Draco had thrown in – two purple chips and a handful of black ones – to the pile in the middle of the table.
"No, actually," said Draco after a moment's pause, before he threw in an extra orange chip into the betting circle. "That's better."
Not believing her eyes, Hermione calculated the number of galleons Draco had placed in this single bet and let out a gasp. One purple chip could fix the broken fireplace at her house, or purchase an oven Ron had blown up a few weeks ago. She could buy anything with that sum. She grabbed Draco by his shoulder – whether they were friendly with each other or not, she refused to see money wasted like that. At the careless display of opulence that beheld her, she felt an unpleasant sensation clench her throat and it made it hard for her to breathe. "Do you know how much money is in there?"
"I'm well-versed in sums and figures, of course."
"You can't spend that much money!"
"Granger, you underestimate my ability to."
With that, the dealer handed out the cards to the players, and one by one, the players seated around the table revealed their hands on the green-felted table. By the Devil's luck, Draco won the round, and he gave a quick smirk for his fortune. The bald man who sat beside him scowled as Draco picked up his winnings, six hundred galleons in total. "Wished I placed more in the bet," he exclaimed to the man as he pulled his chips closer.
Sharp-eyed, and his expression in an impertinent grin, Draco listened to the clatter of the chips as it fell into his pile of earnings. He was boastful, but not untidy. As he sorted and arranged them by colour and then in stacks of ten, his eyes almost gleamed. Soon, he had a little city with towers of black, purple and green. The underside of his fingers trailed across the short hairs of the table's lining as he drew his hands to the edge of the table, ready for the next round.
Hermione feel sick watching the way gamblers played with their money, and a dull-throb, a twisting feeling in her stomach, pervaded her consciousness. What was worse, the drink, the heat in the room, and the general live-wire buzz around the ballroom left her disorientated. The sides of the rooms suddenly pressed down onto her. Her vision grew fuzzy, too bright, and every metallic canker of coins thrown into the pachinko-slot machines made her head ring, and she felt as though she were standing next to a toiling church bell. She turned away from the tables, and made her way out to the outside for quick reprieve.
On the ship deck, she bumped into one of the two blondes she didn't want to see. Melinda. A long jade pin secured the corkscrew curls piled up on her top of her head, and she wore a pink China dress. The moment the blonde saw her, she screwed up her face when she realised Hermione was approaching her. "Ew!" she called out as a greeting.
"Melinda. How nice to see you here."
"Well yes, I just showed up, and I'm supposed to keep out of sight until it's the right time," she said, crossing her arms around her. "Speaking of which, Draco-bear said he'd have the money to me by eleven."
Draco-bear? Hermione shuddered as she imagined just how chummy the two of them would be, and wanted to end the unpleasant conversation right there, but curiosity prevailed; she wanted to know the plan, and how Melinda was going to tell the Ackerly twins apart. "You haven't seen either twins for the last few years?" she asked casually, hoping to glean some information from her.
"No, I haven't," Melinda replied. "Run in different circles, you see, but some faces, you never forget."
"And… yet you can tell them apart…" she trailed off, and she pursed her lips. It was possible, she supposed, but it did seem awfully convenient for her to be the only person living on this planet to be able to do so. Hermione's fingers curled around the railing, which was slightly damp from the sea spray, and cool to touch against the flush of her skin.
Across from her, Melinda leaned her stomach against the railing, her body extending out into the open, above the roar of the waves flicking back and forth against the ship's side. "Yes, only me," she said.
She had nice hair, Hermione observed absently at the light and bouncy curlsthat she would kill for. Hers was still incredibly frizzy, even with magical help.
"Everyone else who could have possibly done so is either dead… or dead; the War didn't leave many of our year," Melinda said with a shrug. A second later, her forehead furrowed, and Melinda leaned back inside the ship, though her hands still clenched against the metal bar tightly. "Funnily enough, most of them kicked the bucket at the start, from the riots, rather than in the hands of the actual Death Eaters themselves."
Hermione kept her lips sealed tight, and her back painfully straight as she stood in silence. She hated to talk about the War; the ever-looming presence of it, overhanging even the most festive occasions only showed how deeply it impacted the Wizarding community. She nodded at Melinda, realising just how alone she might have been, and felt a fleck of pity for the woman. Nearly everyone in Hermione's year had managed to come out unscathed – physically at least – and though many of the Order had died fighting for the cause, she couldn't bear to think if most her schoolmates failed to survive.
There was a story to everyone, and instead of the mean and rude arsonist Hermione thought Melinda was, she saw her as someone with her own story to tell.
"So… when did you first met the Ackerly twins?" Hermione asked, in a friendlier this time.
Melinda groaned and waved her hand as though there was a bad smell in the air. "Seriously?" she asked rhetorically. "You're going to feel sorry for me because of what's happened?"
Or she is a rude person with a story she doesn't want to tell, Hermione thought drolly. "I just thought we got off on the wrong foot and wanted to make amends."
"Well, I'm no one you should bother with. At any rate, this will be the last time you will ever see me. Draco will hand me the money in exactly thirty minutes, and I will tell him who's who. Now if you excuse me." Having said that, Melinda gave Hermione a smug look, and deemed the conversation over.
Hermione scoffed, an uncontrollable reflex to the incredulity of their situation, but having known Melinda better, she managed not to send her a glare and gave her a polite smile instead. Melinda pivoted on her heels, and her hair, which had been the object of Hermione's envy just moments before – it looked a bit like tape-worms squirming in a basket now. "I hope you have a nice night, too," she called out to her.
Feeling much more refreshed from her trip outside, Hermione decided to go back inside. She felt a rush of warm air race past her face and flicker through the ends of her dress as she crossed the threshold. For a moment, she looked around the room, and then headed towards the drinks bar, where Draco sat, taking a break presumably from his financial endeavours.
"You stopped playing?" Hermione asked him, sliding into a seat one chair away from him. Perhaps in her absence, he'd lost all his winnings and gone off to sulk. Draco gave her a distracted shrug, his hands positioned loosely around an empty tumbler, and his gaze on Pansy's sleeveless dress that plunged to dangerous lows. Across the room, Pansy pulled it up with one small movement, so discreet, no one but the pair would have noticed.
On cue, he stood up again, made his rounds twice around the room, and peered over Pansy's table before deciding to sit down again.
"What's he doing?" Hermione asked herself, and she watched with uninhibited curiosity as Draco shuttled himself back and forth between the drink bar and the gambling tables, his attention never straying too far from his blonde friend, accumulating chips with each journey. Within a half-hour more of this pattern, Draco had to opt for a second briefcase to hold the chips he won.
At ten minutes to eleven, Draco left the suitcase by Pansy's feet and gave her a light squeeze on her shoulder before he went to sit beside Neat-Jon on a table for two, in the corner of the room. A few tables away, Artie, Martha and Shabby-Jon, who struck up conversation during the course of the night, sat together, swaying to the light jazz music performed by a band.
Pansy announced her retirement and giggled as she scooped up her winnings into a briefcase five minutes later. She paused as Draco sauntered towards her, and stopped by her side, as he grabbed the briefcases from her hands and smiled at her fondly. Neat-Jon sat by himself at the tables, sipping his drink. With two briefcases in tow, the managers verified the chips and casted a charm to turn the tokens to galleons for Draco.
"Hermione," Pansy said a second after she sat beside the brunette, who now sported a bewildered look. They. Had. Actually. Won. UNBELIVABLE— Pansy dragged her feather boa across Hermione's neck and arms, and wiggled her hips at her. "Come to enjoy the show?"
"Granger, hear that?" Draco asked, placing a curved hand to his ears as he stood beside Pansy. "That's the sound of my complete and total victory." He slapped the two briefcases and pushed them towards Melinda, who too had joined their small party to collect her payment. "Here's your money and the receipt to ensure everything is in order. Now… as promised."
"Glad doing business with you," Melinda gave Draco a toothy smile, as she opened the briefcase to confirm the contents. Melinda took a deep breath. She nodded as she gripped the wine-glass, scraping the top of the bar-table as she stood up.
By now, the floor was sparse of its dancers, and she made her way towards the twins with undeterred speed, the liquid in her glass sloshing to-and fro, up and out onto her hand. Hermione's eyes went wide, and she placed her own drink down to watch the spectacle.
Melinda paused in front of a table.
She paused for a second.
Then.
Smashed the wine glass down onto Shabby-Jon's head. Glass exploded on impact and its fragments flew in all directions. Twin streams of red raced down Melinda's arms as the wine soaked all over the man's head. The liquid spiralled through the sculpted ropes of his dreadlocks, and blood gushed from his forehead cut by the glass. It mixed with the wine as it dripped down the front of his shirt.
"Yeooowh!" screeched Shabby-Jon, clutching his head, in horror. He jumped from his seat and losing his balance, his back slammed against the wall so hard the picture frames, hung alongside the length of the room, rattled in its hooks. In the background, Pansy spluttered with laughter as she sipped on her drink, watching the spectacle with undisguised amusement. Draco and Neat-Jon shared a dissociated, wide-eyed shock.
Martha gave a shout and jumped up to fend Melinda off. Artie reached for the napkins on the table to ebb the flow of blood on Shabby-Jon's head.
"BEN, burning your house down wasn't good enough. I told you, if you pulled a prank on me, I'd cut you!"
"That was years ago!"
The following happened in rapid succession. Security wrenched Melinda away from the cowering Ben, and dragged her from the tables. As they escorted her out of the ballroom, the spike of her heels dug into the floorboards, and they made long striations against the wax of the hardwood floor.
"You can't kick me out, I was invited!" she yelled, but lost her will to fight when Pansy winked at her and handed Melinda the two briefcases before the guards whisked her away.
And the case was over. Just like that?
"Should've guessed you would have brought Melinda into this. So that's why you insisted I stayed for a bit longer! I'm just glad she went after Ben and not me." The now identified Jon's eyes were still round as saucers, and frankly he looked relieved.
"No amount of magic's going to heal all that away without a scar by tomorrow morning," said Draco, gesturing the deep gash on Ben's forehead. "We won't be confused again."
"Was injuring someone was part of your plan?" asked Hermione, horrified at the prospect of this.
"He's a lover not a fighter," said Pansy, re-joining the rest of the group. "She was supposed to give the Judas Kiss!" She pouted because Melinda didn't use her part of the plan, and she held up a marker for Hermione to see. "Put this on anyone's skin and they'd have a mark there for the next three days."
"I did tell her to use enough force so a mark would be there for a day or more," said Draco.
"Guess she preferred a more flattering shade of blood-red on Ben," Pansy mused.
"Well, that's settled then," said Jon, stretching from his seat and looking very tired. "Tomorrow, at eleven?"
"Yes, I'll see you then." Jon shook Draco's hand and he left the gambling floor.
"Night!"
Draco and Pansy gave each other high-fives and a peal of laughter erupted from Pansy's lips for their marvellous plan had been executed to perfection, and together they headed out to the ship's corridors that lead its way into the first-class cabins. Hermione pursed her lips, and rushed over to Ben. She grabbed more napkins from the bar, and helped eased the flow of the blood on his forehead. She winced and concurred with Draco's assessment of the wound, wizards or not, he'd have a rather pink patch on his brow for days, even weeks to come. Fully sombre from the affair, she muttered a healing spell and staunched the blood promptly.
Ben looked at her with a glum expression – and Hermione's expression tightened further. She was sorry he'd been hurt, and the lack of explanation from Ben made her even more apologetic. "Don't worry," she said to him. "It's not over yet. If there is evidence to prove you're not Ben, then I will find it. In P&P, we deliver our opinions on the balance of probability for civil cases. If we have insufficient evidence, or find conflicting evidence, we will choose to offer no opinion."
Ben thanked her quietly, and Hermione presumed he was still in shock. "You should get that checked out by a Healer. I only did a bit of first aid," she said, and she rose to her feet.
She deliberately ignored the murmur of the crowd who had gathered to watch Melinda's magnificent explosion, and pushed past them, before deciding to track down Pansy and Draco. She still had questions. She wanted answers. Charging out onto the ship deck, her high-heels rapped against the hard flooring. She stopped short at the start of a flight of stairs when she saw Draco plant a kiss on Pansy's forehead.
Pansy blushed and kissed Draco on the cheek. "Good night."
"Who needs luck when you have Pansy Parkinson?" he cheered.
Pansy cackled. "Go to bed. You get too nice and affectionate when you're sleepy."
"The count was 18+ for the first round! Imagine that! Pansy Parkinson, you're a marvel to behold." He blew a kiss to the night air, and he disappeared down the flight of stairs.
Pansy is actually swooning! Ugh! Count? Hermione thought. As in card counting? She softly gasped, and stepped out from behind the corner. Shadows criss-crossed her features as she lifted her hand, and reached forward to grab Pansy's arm.
"Ah!" Pansy yelled, startled from the sudden contact. Then when she saw who it was, she dropped her other hand, which was reaching to her side for her wand. Hermione pulled her hand back, and her fingers curled against the sleeve of her dress.
"It's you."
"It wasn't luck," said Hermione. "You two were cheating. No wonder why you made so much money!"
"We weren't cheating," said Pansy, righteousness shining in her eyes. "Did you think Draco would risk something illegal? He's not stupid, you know."
It did occur Draco promised Maurice Pucey not to break the rules again, and in the faintest of definitions, did keep his word.
Pansy shrugged. "Card counting not illegal. I just calculated our odds and told him to bet when our chances were good."
Hermione was nothing if not doubtful. "How'd you do that?"
"With key phrases. For example, if I order a drink, the count's up by eighteen."
"Because the legal drinking age is eighteen," Hermione said, impressed and horrified with their money-making scheme at the same time. "But it's impossible to keep track of everything. What charm did you use? Surely using charms to help you is illegal. I would think there were wards against that. Something like the anti-cheating spell during our exams." Rather ingenious, and she could believe Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy could pull of something like that! "
Pansy caught the look in Hermione's eye and she laughed. "Hey, I'm flattered. You actually believe I can do maths?"
Hermione bit her lip, and nodded slightly. Though Hermione had bad impressions – to say the least – of the woman, she had didn't consider her as slow...
A scowl distorted Pansy's face and she felt the urge to justify some things to Hermione as though she had taken the woman's silence as denial. "I'm horrible at magic, but that doesn't mean I'm bad at everything else. I'm real good with numbers," Pansy confessed with a smirk. "What? Think Draco would tolerate being friends with a completely ditz?"
"Crabbe, Goyle," Hermione said helplessly, though she'd never intended to disagree with Pansy in the first place.
"They were henchmen, not friends." Pansy scoffed. "Get it right! Draco would never do befriend someone stupid."
She's so defensive over Draco. "Do you like Draco?" asked Hermione, for it appeared their conversations always led back to that one man, and it was getting a bit ridiculous, in her opinion.
"And that's what you call a busy-body! I don't like him that way. I wonder why you are so interested in Draco's love-life. Oh, wipe that look off your face. I'm not in denial. Pity is not associated with me. You should feel awe towards me and only that!" With that, Pansy stormed past her.
"Unbelievable," Hermione said to herself, as she made her way back to her cabin. "I must be drunk, hallucinating, and dreaming at the same time…"
"Hermione!" Ron called out when she opened the door to their room. "How did your plan go? Manage to find who's who?"
"Yes," she said with a pout. How she hated being left-out! "It's all resolved now, I suppose."
"I went to find you, but then I saw you talking to one of your clients. I thought you might need space, so I went downstairs to watch the comedy show instead. Hilarious I tell you. I wish you were there with me, but I knew you had to work."
Hermione pulled him into an embrace. "I was just a bit preoccupied." Now that was an understatement, she thought, for Ron hadn't broached her thoughts often during the course of the night at all. A pang of guilt fluttered through her stomach and she sighed.
Ron tapped the tip of her nose. "As long as you're not mad."
"Mad at you?" Hermione asked, genuinely surprised. "For what?"
Ron gave a sheepish grin and hummed. "Well, for a moment I thought you might be mad at me for acting like a git. I know I sometimes get carried away talking about our adventures in our Hocrux hunt," he confessed. "I'unno, I know you don't like to speak much of it."
Adventures… "You didn't. We just deal with things differently," Hermione said with conviction and she pulled away from Ron as she changed the subject. "If you were in the casino floor five minutes ago, you would have saw something incredible"
"What happened?"
"Let's just say there was heaps of screeching and broken glass involved." Hermione's lips stretched into a smile as she shook her head. She had once said Ron had an emotional range of a teaspoon. Now he was more sensitive about these things than she was! When she realised this, she felt better for it.
Happy Lunar New Year!