O

DOLOS

Deception

"We've missed something," Harry said. He looked round at Kinglsey and Higgs. "We've missed something. We must have done."

"What new information have we got to work with," Higgs asked, grabbing a piece of grey parchment and a quill from his desk. "Eldest Weasley girl? Under the Imperious curse for two months now? Are we sure on that timeframe?"

"As sure as we can be," Kingsley confirmed. "We can trust Hestia on that."

"And you," Higgs turned to Harry, "Are saying that it can only have happened in work, near her own home or that of her boyfriend's family?"

"Yes."

"Evidence of this?"

"She hasn't been anywhere else since Christmas," Harry said. "She's been worked to the bone. She goes home exhausted after every shift, straight into St Mungo's for the next one, and if she's off work then she is recovering."

Higgs was apparently unconvinced. "I don't wish to be indelicate," he said. "But this is a charismatic twenty-year-old with an immensely difficult job and, I would imagine, a wide circle of friends. How do we know she has not been going elsewhere, out after work, for example, to let off steam?"

"Because she says so," Harry snapped back. "As do the rest of her family."

"Which is by extension your family as well. You don't think the fact she is your niece may be clouding your objective judgement of her honesty?"

"I think," Kingsley broke in, his tone holding a note of warning, as Harry looked incensed. "That with no other leads, it would be prudent to explore all possibilities within the parameters we have, before casting aspersions on Victoire's sincerity. As it is highly improbable that she was cursed within her own home, or at the Lupins' house, we're left with the hospital."

Higgs' eyes were steely. "I'm not sure it is any more likely that she was targeted within St Mungo's. Not when we set up the precautions that have been in place since the autumn ourselves."

"Be that as it may, we can make mistakes the same as anyone else." Harry was occasionally reminded of Dumbledore, these days, when he was with Kingsley Shacklebolt, always the port of serenity in the heart of the storm. "Let us start from square one. Victoire's colleagues."

"It could have been anyone working in the hospital, in theory," Harry said in despair. "If they found a way to dupe the wand tracking system."

Higgs was clearly affronted by this. "With respect, Potter, however this happened, I do not think it was because of a glitch with the tracking procedure. A few people were caught trying to evade it, but we picked up on it instantly. I am confident that not a single wand has entered the hospital undetected since October."

"And the wands that were in St Mungo's already?"

"All tracked too," Higgs confirmed. "My team worked solidly for forty-eight hours to get it done."

"How do we know nothing was missed?"

Higgs narrowed his eyes.

"Our methods are stringent. We work in groups. Everything we do is checked multiple times. Are you suggesting we were negligent?"

"No," Harry said, carefully keeping his temper. "But there is too much activity within that hospital to be able to determine the exact location of every magical device. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that a wand was missed, against everyone's best efforts, and has gone undetected ever since."

"Wands are as important as body parts," Higgs retorted. "They are not simply left lying around for anyone to pick up and use. Patients' wands are carefully stored, and those belonging to the deceased are either destroyed or sent to their families, as I'm sure you know. We had an up-to-date list of all in and out patients, which we cross checked with the wands we tagged. I can show it to you now, if you like."

"No need," Harry said wearily, but Higgs was already flicking his own wand towards his large filing cabinet and extracting the required data. Harry had butted heads with Terrance Higgs on multiple occasions - secretly, he thought the man had never forgiven him for beating him to the snitch in his first ever school quidditch match - and knew he took personal offence to any suggestion that he had been remiss in his duties.

He read the list Higgs handed him with forced politeness. It did appear thorough.

"Any patients admitted without wands?" he enquired, handing it back.

"How would that help us?"

"I would just like to know."

"Very well," Higgs said, in clipped tones, taking out a second page and scanning it. "Yes, a few. Five children in long term Paediatrics - too young to own them. The Longbottoms in Permanent Spell Damage. I'm sure you'll agree there is nothing untoward about that."

Harry gave another curt nod.

"An elderly wizard, also in Permanent Spell Damage, whose mind and wand were destroyed in a duel four years ago. And Dolores Umbridge in the IA ward. So unless you are suggesting that she has made a miraculous recovery from one of the most debilitating illnesses known to wizard kind, procured an untracked wand in the last two months and cast an unforgiveable curse under our noses, when she has been incapable of speech and most basic movement for half a decade now, I'm afraid that brings us back to square one." He turned to Kingsley. "Minister, I know we previously categorised wandless magic as a negligible threat, but it may be wise to reassess-"

Harry wasn't listening. He had frozen completely, his blood thundering through his body, his heart thudding in his ears, the mention of the hated name having stirred something deep within him.

"Umbridge," he muttered, an instant, prickling chill breaking out all over his skin.

"That was my attempt at a joke," Higgs said, pausing in his speech to the minister and appearing on the verge of rolling his eyes. "Dolores Umbridge is as good as dead and has been for a long time."

But Harry was on his feet. How had he never thought of this? Never suspected. Not once, in the past year and a half. Unconsciously, he touched the scars on his hand. They were so much a part of him now that he didn't notice them anymore.

"Umbridge is crippled with final stage Gorsemoor's," Higgs continued. "You know that. I myself have witnessed the effects of the illness on more than one individual and I assure you, it destroys the victim inside and out. There is no coming back from it."

Harry stared out of Higgs' narrow office window. This was true. Umbridge was nothing more than a shell of a human, kept alive by a few functioning essential organs. So why was he not convinced? Why was every inch of him screaming that they had finally hit on the culprit? The only possible culprit. Higgs was losing what little patience had been remaining to him.

"We cannot afford to waste time on dead ends and futile suspicions," he warned. "Not when Strike Three could be imminent. We need to focus on the evidence we have. Solid, irrefutable evidence."

Harry tried to reason with himself. Higgs was absolutely right. Pointless grudges and ill founded suspicions led to tragedies. His hatred of Snape had proved that more than once during his school days, and he had made every effort never to make the same mistakes again, never to let personal bias cloud his judgement, to consider the facts first and foremost. And the facts in this case were simple. Umbridge was gravely ill, with no chance of recovery. He'd been at her appeal himself, witnessed her state of declining health, discussed it at length with Hermione afterwards, and even done a lot of personal research on the disease, which he had previously known little about. And while neither he, nor Hermione, nor any of their friends, had held sympathy towards their old nemesis, they had at least agreed she had finally been dealt the hand she deserved. The illness was incurable, agonising, and ultimately fatal. There was no possibility she could have recovered from it, much less have been a spy for The Crow over the past year.

So that was that.

Unless...

Harry's heart beat faster still as the magnitude of what he was about to say sank in.

"Unless she was never ill to start with."

"Excuse me?"

Harry tore his gaze from the window and looked round at the other two men.

"Unless she doesn't have Gorsemoor's Syndrome at all. And never did. It was a cover to get her out of prison."

Higgs raised a sardonic eyebrow.

"Umbridge was examined by a dozen different healers before her appeal even took place. Their observations of her symptoms stacked up and they were unanimous in their diagnosis."

"And that's exactly my point," Harry said. "There isn't a straightforward test for Gorsemoor's, is there? Diagnosis relies on observation of the symptoms alone. And symptoms," he stared down at his hand, and the pearl white scars shone in the light, mocking him, "can be faked."

Kingsley put his head in his hands in a rare display of composure loss. But Higgs was having none of it.

"You cannot be implying that Dolores Umbridge faked an incurable disease that has allowed her to function lucidly in St Mungo's since her release from Azkaban without anyone noticing and without trained healers realising she was, in fact, healthy?" he said, looking incredulously between Harry and Kingsley. "We are talking about the woman who was outsmarted by a group of teenagers and a poltergeist when she taught at Hogwarts, and ended up being abducted by a herd of centaurs, are we not?"

"Common sense and cunning are two completely different things," Harry shot back at him. He paced the office floor, his mind in overdrive. "She's vile, ruthless and cruel. She has no morals and delights in causing pain and suffering. Hate crime against Muggleborns was her primary charge, so involvement with the Narcoviral Curse would make perfect sense. She's a patient on Victoire's current ward, therefore a prime suspect for this latest development. She despises werewolves, and none more so than Remus Lupin, which would even explain the link with Teddy's disciplinary -"

"Yes, that is all well and good," Higgs broke in. Kingsley remained silent as the two other men fought it out. "But she has also been in a hospital bed for nearly a decade now. Potter, be reasonable. We are not talking about a few headaches and a fever. This is a case of seizures, paralysis, complete loss of cognitive function, and reassessment of her condition multiple times a year. What's more, even if she were, somehow, to succeed in such a feat, what good would faking a terminal disease do her, if the only result was to land her in hospital for the rest of her life?"

"The Crow has proved this year that medicine can be pushed beyond all prior knowledge and experience in a very short space of time," Harry retorted. "And if she is his informant, St Mungo's would have been a much more useful base than a cell in Azkaban."

"But how on earth would that liaison have come to be? And how would they have kept it up without anyone realising?"

Harry ignored him. He already knew, deep down, that he was right.

"How has she been monitored since winning her appeal?" He was praying for some snippet of information that would tell him otherwise, some reason to show that this was all a mistake, that Umbridge was, in fact, wasting away in St Mungo's as they spoke, as they had always believed, repulsive as ever, but harmless.

"All prisoners bailed from Azkaban are tracked," Higgs said stiffly. "We would not release a criminal and let them wander out into the world unchecked, not even those at death's door. The MoMS is alerted to all unexpected movements. Only Greyback ever got around this, and that was due to his transformation on the full moon. The result of an unfortunate error from a more junior member of the team," he added, no doubt wanting to impress that he himself had nothing to do with such an oversight.

"I know that," Harry said, through gritted teeth. The tension between him and Higgs was now paramount. "But she hasn't been observed, has she? Not when she was in her room?"

"Of course not. Even Azkaban prisoners are entitled to privacy while alone in their own cells. I believe that was your initiative, Minister."

So it had been, during the post war reconstruction, along with dismissal of the dementors, in an attempt to improve the pitiful conditions within the wizarding prison. Harry's eyes met Kingsley's and he knew that, unlike Higgs, the minister was slowly coming to the same sickening realisation that he was.

"And if Umbridge never left her ward... if she never even left her room unaccompanied... you wouldn't have been alerted to any unusual movements, would you?"

"Potter, she didn't have a wand. If she has never left her room, what threat could she possibly have posed?"

"She didn't have a wand on the day she was transferred from Azkaban," Harry corrected him. His breathing was now shallow. The logistics still seemed so implausible, and yet...

"Did anyone visit her?" he demanded. "Has anyone been to see her since her release?"

Higgs extracted that information from the depths of his files too.

"Only her brother," he said. "Silas. Visited multiple times between her admission and his death in 2018."

Harry looked at Kingsley again. His face was ashen. "It was her brother who appealed for her release in the first place," he said. "If I remember correctly."

"Yes," Higgs confirmed. "Her squib brother, who was cast out from his family at the age of six and never even attended muggle school. The chances of him being able to pull off something like this are less probable than Umbridge doing it herself. And even if all this were possible, think for a moment what you are implying here. Umbridge was released over eight years ago now. That is eight years, in a hospital room with less freedom than even a cell in Azkaban offers. Eight years of silence. Eight years of no company, no stimulation, no interaction with the outside world. If she wasn't ill when she was admitted, she likely would have been driven mad by now anyway."

"Umbridge's greatest pleasure in life was always causing harm to others," Harry said bitterly. "If she knew it was all in the name of worldwide devastation and mass murder of innocent muggles, I imagine that would have sustained her nicely. No other stimulation needed."

"I still don't see how-"

"Look, I don't have all the answers," Harry snarled over him. "And you have no idea how much I want to be wrong about this. But I can tell you now that if there is one person in that hospital capable of inflicting this much pain and misery on the world, it is Dolores Umbridge. And, as of today, we have a clear link between her, an Imperious victim, and the department that informed the Narcoviral Curse in the first place. So unless you can give me irrefutable proof that she is as ill on the inside as she appears to be on the outside, then we need to act now. We need to check. Before it's too late."

He was still hoping for such proof to be offered up, but Kingsley was on his feet already.

"I'll go to St Mungo's," he said. "Higgs, please be in immediate response mode until I tell you otherwise."

"Of course, sir."

Kingsley turned to Harry as they left the office.

"Be ready to issue a Black Alert," he murmured, once the door had swung shut behind them. "Higgs can be as sceptical as he likes. I fear you are absolutely right."

O

It took a mere two hours to confirm the truth. The truth that Harry had known from the mention of Umbridge's name. How he hadn't seen it long ago was currently beyond him, and his subsequent actions were carried out in a state of autopilot, numb shock driving him through, dampening down the searing flame of anger that would otherwise have rendered him incapable of duty. He was their leader now, and as such it was his job to handle this with the calm and poise of Head Auror, not with unchecked fury and rash actions, as he would have done as a younger man.

Umbridge quickly got wind of the minister's investigations within the wizarding hospital, but her attempt to flee did not get her far, thanks to a combination of Kingsley's subtle skills and Higgs' diligence when it came to tracking procedures. Regardless of his personal feelings towards the Head of Magical Security, Harry had to hand it to him. He always came through when it mattered, and, following his continuously updating instructions, the Aurors were able to track down their quarry in no time.

And here they now were, in a nondescript house in the middle of the Norfolk countryside, having torn down all the protective enchantments that had been set up in an attempt to hide Umbridge, The Crow, and the hideout in which he had conducted his long years of research and secret plotting. Both Harry and Tonks had turned their wands on Umbridge first and foremost and she was now was pinned against the wall with the force of their combined immobilising spells. For all her cunning, her magical power was pitifully weak after twenty years of sporadic use, and she stood no chance of escape. She tried all the same, her eyes bulging, struggling against her invisible bonds.

Bentley led a group of Aurors into the neighbouring rooms for further assessment of the threat level facing them, while most of their colleagues clustered around The Crow. He, in contrast, was not putting up any kind of fight, just stood there, his eyes dull, his complexion almost grey, his body limp. Harry wondered if this was yet another ploy, a back up plan which would ultimately lead to his escape. It seemed unlikely, but, as was becoming evident time after time, unlikely didn't mean a damn thing.

Harry continued to stare Umbridge. He knew what the next course of action should be, if he was to do this by the book. Both captives returned to the Ministry, to be tried and, no doubt, sentenced to a life in Azkaban.

How could that be punishment enough for Umbridge, after this? Tonks, he could tell, was watching him closely. She would understand more than most. Greyback had posed a similar moral dilemma.

"Auror Potter." Bentley had reappeared.

"There is a lot in there," he said, jerking his thumb towards a darkened room to their left. "The whole house will need to be scoured properly. However," he held out a small square of stiff paper. "We've just found this."

It was a photograph. Harry stared down at it. Umbridge - a younger, slimmer Umbridge than he had ever known but unmistakably the same woman - sat stiffly in front of the camera, a bundle of blankets squirming in her arms.

He's her son.

How he knew it with such certainty merely from a glance at this grainy photograph, Harry wasn't sure, but he did. And further pieces of the mystery began to thud into place. The Crow wasn't the instigator here. Umbridge hadn't just forged a link with an emerging dark wizard prior to her trial in an attempt to guarantee her escape from prison. She had created the evil in the first place. Could that explain The Crow's lack of resistance? Maybe he didn't care whether he was caught or not. Perhaps his life had been so miserable that a cell in Azkaban would be a welcome change.

Harry couldn't take his eyes off the photograph. There was not a trace of love or affection on the woman's features, merely her habitual self-satisfied expression. The baby in the photo tried to grab her trailing sleeve, but she jerked her arm, as though dispelling an irksome fly. The infant's mouth opened wide, his wail of forty years previously unheard. Yet Harry felt his anguish and dismay and his mind was made up in that instant.

"The rest of you are to leave." He turned to Auror Hughes. "You and Bentley are in charge. See that you get The Crow back to the Ministry. Unharmed if possible. The minister will be waiting with the stand by Aurors as well as law representatives. Order those on the perimeter of the house to stay put."

"Sir," Bentley offered. "Would it not be better for a couple of us to stay with you? I'm happy to. Hughes is perfectly capable of-"

"You are all to leave."

"Simply for precautionary back up."

Harry's eyes did not leave Umbridge as he replied.

"I won't need back up."

Bentley, looking uncomfortable and also slightly alarmed by the look on his superior's face, did not protest any further. He and Hughes manoeuvred the still unresisting figure of The Crow out of the house, flanked by their colleagues. Tonks, however, had not moved. She glared at Harry, as though daring him to order her out again, and after a second's hesitation, he dropped his gaze. He understood. Her defiance did not stem from doubt for his ability, nor judgement for what he was about to do. It was simply a refusal to let him do it alone.

He raised his wand, turned it on Umbridge, and the fury that had been building inside him since leaving Higgs' office poured through it. He had not used this curse since he was seventeen, when it had burst out of him in a momentary flash of rage. Years on, his power so much greater, more calculated, and his hatred for its victim so much stronger, the force of it was unsurmountable. Umbridge's screams rent the air but Harry did not falter. Again and again he cursed her, as his wand, put under unprecedented strain, became hot in his hand, scalding his palm. He continued regardless.

Bellatrix had been wrong. There was no enjoyment in this. No satisfaction. No sense of victory. Just the knowledge that no matter what her did to her, he would never equal the pain she had caused others. And eventually, knowing that nothing could ever be enough, that he needed to end it once and for all, Harry paused and lifted his wand higher, ready to deal the fatal blow.

Seconds passed. The spell wouldn't come. Even now, the incantation which had torn his own world apart at the tender age of one resisted his call.

Tonks had been watching on in silence, her face a blank mask.

"Do you want me to do it?" she whispered to him, as Umbridge lay in a piteous heap on the floor, moaning.

He shook his head. This was his battle and his alone. Umbridge's eyes flickered open, and even in her mangled, beaten down state, she managed a ghost of her old, simpering smile.

"...a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it."

Harry thought of the millions of defenceless muggles falling ill across the world. Of the curse that was now so intricately bound with non-magical medicine that they may never eradicate it for good. Of his godson, and Remus, both of whom had fallen foul of Umbridge's prejudiced loathing. His niece, forced to do her bidding for weeks on end. Ginny, his beloved wife, who had helped him outsmart the High Inquisitor all those years ago when she had been nothing more than an idiotic woman dressed in pink. His own children, to whom he was trying to give the freedom of youth he himself had never known. Tonks, his colleague and friend who stood beside him, whose solidarity to him had not wavered since their first meeting, and whose fight against The Crow had nearly cost her life. And finally, of Sirius, who may still be alive if it hadn't been for the vile woman who lay before them.

You need to mean them, Potter.

The wand came slashing through the air.

"Avada Kedavra."

O

Back at the Lupin's house, a long silence fell following Harry's account. He had spared them some of the more graphic details, if only for Hope's sake, who was pale and looking sick, but the explanation had still taken over an hour. Eventually, with nothing more to say, and with the clock fast ticking towards sunrise, Harry and Ginny left, and Hope was persuaded to go up to bed, leaving her parents alone in the kitchen. They didn't speak for several minutes.

"Are you alright?" Remus murmured at last.

Tonks appeared almost surprised at his question.

"Oh, I'll be fine," she assured him. "I'm more concerned about Harry, to be honest. This will haunt him for a very long time. And poor Victoire. That curse will take its toll on her. And then I still worry about Hope."

She threw an anxious look towards the staircase her daughter had mounted not long before.

"Are we doing the right thing?" she burst out, turning to Remus in despair. "Telling her everything that we do? Letting her in to all these conversations? Molly would never have allowed her kids to hear everything Harry just told us, at fifteen. Ginny would have been packed off to bed and given a simplified version of events in the morning, if that."

Remus came closer and she rested a tired head on his shoulder. How many times had they asked themselves that question? And it seemed there would never be a straightforward answer to it.

"I know all the arguments for keeping them informed," Tonks added. "I agree with them. But she's little more than child at the end of the day. Our child. And I sometimes worry that in trying to avoid past mistakes, we are just making new, equally destructive ones."

Remus did not reply, but he understood perfectly. Their rational had been solid from the beginning, and shared between all their closest friends. As their young ones embarked along the shaky path to adulthood, they would, as parents, be honest, transparent, refrain from keeping them in the dark wherever possible. Secrecy would, naturally, be necessary on occasion, but never would it be based on the argument that they were too young to be told. Such reasoning had proved destructive in the past, and those errors in judgement would not be repeated.

It had been so easy to do, at first, when the children had been too innocent to ask, too naïve to spare a thought to issues outside their daily routines, when choosing what to divulge and when had remained solely within their parents control. But ignorant bliss could not endure forever. Hope, in particular, was being exposed to a colossal amount of privileged information as she grew up, with Tonks so involved at the Ministry of Magic and Teddy always having the inside knowledge of the ever advancing medical world. Even Remus's work regularly strayed outside the safe territory of magical creatures and into the murky realms of the dark arts. And at what point, he often asked himself, did this knowledge stop being useful? At what point did it become damaging for a teenage girl to be bombarded with such an array of bewildering - even traumatic - insight into matters beyond her control or full comprehension?

Sometimes, he feared they wouldn't know the answer until it was too late to do anything about it.

o

Hope, as the situation currently stood, was merely anxious to know more details. In the days that followed The Crow's capture, however, she barely saw the other members of her family, for all three of them were involved in the investigation process one way or another. They had told her, very briefly, after Harry's initial news, about Dolores Umbridge, an evil woman who had been in their lives for decades, no one fully realising the depths of her cruelty and deception, and assured her she would know the full story in due course.

Hope didn't even see much of Dom and Roxanne, who were submerged in NEWT revision. She should have been revising for her OWLs of course, but studying was not coming easily to her at the moment. She would have liked to see Adam, but he had not replied to her most recent letter, and she tried her best not to let it bother her. They had not been going out long. She spent a lot of time mooching around on her own, going down the beach outside Bill and Fleur's, and occasionally meeting up with Lily, Albus and James. But they, like her, had not yet been given any updates on The Crow or Umbridge.

Then, the Friday before returning to school, Hope returned from a walk and was met with the unusual sight of all three members of her family sitting in the living room together, listening to the wireless.

A voice that Hope recognised as Lee Jordan's, close friend of George and Angelina's and host of a number of popular wizarding radio shows, was issuing from it.

"…two weeks after his capture, The Crow has been sentenced to life imprisonment, with no opportunity for release or appeal."

"Hey Dopey," Teddy said, seeing her hovering and beckoning her over, shifting up to make room on the sofa. She sat down in between him and her mother, curling her feet up underneath her.

"What happened with Umbridge and The Crow?" she asked. "Are you allowed to say yet?"

"Probably not," her mother yawned. She was permanently exhausted at the moment. "But when has that ever stopped us?"

She paused.

"We'll tell you what we can, love, but don't spread it around when you're back at school. It's complicated, and we're still in the process of investigating a lot of it. Orpheus confessed everything under Veritaserum last week. The trial today was nothing more than a formality, his defence merely there to request his humane treatment. There was no denying his crimes."

"And have they figured out how Umbridge was involved?"

"To an extent. Easiest to start from the beginning, I suppose." Tonks passed a tired hand over her eyes and heaved a deep sigh before explaining. "Umbridge was imprisoned for her crimes during the second war, about six months after Voldemort's final downfall. She was an integral member of the corrupt Ministry of Magic, but she was never a Death Eater, or one of Voldemort's inner circle, and although she enabled death and suffering, no one - to our knowledge at least, although who can say after everything that's just happened - ever died directly at her hand. Therefore, she was not on the priority list for sentencing. It was a very difficult process, straight after the war, Hope. Some look back on it now with tinted lenses and claim the dark side put up a white flag and shrunk into submission the second Voldemort fell, but that isn't true. There were thousands of people to round up, from petty criminals all the way up to Death Eaters, and not enough trusted authority figures to do it quickly. Minor attacks were happening every week from those who weren't willing to back down – mini forerunners of The Surge - and our side sustained more losses as they fought for control. Dolores Umbridge, however, wasn't involved in those disturbances, and while she was tracked to ensure she could not escape or disappear completely, she was not considered a threat to the population on her own, and was allowed to return home until her trial. And her home, we now know, was where her unknown son also lived, imprisoned for most of his life and raised with the sole purpose of helping her execute a terrible, lethal curse upon the world."

"So she had six months in her house to make a plan for when she was in prison?"

"Pretty much," Tonks nodded. "She tried to get out of her sentence altogether, of course - prison was hardly convenient for her - but she stood no chance. Kingsley saw to that, and she went quietly enough in the end. Then, about a year later, Umbridge was visited by her squib brother Silas, from whom she had been estranged for years, who claimed he had just heard of her imprisonment and wanted to make peace with her. Or, at least, he was who everyone believed to be Silas."

"But it was The Crow?"

Tonks nodded.

"Orpheus had tracked Silas down and captured him, firstly for Polyjuice potion to have a handy disguise – because who would take much notice of a poor, outcast squib visiting their only remaining relative in prison? – and secondly, as a means of testing the curse on someone other than himself, someone who had magical ancestry but a low MDI. Silas proved very useful to Orpheus for a long time, but eventually he fulfilled his purpose, and to minimise suspicions when the curse was eventually realised, he was disposed of. His body was left outside a muggle pub, with all the usual signs of substance abuse, his veins flooded with alcohol. No one investigated further. Squibs often turn to drink and narcotics, it is one of the great tragedies of our world, and perceived magical superiority."

Hope tried to get her head round this. "So Orpheus used Silas as a disguise, and to test the curse. But how did Umbridge get out of prison? Harry said she had Gorsemoor's Syndrome? That's an incurable disease, isn't it? Surely it can't be coincidence that she fell ill and got better?"

"Oh no," her mother said, with a hollow sort of laugh. "There was nothing coincidental about that. And it wasn't Gorsemoor's at all. Rather an induced disease that would outwardly mimic all the symptoms of it while inwardly causing no harm to the physical health or lucidity of its apparent victim."

Hope gaped at her.

"How did they do that?"

"St Mungo's are still investigating the specifics of it," Teddy chipped in. "But I would assume that creating a convincing fake disease wasn't too difficult for Orpheus, after so many years of researching complicated medical theories. He was forced to work on them from a very young age."

Hope envisaged a small boy poring over a book, a hideous figure standing over him with a cane, and shuddered slightly.

"There aren't many diseases which would have served such a purpose," Teddy went on. "I imagine they researched it carefully prior to her imprisonment and managed to find one that ticked all the boxes. Long term. Incurable. And to an extent undetectable, because there is no black and white test for Gorsemoor's. Diagnosis relies on observing the symptoms."

"And no one was suspicious?" Hope asked. "A prisoner suddenly having a disease that could technically be faked?"

"It's very easy to say that now," Tonks said gently. "With hindsight. But think how it would have looked at the time. An older woman afflicted with one of the most gruesome diseases in the magical world, and her squib brother - and only visitor - requesting her permanent release to St Mungo's where she would remain for the rest of her drastically shortened life. Several years after The Surge, these were the most peaceful times our country had known since the days before Voldemort's first rise, and while claiming madness or mental ill health to escape punishment is not unheard of - a phenomenon known as malingering - there was no precedent for such complex fraud as mimicking a genuine illness in order to infiltrate a hospital, much less a terminal illness. No one had reason to believe anything was amiss."

"And they didn't even suspect anything when the curse started?" Hope persisted, remembering her conversation with Cadmus the previous term. "Someone in my defence class said tabs are kept on people with a criminal record."

"Umbridge was tracked - all bailed prisoners are. But not observed continuously. And so the actions she committed alone in her room, targeting her carers for example, slipped under the radar. Harry is furious with himself," Tonks sighed. "Says he of all people should never have dropped his guard where she was concerned. But again, that is with the benefit of hindsight. Seven years went by between her appeal and the release of the curse without any developments other than a further decline in her health. Her brother was found dead, and no one knew about Orpheus, remember. Umbridge was a highly unpopular woman, and, once Silas died, apparently alone in the world. She was still exhibiting all the symptoms of a dying patient, and no one had been able to get so much as a simple sentence out of her for months on end. Would you have been suspicious?"

"I suppose not," Hope admitted. "So did Umbridge go into prison with the fake illness already in her? Or did they do that afterwards?"

"The latter," Tonks said. "It took Orpheus a long time to figure out how to do it convincingly - longer than they intended, it would seem - but once he did, it would not have been difficult to induce the illness while she was in prison, not with 'Silas' paying her visits every couple of weeks. That's how Orpheus got her the wand, as well, when she was in hospital, under the guise of a devoted squib brother bringing his poor, senile sister an old book that might help her reconnect with her former self. Her wand, which she claimed at her trial to have lost, was short enough to be concealed in the spine of the book. And once she had her wand, the game changed completely. Victoire was not the first healer to be targeted with an Imperious curse while working in the Incurable Afflication ward."

"Why wasn't she forced to give up her wand from the start?" Hope was indignant. "And don't they check these things? Aren't there detectors, for people going to visit relatives in Azkaban, and in hospital, to make sure nothing is smuggled in?"

"In Azkaban, of course there are," Remus said. "But the reason no one questioned her lack of wand at the trial is simply because they didn't have time to. The Ministry was under enormous pressure to proceed with the trials as quickly as possible, and anyway, it isn't uncommon for convicts to turn up without. A wand is a very personal thing, and rather than hand it over to the Ministry to be destroyed, prisoners often hide it, or entrust it to someone else to ensure its safety, should they ever be released. It's what Sirius did too, although in his case it was because he knew himself to be innocent."

A pang of sadness crossed his face as he pressed on.

"This may change now, given recent events, but in the past the Ministry has never had reason to insist on a wand being submitted, on the basis that as long as the individual remains in prison, they have no chance of getting their hands on it again – visitors to Azkaban are checked carefully and required to leave all magical devices, including their own, at security. But a way to induce a feigned illness? It may have been as simple as slipping her a pill, or a tiny vial of undetectable liquid. As for the hospital, the security checks were only introduced because of the curse. It's a place of care and compassion. St Mungo's aren't going to submit distraught relatives to intense scrutiny every time they want to visit their loved ones."

"Not even if that person was a criminal?"

"Umbridge wasn't a high risk prisoner," he said, shaking his head. "She had a life sentence for conspiring with the enemy and hate crime, but that was not enough in itself to warrant top security treatment. Had it been a Death Eater, it may have been a different matter, and although several at Umbridge's appeal argued that she should be treated as she would have treated others, and left to rot in jail, they were overruled. The new line was to build a better, more tolerant, more respectful society. They weren't going to let someone waste away in a prison cell when they had a chance of a more comfortable and dignified demise in the hospital, and most people, even those who despised Umbridge, agreed that the Gorsemoor's diagnosis was punishment enough."

Hope remembered Michael telling her that the effects of Gorsemoor's syndrome were considered akin to the Dementor's Kiss. She knew plenty about the dementors, the damage they had caused, the terror they had invoked in prisoners for years. She also knew their removal from Azkaban, while a sensitive topic, had been backed by the majority, so loathsome were these creatures and so repulsive their final punishment. Times had changed, and sucking out an individual's soul was now considered a violation of human rights that not even the most dangerous of criminals should be subjected to. As such, perhaps some had even felt sympathy for the woman who appeared to have succumbed to a similar fate.

"Seems she took advantage of that," she muttered darkly.

"Absolutely," Remus agreed. "When she was released to St Mungo's, her health and sanity in a downward spiral, it was ordered that they treat her with dignity, the same as any other patient." His face twisted into an ugly expression. "She was put in a private room, as it would have been unfair to expect others on the Incurable Affliction Ward to share a room with a convict. But no one monitored Umbridge or her occasional visitor any more than they did other patients, particularly as the years wore on and her mental state appeared to deteriorate further. Being in a private room was to her advantage. Fewer people around who might catch her out."

Hope still could not believe what she was hearing.

"Seven years alone in a hospital room with the world thinking you've lost your mind," she breathed. "How could anything be worth that?"

"Umbridge didn't have a decent bone in her body," Remus spat. "I imagine she delighted in the task. The time probably flew by for her."

"So she managed to get the information they needed to help Orpheus create the curse?"

Teddy nodded. "An investigation has been launched into how that happened. It will probably take months, if not years, to find out all the details. But remember Umbridge was in there for years herself, and she wasn't in a rush. She had a wand, possibly other means of communication with Orpheus, and she had day after day, night after night, with nothing to do but think up ways to procure information and get them to her son. It would not have been too difficult, in the end, over a long period of time, to get him the research he needed, especially considering that Magienetic breakthroughs were not top secret, and the department was accessible by most members of staff."

Hope considered this.

"But then how come no one else was ever discovered to be under the Imperious curse?" she said. "If it happened a lot."

"That's part of the investigation," Teddy acknowledged. "The most likely reason is that Umbridge never targeted anyone more than once, and removed the curse as soon as the required action had been completed. You would only be able to detect traces of the Imperious curse if you were specifically looking for it, once it had been lifted. I doubt her other targets ever knew they had been cursed. Victoire's case was different. Partly because the security measures had tightened so much in the hospital that it took longer to get access to the Magienetics department, and partly because Umbridge complicated things for herself."

"By getting Victoire to mess with your hearing?"

"Yep." Teddy appeared grimly satisfied. "We think we know what happened with that now as well. Jessye remembers a conversation she had with Vic in January which took place in Umbridge's room. About my hearing. We can't blame them for that," he added, as Hope's mouth fell open again. "It would have seemed as safe a place as possible to have a private conversation, given that Umbridge was not believed to have any cognitive functions left. Jessye can't remember exactly what they said, but thinks it was enough to give away the fact that widespread news of my hearing might lead to my dismissal and end my research for good." He spread his hands. "And so it seems Umbridge listened to every word, and seized an opportunity. Possibly the minute Jessye had left the room."

Hope had a sudden, mental image of a dark figure rising from the bed behind poor Victoire's unsuspecting back and gave another violent shudder.

"Why would she bother?" she said, shaking her head to rid it of the horrible picture. "All that time and effort they put into the Narcoviral Curse. Why did she care so much about a werewolf cure?"

"Oh, for Umbridge it must have seemed like a dream come true," Remus said. His lips were unusually thin. "A chance to get the final information she needed for Strike Three of her plan, and destroy any chance of a forthcoming werewolf cure in one fell swoop. Too good an opportunity to miss." He attempted a smile, but it came out as a grimace through his clenched jaw. "She loathes part humans, you see."

Hope scowled at him. It had always made her angry when her father referred to himself as part human. It was an old and regularly fought argument, however, and she sensed that now was not the time to raise it again.

"What would have happened if that hadn't caught her out?" she pressed on. "Would they have managed Strike Three?"

"As to that, it's difficult to say," her mother replied. "There were so many precautions in place that I would hope not, but they likely would have got further with it than they did in the end. The plan, incidentally, was for Orpheus to mutate the curse beyond reach of the current cures and vaccines, and detonate it round the world. Their initial aim, to create worldwide division and chaos, had succeeded, and now all that remained was to spread the illness as widely as possible so that the progress against it was reversed and the trust muggles had placed in wizardkind damaged beyond repair. Umbridge would join Orpheus and they would escape this country together, resume different identities while the world went into full scale panic once more."

Obliteration, Ginny had said. The word still made Hope's heart beat unnaturally fast, even with the knowledge that this final, deadliest aim had not been successful.

"Thankfully," Tonks continued, "The curse on Victoire ended up being her downfall. Kingsley started making enquiries at St Mungo's within hours of its detection, and Umbridge got wind of what he was doing and panicked. She tried to fake her death, conjured a copy of her own corpse and scarpered."

"That works?" Hope said in astonishment. "Then why did she do that before?"

"It doesn't work really," Teddy shook his head. "The autopsy would have shown that it was not her real body, and they may even have realised before then, but she only needed a matter of hours this time. Time to join up with Orpheus and flee the country. She didn't care if her involvement was known after that. She didn't spend all those years in prison and St Mungo's to stay in confinement when the plan had finally come together. In her panic, it seems she forgot that she was being tracked by the MoMS as an ex prisoner, and Kingsley was too smart for her anyway. He scared her deliberately, you see, acted as though he was blundering through the hospital asking questions, all the while reinforcing the tracking spells on her so that she stood no chance of getting away undetected. It worked perfectly, and for her, the timing of her escape was wrong. Orpheus wasn't ready to execute the final stage of the plan by the time she reached him and Harry and Mum and the rest of the Aurors caught up with them within the hour. Outnumbered them twenty to one."

There was a silence. Hope reflected on this evil woman, who had been tormenting people for decades. Who could have possibly been willing to have a child with her?

"Who was Orpheus's father?"

Teddy exchanged another glance with his mother, as if asking for permission to confide yet more details. Tonks shrugged and nodded and Teddy turned back to his sister.

"Do you remember me telling you about Marmon Golpalott?"

"I think so." Hope screwed up her forehead. "He was a potioneer? Descendent of potioneers? The one who theorised on the Narcoviral Curse in the first place. Ohh," comprehension began to dawn. "So he was involved as well? Was he Orpheus's father? That's how Umbridge and her son knew so much about the curse and how to make it happen?"

"Yes. We're not sure how the initial liaison came about, but at some point during the first war Umbridge and Golpalott met and ended up having a child together. There might have been magical seduction involved. It may have been Umbridge's plan all along to trap Golpalott and steal his theories, or she may have discovered his work after they met and used them to her own ends. With both of them now dead, we will likely never know, but to an extent it's irrelevant, given the outcome. Orpheus was born. Golpalott died shortly afterwards, and his son was raised to continue working on his theories and transform them into reality."

"And you said before that Golpalott never intended for them to be used?"

"To our knowledge," Teddy shrugged. "Golpalott was known for experimenting with controversial ideas and horrible boundaries of magic, but although he was an eccentric - some would say disturbed - individual, there is no evidence of him causing intentional harm to others. He was highly intelligent, far more so than Umbridge, and it appears Orpheus inherited this trait. Umbridge had the cunning and cruelty to set the wheels of the plan in motion, and her years working at the Ministry would have come in useful, but most are certain that she wouldn't have had the intelligence or ability to create the curse herself."

"It was lucky for her that Orpheus did then," Hope said dully. "And unlucky for the rest of the world."

"Luck, in part," Tonks agreed. "But also the result of a cruel, ruthless upbringing. Creating this monstrosity of a curse would have taken discipline and single mindedness as well as intelligence, and that was drilled into him from the moment he could stand. Harry was right about him being through hell and back. He didn't put up a fight at all when we cornered them. Maybe all he wanted was a chance of life without her, even if that meant spending the rest of his days in prison."

"But she was locked up in prison for ages!" Hope protested. "He could have escaped then, couldn't he? If he hadn't done any of this she would still be in Azkaban."

Tonks' eyes were sad. "I don't believe it even occurred to him, brainwashed as he was into believing that carrying out her orders was the only way forward in life. The first thing we found when searching his hideout was a picture of Umbridge holding him as a baby. In spite of everything, he had kept it all these years, given it a prominent place in his solitary life. He was doing what he did for her, may even have believed it was out of love."

At this, Hope fell silent, a sudden fire burning in her chest. Never had she been more grateful for her own, truly loving family. How awful to have a mother like that and, worse, to believe that life had nothing more to offer. Tonks lifted a consoling arm and Hope shuffled towards her and accepted the embrace.

"Harry said Umbridge removed all traces of having a son?"

"Yes, although Orpheus remembers nothing of it," Tonks said. "Veritaserum can only account for what is within reach of long-term memory. But all Golpalott's documented experiments were seized and are being examined by the Ministry, and among them is a record of how to remove magical detectability from a young child. It is reasonable to assume that Umbridge either did it herself, or forced Golpalott to, so that underage magic was never detected in her presence. It may be a contributing factor to why we had so much trouble keeping tabs on him this year, if the effects of it went deeper than the trace and lingered into adulthood. There are no documented cases of the method being used before, though, so we may never know that either."

"What is the method? How did she do it?"

Teddy, looking nauseated, grimaced, and Remus, after the briefest of glances towards his wife, shook his head.

"No," he said, very quietly. "We're not telling you that."

Hope, on the verge of protesting, checked herself. It was rare that her parents did not answer a question if she asked it. In fact, she was pretty sure that her insight into the adult world was more privileged even than that of the Potter and Weasley children, mainly thanks to Teddy, who had always been her third source for the extra snippets of information their parents didn't care to divulge. If this was so horrific that not even Teddy was willing to share it with her, did she really want to know? She fell silent again and allowed her mother to tighten her grip around her shoulders and hold her.

"Is Harry OK?" she asked finally, thinking of his tortured face a few weeks before. She had not seen him since.

Remus sighed. "Not really. Outwardly, he's keeping it together and Kingsley's being supportive, but it's very hard for him to take. His hatred of Umbridge already ran bone deep, quite as as much as for Voldemort, or for Bellatrix Lestrange." His eyes gleamed savagely at the name. "To have been outsmarted by a woman he loathed so much, when she was under his nose all this time, when he believed that she was finally beyond the point of being a threat. I don't think there is any solace for him right now, not even in her death."

"And he killed her?"

"I never would have believed him capable of doing what he did," Tonks said quietly. "I'm not going to talk about that either, it's not my place. Umbridge deserved what he gave her and more. There is no doubt about that."

Hope gave another involuntary shiver. She thought of Harry, who laughed and joked with her, Harry who was kind, and always had advice, Harry who preached tolerance, and the humane approach. How much must he have detested this woman to do something that her own mother could not bring herself to speak of?"

"I know this is a lot to take in," Tonks said. "We're here, if you want to talk. You know that."

Hope just shook her head.

"Chocolate?" Remus suggested, smiling slightly. She shrugged. She didn't much feel like chocolate either.

"Oh, a letter came for you, while you were out," Teddy said, as Remus summoned a bar of chocolate from the kitchen anyway. "It's on the table."

Hope got up at once, and felt a genuine smile split her face as she saw the letter and recognised the scrawling handwriting.

"Who's it from?" Teddy enquired, as she opened it up.

"Um. Adam. Just... a friend from school."

Hope accepted the piece of chocolate that her father handed her with a word of thanks, suddenly feeling a lot more cheerful.

"So who is this Adam?" Teddy grinned at her mischievously, as she folded it up, put it in her pocket and resumed her place on the sofa, chewing her chocolate nonchalantly. "Are we allowed to know?"

OOO