All I need to get by
Chapter Five: Veil beyond death
The room which stemmed from the revolving drum was rather full. Although it was around the size of Hogwarts library, with a mezzanine floor used for relaxation, and although there were only around fifty Unspeakables dressed in black gossamor uniforms, the table they were sitting around was tight and hot. The room itself was divided into three, according to the floors. The first floor was entirely taken over with a library, plaaning kind of area, with twenty-six shared desks overflowing with parchment, thousands of books and neatly recorded records of operations, large posters of various locations, a map similar to the mauraders map, but charmed for the whole of Britain upon voice command, and thick rugs. The top level was a training area, with large squashy floors, hundreds of boggarts to train with, and cubby holes filled with training gear. The mezzanine floor was an area for relaxation; coffee machines, little tables, large over stuffed sofas and tread marks in the white carpet.
Agent 433 was sitting on an over-stuffed, purple chintz chair with her feet, shod in expensive dragon hide boots, splayed out before her. Zacharias was sitting next to her on a leather chair with his head on her shoulder, apparantly fast asleep. In her fingers lay a chain which normally hung around her neck, with a tiny, shrunk aubergine vial, half full of a potion which she had to keep applying to her hands every day. It was hanging from the silver chain looped between her thumb and index finger while she watched a point just in front of it in a dazed manner.
'You OK Hermione?' asked Zacharias at last, watching as the vial slipped along the chain.
'Huh? Oh, yeah.'
'Alert and ready for action I see,' he ribbed.
'Mmmmh.'
'Thinking about the lovely Malfoy are we?'
With this comment Hermione snapped out of her reverie, tucked the chain and potion tightly beneath her black shirt, and glared at him, crossing it with an air of indifference that made her look somewhat like a blast-ended skrewt attempting to be innocent. Zachasias Smith, who had been a Ravenclaw in Hogwarts a year ahead of his friend, grinned and poked her shoulder affectionately.
'No!' she exclaimed, rather too loudly, 'Why would I?'
'Oh come off it, girl, I know you fancy the pants off him.'
'I do not!'
'433!' came a suden, loud bellow.
Standing at the oval entrance to the Unspeakable Operations Department was the hief of the Unspeakables, dressed in black robes and a black cloak, arms folded across his elderly chest as he bellowed for his best agent. Hermione swept up her wands and dropped them down her sleeves for easy access, pulled on her cloak and slipped the fastenings of her boots up within seconds. She skittered along the hall at full speed, and pulled the hood up around her face as she came to a halt in front of him.
'Sir!'
'433, I need you to go to St Mungo's. Operation Stonehenge has claimed another one of my Unspeakables, floor four. Agent 278. You're the only one avaidable for the job. I need a detailed annalysis of what's wrong with him for the records, estimated recovery time, see if he can remember anything, if not modify his memory as to his being an Unspeakable. We believe that a dark wizard has infiltrated his brain waves – a necromancer. He works in the department of the Veil.'
'Yessir.'
Hermione took a few moments to do her long gossamor cloak up fully, and slip the hood more securely around her face, until she was plunged into shadow. Her wands were secure in the holsters attatched to her wrists, and she could feel the cold vial against her collarbone. Loping out of the department, she entered the golden lift silently.
The only other occupant was an auror carrying a muggle firearm of some kind, what looked like a semi-automatic machine gun. Four memos swooped around the light so that it flickered over the golden cage. It was silent in the lift as it rose up two levels to the attrium.
♠
St Mungo's was loud, steamy and smelt of freschia due to a witch who was sprouting the flowers all over her body so that she looked like a large bush. Hermione tugged the cloak more tightly around her face, and glided towards the reception. Harassed looking orange and red robed healers rushed past with their crystal tipped wand out, and regular wands tucked behind ears. A small child of around three screamed as the broomstick which was stuck up his nose hit a coffee table. A wizard hiding behind a copy of Witch Weekly attempted to subdue the blonde curls which were springing from his head, and squash the breast which were growing from his formerly male chest.
In front of her a mother tugged at the arm of her youngest child who appeared to have been squashed by a magical spell because he kept wheezing accordian like sounds out of his strangely square mouth. Behing him an elder brother looked guilty. Hermione stood patiently and calmly in the qeue. Finally Hermione reached the platinum blonde, bored looking witch who was on reception duty.
'Spell damage third floor,' she said, her mouth full of chewing gum.
'I need a pass,' said Hermione, in a quietly authorative voice, 'for floor four. I have memory modification to do.'
''Ere, you can't do that!' cried the witch loudly, 'No memory modification unless approved by the ministry of magic!'
'Just do it please.'
'Yew must be mad!' the platinum blonde shook her head firmly.
'No, but I'm very dangerous. Department of Mysteries.'
'Oh,' the witch deflated slightly, 'go on then.'
She pushed a small yellow pass towards Hermione, who signed it, and stamped it with a signet ring she had on her left ring finger. 433 moved away from the desk and entered the red elevator, punching in flour four on the buttons.
Floor four was rather calm considering the hustle and bustle going on beneath her. The ward stretched in front of her byond the reception area which was empty, but Hermione ignored it and walked along to the second ward, which was labelled in silver on the door as 'mar Thagalat Ward' (who had invented the counter-jinx shortly after the development of the counter-curse) and hadwritten underneath 'Healer in Charge: Marion Fergus and Specialist Mediwizard Theodore Nott'. Nott came stalking out angrily as soon as she pushed the door open; a thin, disagreeable looking man just as he had been in school, but apparantly gifted with his patients.
'This is a private ward. You have to have a specialist pass to get in here.'
Hermione made no reply only showed him the scrap of yellow paper. Nott scowled, and then peered at the memory modification scrawled on the bottom.
'Memory modification! You can't do that!'
He was ignored as she moved for the bed furthest along the ward, recognising 278's distinctive smell; a mixture of old tobacco and alcohol that wafted up her nose, but undoubtedly only Unspeakables would smell.
'Agent 278?' she asked, sitting down on the chair by the bed, and setting a reliablely charmed quill down on a piece of parchment she had produced from within her cloak. 'This is 433.'
'433?' asked the weak voice from the bed, and 278 offered her a weak smile from the bed, 'Good to see you're out of here.'
'Thankyou 278,' within the confines of St Mungo's the code numbers were used without exception. 'Healer Nott?'
Nott appeared, surly, at her shoulder, glowering at where her face should have been underneath the cloak. Hermione nodded her head at him.
'I need a detailed annalysis of the problem, and expected recovery time.' Nott sighed disagreably and began to speak;
'A spell similar to legilimens has been used to get into the brain, unforetunately this was too strong and has prevaded the brain permanantly. Whether this was intended or not I cannot say. The spell has attacked the spinal cord, and left the patient paralysed from neck downwards. Extensive damage to the nerve ending means all sense of touch and smell have been eradicated. Skin problems have been noticed, and the patient is generally disorientated.'
'Thankyou,' the Quick Quote Quills poised like expectant birds on the paper, 'Estimated recovery time?'
'Approximately three weeks, depending on the disorientations. He's also very willing to discuss the Department of Mysteries.'
Even if he was rather unpleasent, Nott was at least honest, and apparantly sensative, as he cast a silencing spell on agent 433 and himself while he discussed this. 278 watched in vague interest as the spell was lifted and Nott stalked up the ward.
'278,' Hermione paused to cast another silencing charm around the bed, 'Can you tell me what happened?'
'We had made a breakthrough on the Veil case after two days of not leaving the department. I left to go home, via the Leaky Cauldron for a drink, and had some sort of spell put on me from behind. Diagon Alley was perfectly deserted, even Knockturn Alley was quiet which struck me as a little bit odd.'
'Stop,' Hermione commanded rather suddenly. 'You shouldn't have told me that. You shouldn't have spoken to me. I have my hood up, you don't know if it's me. You shouldn't even be speaking to me anyway. It's dangerous.'
'Is it?' a vague, unhurried look crossed his pale, lank face. 'But I can't really remember what we were talking about.'
'I am sorry. I really am.'
Hermione stood back from the bed and whispered legilimens. Memroy after memory of his life as an unspeakable flashed before her eyes and his; the first day, the last operation, the passwords and wands. Carefully storing the memory of what had happened to him when he was attacked in her wand tip, she gathered all the memories she needed together.
'Oblivate Memoritos specificatus,' she said quickly, and the memories went black.
The wand laying on the bedside table was glowing slightly; all Unspeakable wands did this in the eyesight of another Unspeakable, and the girl scooped it up while 278 was unconcious and snapped it easily in half, pocketing it afterwards for reference.
'Hello?' said 278 dreamily, appearing to wake up, 'Where am I?'
'Healer Nott?' called Hermione softly along the ward, and Theodore appeared. 'My business here is done. There are no adverse effects to the charm I have preformed. Do not mention to him how he sustained his injuries please, or tell him who I am.'
'I don't even know who you are myself,' snapped Nott angrily, 'Have you modified him?!'
'Yes,' she answered plainly.
Before Nott could hex her as he obviously wished to, the ward doors burst open and a red robed Healer burst into the room, chest heaving.
'Nott!'the Healer bellowed, blonde hair straggling down from the normally impeccable ponytail, 'Nott! What on earth have you done with the spell I requested?'
Nott, his face tinging red with anger, looked from the Unspeakable he wished to give a piece of his mind to, to the red robed and flustered Healer who was running down the corridor at full speed.
'You cannot modify my patients without my approval!' he bawled at last, 'It's completely illegal and unethical!'
'It is necessary, unless you wish for the demise of the entire wizarding world.'
'You've destroyed his previous life!'
'Healer Nott, the spell I have used is a specific charm combined with legilimens. I have merely obliviated the memories to do with his work in the Unspeakable Department.'
'Nott!' the red faced Healer had burst up on them by now, and looked furious, 'I need that spell!'
Nott scowled furiously, and turned away from her towards Draco Malfoy. Hermione felt her heart quicken painfully under the black cloak, and could sense the curiousity with which he was regarding the shapeless Unspeakable who stood before him.
'There are only three people in Britain able to do that spell!' Nott hissed at last, looking furious, 'You cannot expect me to believe you are Severus Snape.'
'He is my tutor,' Hermione replied defiantly, having had quite enough of the angry, scornful feelings radiating towards her.
'433?' said Malfoy at last, curious, his stomach curling up into tight little balls.
Hermione turned towards him, the robes rippling as she moved, and gave a little inclination of her head to show her recognition. Draco smirked at her lopsidedly.
'Nott, it's alright, 433's qualified.'
Nott scowled and gestured towards the sickly looking ex-Unspeakable on the bed behind them.
'She obliviated my patient!' he cried, rather hysterically.
'Leave it, Nott. I need that spell.'
Nott scowled, his lank face screwing up into a small, comical paper napkin. Grumbling under his breath, he slid away almost silently, every patient's eyes following him as he went. Draco smiled at the Unspeakable's hood; a comforting, kind smile.
'They put you back on field duty already?' he asked, concern shining through his grey eyes.
'They didn't want to,' admitted the Unspeakable guiltily, 'I threw a minor tantrum to get my way. But 837's watching me like an overenthusiastic troll.'
'Are your hands any better?' he asked at last, watching her hood shrewdly.
The hood shook negatively, and the shoulders shrugged. A pair of hands appeared from within the boundries of the cloak; the tips were still almost black, veins clearly visable and blue, pale as if the blood had been sucked out of them. The Healer took the right one and turned it over.
'I apply the potion every morning, and it lasts until about nine at night. No-one knows there's still a problem.'
'Stop being stubborn and refrain from field work. We don't know what's wrong with them.'
'I can't, I love my work.'
'Learn to love your health more. They could be dangerous.'
'You haven't shriveled up and died yet,' she pointed out calmly, retracting the hands into her cloak.
By the time Healer Nott returned, both were gone. He cursed.
Little moaning Space:-
MadAboutHarry:- Check under your wardrobe; I hear chocolate frogs like to live under wardrobes! Oh hang on, that's closet isn't it? Okay. Thanks.
Ckrfan:- how do you feel about writing summaries for a living? Nah, only kidding. Thanks for the review.
Sweet jane:- Is that enough D/H interaction. Bless little Nott, isn't he sweet?
NitenGlae:- I'm sorry – being almost killed, reserected several times and Draco Malfoy action isn't enough? Grumbles Thanks for reviewing anyway.
Foxxglove:- And I thought my screen name was scary. Thanks. I actually have a beta, but she's not betaing this fiction. In fact, I'm not even sure if she's still alive. I keep meaning to email her. Hrmph-hrmph. Thanks for your review!
If I bribe you by telling you that next chapter The Kiss happens, will you review? Because you're not getting it until I have at least five reviews for this chapter. See, you've reduced me to bribery. I'm desperate over here!
This chapter we meet 433 in her working environment, day dreaming about Draco (we think). Zacharias Smith (who you will find somewhere in The Order of the Phoenix) has a little rib at her, and she's sent out on field work to obliviate a fellow Unspeakable. Following a run in with the receptionist at St. Mungo's, she makes her way upto the counter-jinx ward where she encounters ex-Slytherin Theodore Nott (TootP) and has a wee argument with him. Malfoy arrives in a less than impeccable state, and saves Hermione from having her head blasted off. Argues about field duty follow, and then they both vanish. Ooooooh. By the way, in the vial she was playing with is the potion she puts onn her hands.
