Part 1: Autumn
"I'm running late to somewhere now that I don't want to be
Where the future and promises ain't what it used to be
I never wanted to compromise or bargain with my soul
How did life on the wild side ever get so dull?"
-Green Day, "Somewhere Now"
Chapter 1: A Request
Eight o'clock. Seven children under six running up and down the car, couldn't their nannies wait until the morning rush subsided? Five minutes till Mr. Barclay would expect her at her desk, four stops to go, but at least the blind, throbbing panic had subsided to a vague sinking in the pit of her stomach. She'd come to appreciate, lately, that there were worse things than being late to work. Three large men in business suits with their morning lattes, squabbling like schoolchildren over two seats across the way. She held up her bag to protect herself, but too little too late. One flimsy paper cup of burnt newsstand coffee, one ruined skirt.
Why did she still take the tube?
"Ah, no, Granger, didn't they tell you? We don't have to swim to the office any longer, they've built these nice things called roads…"
"Shut up, Kenneth."
"Certainly, far be it from me to criticize! Heaven knows I like my exercise as much as the next–"
"Shut up, Kenneth."
She tossed her coat and bag onto the overcrowded rack and threw herself into her chair. A flick of her wand and her skirt was good as new. She turned her attention to the stack of reports on her desk.
"Oy. You'll want to get through that lot as fast as you can. The Carrow hearings start tomorrow, and old Broccoli's already on the warpath."
Kenneth's feet were the only thing on his desk, but pointing this out would've cost her most of the morning.
"Has Mr. Barclay…decided who's going to accompany him to the Carrow hearings?" This question earned her a slow, distasteful smirk.
"You know as much as I, Granger. Unless your friends the merfolk have been listening in Broccoli's drain pipes."
Kenneth wasn't a complete waste of the air it took to keep him alive; he just came across that way. A few times, he'd shown Hermione better ways of organizing her notes. Once or twice, he'd even been right. Twice a week she was forced to watch as Mr. Barclay swept him away to argue the most pressing cases before the Wizengamot, and daily he ensured that, for better or worse, she never had a moment of peace and quiet. Now, he lowered his feet with an enthusiastic thud and leaned conspiratorially over her desk.
"I hope you've made arrangements for lunch today," he murmured. "Old Mrs. Fink was out for a week after the gravy at the cafe. I'd certainly hate for the cooks to claim their next victim here." With a wink, he launched himself out of his chair and made his jaunty way across the room, pausing once in the doorway to give what she could only assume was a crude re-enactment of Mrs. Fink's fate. She turned away in disgust, unable to entirely stop the grin spreading unbidden across her face. For the first time in months, she faced the morning's stack of papers with a genuine sense of optimism.
If you'd asked Hermione, around the time she sat the O.W.L.s, what she imagined doing when she left school, she would've gone on at length about the lack of justice in the world and outlined her plan to fix it. Stand up for what's right, give voice to the voiceless, leave the magical world a better place than she'd found it. If she could reach back in time and tell that girl about Mr. Barclay's work with the Gringott's goblins, his historic victory against the decimation of ancient centaur forestland to build a Quidditch stadium, or his oft-overlooked fight against imprisonment without trial of suspected Death Eaters in the last Wizarding war, she would've left behind a dazzled little girl, full of ambition beyond what her sixteen years had taught her to comprehend. If that girl could see Mr. Barclay now, rooting through a box of pastry, necktie askew and a dusting of powdered sugar on his mustache, Hermione wondered whether her adulation might've faltered a little. Maybe not. Maybe she'd been nicer back then.
"The briefs for Runcorn's hearing are ready, Mr. Barclay." He didn't look up, but studied a jam doughnut as if it had told him an off-color joke.
"Yes, yes." A pause. She waited for him to speak, look up, or relieve her of the stack of papers in her outstretched hand.
"Sir?"
"Wha–? Er, yes. Very good." She sighed.
"What is?"
"What?"
"What's very good, sir?" A deep frown creased his forehead, but still he had eyes only for the jam doughnut. Just as her wrist threatened to give way, he heaved an enormous sigh and held out his hand in a way that might've accommodated a handkerchief, but certainly wouldn't do for a few pounds of paper. For the briefest of moments she entertained the thought of setting the papers atop his hand anyway and watching them cascade to the floor, but she knew only too well who'd be clearing them up, and ordering them had taken her the better part of the morning. She stepped inside the office and placed them instead on his desk, and at last, he looked up.
"Ah," he said lightly. "Granger. The Runcorn briefs, I presume?" It was frowned upon to kill people–otherwise, she'd be out of a job–but surely, smacking them under these circumstances fell into a gray area?
"Yes, sorted, and I've marked the bits that'll help most with the case. Witness testimonies are in yellow, Ministry and Auror records in blue, and the bits from his family in green." Mr. Barclay gave her an approving nod and the papers a cursory glance.
"Great Scott, how did I ever get along without you? You're a wonder."
"Thank you, Mr. Barclay."
"Have you got the Hogwarts staff testimonies for the Carrow hearings?" Perhaps it would be worthwhile after all, coming in here.
"They came in this morning. I'll have them ready by three o'clock, at the latest."
"Delicious." He was eyeing the pastry box again, and she couldn't be sure whether he meant the testimonies or the jam doughnut. Recognizing herself to be dismissed, she turned to leave, but she'd scarcely crossed the threshold when he called her back.
"Granger?" Her heart leapt into her throat.
"Yes, Mr. Barclay?"
"Is Kenny about?" And dropped back into her chest.
"He's gone to the cafe, Mr. Barclay."
"Well, when you do see him, send him my way. We've got much to discuss." And sank like a stone, all the way into her toes.
Hermione had never been into the chambers of the Wizengamot; at least, not when it was in session. When she'd come across Mr. Barclay's work for the first time, through a footnote in a book on goblin rebellions in the Hogwarts library, she'd had to set the book aside for a moment as she imagined herself in his place, marching through the opulent doors, back straight and head high, endowed with the vigor that only came from doing what was right, and knowing it. As her fascination with his work had grown, so had her vision for her life. She saw herself taking on causes of her own, single-handedly rebuilding the Wizarding world from the ground up, ushering in a new era in which the distinction between right and wrong meant something. Only then, she'd known with certainty at seventeen, would there be peace.
Obviously, that was a load of nonsense. Not all of it. She'd die believing in equity and justice for all, and hell would freeze over before she gave up fighting for it. But for one thing, the real Mr. Barclay was more interested in overseeing the interior of a pastry box than the endless Death Eater trials in the aftermath of the war. And for another, while her faith in her dreams hadn't faltered, she was finding them rather tougher than she'd anticipated to get off the ground.
When Kenneth left Mr. Barclay's office that afternoon, he spared her his firsthand description of the gravy at the cafe. It was with no small amount of bitterness that she sifted through her old teachers' accounts of life under the reign of the Carrows, and when she relinquished them to Mr. Barclay she didn't stay to watch his dalliance with the jam doughnut. Kenneth, as usual, said goodbye before the clock struck four. When Hermione made to leave and found herself waylaid at the door, she couldn't have said whether she was more surprised to see Mr. Barclay out of his office in the first place, or by the properly grave expression on his face. In the half a year she'd known him, both were unprecedented.
"Granger." A knot of nerves lodged itself unbidden in her throat, and she swallowed it with difficulty.
"Yes, Mr. Barclay?"
"You'll need to do something for me." She frowned.
"Are the Hogwarts testimonies all right, sir?"
"Quite satisfactory." A pause, during which her pulse took up residence a centimeter from her left eardrum.
"Er…what is it, then? Sir?" To her enormous surprise, a sheaf of parchment twice the size of the ones she'd handed him today landed in her arms with the force of a small boulder. Mr. Barclay ignored her soft oh! of surprise, and looked her up and down as if assessing her defenses before heading into battle.
"Someone will need to read this over. Make notes. Be discreet." He paused. "Someone with your…eye for detail." In spite of his frankly ominous tone, her heart leapt.
"What is it, Mr. Barclay?"
"Circumstances forbid me to say. Make notes, and we shall discuss." He gave her a short, decisive nod.
"I, er. Of course. Th-thank you, Mr. Barclay." Thank you? The moment the words left her mouth, she'd have given anything to dive into the wastepaper basket and roll down the stairs and out into the street, where, luck willing, a high-strung Muggle in a sports car would end her life. She moved past him at once, as though she might erase the past fifteen seconds if she moved quickly enough.
"Granger?" Now a few feet down the corridor, she stifled a groan and turned again.
"Yes?"
"Where do they keep the spare parchment in this place?" She managed not to laugh, but it was a close thing.
"The shelf across from Kenneth's desk, second drawer from the bottom."
"Ah, thank you, Granger. Stay warm out there." It was early September, and the sun was still up.
"You, too, Mr. Barclay."
One car from the end, that was the key to having a seat to yourself at this hour. People couldn't be bothered walking all the way to the end of the platform, but if they did, they always assumed the last car to be the least crowded. Their mistake. Two middle-aged ladies sitting cross-legged at the far end, stiff competition as to who was most knackered, whose children worse behaved, whose husband most forgetful. Three stops till the school, four children sharing a bag of licorice and swapping tales of the heroism that got them into detention. A girl sat slightly behind them, nose buried in a book, glancing up from time to time as if casting about for an ally in her suffering. Hermione gave her a slight smile, which she returned, and checked her watch. Five minutes to six. Harry and Ron would be at the pub, but that was nothing new these days. Seven steps up from the platform to the lift, eight inches of precious air between her and the next poor soul crammed inside. Nevertheless, she smiled to herself. She didn't have to do this; there was comfort in mild and predictable inconvenience, and a kind of magic in the mundane that couldn't be found anywhere else.
"...seem to have misplaced my garden shears."
"My god, woman, again? I've told you a hundred times to keep them around your neck like mine–wait, why're we carrying around garden shears, again?"
"Good lord, Harold, for the last time, it helps with your condition!"
"And what condition is that, Cynthia?"
"Oh, Harold, don't make me say it! The situation, Harold, with your saggy left…"
Ron was fighting with everything in him to finish his sentence, but laughter made him look less like himself and more like a strangulation victim. Beside him, Harry fared scarcely better, but clapped him halfheartedly on the back as though that would improve things. It took them a few moments to right themselves and stop wheezing, and a beat longer to notice Hermione.
"Look who's decided to grace us with her presence," remarked Ron, pulling her up a chair from a nearby table.
"For heaven's sake, I was here yesterday."
"No. If you were, you'd have witnessed the proudest moment of my life." Hermione seriously doubted this, and rolled her eyes.
"The day before yesterday, then. What in the world are you talking about?" Harry and Ron shared a look, then burst into raucous laughter that once again stole their breath for nearly a minute.
"D'you see that old couple? There, by the bathrooms?" She didn't need Harry's finger to spot them; pubs didn't tend to fill to capacity on Tuesday nights.
"What about them?"
"We're having their conversation." She paused.
"Their…conversation?"
"Imagining what they're saying, like." Hermione searched their faces for a hint of a joke or a euphemism–it was hard to tell, at times–but found none.
"Why?" Ron looked scandalized.
"It's fun, isn't it?"
"Yes, if fun is an interesting way of pronouncing a waste of time." She glanced up at the bar, where the grizzled old man who ran the place was in the process of setting the world record for the slowest way to dry a glass. Harry followed her gaze and shook his head.
"Don't bother. I've seen where he stores that rag." She recoiled in disgust. Ron, meanwhile, smirked at her.
"I see. It's going to be one of those evenings, is it?" Hermione bit back a retort, swallowed hard, and turned back to Harry.
"Where's Ginny?" He scowled, and Ron looked as though she'd poured boiling water in his lap.
"Oh, now look what you've done," he muttered.
"Don't know, don't care." Harry finished his drink and set the glass aside with a glum sort of flourish, and Hermione used the opportunity to catch Ron's eye.
"Mum's," the latter mouthed. "I think." Hermione winced.
"Sorry." Funny how, when Harry's life was in danger, she knew just what to say. Now, she felt as if she'd been asked to order a five-course meal in Czech.
"Oh!" Ron's face lit up. "It's happened. I shut the old bitch up for good." Hermione gasped.
"You didn't!"
"Yeah! I go in the other day, yeah? And she starts up, oh, Mudbloods and filth this, blood traitors that, noble and most ancient house of my great-aunt's left–"
"I get the idea!"
"Tit, Hermione? Your delicate constitution can't bear to hear me say the word tit?"
"I wasn't sure, but as a matter of fact, it can't."
"Duly noted."
"Anyway?"
"Anyway, I can't take it anymore, so I yell to Harry that I'm going out to the yard to kill myself–"
"I asked him to cut the grass on his way out," Harry interjected, the ghost of a grin now tugging at his lips.
"–and then I got this idea. Instead of going out to the yard, I sneaked into the kitchen. I was going to try and poison her, but I'm lousy and Potions and he's no help–"
"Plus, you can't poison a portrait," Hermione muttered. Ron gave her a very dark look.
"So, instead I poured pumpkin juice into a cup and bewitched it so it'd turn red, right? And it took it out and I said it was half a pint of pure Muggle blood and if she didn't shut up, I'd throw it at her. D'you think she shut up then?"
"Well, of course not–"
"No, she went mental. So I did what I said. I threw it at her." Hermione frowned.
"And?"
"And she sort of just…froze. Shut up and went rigid. I thought for a moment I somehow had poisoned her, and then she just…vanished. Dropped straight out of her frame." She felt her eyes double in size.
"And she hasn't come back?"
"Not once."
"Where did she go?" Ron shrugged.
"She's a rich old bat, Hermione, I reckon she's fucked off to another of her portraits. Point is, I got her to leave us alone."
"Where exactly," asked Harry after a pause, "would you get half a pint of Muggle's blood?" Ron looked at Harry as if he couldn't believe the level of stupidity that existed in the world.
"Leave it to you," he sighed, "to spoil a story like this." Harry gave Ron a smirk and a light shrug, Ron punched him in the shoulder, and for the first time all day, Hermione felt warm. Moments like this, she could almost see them around the fire in the Gryffindor common room, not a care in the world…almost.
"Is this it, then?" she asked. Ron frowned.
"Eh?"
"You said I'd missed the proudest moment of your life. Is this it?" Ron shook his head forlornly like a disappointed father looking over his child's schoolwork.
"I swear, Hermione. Sometimes I wonder whether you know me at all."
It wasn't until very late, after several re-enactments of the so-called proudest moment of Ron's life–which, in Hermione's opinion, failed spectacularly to live up to its name–that she returned home and remembered Mr. Barclay's stack of papers. She pulled them out of her bag and settled at the kitchen table, Crookshanks curled as usual in the chair beside her, one yellow eye open at all times lest she drop some unexpected treat. To her surprise, the documents were bound in thin brown leather–altogether unattractive, and clearly for the sole purpose of keeping them together. She pulled back the cover, but slammed it shut almost at once, heart pounding in her throat. The first page was blank, save for a few words scrawled at the top in Mr. Barclay's scarcely legible handwriting.
Pius Thicknese. Impeachment. High treason.