The End of a Friendship
"Tell me, Harry," Julian finally said, humming and hawing a little, "er ... do the Aurors happen to know where my grandfather's grave is – I mean Rodolphus Lestrange?" He felt visibly uncomfortable asking this question because he didn't know how the Potters would react to it, but it was a burning issue to him.
Harry looked at him sympathetically. "I wasn't yet an Auror at that time and therefore don't know. But if you want, I can ask about it. Is it important to you?"
"Yes," Julian said, "it's very important to me."
"May I ... may I ask you why?" asked Harry gently.
Julian kept glancing at the teacup in front of him.
"My father never told me anything about them, that's to say nothing personal, just that they were Death Eaters and so on. As if they hadn't been anything but Death Eaters, somehow no real humans, you know? My father had been uprooted himself and uprooted me too. I'm looking for a connection with them."
Ginny obviously felt this desire to be a little strange: "Don't you want to just let bygones be bygones? Whatever you find out about your grandparents – it won't be anything good."
Without intending to, she had touched Julian's most sensitive nerve. He glared at her: "Please let that be my problem! I don't know much about my grandparents, but I do know what they were not: They were no opportunists floating with the tide! They died for their convictions!"
Ginny wanted to reply angrily, but Harry asked her with a gesture not to do. "Ginny, be glad you are from a happy family and don't know this feeling of being uprooted. I think I understand Julian quite well."
He turned back to Julian. "Nevertheless, there is one thing I would like to know: Did you ever say to Professor Longbottom what you just said to us?"
"O yes he did," Roy replied in Julian's place, "it was a most turbulent session, the only time in five years of Hogwarts that Longbottom got really loud."
"Can you guess why?", Harry now asked Julian.
"Dunno," the latter replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Suppose he's just a willing servant of the Ministry."
"What has that got to do with the Ministry?", Albus now interjected.
"Obviously," Julian explained, "the longer this all dates back and the more dead the Death Eaters are, the more the Ministry is upping the beat of its anti-Death Eater propaganda. In substance it's completely pointless, it's done just to support what your aunt calls the 'opening up to the non-wizarding world'. The wizarding community is to be trained to believe, firstly, that Death Eaters are the incarnation of pure evil, and secondly, that anyone who has the slightest reservations about Muggles is a Death Eater. I suppose with Longbottom the conditioning worked particularly well."
"Julian," exclaimed Albus heatedly, "you have absolutely no idea what the Death Eaters did to his family. They ..."
"Excuse me, Albus," his father cut across him, "I hate to interrupt you, but I don't want you to say more than Neville would be comfortable with." He turned back to Julian. "This is something you cannot know, of course, because Neville never talks about it and doesn't want his friends to do so, either. So I'm going to tell you only what you have to know to understand: Neville Longbottom had to grow up without parents. They were Aurors and one day fell into the hands of Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. What they did to them was so cruel that I wouldn't talk about it even if I had Neville's permission. He has been uprooted just as you and me have been, and it was your grandparents who did it. That's why he replied so loudly, not for political reasons."
Julian had turned pale. "I didn't know that," he whispered.
"You couldn't. However, I would be grateful if you argued with him a little more tactfully in the future."
Julian nodded.
Harry, for his part, was tactful enough to change the subject and asked Roy: "What's the state of affairs between you and the other houses? Have the Gryffindors gone on with their provocations?" My goodness, how strange it sounds: 'the Gryffindors' – as if I wasn't one, too!
"The climate is still poisoned, there are quarrels on the most trivial occasions," Roy replied, "but they don't go for it as much as they did at the beginning. A hard core is still trying, but with the handbrakes on, so to speak. They have three mental disadvantages: Firstly, the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs don't go along with it, they're rather uncomfortable with the whole affair; secondly, we still stay together in groups whenever possible, so we always have the psychological advantage of larger numbers on our side; and thirdly," he grinned, "it's one thing to theoretically want to challenge us to violence, and quite another to expose one's own nose for it."
"And when Albus or you were around, they avoided confronting us right from the start," Julian added, who was recovering from his shock. "They have a lot of respect for Roy that they just can't get rid of," he explained in response to Ginny's questioning look, "and Al is taboo for them anyway."
"Well, it seems by and by things are getting right after all," Ginny said with relief.
"I'm not sure," Roy commented gloomily, "since open hostility doesn't get them anywhere, I'm rather afraid that sooner or later they'll come up with some really perfidious devilry. Anything we then can't defend ourselves against."
"You are aware, Roy, that you are talking about my son and nieces, among others?" asked Ginny sharply.
Roy sighed. He would have liked to say something kind now, but he had no idea what it could be. Julian came to his aid.
"Until proven otherwise, we would like to believe these two will behave decently," although we have no reason to think so, he thought, but didn't say. "But after all they're not the only Gryffindors," he softened Roy's remark, promptly earning a grateful smile from Ginny.
Their conversation was interrupted by two loud noises announcing that two people had Apparated in front of the house. Albus dashed to the window:
"Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione!" he shouted, beaming with joy, and rushed to the front door.
"Oh no!" escaped Roy and Julian simultaneously. "Would you prefer us to leave immediately through the fireplace?" asked Roy.
"Don't you dare!" hissed Ginny. "You are our guests! From our house, no one has to sneak away!"
Meanwhile, Albus had flung his arms around his aunt's neck in joy.
"Albus!" she laughed, "you're pushing me over!"
Albus hugged her so tightly and for so long as if he feared she might otherwise vanish into thin air.
"By the way, what are you doing here, you're supposed to be at Hogwarts?" she asked when Albus finally loosened his hug and just kept holding her hands.
"Professor McGonagall has allowed me to go," he replied, beaming at her. This Hermione was his Hermione, and this face that now was beaming back at him was her true face, anything else was an error!
"Hello Uncle Ron!" he now turned to his uncle, who smiled and gave him a quick hug. Together they walked to the front door where Ginny and Harry were already waiting.
"I hope you don't mind us having guests?" asked Ginny when they walked into the house.
"Why should I?" asked Hermione, amused. "As long as your guests don't mind ..."
Albus suddenly felt queasy. He raised his eyes to Hermione to catch another glance and a smile from her. As if he sensed that this would be his last chance to do so for a long time.
When Hermione entered the living room, where Roy and Julian had already courteously risen, her face froze. She stared first at Roy and then at Harry.
"I ... I don't believe it ..." she gasped.
Albus swallowed and anxiously looked at her.
"I don't think there's anything to believe or not," said Harry, without batting an eyelid. "Let me please introduce the gentlemen to you – Mister MacAllister, you already know him, and this young man is Julian Lestrange."
Julian stepped towards her, letting his eyes shine, and giving Hermione a smile that most Hogwarts girls would have sacrificed ten years of their lives for without a second thought.
"I am very pleased to meet you at last," he said in a tone that really sounded as if a lifelong dream had just come true for him. He offered his hand to her, which Hermione studiously ignored. She glared at Harry.
"The head of my Auror Department is chatting with two Slytherin Death Eaters over a cup of tea?"
"Excuse me," Roy now intervened, swallowing down his anger for Albus' sake, "but I think there's a misunderstanding. Shouldn't we take the opportunity to have a talk?"
Hermione scowled at him. "We did already talk, if you remember!"
"Yes, we did, but that was a kind of fight. Here we are with a common friend ..."
"Oh, you're friends already?" she bitched at Harry again.
"I was talking about Albus!" snapped Roy angrily, struggling to bridle his hot temper.
Hermione darted a glance down at Albus who was visibly trembling, as if she was about to hex him with a horrible curse.
No, Hermione, please don't, not that glance again! he thought, while it suddenly seemed to get cold in the room.
"Hermione, come on," Harry cut in again, rubbing his scar. "Why don't you calm down and sit down first, you agreed to me gathering information in private, didn' ..."
"I agreed," she snapped with icy hostility, "with you doing unofficial investigations, but not to make friends with the enemy!"
Harry froze. "With the enemy ..." he whispered. "Hermione, what's got into you? You can't seriously consider two Hogwarts students the enemy!"
"That's exactly your problem, Harry, that you don't recognise enemies as such. But from now on, this will no longer be the Ministry's problem. You are suspended with immediate effect. Susan Bones will provisionally take over your responsibilities along with hers. Until ten o'clock tomorrow morning you have to clear your office. And then I don't want to see you in the Ministry anymore!"
"Hermione ...", Ron, who had been watching the whole scene with growing horror, tried to soothe her.
"Don't meddle!" she cut him across. "This is Ministry business! And as for you" – she fixed her gaze on Albus again – "choose your friends more carefully! Anyone who's friends with those people" – she gave Roy and Julian a contemptuous look – "isn't with me!"
She turned on her heel and rushed out. "Are you coming, Ron?" she was heard calling from the front door.
Ron murmured to Harry: "I'm going to talk to her."
"You'd better not," Harry replied tonelessly. "She would be able to file for divorce."
Ron unsurely looked at his sister, who had dropped in her chair in dismay.
"Ron!" came another yell from the door. He slunk off.