November turned out to be a packed and eventful month.
Adrian did not know whether or not he ought to have been surprised by the letter that arrived for him at work one day. Of course, their company was among the most reputed in the country, But Dumbledore didn't care about such things, did he? And yet, the letter was addressed from Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to Mr Adrian Pucey, Pucey Inc.
So, Adrian found himself travelling to the school one beautiful Saturday that month. Typically, people tended to the visit the office for whatever they needed. It was only on specific requests that Adrian packed his briefcase and made the trip to the client's location. And even he could admit that Albus Dumbledore was anything but typical. Which was why, after all, he was willing to work on a Saturday.
Most of the students seemed to be at the Quidditch pitch watching the Gryffindor vs Slytherin match; Adrian could hear, distantly, the cheers and jeers of the game's spectators as he walked up the path from the school gates to the castle entrance. Hermione was undoubtedly at the game, he mused a tad longingly. Unfortunately for him, he could not take a detour, at least not until he concluded his business with the Headmaster.
He walked the largely deserted corridors of the castle to the Headmaster's Tower, feeling oddly nervous as he neared his destination. "Ice Mice," he said to the gargoyle that guarded the stairs to the Headmaster's office.
The gargoyle jumped aside at the password, and Adrian took the moving staircase up, knocked at the closed office door.
"Enter," Dumbledore's voice came from within.
Adrian let himself into the frankly chaotic office. "Headmaster," he greeted.
Dumbledore's office was reminiscent of many things – the backroom at Dervish and Banges, Xenophilius Lovegood's newsroom – but mostly it told one that Albus Dumbledore had once been fated for things much different from overseeing the day-to-day functioning of a school. The portraits of the old headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were all empty. Often portraits took offence at being asked to leave a frame, so it was just as well that Dumbledore had already taken care of the matter. The phoenix, Dumbledore's phoenix, appeared to be snoozing on its perch.
Dumbledore turned back towards Adrian from where he was staring out of one of the open windows. "Ah, Mr Pucey," he returned cordially. "Right on time, as I expected." He walked towards the table, where a tea set instantly appeared. "Make yourself comfortable," he said, taking his seat and indicating the visitor's chair to Adrian.
Adrian lowered himself onto the chair, placed his briefcase securely on the floor by his feet.
"My witness should be here shortly," Dumbledore explained, pouring out tea for the both of them, then a third cup.
The witness, Adrian soon found out, was an acutely disgruntled Snape.
In between sips of their tea, Adrian and the Headmaster spent a long time going over the wording of the Headmaster's Will, working out the best way to declare what Dumbledore wanted.
To no surprise, Dumbledore wished to leave nearly all of his material assets — his many books, curious magical instruments, and numerous other personal effects — to the school itself. He also left many papers to the Hogwarts Archives, among them a set of notes on The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
"I have some concerns," Adrian said carefully. The truth was that he had more than some; he had many, all fighting each other to take priority.
"Such as?" Dumbledore prompted, unworried.
"The sword of Gryffindor," Adrian said.
"The sword, yes," Dumbledore affirmed. "I leave it to Harry."
Snape snorted softly, took another long sip of his tea.
Adrian threw a brief glance at him, then turned back to Dumbledore. "The sword of Gryffindor is not yours to give away," he pointed out, his tone civil despite his incredulity. Surely, Dumbledore was yanking his wand? Why didn't he leave the entirety of Hogwarts to Harry Potter while he was at it?
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, lightly fingered his beard. "Nevertheless," he said slowly, "I leave it to Harry."
Adrian turned a helpless glance down to the parchment in his hands, trying to remember if his any of his legal training had a hint on how to deal with the situation he found himself in. Coming up blank, he turned his gaze back up to meet the Headmaster's gaze. "If you are certain, I will tell you that while there is nothing to prevent us from stipulating this bequest in the will, I cannot guarantee that we can see it through to the end you want," he said, plainly honest. "I will, of course, consult with my team on the matter. But right now, to my knowledge, the bequest cannot be fulfilled."
Dumbledore nodded in understanding. "I trust your knowledge, Mr Pucey. But, call it an old man's dream if you will, I would still like to leave the sword for Harry. Even if in name alone."
Adrian nodded, a bit grimly. "Very well, Headmaster."
"And your other concerns?" Dumbledore asked.
Hermione. Why in Merlin's name was Dumbledore leaving his own copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book of children's fairy tales, to Hermione? Potter, Adrian understood. He was the Chosen One, Dumbledore's Golden Gryffindor, the Boy-Who-Lived. But personal bequests to Weasley and Hermione? That was a glaring reason for alarm bells right there. Adrian knew Hermione could count on one hand the number of times she had a conversation with the Headmaster, and none of the conversations had been of a personal nature.
"As you expect Ministerial interference, your bequests to Mr Weasley and Ms Granger invite a lot of suspicion," he said, diplomatically. What was Dumbledore plotting?
Dumbledore waved his hand in dismissal, smiled lightly. "Let us merely say that I do not wish Harry's friends to feel excluded."
It wasn't Christmas pudding, it was a Last Will, for Godric's sake.
"Very well," Adrian said, pushing that particular concern aside. Poking any further into the matter would make it personal; he was better off asking Hermione.
Dumbledore signed first, confirming his will for the entirety of his personal assets.
Adrian moved to Snape next. "Your signature, please, Professor," he requested, indicating the places he needed to acknowledge.
Finally, Adrian added his own mark, sealing the Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.
"I hope I need not ask for your discretion, Mr Pucey," Dumbledore said, polite yet firm.
Adrian did not take offence at his comment. "Would you have asked for me otherwise?" he asked, half-smiling.
He furrowed his brows lightly. "I understand that you have a personal association with Miss Granger," he said, softer.
Adrian couldn't help but take offence at that. He paused in tucking the Will into his briefcase, narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore. "I don't wish to assume that you are implying anything by that statement. For your peace of mind, let me say that if I had concerns about my inability to separate my personal life from my work, I wouldn't have travelled all the way to Scotland." Of course, if Hermione herself told him anything, that obviously didn't count, did it?
Dumbledore watched him carefully for a few more moments, then nodded slowly.
Adrian left the Headmaster's office then, started a slow march towards the gates. He considered taking a detour towards Gryffindor tower, but the contents of Dumbledore's Will felt heavy in his briefcase. He continued, therefore, single-mindedly out of the castle, a single question buzzing around inside his mind.
What was Albus Dumbledore up to?
Hermione and her friends were among the very few individual names that came to be mentioned by name in his Will. And it left Adrian feeling vaguely unsettled. He knew, somewhat by Hermione's words and somewhat by his own observation, that Potter had a privileged position in the Headmaster's life. The burden of being the Boy-Who-Lived and the Chosen One afforded him a unique, personal link with Albus Dumbledore. And it seemed that Dumbledore was planning something for him, although Adrian could not quite deduce what.
Regardless, Adrian only really cared about where Hermione fit in that grand plan.
Regrettably, he could not bring up the matter to her without violating several codes of conduct of his line of work. There was, however, no noticeable difference in her letters, no indication of a larger conspiracy underway that was being steered by the Headmaster. And the thought that Hermione was ignorant of Dumbledore's machinations was far more terrifying to Adrian.
Jenny Reynards, who ran the front desk at the company office, sought to resign from her job. The official reason was that she wanted to dedicate the entirety of her time to her family. The unspoken reason was that she could not sit at her desk for the duration of the war, not with a family to worry about, not with the way things were turning out. And Adrian was additionally forced to presume that she had less faith in him than she had in his father. After all, she had sat at that very desk through the first war.
The memo that came through to Adrian, therefore, was in Ida Harvey's familiar handwriting. She generously agreed to work with Adrian while he tried to find someone more permanent for the position.
"He's here!" she said.
Adrian tsked at her too jovial tone, asked her to send him in.
He hadn't been too surprised when, a week after Headmaster Dumbledore's Last Will and Testament was finalized, Snape asked to meet with him at his office. Hearing about another's Last Will often spurred people to think about their own mortality.
Snape swept into Adrian's office, with as much certainty as if it was his own, and suddenly somehow the space seemed to feel smaller.
Dumbledore was a distant figure; Adrian had minimal contact with him as a student so it had been easy enough to separate themselves from the student-Headmaster dynamic, easy enough to see him as another client, albeit an atypical one. But Snape had been Adrian's Head of House. They had seen each other day in and day out for seven years, not to mention their increased contact owing to Adrian's roles on the Slytherin Quidditch team and as a student leader.
Adrian stood up from his chair, moved around to the other side of the table. "Professor Snape," he greeted formally, determined to not let them regress to the student-Professor dynamic.
"Mr Pucey," Snape acknowledged, looking highly out of place in the office.
Adrian invited him to the sofa on the other side of the room to emphasize a slight informality. Because, they were acquaintances, weren't they? Besides, Taking adjacent seats at the sofa was certainly much more preferable to being stared down by Snape from across a table as though Adrian was in detention.
Summoning tea for the both of them once they were seated, Adrian opened the discussion. "Your letter was quite vague, Professor. How can we serve you?"
Snape slowly sipped at his tea. "I wish to settle my affairs, and I'm looking to formalize my Will," he proclaimed.
Adrian abandoned his cup of tea. "I see," he said thoughtfully. "I presume you already have a plan on how you wish to handle everything?" he asked. Because that was Professor Snape, after all.
Snape nodded in confirmation.
"In that case, we can get right to drafting an initial copy," he said, reaching to the table before them to grab a quill and some parchment.
"That will not be necessary," Snape said, swift. "I have the Will prepared." He reached into his robes to pull out a scroll of parchment.
Adrian supposed he should have expected that too. "Very well, then, Professor," he said. "I shall examine the document-"
"Mr Pucey," Snape cut in, his lips thinning, a little impatience leaking into his tone. "I need you to acknowledge the Will and, in the event of my death, execute its contents. That is all."
Trying not to squirm in his seat under that tone and that expression, Adrian firmly reminded himself that he was not a student there. "You are certain you don't want me to have a look?" he asked, then squirmed lightly anyway. "Would you prefer to deal with someone else?" he asked, a bit hesitant. The amount of people who were losing faith in him was, after all, only growing as the war progressed.
Snape sighed lightly. "Mr Pucey, if I wanted someone else to handle the matter, I would have explicitly asked for it," he said, narrowing his eyes lightly in judgment. "And yes, I am entirely certain about the Will I've prepared. Can I rely on you to handle the matter from here?"
"Yes, Professor," Adrian acquiesced without any protest, certain that whatever battle of wills they had, he lost.
Adrian fell into a rather pensive mood once Snape left. And his suspicion that there was a covert plot afoot only grew stronger, firmer.
Paranoid, certainly that was what he had become.
The highlight of his November, still, it turned out, was neither of those events.
It seemed that word somehow reached Mr and Mrs Bell, Katie Bell's parents, that Adrian had been in Hogsmeade the day their daughter was cursed. Therefore, one weekday, he was compelled into accompanying Kenneth on a trip to St Mungo's.
Bell was in no state to acknowledge the small, thoroughly inspected Get Well basket that Adrian placed on the bedside table in her room in Artefact Accidents. The remainder of the former Gryffindor Quidditch team – the Weasley twins, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet – and Lee Jordon, however, were perfectly capable of narrowing their eyes at him as he exchanged some polite words with Mrs Bell.
Whatever reassurances he gave her were paltry.
And he left the hospital feeling no better than when he arrived.
Adrian and Kenneth made it all the way outside the hospital before the gang of Gryffindors caught up with them. The Weasley twins, surprisingly amiable and in a good mood to boot, invited them out for pints. Kenneth's shrug of acceptance, then, forced Adrian into sitting in a pub with the lot of them.
After small talk that ranged in topics from Oliver Wood's budding Quidditch career to Roger Davies' waves at the Ministry, the conversation inevitably found its way to Katie Bell. And, Adrian ended up explaining, once again, that he had no clue about what might have happened to her.
Spinnet told the Weasleys to knock off interrogating him.
So, the Weasleys moved to subtly teasing him about Hermione.
The effect, of course, was non existent. Much to their apparent disappointment, and his mild amusement. Yes, Adrian had been on a date with Hermione. He couldn't fathom why they thought he would turn red at their insinuations.
Truly, as far as days went, it was the strangest one Adrian had in a long while.