Chapter 6 - Rufus Scrimgeour
For two days Molly did not look at Ron, Hermione, or Lizzie. The high-pitched berating didn't stick with any of them, all anyone needed to know was that she didn't approve. By far she seemed the most upset that they could not tell her what they were setting out to do.
Nonetheless, it was a relief to be out of disguise. Charlie ran hands through the short hair Molly insisted on for the wedding and Lizzie smirked at his displeasure. He was handsome, she thought, not in a polished way by any means. He was tall, but not the tallest of the siblings, built solid in comparison to Percy or Ron who were lankier. He didn't look his age ever, sometimes he looked and seemed older, other times you would think he was he was an odd triplet to the twins.
"You're with him now zen?" Fleur asked while they sorted bouquet flowers in the garden. She glanced at Charlie sitting with Bill near the house.
Lizzie gave a subtle nod and Fleur smiled.
When they entered the house, Lizzie spotted a large cake in the shape of a snitch on the table. Charlie and Bill followed the girls in, and he let out a approving laugh at the sight.
"Happy birthday," he said in Lizzie's ear with a hand on the back of her neck.
"Oh! There you are! Lunch is almost ready, sit," Molly said and she was much better tempered at the moment.
After a several minutes of chatting with Fleur, Arthur entered with Remus and Tonks. Lizzie stood to exchange hugs and was handed a large container of chocolates. Next to arrive was Hagrid, who gave her a bear-like squeeze.
"Six years now I've known ya," Hagrid said.
"To the day," Lizzie smiled.
"Broke my heart in half the first time I saw you... but look at you now," he smiled. Lizzie returned it weakly.
"I brought you this," he said, holding out a small pouch. "Hide anything in here, nobody can get it out except you," he explained.
"That's brilliant, thanks," Lizzie said.
"Arthur is going to take a stab at Sirius's motorbike. It's starting to putter out, can use new enchantments. But I think you should have it. He would want you to have it," Hagrid said.
"Oh no... Hagrid..." Lizzie said apologetically. He held up a large hand.
"Not talking me out of it," he insisted. She hugged him again.
Lizzie opened the remaining gifts; thankful they weren't fussing excessively over her birthday. The thought she wouldn't make it to the next one dawned on her heavily. Lizzie couldn't wrap her mind around anything except what they were setting out to do and it weighted relentlessly on her heart. Maybe Charlie realized this. He hadn't been particularly forward with her since returning home. Remus eyeballed them suspiciously, surely, he'd put ends together, but he seemed preoccupied and almost dismissive of his radiant wife. Tonks could not stop smiling. Her eyes flicked between Lizzie and Charlie enthusiastically and Lizzie couldn't veil a smirk at the unspoken questions in the air.
"Blimey, what's Scrimgeour doing here?" Arthur asked suddenly and peered through the curtain with a frown. Remus seized Tonk's wrist and they hid in a bedroom.
"The minister?" Ron asked. Arthur nodded and left out the side door to greet him.
"I'm here to see Azalea Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger. I would like a meeting alone," Scrimgeour said, looking at Lizzie with a deliberate gaze.
They retreated to the family room alone and sat down across from him. He stared between them for an ominous moment before exhaling. Lizzie couldn't read him and he seemed to know she was trying.
"Surely you know why I am here," he said finally. None of them answered.
"Please cut to business," Lizzie said sharply. He gave her a reproving look.
"Please remember my leniency toward your past indiscretions before you take a abrasive response with me, Azalea," he responded.
"Please remember the injustice I tolerated at your insistence, minister," she retorted and they met eyes for a mixed moment of both mutual understanding and an underbelly of contempt.
"I'm here on behalf of the last will and testament of Albus Percival Wilfric Brian Dumbledore. He has named the three of you beneficiaries," he explained. Lizzie's mind eased some, Hermione exhaled some brewing apprehension, and Ron ran a hand down the front of a flushed face.
"Mr. Weasley, we'll start with you... to Mr. Ronald Billius Weasley, I leave my deluminator, in the hope that when things seem most dark it will show him the way and the light..." Scrimgeour handed Ron a pouch and he opened it to reveal a large cigarette lighter-like device. Ron examined it with some confusion and then clicked the lever. The lights in the room extinguished immediately and with another click they reignited.
"Do you know anything about this device, Mr. Weasley?" The Minister asked with narrowed eyes. Ron shook his head.
"Do you know why he would have left it to you specifically? Were you close?" He asked.
"Why does that matter?" Hermione interjected. "How long have you been examining these at the ministry?" She added.
"Mr. Weasley?" Scrimgeour asked. Ron shook his head.
"I don't know. He... was close to Lizzie... we're her best friends, got tangled up in some of the..." Hermione nudged him to stop and Scrimgeour looked increasingly suspicious.
"To Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of the Tales of Beetle and Bard, in the hope that she finds it entertaining and instructive..." Scrimgeour read and handed the book to Hermione. "To her I also leave the time turner she was assigned while attending Hogwarts in the hope that she can achieve all means to an end with her superb ability to abide by the rules of time..." he added. Hermione's eyebrows raised but he handed it over reluctantly, snatching back his hand before hers clasped the pouch.
"Miss Granger, why would he want to give you these?" He asked.
"Why is that important?" Lizzie snapped and grabbed the pouch to hand to Hermione. Hermione handled the velvet but did not open it. She was more fascinated by the book.
Scrimgeour kept his eyes fixated on Lizzie. "To Azalea Lily Potter, I leave the snitch she caught in her first quidditch game as a reminder of the rewards for perseverance and skill," he read and extended a hand with the golden ball propped in between his thumb and forefinger. Lizzie took it and both Scrimgeour and Hermione looked disappointed that nothing happened.
"Were you expecting it to open?" Lizzie asked.
"Would it?" The Minister asked.
"I haven't the faintest clue," she lied.
The Minister looked around. "You were left a second request... the sword of Godric Gryffindor," he said almost bitterly. Lizzie's eyes widened.
"Why would he want to leave that to you?" He asked assertively.
"Oh, it can't be because she's a true Gryffindor and the only one to summon the sword in centuries..." Hermione said sarcastically.
"Did he think that the sword of Gryffindor would destroy the heir of Slytherin?" The Minister asked.
"Oh... has anyone tried to run Voldemort through with a sword? That's an idea. What about a good old fashioned muggle firing squad?" Lizzie snapped harshly. "Where is the sword?" She asked.
"It's an important magical artifact that wasn't Dumbledore's to give away," Scrimgeour hissed. Lizzie glared.
"I don't know what you all are up to, but it's clear to me that things are being kept from the ministry," he said as evenly as possible. Lizzie raised her eyebrows.
"You think we trust the ministry?" She asked incredulously.
"You need to watch yourself. I am not Dumbledore who let you get away with countless indiscretions," he said bitterly.
"You let me get away with murder. Why?" Lizzie asked. "Because you think I can end this?"
"Can you?" He asked. Lizzie shook her head disbelievingly.
"You think I know the answer to that?" She jabbed.
"If you were to have taken my offer to appear on a unified front..." he started to say.
"I don't like your methods! I don't like your people! I have no reason to. None. If this is it, then..." Lizzie said hotly, standing in frustration.
Scrimgeour stood to and jabbed his wand at her collar bone. It seared like a lit cigarette and Hermione gaped and protested. "You leave her alone!" She hissed, and lowered his wand.
"Power over purpose. You're all the same," Lizzie sneered. "Take care, Minister. I have no answers for you except that Dumbledore did not have children or grandchildren to leave these to. If I had to think of anyone he would, I reckon it probably would be us. He trusted me a lot more than I trusted him," Lizzie said and strode from the room.
After some voiced outrage over the minister's abrasiveness, cutting cake, and some hushed discussion about what the sword would have been used for, Lizzie headed into the sitting room. Before she could sit and get comfortable with some of Hogwarts history books, Charlie pulled Lizzie's hand up the stairs and into the bedroom he was sharing with Bill.
Dress robes and three piece suits hung at either end, Charlie was best man and Lizzie didn't think she'd ever seen him in something so nice. He put a finger to his mouth, pulled her close, and wrapped his hands in a firm grip around her waist.
He exhaled and beamed down at her while she intertwined her fingers behind his neck. "Happy Birthday" he said quietly. She rolled her eyes.
"My last one, probably," Lizzie muttered a little bitterly.
"Love the optimism," he said sarcastically with a frown. Before she could say anything his mouth was on hers. He kissed her passionately with his hands tight around her waist until her knees buckled and he carried her to the bed, his now hands under her thighs wrapped around his hips. "I've never done this with the famous Lizzie Potter," he said with the corners of his mouth turning up around the kiss.
"Shut up, what were doing for weeks then? Playing Gin and Rummy?" She asked. He laughed.
"Mmm. No, that was Mandy, was it not? But truth be told, I was imagining it was you every time," he said facetiously. Lizzie rolled her eyes so hard she might have glimpsed her brain.
"Charlie... I think someone is coming," she said between breaths of air. He stopped, but not before the door opened. They were still dressed so the humiliation factor was low but Bill backed up awkwardly and Remus shoved through to grab Charlie by the collar.
"Stop it," Lizzie said sharply. Remus glared at her.
"I told you..." Remus said, turning to back to Charlie. He swallowed and stared intently like he wasn't trying hard not be intimidated.
"I'm fine. He's never hurt me. This is completely uncalled for," Lizzie said again.
"That's not the point, Lizzie!" Remus growled.
"Then what's the point?" Charlie asked a little abrasively.
"She's the most wanted girl in Britian, you're going to drag her into some romance knowing damn well..." he started to say.
"We're all wanted and I think everyone could use love and companionship, especially Lizzie," Charlie retorted.
"And if you get her pregnant? Then what?" Remus said sharply and shoved him. "That's the last thing she needs, quite frankly the last thing anyone needs right now. We can barely keep her safe as it is, or hadn't you noticed?" Remus accosted harshly.
Charlie didn't have words. Lizzie felt both gagged and tongue tied at the thought. Then she looked up and saw Tonks in the doorway. She was swallowing back all her willpower not to cry and ducked out before Remus noticed she was there. Lizzie stared back at him suspiciously and understood.
"Remus... is Tonks..." Lizzie started to ask but he stalked out before she could finish. Charlie looked apologetic.
"You're not..." he said as though trying to convince himself. "Are you?"
Lizzie shrugged. "I doubt it," she said quietly, rubbing the red from her face and tying her hair back mechanically. The thought gave her pause. She left the room and stopped in the hallway to give Remus dagger eyes as she passed.
Lizzie lost track of how much time she spent watching the snitch flutter in front of her face in thought. She wondered if she could even have children or if the death curse had killed that potential. But it couldn't have because she was pregnant at one point. Not for long enough to have even known before it ended. Goose bumps broke out on her skin at thought. Was it Vernon's or Damien's? The thought made her shudder violently, she didn't even know who he was then.
Her eyes danced with the snitch as her thoughts jumped around relentlessly. She remembered when Petunia was pregnant, the only reference she ever had to it. Lizzie's hand closed around the snitch and her eyes shut around the intrusive and fragmented memories. She must have been five because she didn't wait on them at the table yet. Petunia wouldn't have trusted her not to break the dishes. Lizzie's eyes were bowed and fixed on a pair of bony knees in a chair facing the wall. She sat on her hands, crossed her legs at her ankles, and tried hard not to swing them. The sound of silverware on porcelain scraped her ears and the smell of dinner hovered in the air just at her nose level.
Lizzie didn't talk at this point, ever, she just listened. Claire taught her to speak sometime during that year because she'd stayed silent for so long, she'd forgotten how. Her tongue no longer moved right and her attempts at any words were met with sneering remarks about her being stupid.
"Dudley, we have exciting news. For Christmas..." Petunia said.
"Presents!" Dudley yelled in a high-pitched squeal.
"Sort of," Vernon chuckled. "You'll have a little brother," he said, Lizzie could hear the smile forming on her uncle's face even though she only had view of the hideous wallpaper.
Dudley teeter tottered between incoherent protesting and excited questions. The dishes made their final setting noises and Lizzie squeezed her eyes around the last few minutes of sitting there, displaced from them, deliberately excluded, unsure if grateful to not be in the cupboard or preferring that to smelling the food they made her wait to eat.
"Lizzie, do you want some stew?" Petunia asked. Her voice was friendlier than usual. Lizzie popped her head up and looked over her shoulder at her aunt scooping some into a soup cup. They met eyes and Lizzie nodded, Petunia stared almost like she'd seen her for the first time and smiled slightly.
"No," her uncle interjected in the polar opposite of the voice he'd been using with his son. He snapped his fingers and pointed to Lizzie and then the wall. Petunia stopped and froze.
"I work hard to put food on this table, and that needs to be understood and acknowledged," he lectured. "Girls earn their keep of what gets brought home by contributing and I'm not satisfied with what I see," he added coldly, swinging a finger to indicate the house.
"I don't blame you, darling, you're delicate right now, Azalea needs do more to help you," he said a little more kindly to Petunia. Lizzie's stomach ached as she heard the scant bit of left overs get thrown away.
Lizzie listened to Petunia hum happily the next morning in the kitchen. From her vantage point cleaning the floor, she watched her aunt's bare feet sway to the rhythm of an Elvis Presley song while she rinsed dishes. A hand reached out and took her wrist to help her up. Lizzie spun and lost balance at the abruptness of the movement, but Petunia was dancing. She giggled at Lizzie. "No, silly girl, like this..." she said sweetly, and took Lizzie's hands to twist back and forth to the rhythm. It took a moment for Lizzie to relax, smile, realize she her aunt was having a moment. She laughed a little and it felt wrong, it didn't sound like a noise she knew how to make. Lizzie caught a glimpse of her own mother in her mind but she disappeared as quickly as it flashed, and she stopped abruptly trying to get it back. Petunia stopped too and was looking at her niece with disdain again. She refilled the bucket of water and set it at Lizzie's feet, by the time she was back on her knees it was like the dancing never happened.
Later that week, Petunia came home from an appointment flushed but trying not to show it. "Well, they could be wrong, you know? Besides, a little girl who looks just like you... I couldn't dream of something more precious," Vernon said as he took a cup a down from the cabinet and filled it with water from the sink for her. Petunia was sitting very still at the table, gazing at Dudley absently from where he sat cross-legged on the floor with a pile of toys. Lizzie watched her from the hallway but didn't know if anyone noticed her.
Vernon pulled up a chair and sat down next to her, cupping the back of her neck supportive with his hand and kissing the side of her long face. She brushed away blonde curls falling in her eyes, and it was clear to Lizzie she was crying. "I know it's disappointing to not get your first choice," he said reassuringly, moving his hand to her slightly protruding abdomen.
"But Dudley, looks like you might have sister, son," he said excitedly. Lizzie heard the sound of his toys collide with the floor beneath them.
"Oh, like Lizzie!" He said innocently. Petunia inhaled a shaky breath and Vernon's face changed. He turned his head and looked at the sliver of Lizzie he could see in the hallway.
"No, she's not your sister, Dudley," there was disdain in the way he said "she's" he lingered on it too long.
Lizzie now couldn't remember if she was taking sedatives at the time yet or not. The faint echoes of a memory perhaps that same night or one shortly after surfaced. She was screaming, a sound that unlike laughing, she recognized. Her hands were on her ears in the upstairs bathtub, screaming.
The light blinded her when Vernon switched it on, pulling over a night shirt in a hurry. Her world wobbled at the abruptness of him seizing her arms and yanking her up. "Blood!" She screamed and cried but he shook his head in fury.
"No! There's no blood! Wake up!" He yelled back. She screamed it again, again, and again until his hand came down hard on her face. He hoisted her up and pressed her over the sink, her legs flailing and far from touching the ground. She didn't know what he grabbed to hit her with, but it silenced her quickly.
Lizzie was downstairs the following day, in a sort of trance from exhaustion, listening to the roar of the shower from above her. It got louder until it was all she could hear as though standing under a waterfall. The thought of a baby made her ache. She only knew of babies from the mothers who brought them to mass. They screamed and cried and Lizzie couldn't usually stomach it. She was irrationally bitter toward them and didn't understand why. Most of the time she didn't even think they were cute. The only time she ever smiled at one was when it giggled at her and blew bubbles with its lips happily. Maybe it would be ok, she thought. But he doesn't like girls, says they belong out of the way, she contemplated. There's only one cupboard, will I have to share? She thought. Will the baby get the pantry instead? It made her cry.
There was a loud crash from upstairs and a scream. Dudley stared fixedly at the television. Lizzie ran up the stairs as fast as the small legs would let her and opened the door to the bathroom. The shower curtain had been ripped from the wall. Above the pile of fabric she saw hair soaked to the scalp and hands searching for a grip on the tile wall.
"Lizzie! Call someone! The numbers are by the phone. Please!" Petunia screamed. Lizzie stepped closer and saw the blood. Her night terror came rushing back to her.
"Please! Tell them the address, 4 Privet Drive, call!" She begged. Lizzie went downstairs and climbed the counter to reach the phone. She looked at the numbers but didn't know what they were or who they went to. It took her a few minutes to match them up to the phone dial.
"Vernon Durley's office," a sickly sweet voice said.
"Pe-pe-tunia is heert," she said with effort, her voice shook and she sounded slow.
"Who is this?" The woman asked.
"Li-zee" she said. There was mumbling on the other end.
"Azalea?" Her uncle's voice asked. Her eyes widened and chest seized. "What happened?" He growled.
"She's heeert," Lizzie struggled through shuddering insides to say.
"What did you do?" He hissed quietly into the receiver. Lizzie hung up the phone in a panic and crawled into the cupboard to hide.
Petunia stopped letting Vernon kiss her, Lizzie noticed over the months to follow. She'd press her ear to the wall to hear their conversations late at night.
"You're 25, there's still time for another," he said once. Another night, she heard strange smacking noises and creaking.
"Mmm, Vernon, stop it," Pentunia panted.
"You can't keep doing this," he snapped. "Every time."
"I'm not ready to try again..." she said flatly.
"That's your duty, I'll give you more time, but eventually you're going to have to bear through it, we're trying again," he said assertively.
Petunia never had another baby. Lizzie let the snitch fly around the room and watched it with her eyes. "When did it start?" People asked her when the secrets about her uncle molesting her broke, as if it mattered how long. When I killed their baby, she'd wanted to say, but couldn't go down that rabbit hole.
Later that night, Lizzie, Ron, and Hermione sat on the floor of Ron's bedroom. "Click that thing again, and its going up your -" Hermione snapped as Ron fiddled with the deluminator relentlessly. Lizzie snorted.
"I'm just trying to see if it has any other features! Odd thing to leave me of all people," Ron said.
"What's this book? I haven't heard of it..." Hermione said, examining the cover. Ron gaped.
"You're joking... Beetle's stories are all the basis for the children's stories. Babbitty Rabbitty and the Cackling Stump... Wizard and the Hopping Pot... Warlock's Moldy Heart..." Ron said incredulously only to look in further disbelief at the nonplus faces across from him.
"You do realize we were both raised by muggles. Cinderella, Snow White..." Hermione said a little indignantly.
"In my case it was Noah's Arc, David and Goliath, Concubine of a Levite, The Girl Without Hands, The Little Match Girl," Lizzie said. Hermione shuddered.
"What did they teach you about the concubine?" She asked.
"That women should stay obedient to men or they'll get gang raped to death..." Lizzie said reproachfully.
"Can we use the time turner to redo your childhood? For the love of God..." Ron said.
"The time turner is broken. I think the ministry broke it. Dumbledore wouldn't have given me something this useless," Hermione said. "Unless it's just a keepsake like Lizzie's snitch."
"Why would he want you to roll back time?" Ron asked.
"It only works if you do it in a short window. Maybe if Lizzie lost in a duel with him? I don't know..." Hermione said with a breath of defeat and confusion.
"The snitch is more than a keepsake," Lizzie said.
"I thought the flesh memories... maybe he'd hidden something, but it hasn't opened..." Hermione pointed out as Lizzie rolled it in her fingers. Lizzie smirked.
Ron saw the twinkle in her eyes and gaped. "No... no. Lizzie caught that with her mouth, remember? She nearly swallowed it because her hands were so bloodied!" Ron said excitedly. Lizzie nodded then pressed it to her mouth.
It didn't open. Lizzie stared in disappointment but frowned at words that shone through the gold surface.
"I open at the close," she said, took pause, then passed it to Ron.
"Something is inside. Does it mean it opens at the close? What close?" Ron asked. Lizzie shrugged.
"The sword though... that would have been something. Why do you think he left it to you?" Ron asked.
"I... I don't know. To put on my wall? I don't even have a wall... not about to challenge Voldemort to a sword battle..." Lizzie said, chuckling at the thought.
"Maybe for Seppuku, if you can't fight him because of the ophidians..." Ron offered. Lizzie glared.
"I'm not using the sword of Gryffindor to disembowel myself in ritual suicide, hard no from me..." Lizzie said sarcastically and they laughed darkly.
There was a noise in the hall and they stopped. Lizzie thought she saw long red hair pass the crack in the door. "Ginny ok?" Lizzie asked. Ron shrugged.
"She's worried about returning to school," he said. "Wants to come with us," he added.
Lizzie felt a pang of guilt. Hermione rummaged through her stacks of books and said she'd spearhead the packing.
"We leave after the wedding, deal?" Lizzie asked. They nodded.
"Where are we starting?" Hermione asked. "The orphanage?"
"I was there already. I also checked Borgin & Berkes. I'm not convinced any are there. But..." Lizzie admitted and then thought about her words and pulled up a chair to sit backwards on and look at the both of them.
"Hermione, you read through the journals thoroughly right. The girls he killed?" Hermione nodded.
"Leah Wilson, Myrtle Warren, Renee Riddle, Nora Zabel, Amelia Smith, Emily Teller, and Adrianna..." she recited.
"Right... so... Leah attended the orphanage with him and hung herself in the stairwell because he compelled her to. Myrtle died in the Hogwarts bathroom, and we already established she was my friend Melody's aunt, who also hung herself..." Lizzie explained shamefully.
"Yes... we drew those conclusions," Hermione affirmed cautiously.
"I told you about the others right? At Sacred Heart?" Lizzie asked.
"You told me about Daisy and Melody. You mentioned others years back... suicide...but didn't go into too much detail, I didn't want to pry," Hermione said.
"In addition to Daisy Whalen nee Cline, there was Bethany Lawrence..." she started to say. Hermione choked on her tea and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Whalen?" She asked. Lizzie nodded.
"It took me years to remember who she left that church with and why he seemed familiar," Lizzie confirmed. Hermione looked nauseated.
"Anyway, Bethany was younger than me and lost her eye on the tennis court. Apparently, she hemorrhaged in or after surgery but I'm not sure. Then there was also girl named Lisa Heard, she drowned in the water polo pool. Then there was a girl named Nadine Kellison who ran away with a boy. We thought she made it but there was grave marked for her. They claimed she jumped the cliffs but evidently her father faked the burial. Then shortly before Melody, a girl named Katie cut her wrists in the bathroom at the school. Katie... or Katherine... Teller..." Lizzie explained.
"No relation to Emily Teller?" Hermione asked.
"Well, I knew that wouldn't fly over your head. Her aunt. Katie's father was left behind at that orphanage after his sister was killed, and after Emily and Wool died, the Cyprians bought it..." Lizzie clarified. Hermione shifted her position, and her expression went grave and calculating.
"How do you know?" Ron asked.
"We went to the orphanage. We met the man who now owns it. Christopher Lupton. The boy Nadine ran away with. Except... according to him she's been missing for seven or eight years. They ran away together but she went missing shortly after. He said she disappeared at the cliffs, but no body."
"You think they're all connected," Ron said.
"Of course they are..." Hermione said quietly. "But that would mean..."
"I had something to do with each of their deaths. I don't even know how that's logistically possible, but my memory was alerted with Melody... so..." Lizzie rubbed her face and eyes. "I think figuring out the connections might help us find out where some of these are..."
"You're starting to scare me a bit, to be brutally honest," Ron said.
"Me too..." Lizzie whispered.