Tempus Magia

Part Four

Chapter 34: The Unspeakables

Hermione Granger made a grave error during the final battle that resulted in Remus' death. Working as an unspeakable she spends two years working on a spell using powder from time turners to go back to Remus's greatest hour of need. What if Remus's greatest time of need wasn't in *this* war?

Beta love to mrsren!

"Okay, that's set," Amalaya said tiredly. It was just after lunch and everyone was exhausted. They had worked out a proper tour and a plan to keep the inquisitive students away from the Unspeakables that were working. "We will end in the conference room off of the Atrium with Saul's speech. Any other questions or can we move on to departmental announcements?"

When no one disagreed Saul stood and took over for Amalaya. "Thank you for your hard work, Amalaya. I'd like to give each department a chance to announce progress on known projects that they are working on. We'll go in order of the departments, starting with mine. We've completed most of our filing projects, as well as the joint sub-department case for the return of Harry Potter's family pendant. There were time sands stored in it at one point, but they were used by Lily Potter. The reason is still unknown and we have passed on the findings to the Research of Death department."

Saul reclaimed his seat, noting that over the last several hours the Unknown had not moved from his where he was stationed against the wall. He hadn't even sneezed or left to use the loo. Had the Unknown not caused quite the stir with his arrival, Saul would have forgotten his existence entirely.

Matteo stood, his shoulders hunched and his blue eyes bright. "Filing and Admin has successfully opened our third warehouse this year, to house the influx of departmental files. As of last week, it was up and running with three patrolling Junior Aurors and two Unspeakable staff members. I would also like to take this time to publicly thank Amalaya for her help coordinating the PR and External Affairs Department to help us with our flooding issue."

There was a short round of applause while Matteo took his seat. Wendy walked to the front of the room to take Matteo's place, her burgundy hair having been pulled into a messy bun at the top of her head at some point during the meeting. "HR is great. No one is dead and we don't have Death Eaters running amok, so we're more bored than not. If anyone here wanted to do something ridiculous like steal a Time-Turner or swim in the Fountain of Love, my employees would be ecstatic. Also, I have extra tickets for Oliver's next game if anyone wants."

Saul had to choke out a chuckle as everyone else laughed about her attempt to pawn off her son's extra Quidditch tickets. Her husband and her son were both crazed Quidditch fans, but even he would agree with Wendy that a thirtieth anniversary shouldn't be pushed off because of a Quidditch game against the Wasps of all teams.

His nerves were primarily about the missing sands of time. It had been cleverly reappropriated on Hermione's part and had he not known she was going back, he would not have suspected her.

Wendy had retaken her seat and Solomon was droning on about a new automatic Death Certificate and transparency with old Pureblood tapestries that had been established over the last month. "Lastly, we have been contracting a young witch who has a… relationship with our occupant within the veil. They have made proper contact and amongst other things, he requested a bottle of Firewhiskey and a cigarette."

The Unknown leaned forward so quickly that his hood slipped back, revealing a young man no older than thirty. It was his surprised grey eyes beneath manicured brown brows that gave away his age, or lack thereof. One thing was clear beyond his sharp jaw and small pointed nose, the man was several centuries years old.

Saul had the immediate thought that he was a vampire until his brain reminded him that vampires could not walk within the Ministry due to the extensive wards. He also knew the tell-tale signs of a vampire and this wizard did not have any of them. Maybe he was an associate of the late Nicholas Flamel?

Solomon shuffled his parchment in his hands nervously, "Is there a question I can answer, Mister—?"

"Radomir Slytherin," he replied politely. Saul could hear jaws dropping on the ground as everyone made the connection.

Any Pureblood or Halfblood worth their salt knew the bloodlines of the four houses of Hogwarts. Salazar Slytherin's youngest son's name was Radomir and he was one of the first Heads of the Department of Mysteries. He himself, was one of Slytherin's many mysteries, as he had no space in his family's crypt and there was no death date or descendants for him in the Pureblood Directory. He simply vanished in his mid-twenties.

"Who is this person you speak of?" he asked Solomon.

"Miss Lovegood?"

"There is a witch inside the veil?"

"Oh, no, Mister Slytherin. Luna is our resident Seer and she is merely speaking to Sirius Black."

Radomir turned to Saul, his eyes flashing dark with thinly veiled anger. "I do not understand him."

Saul loosened his fingers from around his wand, he hadn't realized he was gripping it. "Most people don't. Solomon is in charge of the Department of Death, they have been seeing a massive uptick in research needed.

"Close to a decade ago, there was a battle over a prophecy in the Ministry. A member of the light was stunned and fell into the Veil while protecting students that had gotten mixed up in the fight. Since his slip, we have no longer heard the voices of the departed through the Veil. Recently, however, his godson has begun to visit him. We began to hear one singular voice that we believe belongs to the wizard, but only directly after his godson has left the chamber"

"What is the name of this godson?"

"Harry Potter. He is an Auror."

Radomir relaxed against the wall. "The last of the Peverell line and the master of death," he murmured.

No one in the room contradicted him, mostly because Saul was one of the few people privy to that particular nugget of information. "Yes, we believe that Sirius is blocking souls from traveling through the Veil and into the afterlife. We are working diligently to either have him move on or remove him from the Veil. Harry has taken the Unbreakable Vow to keep the information to himself about his godfather and has not even told his wife."

"Wife?"

"Ginevra Weasley." Saul could have sworn the Unknown winced. Radomir schooled his expression quickly and nodded thoughtfully. Whatever he had come for, Sirius Black had not been it, but it was now a primary or almost primary focus. Radomir didn't bother to raise his hood again and he continued to listen in as the meeting continued. Solomon retook his seat and Travis took his place.

"We're still putting the Time Chamber back together after the Battle in the Prophecy Hall. Currently, we've been investigating time sand that may have disappeared from a work table. We've checked with the guard, Bernie, who was on duty that day and we still haven't found the perpetrator."

Radomir chuckled horsley. "You will not find the sand, Travis Scott. Time is a loop and the sands left to be where they needed to be."

Travis rolled his eyes. "What the bloody hell does that mean?"

Saul raised a hand, sensing an argument brewing. "It means that Radomir knows more than all of us combined and if he says the sands left on their own, then we will close the investigation on that alone."

Thank Merlin.

It was a perfect solution to hiding Hermione's theft. There wasn't anyone in the Ministry that was going to argue with an Unknown and Saul could cite it was a -3104 and close the investigation. It was a code that he, the Minister, and the Head Auror were to use if the Unknowns got involved.

In all his career as an Unspeakable, he had only come across three files with the code on them. One was under Pius Thickness term, so the file was put away and taken back out after the war. The rest were mostly harmless in nature but still confidential and resulted in hushed up cases that were passed on to the Unknowns via a secure channel that only the Minister knew about.

While he felt at ease, the room was anything but. Travis was red with anger and it was growing steadily as Radomir relaxed. Saul foresaw a tantrum in his office later with an irate Travis. "We can speak at length later today, Travis. Is that all?"

Travis nodded and stomped back to his seat, muttering under his breath. The rest of the meeting consisted of Belby talking about using infinite space to create weightless belts for Aurors and the project he was working with the Amalaya to create long term storage in actual space. It was an ambitious project and Saul wished them the best of luck.

Perry skipped his departmental statement, declaring that anyone that wanted an in-depth workup was more than welcome to visit her department. Saul was just thankful she didn't start flashing pictures of her grandchildren like she usually did.

Amalaya gave a short speech about her department's developments and the new Weasley Wizard Wheezes products that had passed inspections. Cole was working again, his nose buried in parchments and Saul consented to skip a progress report from the stressed wizard for now.

"Lastly, we have the Research of Seers and Prophecies Department, Teddie take it away."

"We've been trying to recruit Miss Lovegood as we believe she is a Seer, but she has declined us numerous times. I guess we know why," he shot an annoyed look at Solomon who shrugged. "Progress is slow and we are still working on manually moving the prophecies. Filius Flitwick has been researching a charm that may aid us, but for the meantime, we are stuck repairing and reshelving the prophecies the muggle way due to their fragility and the magic involved."

Teddie retook his seat and Saul stalked up to the front of the room. Now for the uncomfortable part. Lecturing was never his thing and he was especially uncomfortable given everyone in the room had been colleagues at one point.

"As most have you already heard two employees from the Research of Love Department and Research of Time Department were disciplined after an incident that took place on Friday at eleven thirty in the employee break room. An unnamed employee, let's call her Jane, was eating lunch and was verbally and physically assaulted by the two other employees until Jane left the room. Jane wrote up a report and then had to go into a meeting before submitting it to myself. During Jane's meeting, both employees wrote reports and submitted them about the incident. All three incident reports were investigated and the two employees were found to be fictitious."

Wendy shook her head furiously. "Please tell me they were let go, Saul."

"Let go? Was this 'Jane' actually attacked? Why would she go into a meeting if she was physically assaulted? This story makes no sense, Saul. They probably insulted the color of her robes or something... Damn kids are so sensitive these days. How are we sure this event even happened? Is Jane a credible witness?" Duncan muttered without looking up from his paperwork.

Saul knew Duncan, which was the only reason he wasn't furious. To Duncan, this was a distraction from his work and a frivolous one at that. "Duncan, are you telling me that Hermione Granger would make up an assault and lie about being called a Mudblood and a peasant by her colleagues?"

Gasps filled the room followed quickly by rage. Duncan, who Hermione helped on a regular basis, the chief among them. "Who were the two employees, Saul? I demand to know what their punishment was! Merlin, that was the Malfoy meeting wasn't it? He sent me an urgent owl on Friday, but I didn't have a chance to look at it!"

"They should both be let go, Saul!" Wendy shouted over Beatrice and Belby who were arguing about whether or not the DMLE should be involved.

Saul raised a hand and shouted, "Silence!"

The room quieted immediately and Saul noticed that Radomir looked confused at the reactions of everyone in the room. Given the likelihood that he was from an era where hunting muggles and muggleborns was an international sport, his confusion made sense.

"Hermione is fine. Myself, along with Amalaya and Travis spoke with her. I also received a rather angry owl from Mister Draco Malfoy who was infuriated to find a Ministry employee crying in her office. We spoke through the Floo later that night and I assured him that one, if not both, of the employees, were being sacked and a note was put in their file. This means that the first employee will not be able to work for the Ministry in any capacity and should we decide to terminate the second employee, she will not either be able to work for the Ministry."

Teddie Barrett, who had been oddly quiet this whole time raised his hand. "Are we talking about Shauna and Fauna? I didn't see them this morning in the lift."

Saul imagined this meeting going smoothly. No ageless secret society agents showing up and definitely not derailing on the Hermione Granger issue. "Yes, and seeing as… Oh, forget it. Let me just get the bloody file."

Summoning the files, he cast a gemino charm and handed out copies. He handed one to Radomir as he technically was a department in the DOM. The room descended into immediate silence as everyone read. Saul watched Radomir read the report, his grey eyes darkening and swirling in fury. Maybe he wasn't as hopeless as Saul had originally thought?

The room was mostly quiet as those who were finished reading waited for those who were not, even Duncan had set aside his work to read the report. It was a thick file because of the amount of evidence that had been collected and it took the fastest reader fifteen minutes to go through the entire thing. It was not a small ordeal and given that there had never been an assault case in his career working at the Ministry, he was taking it very seriously.

"This Fauna," Radomir spoke his raspy voice echoing throughout the still room. "Why was she not… sacked as well?"

He said the word sacked as if he was confused about how the terminology fit. If he was trying to hide his age, he wasn't doing a very good job. "I have left that decision up to her Department Head, Mister Travis Scott. Fauna is a valued member of his team and this incident is her first."

Radomir handed the report back to him, "That you know of. How many others in her department have suffered in silence, I wonder..."

"Actually," Travis replied, annoyed that Radomir had pointed out a flaw in his department. "Not that I have any idea who you are, but I sought out each of the members of my department over the weekend and then those that we work closely with. I have written statements from everyone I spoke with and my findings had a rather discernible pattern."

Travis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "She's nice enough to the Purebloods but anyone with any sort of Muggle blood she's positively rotten too. Considering my late wife was a Muggleborn, I take this seriously and was going to ask the assembled room's opinion on whether or not she should be… terminated from the Ministry."

Saul nodded. "All those in favor raise your wand arm."

The vote was unanimous, including Radomir's. Travis sighed. "I guess I have to pay a house visit to an employee. Is there anything else left to the meeting?"

"No," Saul replied as he gathered the parchments. "I would ask that everyone signs a nondisclosure agreement. Miss Granger doesn't want or need any more unnecessary attention. Amalaya and I have already had Shauna sign a contract. Travis, please have Fauna sign one as well. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to meet and I appreciate all of your hard work."

"Don't forget to thank the PR and External Affairs department," Amalaya called as everyone shuffled out muttering amongst themselves. "I sent a memo to everyone's desk with their names, pictures, and what they did to help!"

The room emptied quickly, leaving just Saul, Travis, and Radomir. Travis was filling out the rest of his termination papers. "Saul, can you sign and seal this before I go?"
Saul leaned over and examined the document. It was airtight. Fauna would not be working for their government ever again. He signed it and magically sealed it before handing it to Travis. It glowed blue, signaling that the magical copy had filed itself with HR.
"Good luck, Travis," he said. Travis nodded and took off to Fauna's flat in Wizarding London to deliver the news.